Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma
2024 British Podcast Award Winner & Radio Academy Award Nominated Podcast
Believe in People explores addiction, recovery and stigma with different people.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction then this podcast can help.
Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma
#41 - Young: Heroin, Crack, Smuggling, Dealing, Addiction, Acid House, Redemption & A 12-Step Introspection With Profound Spiritual Change
Matt is in conversation with Young, whose turbulent journey with substance abuse commenced at the tender age of 11, thrusting him into a life ruled by crack, cocaine, and alcohol. Deep within a chaotic lifestyle, he was drawn into the Acid House music scene, then flourished as a global DJ while grappling with a hidden heroin addiction.
As Young shares his experiences as a drug smuggler and dealer, we witness the unravelling of his sense of self, as the adrenaline-fueled highs of his youth yield to the desperation of involvement with a drug gang and multiple attempts at getting clean.
Young navigates the path of recovery through the 12-step programme, and serving as a counsellor at Ark House Rehab, he discusses achieving profound personal change - discussing how sobriety has led to a deeper understanding of the power of helping others, of the ripple effect it has on society, and the immense growth that comes from devoted participation in the recovery process, shedding light on the universal nature of addiction.
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Believe in People explores addiction, recovery and stigma.
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We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Christopher Tait of the band Belle Ghoul & Electric Six for allowing us to use the track Jonathan Tortoise. Thank you, Chris, for being a part of this journey with us.
This is a renewed original recording. Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast. My name is Matthew Butler and I'm your host. I was Alex C Yoffice-Alter. Today I have one me young, who shares his remarkable journey beyond the glitz of his DJ lifestyle. Young takes us through the entirety of his time in addiction, including the smuggling of drugs at an early age, as well as battling the grip of cocaine and smoking heroin while entertaining the elite with his music endeavours all over the globe. In our conversation we uncover Young's struggle to maintain his lifestyle, the exposure of his addiction and the realisation that success doesn't shield against turmoil in addiction. Young, thank you very much for coming on the Believe in People podcast. Can we start by you telling us a little bit about yourself?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and thank you for asking me here today. My name is Young. I am a counsellor here at Arkhouse Treatment Centre. I lecture in the 12 steps. I'm a recovered drug addict and alcoholic. My sober date is Christmas Eve 2018. So that makes me five and a bit years clean and sober, which is an absolute miracle for someone like me who used to be a hopeless junkie and alcoholic. And I say that with a smile on my face because I can't believe I've made it out, because I thought I was going to die a drug addict and alcoholic.
Speaker 2:I was on heroin and crack, cocaine and alcohol and prescription pills for about 20 years and I mean daily using methadone about 15 years on. Methadone and drugs and alcohol played a very important part in my life. I say important maybe that's not the right word. It was my life From the age of 11 to 43, I used and drunk one substance or another Almost every day. When I look back at my history, there wasn't many days when I didn't have a substance of some sort in my bloodstream. The only times I didn't over I say significant wasn't a significant period was when I was in hospital, rehab, detox or psychiatric unit. I spent over two and a half years of my life in those sort of places.
Speaker 2:I picked up drugs substance at the age of 11. My first substance was glue. I'm a kid of the 80s and we used to sniff glue, so that was my first substance. And then alcohol, and then cannabis and what those substances have in common with every other substance I used. When I took them I felt better than I did when I was clean and sober. So I didn't like the way I just felt, which is a normal thing. We often, you know we say I didn't like being me, felt different. They seem to be very common things in the drug addicts and alcoholics. And during the late 80s I'll get into this later I become a DJ later on in life and I had a record label and I used to fly around the world playing music. But how I got into that? This new music from the States called Hip Hop came in in about 85. I discovered it anyway when I was a kid.
Speaker 2:And then about 89, I discovered this thing called Rave Acid House which you know changed everything for me in terms of suddenly I felt this sense of belonging. Now I know well for me the way I look at addiction. It's almost like a spiritual thirst for wholeness. It's almost like I've got a hole in the soul that I feel with alcohol, drugs and when I come out of a treatment center and I'm unrecovered, I'm unwell, I feel it, with women gambling, shopping, always needing something to feel OK, but they're needing more of that and more and more and more.
Speaker 2:So I discovered the Acid House thing and I discovered this wonderful sense of community and belonging and almost like a spiritual thing, standing in a field with thousands of people taking this new drug called Ecstasy. You know, I shared this the other day. I remember stood in a field, the base was pumping, the lasers were flashing. I've got all my powers around me and I love the whole world and I remember standing there and feeling, you know, the rush of the ecstasy and I thought I'm never going to feel this good again in my whole life and I never did until the moment I got recovered and I feel like that every single day today. That's just, I was going to swear. That's a fucking miracle.
Speaker 1:Do you know? What's interesting is you talk. I've heard people say about that feeling feeling, avoid feeling that whole. Where do you think that whole came from? Because you're such a young age to be starting to take glue and moving on to a general progression. What was that whole that you was experiencing as a child as well, that you was trying to feel?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, there's a very famous guy called Carl Young. He was a student of Sigmund Freud, which everyone knows most people know Sigmund.
Speaker 2:Freud and he treated a guy with alcoholism and everything he tried to. This guy went to live with him, a guy called Roland Hazard, for a year very wealthy, and he thought If anyone can fix me, it's Carl Jung. And he found out the inner workings of his mind and all this great stuff from the psychiatrist. And then he picked up, he relapsed and he goes back to Carl Jung and he said what's wrong with me? And he said I've seen a couple of people recover. They've had what we call vital spiritual experiences and he explained what those meant in very simple terms. He said you know, your emotional nature needs to be changed. The way you perceive the world needs to be changed. Your attitude, your behavior, your reaction to life needs to be changed.
Speaker 2:Now, going back to your question, this guy, carl Jung, started writing letters to a guy called Bill Wilson, who founded the Twelve Steps, and he said this guy, roland Hazard, it was like his drinking was like this spiritual thirst for wholeness. So the answer to your question where did it come from? I don't know. I believe all humans have these unanswered questions, this need, this always, this need for something to feel okay. But most humans don't suffer from alcoholism or drug addiction. So they might, I don't know. They might need their wife to love them to feel okay. They might need, or they believe they need, x amount of money in their bank. If only I had a better job, my life would be great. If only so. I think all humans have it, but just with the alcoholic and drug addict.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, the substances we use usually drag us down into hell, and it's the stigma that comes with that as well. No one's really judging the person who's saying I need my wife to love me, but people are judging the person who was I need something to make me feel whole.
Speaker 2:Well, absolutely. But not that it's right to judge. But you understand why they do Because people like me. I caused havoc in the community. I was out there robbing, cheating, stealing. I wasn't contributing to my society. I was well known to the drug and alcohol services in London, essex, Sheffield, you know. But I couldn't help doing that. I had no power over whether I'm going to use or not. It's almost like the drugs was like a magnet and I'm made of metal. For the last seven years of my drinking and using I didn't want to drink and use and I was just having this conversation with a colleague, actually because I've just had to give a urine test, because we do, you know we get random tests as staff here and I said this takes me back to when I was.
Speaker 2:Each time I was lucky enough to get funding to come into a rehab. I'm so grateful for those guys who helped me. I was on methadone and I had to give urine tests, but the thing is I don't stop using just because I'm on methadone. I can't not use, so I used to buy people's urine. It's almost crazy because you're saying you need to give clean urine tests, else it means you don't want this enough. I want this more than anything in life, but I just can't and I don't know why I keep using and I really don't want to, but the stigma because people like me I cause a lot of havoc when I'm out there using and drinking, you know. So you kind of understand that in that respect.
Speaker 1:One of the questions that I've heard before is when someone's on a methadone program, why do they still continue to use opiates and do the opiates like such as everyone? Does it even work when you're on a methadone program? Can you tell me a little bit about that with your personal?
Speaker 2:experience yeah.
Speaker 1:Obviously still using whilst, being on a methadone treatment program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first time I went on methadone was I don't even know what year, 2000, and I don't know. Five, six, I don't know. Yeah, I was in London, I was a DJ and I was making quite a lot of money DJing. You know, I had a record label. I was doing all sorts around music. I was music director for theatre. I was a writer as well. So I'm bringing in money.
Speaker 2:But I'm a heroin addict. So I used to always sort of look at my functioning heroin. You know there's nothing functioning about it. It's just at that time I didn't have to go out and do whatever for money and I wanted to come off it. And I found a private doctor, you know like a Harley Street sort of guy, and so I'd go to him a hundred pound a month. He'd give me methadone tablets at the time and I didn't understand the illness and I didn't understand methadone and I thought I just tablets, I'll be able to come off them very easily. And what I found is that I used every day on them and also throughout the years, every time I was on methadone. I always used daily.
Speaker 2:Now the question you asked is why? Because surely you don't need to, because I'm not waking up in the morning in physical withdrawal, because it solves the physical aspect, doesn't solve the mental aspect. It doesn't quite get me to where I want to be. I feel some sort of tiny bit of warmth, but it doesn't get me to where I really want to be. It almost brings on this phenomenon of craving.
Speaker 2:I put methadone in, something happens in my mind and I want something a bit stronger. It's an absolutely flawed drug. It's like so to get off drugs, I'm going to give you More drugs. Yeah, come on and. And the argument I have not argument, that's the wrong word the debate, let's say I. I've worked with some guys in the field and they said, look, this is the best we can open for for these guys is just them to just be parked on meff? And I'm like, surely we can think a bit bigger than that man, surely they don't look well, they don't look like they're loving life. I know a lot of those guys and they've just, it's almost like this is the best, this is the best you can do, hmm, and I get it there. I get harm reduction. I understand that, yeah, but this is only my personal belief. We should be aiming for abstinence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and for us how long as as methadone has been around, you'd think that maybe by now we would have found better solutions to the problem, I guess. Rather than just go into it, I'm really interested. I want to talk about this DJ career because to to talk about all those the accolades of, you know, being a musical director, to do that and still have a heroin addiction. How did those two sort of coat inside? Because it's great job to be funding a drug habits. Yeah, the money was coming in, as you said. But how do you maintain a career like that whilst being a heroin addict?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So you know my drug history. I tried heroin when I was about 18, but it was always the drug that scared me. As long as I don't do that, I'm not a junkie, yeah, and, and I flirted with it over the years, but it wasn't a full-on habit until maybe, I don't know, 30, and I mean a daily habit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:As my DJ career took off in London, I started putting on club nights for students. I was drug dealing for about 15 years before that and I started doing a lot of cocaine.
Speaker 2:Hmm and and a lot of drinking, and the more coke I did, the worse the come downs were. So I started doing a lot of prescription drugs like a valium and stuff like that. And Then I started doing a little bit of heroin and I found that it worked in the sense of I don't feel so edgy now and and and I started getting more and more gigs in London and I'm bringing in money. And Then, you know, what used to happen is that I would do this residency in Shortich in East London. I did it for about 15 years and and I'd get paid a big wad of cash at the end of the night and I and I knew this guy and I and I start doing that more and more and then, before I knew it, I'm using daily and I'm flying around the world quite a lot, and I'll tell you this one story I Was, I was working a lot for Google, djing for him.
Speaker 2:Once a year they do this huge event in Switzerland at the World Economic Forum in Davos, and this is a place where you have, you know, the world leaders and big pop stars. They all meet up to discuss world poverty. The irony of that they're spent, you know, the last time I played out there it was me, idris Elba and Mary J Blige on the bill. You know, obviously I'm like the warm-up guy, I'm still getting paid.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, Mary J Blige. She got about not, but she got $250,000 for like a 45 minute set, etc. So the irony is they spend all this money and they're discussing world poverty, but I'm playing at these places and I'm running into the toilets to snore, arrow in because I just want to get it inside me quick, and then I'm back on the Decks and then on the dance floor is like at this particular time I remember Bono from YouTube, bill Clinton, archbishop Desmond Tutu and Stelios from Easy Jet. I'm ever just finding it really hilarious, but it's kind of like this paradox of my life. It sums it up in that moment yeah, on the outside it looks all shiny, but in the inside, you know, I'm still.
Speaker 2:I'm starting to hang out now and again like crack houses in Hackney and it was like this, this double life, that I held together for a while. For quite a while, I bought an ice house in Brentwood in Essex. It's quite a flashy sort of place. I had a nice car. I had a nice missus who worked in the city of London, not a drug user at all. Somehow. I'm just hanging on to this thing by a thread. I it was.
Speaker 2:It was horrible in the sense of I'm having to lie. I, I'm having to lie to the woman I love. I'll give you an example. I Was just what went through my head then. I was thinking I hope she never listens to this, because she doesn't know so much of this stuff. She, she knows. You know what I am and who I am. But She'd come back from work because when we're together I'm using her in every day but I'm not using as much as I want to use. I'm literally She'd go to bed by now.
Speaker 2:We've moved from East London, where I score my drugs, to Essex because in my mind I'm on methadone. I'll move to Essex and I won't use and I'll wean myself off. But all that happened is every night I drive into East London to score, I wait for her to go to bed and I creep out. I drive to East London and I remember one night I'm scoring and the phone goes and it's her and she says where are you? Straight away.
Speaker 2:You know, typical drug addict, I can lie like that. Oh, I went to. I went to the shops, I went to the, the garage to get some cigarettes and I've got a puncher on my car now and just to have to do that all the time, just this kind of this edginess that you're gonna get caught and Ultimately that's that's what happened and she caught me using and she chucked me out and then my life started really falling apart. But for many years I held it together. You know, I used to go into the studio, you know I'm using arrow in and making records, and no one in my circle of friends they all, they all just thought I was a cokehead and that's kind of socially acceptable in those circles. Absolutely they had no idea of what I was really doing.
Speaker 1:People look at that and listen to that story about, about the life you live in and think how could what, what would be the need for, be taken so surely that you'd be happy with all of that? I've had such a good life. Going back to what you're saying about, you know something feeling like it was missing, what? What was your feeling at that time? To continue to be using drugs, despite having life at what sounds like peak life, to be fair.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he clifed experiences.
Speaker 1:You know what was the reason to be continuing at that time? Oh, other than, obviously, I know you say there's the addiction. But I'm just trying to get in your mindset of what was you thinking around that time.
Speaker 2:There was no thinking around it. You're absolutely right. On the outside I've got a fantastic life, mm-hmm. Now, before I worked here I worked for another company and I would go and live with billionaires. I've lived with Premiership football players who all suffer from the disease of alcoholism or drug addiction. And I remember working with a well-known football player. This person has scored goals in the World Cup and people give him adulation and he said I don't feel good enough and I'm like whoa. So this really is an illness that does not discriminate, because often when I work with academics, they really simplify this illness and say you know, it must be because you're from a bad home or bad background or you got abused. Now, sometimes that's true, often it's not, but I believe because I was treated very badly in my childhood and I used to blame that for years on my drug addiction.
Speaker 2:This is why I use this is my trauma and all that I know. That's not what made me a drug addict or alcoholic. What it made was someone who's very angry, very scared scared of rejection, humiliation, all of those things and drugs was a perfect solution to that. But it's really not an illness that discriminates. Now back to your question why, for someone who doesn't, who's not a drug addict? Why, you know? Can't you just stop? You can have an amazing life. I can't stop, I can't stay stopped. But at that time, because there was no sort of consequences happening in my life, I didn't even think to stop.
Speaker 2:I could it's almost like I could kind of feel my life was kind of slowly, a slow car crash waiting to happen, but I can't do anything about it. You know, it was really frustrating to think why am I doing this? And, in the same way of like, why were you still doing it when I used to come out of treatment centers and then pick up again and people would say what happened? You were doing so well, and I would just say I don't know. Because at that stage, even after going into all those treatment centers, I didn't understand the nature of the illness, the nature of what I'm dealing with. I didn't understand. I didn't understand. It's not if I'm going to use again, it's when.
Speaker 1:Untreated.
Speaker 2:I had no idea. I thought this was some sort of quick fix and you're going to a rehab and you're never going to use again.
Speaker 1:Run off into the sunset With a magic wand. I want to go back even further, because you said there was before the lifestyle of being a DJ. You was drug dealing for 15 years. I imagine that's come with some pretty low moments being a drug dealer.
Speaker 2:Can you?
Speaker 1:talk me through life as a drug dealer and what that was like for you personally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was quite good at it. I was quite good at it. So when I was 16, I got chucked out of home and I moved in with a guy who was a few years older. It was during the acid house thing. Ease used to cost 25 quid back then 25 quid. So I moved in with him and he was already selling, you know, like hash, nine bars we'd get, and lots of speed back then. I think they still do speed in the north, don't?
Speaker 1:they. Yeah, obviously it's raffled there.
Speaker 2:I was kind of joking anyway. So speed acid we're selling a lot of acid in a lot of ease. And I remember the first time I did it he went out somewhere for the weekend, he left me with a load of drugs and he goes right and all I had to do was sit on my ass, people knocking at the door and I made a load of money. And I thought, because I had no qualifications, I left school and I thought I'm going to do this, and this sense of belonging as well, and this identity over the years that become that.
Speaker 2:And what age was it I started smuggling drugs, swallowing drugs, you know, which isn't the first time I smuggled drugs was from Bilbao in Spain to the UK, and I remember a friend of mine who used to do it regularly said right, basically young, when you do this you have to prepare yourself, you have to not drink alcohol, certainly don't be sniffing Coke, you know, don't have a massive meal. And I ignored all that. So me and my friend, we're sniffing Coke all night. We've got almost a production line of people wrapping these things, these sort of like eight grand pellets, which are quite big man, and there's loads of them on the table, and the first one I go to swallow gets stuck in my throat and I'm just like and then I swallowed it and I looked at the rest and I thought how am I going to swallow all those? But I had to swallow them and I think back to that. I could have died, I could have got put in prison. Anything could have happened.
Speaker 1:That was going to be my question, I think. Did you realise the risks of what you was doing when you was doing it? Did you realise the severity of what would happen had you been caught by the police at the border? And is it just living in that I mean it was even any care or regard for the consequences?
Speaker 2:There wasn't. You know that was in my 20s. Before that, when I was 17, 18, I was smuggling Malawi gold weed back from Malawi in Africa. Almost got caught many times, you know. Going back to our question, early on we talked about this spiritual void, this whole adrenaline, excitement Back then. That filled that as well as the other things I used to get a real buzz out of it and didn't think about the consequences. Now I'm just fast forwarding into what happened very briefly, because it's relevant to what we're talking about here.
Speaker 2:After the DJ career come crashing to the ground and I lost everything, I ended up working for a drug gang, a Bengali drug gang in East London, running about heroin and crack cocaine around. And I think back and this is now when I'm late 30s, maybe even early 40s, you know so I'm not a young man now. So now I do know the risks, but I have to do this to get my money for the drugs. And what a full film from Grace that was.
Speaker 2:You know, it wasn't glamorous, it wasn't Tony Montana. But I think back to that. You know that's usually an automatic three years, just kind of running about and doing those things with heroin and crack cocaine, and that was in the place of desperation, you know, utter desperation of having to get X amount of money per day to get my heroin and crack, you know. But yeah, I didn't even give it a thought back then, I liked it. I liked it. It almost become because we talk about in recovery, don't we? We need to develop a new way of living, a new way of living and because for all those years, if we've lived a certain way, it's almost part of our persona and often we wear these different masks and I've got this one. Everything has to change. Everything has to change right.
Speaker 1:I was having a conversation with someone that's longer about. They used to, you know, deal drugs and they said it's one of the things that they really struggle with now in recovery is the dominant effects that he would have had by dealing drugs into the communities and the lives that he personally feels like he destroyed because, you know people may have overdosed on drugs that he supplied and whatnot. Is that something that you ever think about and, if so, how do you deal with those feelings?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good question. It's not something I think about actually. I've never made someone buy drugs off me.
Speaker 1:That's also. Yeah, I've never but?
Speaker 2:but because I probably ponder around that when I'm not in work in work I work with drug addicts and alcoholics in a treatment center. When I'm not in work, I'm helping drug addicts and alcoholics. I've dedicated my life to helping drug addicts and alcoholics. So so maybe without even thinking about it, I'm kind of making amends for those wrongs that I have done.
Speaker 2:You know, so I can live with that because I know today that for a drug addict or alcoholic in recovery to have guilt and remorse and live in the past, I'm a ticking time bomb. Yeah, you know. So I feel that my side of the road is clean today Doesn't mean I don't put my hands up, and I know that I've done wrong but I'm trying to put right, I'm trying to become a better man.
Speaker 1:Tell me about your lowest moment, because there's some incredible highs there. Obviously, you mentioned some lows. What was the lowest moment that you experienced, the rock bottom moment that you experienced in your time in active addiction?
Speaker 2:There was many, many rock bottoms, and I know with rock bottoms they can always go lower, obviously the lowest one being six foot under the one, the one that springs to mind or the time that springs to mind. Perhaps this is why this time, you know, I launched myself into the solution of the 12 step program that I practice was I'd come out of a treatment center and I was living in Sheffield and I'm walking down the street and everything's great in my life. I think I was eight months sober, I'm doing yoga, so I think I'm well spiritual, I am. You know, there's a woman in my life got a new pair of Air Max. You know I'm bouncing around, I think I'm, you know, mr Recovery and I'm feeling great, I'm feeling amazing. And I thought, yeah, you know, I'm really positive. And I'm walking down the street and I see this guy begging and suddenly my head twists and this thought comes into my head that would be nice. Where did that come from? You know this strange mental blank spot that at that moment I'm unable to bring into my mind with sufficient force. What happened last time you used, or the time before You've just done, a detox, you've just I'm unable to bring my mind does not save me in those moments. And so I go to this guy and I'm like I'll buy you one and sort me out. You know, he takes basically, he goes, you know I'll take you to the dealer and he walks me basically to the block that I'm living in and I remember thinking, oh, I'm in trouble. There aren't I?
Speaker 2:And for the next year and a half I'm using daily, I'm flat out using, and I had no possessions. I had a rickety sofa, I had a cracked phone that I was watching whatever on every day and my days consisted of and these are what I think. You know, the low. This is the gift of desperation I was given. At the end I'd wake up maybe 4pm because I just want to sleep the day through. I'd go and get my methadone, I'd go and rob a bottle of vodka, I'd go and hustle for money and I'd go and score. That was it every single day.
Speaker 2:I didn't see one person, one friend, in that year and a half, because I'm not answering the phone if the phone's still going, I don't want to see anyone, because I feel so ashamed. I feel that I've let myself down and I can't believe this has happened again. I wasn't eating for days and I remember going to a food bank for quite a few times Wasn't eating for four days at a time. That would be quite normal. You know, when I came into Ark House I was eight stone in weight, bones sticking out. My cheek had one bag of clothes. That was all I owned in the whole world. I remember going around the block outside on my hands and knees picking up dog ends off the floor. Yeah, that's the. I can feel that you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's not like it's not a moment. It's a feeling, Not just one moment. Yeah, it's a feeling that you've had.
Speaker 2:And drug addiction is really strange or recovery, or, if you want to melt the two together, because there was moments previously that in some ways had looked on the outside worse than that. But yeah, what was I just thinking? I was thinking for someone to get well and to stay well it doesn't necessarily mean you have to lose everything. It really doesn't. I've worked with guys and the doctor said if you drink again, you're going to die. And they've drunk again. And I've worked with guys who've still got their house partner career but they've come in and they've launched themselves into a program of recovery and they've got well and stays well. It's a really strange illness like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think some people do. Often, when we do talk about the rock bottom moments, people often think that the lowest moment is the moment where they decide to get clean, or, you know, that's where they, that's the moment where they're going to turn their life around. But it doesn't have to be that case to say it early.
Speaker 2:I think it has to be some sort of internal thing in you. I could almost feel the light flickering out of me.
Speaker 2:And every single day. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say for that last year and a half I wanted to kill myself every day Because I thought that seemed like a good option. I couldn't, you know. I'd wake up every morning and just feel absolutely depressed, hate myself not seeing my kids just beating myself up with a baseball bat and then have it to go and get methadone and feeling like I'm a scumbag and going into the methadone clinics and being around people that are as sick as I am and it doesn't really give a sense of wellbeing or you know, I feel for people out there.
Speaker 1:I've been there, I feel for them.
Speaker 2:It's a really tough one, it's a really tough one.
Speaker 1:What's changed, then? For someone who's been through the rehab process as often as you have, what's made this time different? And to celebrate five years of sobriety, what's the difference between this time and all the other times?
Speaker 2:The 12 steps.
Speaker 1:Yeah, was this your first time? Was this your first time using the 12 step program? Then, yeah, I often hear people say four are the door. There's a lot of people who tend to drop out at step four and don't really commit to the program. So what was it about the program that really resonated and worked?
Speaker 2:for you this time. I was in and out of you know we call it the rooms of different 12 step fellowships for about 10 years. All those times I was in, you know treatment. I come out, go to meetings I was just going to meetings. I didn't understand meetings and not the program. Go into meetings and sitting and just talking whatever nonsense I used to talk doesn't get me into a recovered state. I used to think the program was meetings, because there's a lot of emphasis.
Speaker 2:Go to, it's actually through the 12 steps that brings about what we call it's a bit of a big word spiritual awakening. It just means like our outlook changes, our attitude, our behavior. You know, when I talk about that old person that used to sell drugs and do this, that person has absolutely gone. I'm a completely different person. You know, obviously there's a few things remaining. You know I'm very flawed and you know blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 2:But there's a lot of mistruths talked about the 12 step program, One of them being what you just mentioned. Far and far People say, oh, four step, boy, it's a real. This is said by people who haven't been taken through it properly, like I know today, through taking hundreds of people through the 12 steps. The four step is a beautiful, you know, a beautiful step that starts that you know I start to start shifting a little bit, you know, and it's really not a long process, it's a very simple process. I lectured the 12 steps and I just put things very simply because it has a lot of words. For a lot of people that it's like what does that even mean? When I look at the 12 steps on the wall, before I've been taken through I've got it just seems like foreign language to me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, handing yourself over to a higher power. People get really hung up on that one.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. But haven't we already handed our life to heroin, crack, cocaine, alcohol? That was our master. So it can be put very, in very simple terms. And that's been the difference for me, you know, because I thought recovery meant, you know that I would be always trying not to use or drink and it was going to be a real struggle. And what happens if my mom dies? And what happens if this dies? And I know that's not having recovery. I know there's nothing that could happen today that would make me pick up a drink or a drug and that's a miracle.
Speaker 2:But it's like this, and I said this to some guys this morning it's a baffling illness, because if I went to the doctor today and he said I'm really sorry, but you've got cancer, but we've got this magic pill, and if you take this magic pill every day, the cancer will not come back, you will remain in remission, do they call it. You will remain in remission. Not only that, but you will become kinder, more useful, more gentle, more loving, more tolerant. Am I going to take that every day? Of course I'm going to. That's with this program. But I have to do certain simple things every day to remain in this place of neutrality, to remain recovered, in a recovered state. So that's what I do today.
Speaker 1:You said then that the place you are in now it isn't about oh, when will I pick up if something happens. You're at a really safe space. So one of the questions that I ask is when does recovery become recovered? Because you sound like you've recovered, but the program is recovery, so it's continuous. What's your response to that?
Speaker 2:In the big book that we study and we work the instructions out of. It doesn't use the word recovering. It only uses the word recovered. It's a real. A lot of people say you can't say recovered. Surely that means you'll get complacent.
Speaker 1:That's it, yeah.
Speaker 2:The opposite is true. I love being in this state of recovered, so I don't take my foot off the spiritual gas, and it doesn't mean cured. I think this is where people get twisted.
Speaker 1:That's where people get confused, yeah.
Speaker 2:I know I'm never cured, I know it's got something in our book and it says in the step 10 promises. It says by now the problem's been removed, it does not exist for us and we are neither cocky nor are we afraid. So I have to try and exist in the middle of those two, where humility lies. And then it says and this has been my experience and I have a lot of teachers in my life that have 30, 40, 50 years of clean and sober. So I kind of say, what do you do then?
Speaker 2:I'm gonna you know and they seem really, really happy, enjoy us and free. And it says you can remain in this state as long as you keep in fit spiritual condition. Now, I always compare that to fit physical condition. If either me or you wanted to look buff or be in a better physical shape, we could go to the gym, get a trainer. Say, if we went four times a week and we followed their instructions because they know what they're doing and they put us on a better diet than what we eat now after a year, 100% we would be in a better physical condition, wouldn't we? 100%, 100% guaranteed. Now, if I stopped doing what I was doing, start eating five guys again, cause I love five guys.
Speaker 1:You know, start watching.
Speaker 2:Netflix every night and I'm not really getting after a little bit of time. I'm gonna go back to how I was the same with this stuff in recovery in the 12 steps 100% Cause I see many guys recovered but become unrecovered Because now the job becomes more important than helping someone. The girlfriend is now my higher power and what I mean by that is I need her to feel okay. So it's like we can stay in this, in this, because I really honestly, I really thought that recovery meant is sometimes it's going to be a real slug. My experience has been as the years go by, it gets better and better and better. I go all in, I'm all into this, and out of the four treatment centres I've been in, I've been in treatment because I used to go in for six months at a time, eight months at a time. Hundreds of people. Out of those hundreds of people, I know five people are still clean and sober on a long term and they're all in a 12 step program.
Speaker 1:Tell me how our house has differed, then, to these other places, because this is, ultimately, where you've gained your sobriety. How does our house compare to other places, and what is the best part about you know? If you were selling this place to people to come here and use this as a facility to help get well, how would you do all?
Speaker 2:that. So all we do here is 12 step. That's all we do. We don't do any relapse prevention, any of that nonsense. Because after two and a half years of relapse prevention, no relapse prevention is going to stop my mind from twisting. You know, when I said, I walked down the street, suddenly at that moment I can't think, oh, what about that thing? I learned in rehab that time and that time.
Speaker 2:You know, if you are a drug addict or alcoholic. Well look, I only know what's worked for me and for millions of people since the 1930s, and so we give you know in some treatments, and I'm never knocking any other load on recovery.
Speaker 1:Nothing like that.
Speaker 2:You just do three steps and it's always very wishy-washy. It's not from like. We work from the big book, which is the original manuscript. If you want for the instructions, simple instructions, and it's like if I can have Coca-Cola, why am I going to go with Liddle Coke? So we do like, we just do the 12 steps. That works.
Speaker 2:Now I've worked with many people in here who now have long-term sobriety because they follow the directions and it's really simple. It's all about being useful. It's all about living a spiritual life. Now, I didn't even know what that meant when you said that. I thought it meant well, I've got to wear like tie dye or something, and that that really simply a spiritual life where I'm kind useful. I'm doing this. I'm looking at myself a lot, you know. I get to a place where I understand that I'm perfectly imperfect and I'm okay with that. I understand that there's nothing I need to be or become. That's what we get, kind of whole. So it's a difficult one when you say how would you sell this place? The program works for those who want to get. Well, it absolutely does, absolutely does.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I remember buying a car before and the salesman won't really push you with it. And I said to him it's the first time I've had a salesman that hasn't really been pushing the car on me. He said a car will sell itself. He said if you want it, you'll buy it. And I think that's similar to recovery, isn't it, you know?
Speaker 2:you don't need to sell what it is.
Speaker 2:If you want it, you will buy it 100% 100%, because recovery will only work for those who are really desperate for it. You know, and for many people it takes repeated humiliations until you know there's, there's. You know, when we talk about the word powerless because I know some people don't like that word because they say it's not empowering and all the rest of it and I think about, you know, my children, who I love dearly with all my heart, begging me please, daddy, don't do this again. If I can't not pick up from the love of my kids, I am without any power over this substance. You know I really am.
Speaker 2:So what the guys get in here, they learn about the illness that we suffer from. They learn it is an illness. They learn. They learn that you know about the, what we mean by powerlessness. They learn about that. The 12 steps is a way of life rather than you know we don't promise you come into rehab, you do the 12 steps, you get a certificate and now King alcohol or King cocaine or King heroin is going to leave you alone and say go and have a lovely life. We don't promise you know things like that.
Speaker 2:But, we say you can get, you can get well, we can get recovered. And Bill Wilson, who wrote the 12 steps and a lot of people don't like talking about this, but I love shouting about it he talks about permanent recovery. Because that's what I'm after after this permanent recovery thing he actually talks about. He says you know, vital work with one alcoholic with another is vital to permanent recovery. We've got another saying you can only keep what you have by giving it away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing with a 12 step program what we practice in our cows. There's over 250 12 step fellowships in the world using the same 12 steps to bring about well, let's just call it transformation and change. Nothing to do with alcohol, drugs, gamblers, anonymous sex addicts, anonymous. You know, there's over eaters and there's all these that that are using the same 12 steps because it brings about this transformation. Because what used to happen? I'd leave treatment and there was no change in me. I was just sober and clean.
Speaker 2:I'm still. I'm still getting annoyed by people when they don't want to do what I do. I'm still acting like an idiot with women. I'm still. There's no change. Behavior hasn't changed. Yeah, so all that's happened and the same as a detox.
Speaker 2:If you put me in a, you take. This is how I know that drugs and alcohol wasn't my problem. It became the problem, but it was my solution to life. If you take out the solution to my life, all that I've done, think about a weed that's growing out of the garden. I've just cut off the top, so it looks all right for a minute, but I haven't got to the root of the problem.
Speaker 2:So what we do in the 12 steps, it gets right to the root of the problem by step four actually, and it's like uncovering uncovering what the root is of our problem. So we're not just cutting off the top, we're getting down to the root. We're getting down to the root and it's this whole, it's very transfer, transformative process, but it's just the beginning and then we carry on. When we get out there and and as cheesy as this going to sound, but I'm going to go for it anyway what we do in here, or the 12 steps in general, we're changing the world. Told it's cheesy, we're changing the world, one addict and one alcoholic at a time.
Speaker 2:What I mean by that is each alcoholic or drug addict who becomes well recovered if you want to use that word, you don't have to but let's just say becomes well, yeah, has long term sobriety. I'm talking five years, 10 years, 20 years. That's now a better mother, better father, better brother, better sister, better parent. This is now someone who's paying taxes, who's contributing to their community, to their society, isn't out there robbing people, isn't signing on, isn't a drain on on medical services or drug and alcohol services. That's how we're changing things. Yeah, blows my mind.
Speaker 1:Absolutely no. I love it. It's the. It's the dominant effect, doesn't it, of what goes on and like uses the way things are passed forward.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it really is, and we can help and we teach the guys in here. I say you can help when no one else can. Doctors can't do anything for the drug addict or alcoholic. They can't. No they can't. They'll say that when they really you know they can give us methadone and look, I love doctors, don't get me wrong or they could put us in a detox, but it doesn't solve the riddle. But another alcoholic or drug addicts. They've lived that stuff, they're. They're worse, you know they're. The background now is their biggest asset.
Speaker 1:Young. Thank you so much for coming on. I've just got a few questions that I'm going to ask. I'm just going to try and find them actually, because there should be some. That's good. My name, no. That's why.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:So let's end all our podcasts with these questions and nothing related to what we've spoken about so far, just some quick fire questions. What's your favorite word?
Speaker 2:It always throws people off when we go into a smoke bar.
Speaker 1:And then we come into this. My favorite words recovered, least favorite word triggers. Tell me something that excites you.
Speaker 2:What excites me? The Indian Ocean.
Speaker 1:Nice, tell me something that doesn't excite you.
Speaker 2:What doesn't excite me? I'm a very excited person these days. What doesn't excite me?
Speaker 1:Something where you just go, oh God.
Speaker 2:Just, I don't know, a middle of the road car, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it sounds. It sounds boring. I can see how that's not excited. Well, oh, tell me a sound or noise that you love.
Speaker 2:I love drums and bass.
Speaker 1:Tell me a sound or noise that you hate Duck, quack, what's your favorite case word? Come Nice. And if you wasn't doing the profession that you do do, what would you like to attempt?
Speaker 2:My make music again Nice.
Speaker 1:Young, thank you so much for coming on the believing people podcast. You have been absolutely fantastic. Thank you, guys, and if you've enjoyed this episode of the believing people podcast, then please check out our other episodes and hit that subscribe button. You can also find clips, outtakes and extras from this series on Facebook, instagram, twitter and YouTube, at CGL Hull. That's at CGL HULL. We're on Apple Music, spotify, google and YouTube Music, so please like and subscribe to be notified about new episodes. You can also search for believing people podcast on your favorite listening device and, if you can leave us a review, that will really help us in getting our message out there and rising up the daily podcast charts.
