A man nearly killed by his eight-bottle-a-day Lucozade habit has finally kicked his 30 year addiction - and lost two stone.
Garry Johnson, 66, suffered a stroke, had to have an electrical heart device and went temporarily blind in one eye.
Doctors told him he'd need to quit his £150 a month habit, to save his heart from further damage - but Garry said that was harder than ditching class A drugs.
The retired decorator from Basildon, Essex, finally managed it through sheer determination.
And since December he has lost more than two stone - and feels healthier and happier.
Garry Johnson, 66, suffered a stroke, had to have an electrical heart device and went temporarily blind in one eye.
Doctors told him he'd need to quit his £150 a month habit, to save his heart from further damage - but Garry said that was harder than ditching class A drugs.
The retired decorator from Basildon, Essex, finally managed it through sheer determination.
And since December he has lost more than two stone - and feels healthier and happier.
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FunTranscript
00:00Hi, my name's Gary and this is the story about how I became the Lucas Aid man.
00:13As a kid I always needed a stimulant, so up until about the age of 12 I would drink coffee,
00:19very weak coffee.
00:20Then as I became a teenager, with all my friends, I used to take amphetamine and then as I
00:26got into my early 20s I moved on to cocaine, like we all did, but I've never moved on to
00:31alcohol or cigarettes, I just stayed with fast drugs.
00:35And then when I was 30, my eldest son was born and after 15 years of taking fast drugs
00:41I just stopped overnight, but I wanted something else to give me a stimulant, which was legal,
00:47and I tried guarana juice, guarana powder, guarana gum from the Holland and Barrett health
00:51shop, which didn't agree with me, I didn't like the taste.
00:55I then tried Red Bull, which was very nice to drink, but you had a terrible headache
01:00and a migraine, and the next day you'd have an upset stomach, so I moved on from Red Bull
01:05onto Lucas Aid, normal orange Lucas Aid, and then I was told by a nurse, back in the day
01:13the National Health used to give original Lucas Aid to patients when they were ill to
01:17make them feel more full of energy after an operation or when they were convalescing,
01:21so I moved on to original Lucas Aid, and I've been having Lucas Aid every day since
01:27about 1994, and it gradually went from 5 bottles to 6 bottles, and I'm now currently on 8 bottles
01:34a day of Lucas Aid, because I love being full of energy all the time, it makes me feel healthy,
01:40and I don't feel tired when I'm drinking it.
01:43First thing I'll do when I wake up in the morning, before I clean my teeth or anything,
01:46is have 2 or 3 sips of Lucas Aid, and then I just drink during the day, and if I haven't
01:51had one for an hour or an hour and a half or whatever, that's when I start craving one,
01:54so I have another one, so I'm roughly on 8 bottles a day at the moment of Lucas Aid.
01:58I believe it helps me keep young, because although I'm 65, a lot of people say when
02:04they meet me for the first time, you were about 50, 52, 53 they say, when I'm actually
02:0965, and people who are my peers, who are my own age group, they've all got grey hair,
02:14where my hair has stayed the same colour, so again I put that down to the benefits of
02:18Lucas Aid.
02:19I also do a lot of walking, energy wise, I believe that's down to the Lucas Aid as well.
02:23Unlike a lot of people my own age, I haven't got a beer belly, it's not made me fat, and
02:27the other thing is I don't get a hangover the next day, like those who drink so much
02:31beer, I'll drink so much Lucas Aid, but there's no side effects, no dodgy side effects, not
02:36that I've encountered.
02:37I can honestly say that drinking 8 bottles a day, not only makes me full of energy, but
02:41I honestly believe it's given me the Alexia of youth, and I'm going to have one now.
02:51Oh, lovely.