Spencer Matthews: Don’t take to drink as a way of relieving boredom at home

Spencer Matthews has urged people not to take to drink to relieve boredom at home.

The ex-Made In Chelsea star, 31, who is due to welcome a second child with model Vogue Williams, 34, has given up alcohol.

He told the PA news agency: “I know that three years ago I would be drinking heavily at this stage, just out of boredom because I would have nothing else to do.

“I’d be drinking earlier and earlier in the day, thinking, ‘Why not? I can’t be at work? I might as well be drinking.'”

But he added: “If for whatever reason you’re upping your alcohol intake during isolation, perhaps just consider it because ultimately developing bad habits with alcohol are difficult to shake and isolation could go on for a while.

“It’s not going to help things… You may feel better momentarily but the following day even you’ll feel a lot worse.”

His comments come after the European arm of the World Health Organisation warned alcohol is an “unhelpful coping strategy” to combat stress during the coronavirus lockdown.

Matthews said he realised he was drinking too much when Williams was pregnant with their first child, Theodore, who will be two in September.

“We first began to notice it when Vogue was maybe six or seven months pregnant with Theodore and I wasn’t being as supportive as I could be,” he said.

But Matthews added: “If I wasn’t getting the work or recognition that I thought I deserved, it would be ‘someone else’s fault’.

“In between jobs I’d feel, ‘Why not have a drink at lunch or go out every night?'”

He said: “I drank to excess quite regularly but I would never raise my voice. I was never violent. I wasn’t the person I knew I could be and that was a shame.”

Matthews, who launched his own ultra low-alcohol spirits brand, The Clean Liquor Company, added: “When your responsibilities shift in life you assess what’s important to you and what’s slowing you down, if anything.

“In my case I eliminated many of my problems by ceasing to drink alcohol.”

His wife also cut down when Matthews stopped, and quit drinking completely after becoming pregnant.

“She doesn’t feel anxious any more, my sobriety has affected her,” he said.