Melissa Rice is one half of successful BBC Radio 5 Live podcast Hooked: The Unexpected Addicts, which won ‘British Press Guild Radio Programme of the Year 2020’, ‘BBC Best Community Podcast 2020’ and a Silver ‘British Podcast Award’.  Melissa was, until 2016, a primary school teacher. 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 is to debunk the stereotypes of who and what an addict is, interviewing real people, with regular lives, whose voices are rarely heard.

Melissa’s memoir SOBERING: LESSONS LEARNT THE HARD WAY ON DRINKING, THINKING AND QUITTING was published by September Publishing in 2021.

With help from the Amy Winehouse Foundation Melissa now lives in London.