Newshub national correspondent Patrick Gower had an unexpected yet remarkable moment with British actor Vinnie Jones about sobriety.
It comes after his documentary Patrick Gower: On Booze aired last week and the subsequent Newshub Talks: Booze panel, and Gower revealed he's now six months sober.
Gower was sitting down with Jones for an interview since the former football star turned actor is in New Zealand making a TV show.
But after Gower started telling him about his alcohol journey, Jones opened up and started talking about his.
"We've all got a dog. Mine is a big bastard. The only time he'd come out the kennel and cause havoc was when I was drunk, and I let him. When I'm sober, I haven't heard from him for nine years," Jones said.
"You've got to keep him at the back of that kennel, and you've got to turn around and face him in the mirror and kick him in the back of that kennel."
Jones, who is nine-and-a-half years sober, also shared what he "hated" people saying to him after he became sober.
"What I really hated was people saying, 'Oh, we're going to a pub, [and quickly adding] oh, we didn't say that, we won't go to a pub'. I said, 'We'll go to a pub, let's go to a pub'. No problem. I'm not drinking. I'm a f***ing horrible person when I have a drink," Jones said.
"It's the same thing when people say to you early on, 'Oh come on, you'll have a drink, you're with me, you'll be alright'. Then we'll go and we'll end up at the end of night having an argument and rolling around on the floor, I'll kick the shit out of you.
"And they'll say, 'You can't have a drink if you're going to do that', and I said, 'Well that's what's going to happen'."
Jones described how the hardest thing for him was the first two weekends after he became sober.
"You've got your head down at work, but what are you going to do at the weekend? Because come Friday at 5pm, that's me, come on, let's go," he said.
He added that people who become sober need to draw a line and not go under it.
"Because now you've got a new platform. That's you standing on top of that line. You're not under it trying to fight through it, you're on top of it, because you've put yourself on top of it," Jones said.
Watch the interview above.
