Long before addiction was recognised as a health issue, Britain’s relationship with mind-altering substances built commercial empires, funded wars, and reshaped our social fabric. ​This talk takes audiences on a lively, story-driven journey through three centuries of British social history, exploring how governments attempted to control public vice and how ordinary communities adapted. ​Key topics covered include: ​The London Gin Craze: How cheap spirits caused an 18th-century social panic and forced parliament to invent modern licensing laws. ​Tea, Opium, and Empire: The contrasting roles of caffeine fuelling Enlightenment industry while the opium trade balanced global trade sheets. ​The Factory Clock & The Village Pub: How Industrial Revolution work discipline paradoxically turned the local public house into the heart of working-class culture. ​Rolleston vs. Prohibition: Why Britain chose a medicalised approach in 1926 while America chose criminalisation and the speakeasy. ​The Birth of Mutual Aid: From 19th-century temperance asylums to the modern peer-support revolution.