‘I was coaching people yet taking cocaine alone’

When Nathan Askew was arrested in 2014 for crashing his car after drinking, he thought it was the wake-up call he needed to get sober and stop taking drugs.

Instead, he “packed his problems” in a suitcase and moved to Australia, only to return a year later with the same lifestyle in tow.

Ten years on, Nathan, now 32, is not only sober, but he also runs programmes to help children and adults achieve their goals and gain confidence.

And it was the desire to lead by example, he says, that go him through the tough times and helped him turn his life around.

It was never the drinking that was problematic as such, Nathan says, it was just something that went alongside his regular use of cocaine.

“I was always the instigator, I always had drugs on me and I would take it by myself, as well.

“It just became a habit after I started taking it on nights out.”

When he was taken to a police station after the crash, Nathan’s alcohol test came back below the drink-drive limit, meaning he was let off.

In Australia he carried on drinking and taking drugs, though not as much as before.

But when he returned to his hometown of Workington, in Cumbria, he just went back to the old habits.

Nathan says his family did not know about his drug taking and he described himself as “deceitful” and “good at hiding it”.

“The hardest thing I had to do was telling them,” he recalls.

“But it was like a weight had lifted off my shoulders and they were very supportive.”

Nathan also did not match the image of a problematic drug user, being into fitness and teaching calisthenics.

In 2018 Nathan made history by becoming the first man to hail all three balls at Workington’s traditional mass football game of Uppies and Downies.

The game, which has no rules and dates back centuries, sees players from the upper and lower side of town clash to try and take a specially made ball to a point on their side of the town.

The person who achieves that wins the game for the team and becomes a hero for the night, with the ultimate prize being the ball.

It was when Nathan won all three balls in the series that his now business partner Frank Johnston contacted him to see if he could help coach his son.

That triggered a series of events that lead Nathan to where he is today.

“I was showing up and putting in the work, but having a business coach was the main transformation.

“I went from taking drugs and drinking to being part of a training programme where I was seeing people doing awesome things; business owners running successful businesses, doing physical challenges, and being part of that environment made me want to change.”

It was Frank’s idea for Nathan to join the programme, he says, and the pair went on to become business partners and fulfil the dream Nathan shared with his brother Darren – a former professional boxer – to open a gym.

“Sometimes it’s about who can help you and how can you do better – and it’s okay to ask for help.”

In 2019, Empire Gym opened at Salterbeck, in Workington.

“We’d started running our own coaching programme called Empire State of Mind, helping people set goals and take part in challenges, and I thought ‘why would people listen to me when I’m not leading by example, I’m a fraud’.

“You’re always good at letting yourself down, but you don’t want to be letting other people down.

“My very first goal for drinking was just stop for 90 days – a quarter of a year- but really it was one day at a time.”

The period around Christmas 2020 was the last time Nathan took drugs and 3 January 2021 was the last time he touched alcohol.

It was that year he was able to leave his job as a steel fabricator at West Cumberland Engineering and go full time with his work at the gym, which now has 900 members.

Since then he has taken part in dozens of gruelling physical challenges, including running four miles every four hours for 48 hours and running a marathon.

“The idea of doing these challenges is not just to keep myself busy and fit, it’s also to build that mental resilience, because life is full of challenges and the more challenge you put into your life, the more you build your resilience.”

Nathan has also been working with schools such as Workington Academy, the UTC and St Joseph’s to deliver his Project Unbeatable – a programme designed to help children build confidence, set goals and find inspiration.

“It’s an option for children, it’s showing them that at any point you can choose your path, it doesn’t matter how far down another path you are,” he says.

Although he admits he doesn’t know if things would have played out differently for him had he had the opportunity of taking part in a similar programme as a child, of one thing he is sure.

“I am much happier, I’m more fulfilled. I don’t call [the gym] work – I call this playing out with my mates.

“I go round talking to people and helping them. I have a life where I do what I love.”

Nathan says the work on himself is not finished and he is currently working with local coach David Barnes, with whom he recently completed a via ferrata as part of a group at Honsiter Slate Mine.

“I’m still working on my life – it’s every day.

“If you want to inspire people, you’ve got to get out and do the inspirational stuff.”