The Irish Diaries (1994-2003)
Alastair Campbell’s life story could make a great film. It has the perfect ingredients for a political thriller. Aged just 28, while working as a journalist for the Daily Mirror, he suffered a nervous breakdown, brought on from stress and heavy drinking. Now 56, Campbell recalls today from his home in north London, that seminal moment as a turning point in his career.
“It was a full on psychotic breakdown,” he remembers. “I don’t know if you have ever had one of those, but they are not to be recommended. It’s like your mind is a glass window: you can see your hands inside your head, and you are trying to hold it together. And then it suddenly just explodes. I got arrested, was sent to hospital, and stopped drinking. Everybody needs yardsticks to judge how they feel, and that was my low point.”
