Melissa Rice is one half of successful BBC Radio 5 Live podcast Hooked: The Unexpected Addicts, which won Broadcasting Press Guild Radio Programme of the Year 2020, BBC Best Community Podcast 2020 and a Silver British Podcast Award. Melissa was a primary school teacher until 2016. After hospitalisation for her alcohol addiction and a period of rehabilitation at Clouds House, she submitted a winning pitch for the podcast Hooked: The Unexpected Addicts with her friend from rehab, Jade Wye, for the Rachael Bland New Podcast Award. Hooked's aim was to debunk the stereotypes of who and what an addict is, interviewing real people, with regular lives, whose voices are rarely heard. With help from the Amy Winehouse Foundation Melissa now lives in London. She is now a trustee of the Amy Winehouse Foundation, is special adviser to Alcohol Health Alliance and policy assistant on alcohol health to Dan Carden MP. Sobering is her first book.