Stories

Richard Bacon

Richard Bacon on an ADHD diagnosis at 42, and the drinking he has not stopped

Content note — this story covers a subject some people would rather choose when to read.

Richard Bacon was diagnosed with ADHD at 42. Speaking to Elizabeth Day, he connected it to something he had lived with far longer: he describes himself plainly as an addict. What he says he learned is that a lot of people with ADHD use alcohol or stimulants to compensate for how their brain is working, often without knowing that is what they are doing. He counts his own history in that — and is candid that he still drinks, still daydreams about stopping, and finds it hard because he likes it, while saying it has caused him a great deal of trouble. He also describes the trap of believing he works better after a couple of drinks, and says out loud that this is a dangerous way to think and is not true. He describes having had a brain scan at a private clinic in the United States which he was told showed unusually slow blood flow to his prefrontal cortex — a dark patch, as he puts it, that made his ADHD visible. It is worth being clear about how ADHD is actually identified here: the NHS describes diagnosis as an assessment by a specialist, looking at your history going back to childhood and at how the traits affect work, study, relationships and health. It is not made from a brain scan, and no imaging test is used to diagnose it in the UK. What comes through is a man who found a framework late that made a chaotic history legible to him — the risk-taking he enjoyed, the scattered focus, the hyperfocus — and who is still, by his own account, in the middle of the harder part. Nothing here is medical advice. If ADHD traits are affecting your studies, your work or your relationships, the NHS advice is to see a GP.

• ADHD

Natalie Imbruglia

Natalie Imbruglia on an ADHD diagnosis, and deciding the label mattered less than the tools

Natalie Imbruglia was diagnosed with ADHD as an adult, and what she says about it is unusual: she is not especially interested in the label. She thinks she is also mildly dyslexic, though she has not been diagnosed with it. She describes words moving around on the page, reading three pages and going back to the start, and not being able to remember what she had just read. As a child she concluded she was stupid. She says that is the hard part of not knowing — everyone around you says you are struggling a bit, and nobody says there may be a reason. She now talks about dyslexia as a kind of lateral thinking and a different way of seeing, while being clear that it does not feel like that when you are young. She had also long described herself as having OCD, in the loose way people often do. As a child she was extremely tidy and organised — she once put a piece of string down the middle of the room she shared with her sister. She says she liked having it, and used to tell everyone. What changed with the diagnosis was not the traits but how she holds them. She came to understand that the things she had filed under different labels were part of one picture, and that she had a little of each. Her conclusion was that you can get caught up in which name applies, or you can accept a sprinkling of all of them and get on with it — because what actually matters is the tools you have to cope. That is her way of holding it, not advice. Nothing here is medical advice, and a diagnosis does open doors to support that self-description does not. If ADHD traits are affecting your studies, your work or your relationships, the NHS advice is to see a GP.

• ADHD