Addiction: One Cause, One Solution with Christian McNeill

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What if addiction is not a disease? What if addiction is caused by the same thing that causes fights with a spouse or anxiety about air travel or suffering about school grades: Thought. In this episode, Christian McNeill and I explore how thought plays such a huge role in our attachment to (or addiction to) substances, including alcohol and drugs, and how the solution to these attachments is simply seeing how being human works.

Christian McNeill is an author, coach, and former barrister and tribunal judge. She lives and works in Glasgow, Scotland.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

Show Notes

• On the life-changing insight that ended an alcohol addiction
• How Christian’s creativity was enhanced by sobriety
• Recognizing and experiencing that insight is the key to change
• An insight about the importance of listening to oneself
• Co-writing a book from 2 separate continents
• Why variability of moods and life experience is nothing to be worried about
• What is ‘subtractive psychology’ and why does it matter?

Resources mentioned on the show

• Christian’s book is Addiction: One Cause, One Solution
• Joe Bailey’s book about addiction is The Serenity Principle
• Sydney Banks’ book: The Missing Link

You can find Christian McNeill at ElementsOfWellbeing.net and on Facebook at Recovery From The Inside Out.

Transcript of Interview with Christian McNeill

Alexandra Amor: Welcome Christian MacNeil to Unbroken. It’s lovely to see you.

Christian McNeill: Well, it’s lovely to see you too, Alexandra. Thank you very much for inviting me. I’m delighted to be here honored to be here.

Alexandra Amor: Oh, my pleasure. You’re going to be my first guest actually. So even more exciting. I’m thrilled to have you here.

Why don’t you tell us anything about yourself that you’d like to share about your background. And maybe when you came upon the 3 Principles.

Christian McNeill: Sure. Thank you. Yes, on the one hand, I have a background, a career in law, and I was a lawyer for a long time. And unbeknownst to me, at the same time, as I was training to become a lawyer, I was working out an alcohol addiction. I did not know that. I was not aware of that until it became a real crisis in my mid to late 20s. And at that point, I had a rock bottom kind of experience and followed immediately by a moment of clarity, and I got sober and it was a completely life changing shift.

And although I had a lot of help from the 12 step movement in getting sober, the actual moment of clarity occurred more or less in a gutter in Edinburgh in a city street on a Saturday night. And almost everything I see or talk about now is kind of informed by hindsight. I see things differently, or I understand what was going on in a way that I didn’t at the time.

I didn’t know that my life was going to change in that moment, but it did. And the thing that happened then was what had previously been a daily compulsion to drink. I mean, I was able to sort of function but I just had this daily compulsion to drink no matter what I resolved in the morning about being healthy and sober that day, it never, never worked out that way. And that compulsion disappeared in that moment.

And I got into that whole sort of 12 Step thing and working the program and having a very different kind of life. That was really that was a great thing. It was a wonderful thing, but it was also I think it’s very countercultural here in Scotland. I live now in Glasgow, but I was living in Edinburgh at that point. And Scotland is a very boozy place. Everything is lubricated with alcohol, apart from some breakfast meetings, perhaps. Even more so then.

I’m also not particularly secretive with it, but it became a bit of a secret side gig. It certainly wasn’t what you lead with. I had my career on the one hand, and then my secret side gig of recovery on the other. Almost just spontaneously, a lot of my latent creativity woke up at that time, and I’d always had this other interest in being good at art at school.

I’d always been good at making things. I enjoyed that and really that just mushroomed. I got into things like stained glass at that point. I was enjoying the process of being sober, but I was still struggling a bit. And I think as I see it, now, I was still looking for answers outside myself, just not drink.

My relationships became a bit compulsive and unhappier, frankly, than they’d been before. I think there was too much riding on them in my mind. There was a period where my smoking went through the roof. I quit that after a year. It didn’t even occur to me that this was a thing of looking outside yourself. I had some issues with overeating and bulimia and being out of control around food, and just various things like that.

So, alongside the work, the secret gig, new things came in as I tried to medicate my moods, to find ways to feel better all the time. I had this idea that it was about a sort of linear progression to being happier, being more spiritual perhaps than which was also a challenge for me, because I didn’t quite know how to place myself. I certainly didn’t have any kind of what you might call a conventional view of God or anything like that. But I was open to it.

The 12 step program is about trying to find a spiritual power or a higher power that you can rely on, but it’s not prescriptive. Anyway, so I began doing meditation courses, someone which I found horrendous, I just couldn’t get it. Personal development things. Every few months there was something new, and it was a quest to be feeling good all the time. And it was like, the more I was aiming for that, and the more I was failing, as I saw it, and other aspects of my life were just kind of going along.

I met someone and we got together, and we had two children, who are now grown, two wonderful, two adult children. And then that relationship fell apart. It was devastating for me, because I had a belief that this painful, chaotic period of my life was behind me that things should begin to fall into place. And my cherished dream was to have a happy family, to have a happy home that was different from my own upbringing, where my kids would thrive and all that, and then for this to fall apart was just catastrophic.

And of whatever faith I had in life, in the system was dashed. Because I felt like this is the payoff for living a sober life or living a good life, if you I feel like, and where did I put myself with that?

This is before I encountered what we know as the 3 Principles, but I began to have spontaneous insights for myself, and again, it was after a period of significant emotional pain and confusion. The first of those really, that I remember was one day in a garage, parking garage. I just thought:

If you’re going to have any quality of life, you’ve got to start listening to yourself.

There isn’t anything particularly magical about those words, I think, but I knew that there was something deeper in this. This wasn’t a prompt to be more egotistical, if you like, but there was something about the the listener. I knew that it meant listening deeply. And I knew that it was pointed to something other than following the 12 steps. Not that there’s nothing wrong with the 12 steps, per se.

What I realize now is that until that point, I’d been running everything through a filter of ‘is it sober?’ Am I living right, kind of thing. And it was like that, forget that, just trust yourself. Trust your own inner voice. And that was a huge one, really, for me. The other massive insights and realizations that came along were helpful. And I now see they’re part of that process of things, dissolving and falling away, so instead of having a rule book to live by, I forget the rule, but you’ll know what to do moment to moment. And if, if, for whatever reason, you get it wrong, you’ll deal with it, you’ll make amends, or you’ll put it right or whatever.

There was a sense of life opening up a bit and new hope coming in. I trained in yet another modality around that time, which was, I found the best thing so far for me, and that was a NLP. I did several trainings at different levels. And then something came along and an NLP trainer was offering a kind of practice, how to grow your practice with integrity. I think that’s what the course was called. And I thought, well, that’s excellent.

Because once my children are grown up, I can leave law and build up an NLP practice. So that was my idea. Anyway, went on this course but it turned out it was all about something called the 3 Principles. I had stumbled across that once or twice previously through the works of Richard Carlson and Joe Bailey, but I hadn’t really, really got it in the way that I was about to. And this was a weekend course, which just changed my life, it really changed my life, it was the missing link of everything.

My first insight, having stumbled across the principles and informed by that was, coincidentally, given the name of your series was that I’m not broken. Because I realized, as I had that insight that I’d been operating on the basis that I was indeed broken, that my alcoholism was a sign of that. And my job was to work as hard as I could on my secret side gig to unbreak myself, or to knit myself back together again. And suddenly the penny drops; this is just nonsense, I was never broken. And that’s not denial of the chaos of alcoholic drinking. And in my mind, mostly people who have had that.

If you’ve had that loss of control around drinking, what I’ve observed is most people never get that back. So sobriety is fine by me. I’m okay with that. And that makes a lot of sense to me. But that’s a bit like being allergic to strawberries; it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It just means you’ve got that little adjustment to make.

From there, my life changed rapidly. And that’s now 12 years ago, almost to the day, actually.

Alexandra Amor: I’m curious, did you bump into Joe Bailey’s work in that 12 step space? Or how did that come about?

Christian McNeill: I got sober 1988. And around 1990, I stumbled across his book, The Serenity Principle, which I still would recommend is an excellent book for people in recovery. And it also helped me. I remember a friend of mine saying to me, another guy in recovery, saying, “I’ve noticed Christian that you never really beat up on yourself.” I’m sure that that was, to the extent that that was true, it was because I was influenced by Joe’s work.

There was something about the neutrality of being that addiction is a search for wholeness if you like or completeness but looking in the wrong direction, but there’s a positive motivation behind it. I use words like positive motivations. If I set out with a client, and it was all happening invisibly, and then all of a sudden, I’m find myself in this colossal maze.

Alexandra Amor: We’re always trying to take care of ourselves, aren’t we? Even if it looks like it’s behavior that is maybe self destructive, or whatever.

Your sobriety, and your interest in addiction obviously dovetails with the 3 Principles.

How did it come about that you wanted to write a book with your co author, Barbara Smith, about addiction and the principles?

Christian McNeill: As you say, there was this dovetailing and Syd Banks, the founder of this work, wrote a book called The Missing Link, but it really was like that, for me, it’s suddenly all fell into place. I was no longer searching, I was no longer signing up for another course to try and find the answer for the bit that was missing.

And I would say I knew that it was helpful in the field of recovery. I just knew that. And of course, many of the speakers I heard early on, the teachers and trainers, were people in recovery themselves, or people who worked with addicts and alcoholics. And so, for the first few years, I was still working with a lawyer and then, as I say, life took this colossal shift, and within two or three years I had transitioned and was now working in this field.

I wasn’t particularly focusing on addiction. I was a bit but wasn’t specializing. But someone else was putting on some webinars about addition, and I didn’t actually necessarily agree with everything that was being said, because I think sometimes there’s, especially if you haven’t had the problem, there’s a kind of theoretical message that’s shared, like below that, for example, that people are alcoholics, because they’re not happy. And that’s not nice. It’s just not that simple. It’s really not that simple.

Obviously, there are plenty of times that I was happy when I was drinking. And I’m not saying that I have the ultimate bottom line. But there was a kind of message and the 3 Principles well, that made me uneasy. It was almost if you have a deep enough insight into the principles, you’ll be able to drink safely. That was a real warning bell for me, I think.

On one occasion, somebody put on a conference about addiction and mental health, she wasn’t an alcoholic, but didn’t you know, she didn’t want to stop drinking, and it ended up she was drunk. And then everyone was lying about what was happening to her saying, “She’s not well” and things like that. And I was thinking this is nonsense.

So although it had acted as a completion, a Gestalt feeing, that dovetailing in my own life, I was skeptical about what some people were saying, and it didn’t seem to be borne out. It wasn’t as if they were seeing where some people were having a complete shift and we’re now able to drink without consequence, if they had an issue, but gradually that became sort of clutter in my own mind.

And I was, I think I was a guest on an alcohol and alcoholism webinar and so was Barbara. And I could tell she knew what she was talking about. There was none of this bullshit or pink paint over everything in what she was saying. So I reached out to her, and I think she’d had a similar sense about me. There was some some level of common sense rather than wishful thinking and experience that was valuable.

Barbara Sarah Smith is the co author of a book and we were both thinking about writing something, and I don’t know which of us suggested, but one of us said, why don’t we write it together. And it ended up being a phenomenal experience, as you know, because you helped us with that. We wrote it in about a month, and we were on separate continents. We put a title and a framework together, we spent a week together in the Azores midway between America and the UK. And then we went home, we sorted out, I’ll do this chapter, you do that chapter.

We had permission to edit each other’s and all that, but it was a great experience a really great experience. So we published that almost a one week before lockdown. We had to cancel our launch parties and all of that we still haven’t really done anything like that. That’s how it came about. And we’ve had some very nice feedback about our treatment of the principles. We talked about that. I like to think that people who are not addicts also might also find some find that helpful, and find the way we’ve expressed it simple and clear.

Alexandra Amor: I absolutely find that. I reread it the other day in preparation for this interview. It’s just so clear and grounded and down to earth. And I love that about it.

We should say the title is Addiction: One Cause, One Solution.

Christian McNeill: Thank you. Yes, we should

Alexandra Amor: I’ll put links in the show notes to the book.

So let’s dive a little deeper into then some of the things that you talk about. There’s a chapter about variability. You highlight – and I think this is such an important thing, it’s kind of almost a beginner concept, but I really wanted to talk about it, because I feel like it’s so important – that the ups and downs of life are really normal.

You spoke earlier about how you thought it should be a straight up hill line, to some sort of, you didn’t use these words, but you know, level of bliss, where you’re just happy all the time.

Let’s talk about that and why it’s important to understand that variability is the norm for everybody.

Christian McNeill: Well, again, let me say that was a phenomenal insight for me. I don’t know who said it, but somebody gave this idea that people do that do some form of this. And if you think about everything in nature does some form of this. And I thought, yeah, god, me too. And I thought, well, actually, I’m okay with that. And if it never changes, I’m okay with, I can live with that for the rest of my life.

I think that was also what took the striving off my plate. It’s we’re there, we’re there. And then allow me to continue.

Now, the irony is, in the accepting of that, I would say that the last 12 years have been the happiest of my life, and there have been many happy and meaningful moments prior to that, but there’s been a consistent happiness, which looks like this, up and down, up and down. So that was huge.

It’s so interesting because I do see that all the time with clients. Many people have unwittingly and innocently bought into an idea that any unhappiness any discord is pathological. And it’s not.

Sometimes I’ll suggest, look, if you want to be happy, you’ve got to be willing to be unhappy, too, you know, and it’s not not to suggest that you’re stuck with, you know, dreadful kind of depression or ennui, or distress, whatever. It’s not that but the more you’re fighting, every down moment, or every moment of low energy, that is the one thing you can do that will almost make it more intense.

If you can allow it to be without it meaning anything, because all it simply is, as we know, is that in a low mood, the things that’s happening, and it’s happening automatically, we don’t intend this. But all that’s happening is we’re taking our low thinking or distressing thinking seriously. It’s not telling us what the future is, because that’s a fantasy. It’s not telling us how much worse we are than everybody else, because that’s a false ad. And it’s not telling us that the past is going to come and repeat itself.

It’s just telling us one thing, and the pain is actually an invitation to wake up to the fact that we’re believing negative thinking. But it’s human to do that, and everybody does it at times. So there doesn’t need to be any judgment on it. It’s so interesting that that was one of the very, very common thing that people would want to be someone want no pain. I don’t think that’s on offer. I don’t know anyone who’s living that life. But a degree of detachment from it is possible. Once you know what’s going on, we tend to create less of it.

Alexandra Amor: I would agree with what you said about how these have been some of the happiest years of your life. And definitely for me to once I saw this, the truth of this idea of variability and that fighting our different moods, especially the low ones, was what was causing more distress rather than less.

Once I saw that my lows are much less low, I guess is the way that I would put it. There’s just a much more general sense of contentment overall, for sure. I guess that comes with acceptance or something?

It was so revelatory to me. It just brings so much about so much change.

Christian McNeill: Yeah. And what I was going to say is that we are not outliers. Coincidentally, it is a common experience of just an overall elevation of contentment and peace of mind and fulfillment once you have a sense of what’s actually behind emotional distress.

Alexandra Amor: Exactly. The other thing I wanted to talk about was this idea that you address in the book about subtractive psychology.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that, what subtractive psychology means and why it’s a key to understanding these principles.

Christian McNeill: It’s not unrelated. And it occurred to me that suppose you saw sleep as a problem, for whatever reason. You were going, God, I mean, sometimes I just get so tired, I actually go unconscious for up to eight hours, what else am I going to do about it, and you were trying to address the problem of sleep, which isn’t a problem at all. But, but you’d be doing all sorts of things to to address a known problem.

Now, being in a low state of mind is not as predictable as sleep. It’s not as regular. It’s not maybe as necessary, if you like, but it is inevitable. But as we see that this up and down thing is not pathological. It’s the human condition so we cease to have to do anything about that, which is why for me the the need to retrain in something else, or work harder at my secret side gig or do more meditation or journaling, or blah, blah, blah. And that all just flew off. Because there was no longer a problem. So there’s that thing.

I recently just co hosted a series on living without problems. And it’s interesting enough, because as soon as I posted it, some things came up in my own life; it was a real invitation to walk my talk. One was to do with my now adult son, he was going through a really hard time. So the thing closest to my heart, my kids. And the other was the first the we didn’t get very many signups for the course. I mean, we did eventually.

Somebody asked a great question early on: when we see living without problems, are we just kind of rebranding problems as challenges? Or is it something else?

The answer is no. In my way of the life, there are things that happen. And there’s sometimes things that happen that need action, something like say you have a symptom. And that you may need to go and have that checked out. And that checking out may need to some treatment, and it may even lead to some quite unpleasant treatment, who knows, those things can happen.

But most of our distress in anything, and it could be something completely different, it could be a financial issue or relationship, it should be anything, but most of our distress isn’t coming from the thing. It’s coming from an absolute mind storm of stuff around the thing: what it means, how it’s gonna play out, what will you know, other other causes? Why haven’t other people got this sort of, you know, blah, blah, blah.

There’s just this endless and lots of it’s not even fully visible are in the level of awareness, but it’s just churning and just going and going and going. And, as we come back to the fact that everything in life is neutral, including things that require action, but they are essentially neutral, but for our thinking. The thinking is dissolved or subtracted, feelings are dissolved or subtracted, and we’re left with just the action that needs to be taken.

So we don’t need to medicate over anxiety or depression or fear. We’re no longer trying to. And we’re not even trying to change the circumstances so much, because the circumstances are mainly not the generator of the distress. It’s the peripheral. It’s almost always the peripheral stuff around that we’re thinking about a role of a circumstance. So there’s just a lot less to be done. And we tend to come back to clarity and peace of mind more quickly. That has certainly been my experience.

Alexandra Amor: That’s been my experience as well.

That feeling of equilibrium returns so much more quickly when we’re not caught up in all the storms that are going on around whatever the situation is.

Christian McNeill: Yeah. And this is not some kind of, Oh, goody two shoes, positive thinking. I had an example of myself. I mentioned my son was going through quite a hard time. There was one day when I got really caught up in it and what it would mean and where it was leading and potential outcomes and hazards I was in. I was in a really upset, very tense, anxious close to tears.

I spoke to one of our colleagues. That didn’t particularly help, and although I was still experiencing that distress another part of me knew that I could come back to equilibrium, which I did later that day and peace returned, despite not a thing having changed on the outside.

Some of the stuff was still going on with my son, although, interestingly, after peace returned, he got in touch. And he shifted too, which sometimes happens. That’s beyond my paygrade but sometimes the universe responds, and we find the inner peace, it’s almost as though something’s communicated to others.

Alexandra Amor: Who knows?

When we come back to this term, subtractive psychology, you point out in the book, that what the old paradigm of psychology had us do was with this sense of brokenness that we had, innocently. I was the same for years and years, trying to add things to myself, do more, change myself more, in order to reach the happiness that I felt I was searching for.

In this understanding, what you’re explaining is that really, there’s no need for any of that. And that the basic, foundational understanding that we are whole, we are unbroken is what allows us to come back to that sense of equilibrium without any effort.

Like you said, you tried some things, you spoke to a colleague, but eventually it just happens on its own.

Christian McNeill: Yeah. Whereas had I not had this information that’s available to anyone, I might have been saying, Well, hold on, you’re very anxious about this thing. So you might want to consider meditation, or you might want to step up your meditation or what is interfering with your sleep and suddenly, all these things would have a solidity.

When you know what I did know, even in the midst of it was that none of that was relevant that I was caught up in my thinking, and it was painful, that was it, but it would pass.

Alexandra Amor: Exactly. This is a perfect circling back to the theme of addiction.

The other thing we do with ourselves, when we have these upsets and problems is we medicate ourselves with whatever it is food, alcohol, whatever.

As we come to realize that’s not necessary, because we will return to a state of equilibrium, always, then the need for that kind of outside medication becomes less and less.

Christian McNeill: Yeah. Or, there is a moment of clarity rather than where it’s just gone. Right, that doesn’t no longer makes sense to me, to go there. I think people can be habituated or addicted to all sorts of different things. For example, food, you have to require a healthy relationships, you can’t give it up. Abstinence isn’t an option. Usually there there is a moment of clarity, there is a moment of insight that that takes away the need for that thing, but it no longer looks like a good idea to the user.

Alexandra Amor: Yes, exactly. My experience has been there can be a little series of smaller ones.

Christian McNeill: All this unravels differently for each of us.

Alexandra Amor: We mentioned you published the book just before lockdown. So like February, March 2020. Well, exactly almost as we’re recording this three years ago.

Have you had any fresh insights about addiction since then?

Christian McNeill: Yes, I have. One actually was in response to lockdown, because at that point, I wasn’t a particularly frequent attender in a 12 step meetings. I think there’s a thing in the 3 principles that sort of, there’s a big focus on you don’t need anything or anyone or any technique outside yourself, all the answers are within. On one level that’s true.

But I think what became clear to me over lockdown was I saw I valued going to a meeting. I was not really bought into the whole lockdown thing, I thought it was an overreaction and I didn’t like the compulsive at all. So I really valued that. But more than that, for more than just human connection.

I saw that there’s a spiritual connection that can happen between people as well. And I think that there’s a biblical expression where two or more meet in my name, I am also present and you don’t need to believe in any particular, you don’t need to be Christian to believe. But I think that is something that happens when people come together, one can have insights. And I often do on my own, in any situation. But I think there’s something that that can happen in that place where people are coming together for the purpose of healing.

There’s some very wonderful aspects of the 12 step program, which is very much everybody’s welcome. You’re welcome, where you’re at, you don’t have to subscribe to or believe in anything. That’s an unusual thing in this world, but I’ve come to really value that I think something can happen with an other or a group of others, that doesn’t always happen alone. There’s an importance to that. There’s no particular formula about that you one can trust one’s own instincts and one guidance, if and when that’s appropriate, but I’ve really seen that as a crucial thing.

I think it’s almost a sort of anti dogma, a dogmatic anti dogma, in some 3 Principles community, but we don’t need that sort of something. I’m not on board with that, I think that community is important, and it can be very helpful. And I also think there’s something about if you’d been touched by this, some people can rush to share it with others, maybe that’s true of me. But I think the important thing is that one gets it for oneself first, that you have a sense of being changed and transformed.

There is a recovery phrase, but I think there’s truth in it, you have to give it away to keep it and I think that’s true. Because everything else in the world is pointing in a different way. It’s hard to be an island and to maintain what we know because you’re constantly having something different reinforced. So I think that it’s a good thing if you’re a teacher or a coach in this work to find yourself in both a place where you are a student as well as being that teacher.

I also have come to see – and again this is from the 12 Step thing – that for me it’s important to have an attitude of being of service above making money. I coach and I charge for my sessions and courses. My prices are not particularly high but I always ensure that if people haven’t gotten the money that there are ways. I have a sliding scale and various other things and lots of free resources.

And the interesting thing is I’ve been taken care of and it doesn’t always come through my fee income. I’ve been taken care of. It’s quite surprising and unusual ways since this since I got into this work.

Alexandra Amor: Oh, that’s interesting. I love hearing all those fresh ideas that you’ve had.

Given that you’ve just mentioned the work that you do is there, why don’t you tell us about where we can find out more about you?

Christian McNeill: My website is ElementsOfWellBeing.net. I have some blog articles there. And my contact details and so on. Don’t rely on the email at the moment that’s being updated. WordPress is going is doing something weird.

I also have two Facebook groups and a YouTube channel, they’re all kind of connected. One is called Recovery from the Inside-Out. And the other one is called Three Principles Conversations. So I have lots of free videos and interviews with other people and stuff with Barbara and I in the Recovery One. So yeah, there’s you and your contact me through any of those or just google me.

Alexandra Amor: I personally highly recommend following you on the Facebook pages, because then you send out notices about the classes that you teach, and I’ve taken a number of those and they’ve just been excellent. Just amazing. I’ve enjoyed them so much.

Christian McNeill: Well, that’s one of the one of the absolutely wonderful gifts of this work was my current mentor, Mavis Karn. I was interviewing her for something. And she asked me if I ever did webinars, I said, Oh, yeah, definitely do. So she’s done some with me. They have been wonderful.

We’ve been doing that for about a year and a half. Now, I think we do these short form webinar series, and people can sign up for them. And everything’s, I think, quite reasonably priced and access. Mavis is a treat. She’s in her 80s going strong, and she’s fabulous.

Alexandra Amor: Yes. She’s incredible. And I thank you for introducing me to her. She’s just such a delight. Those classes have been so great.

So we’re winding up now.

Is there anything else you’d like to share that we haven’t touched on? Anything that feels important to say before we wind up?

Christian McNeill: I want to say to those who might be listening who are new to this, if anything in this conversation, or any of your other conversations is whetting your appetite or making you curious or appealing to you, follow that. Follow that instinct. Do yourself a favor, your life will change beyond your wildest imagination.

Alexandra Amor: Absolutely true. That’s great.

Thank you so much, Christian. It’s been so lovely connecting with you again. It’s been a while since we’ve chatted, and thank you for being my first guest.

Christian McNeill: Thank you very much. And really, it really, really is an honor and I hope the series is a massive success. I’m sure it will be and I’m looking forward to watching the rest of the interviews as they come out. Thanks, Alexandra.

Alexandra Amor: Thank you. Take care.

Christian McNeill: You too. Bye bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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