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
#45 - Chris Sylvester - Heroin Aged 12, Crime, Trauma, Accountability, Hepatitis C, Cocaine, Manipulation, Homelessness, Drug Dealing, Working the 12 Steps & The Power of Second Chances
Matt is in conversation with former child heroin addict and Getting Clean founder, Chris Sylvester, whose descent into addiction began at just 12 years old.
Chris shares his candid experiences, revealing the allure and grip of narcotics on both individuals and communities. His story transcends survival; it's a narrative of redemption, where pride and agony intersect in the pursuit of healing. But amidst the tales of violence, incarceration, and loss, there lies an undercurrent of hope.
This episode culminates with Chris's account of a pivotal 12-step recovery meeting that marked the beginning of a transformative journey. Chris set out to create an organisation that would unite people in recovery and help them to find purpose and friendship while giving back to both the community and the environment.
Chris Sylvester's life story is not one you'll easily forget.
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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 Renew Original Recording. Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast, a 2024 Radio Academy Award nominated podcast, to talk all things addiction recovery and stigma. Today we have Chris Sylvester, whose journey into heroin addiction started at only 12 years old. Chris sheds light on the silent struggles endured by those battling addiction. Chris recalls his time in the prison system and finally talks about becoming the founder of Getting Clean, an organisation to provide a platform for individuals in recovery. Chris, thank you so much for joining us on the Believe in People podcast. No problem, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what brings you to this chair today? Tell me a little bit about your journey.
Speaker 2:So I'm Chris Sylvester. I'm an addict in long-term recovery, and I first started using heroin when I was 12 years old. I was introduced to it in the high school toilets. Wow.
Speaker 2:At that point in my life I'd had lots of issues growing up. I found it really difficult, didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere like I fit in. Didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere like I fit in. I've learned a lot more about myself since I've been in recovery but at that point I just really struggled learning in a conventional way. So I do a lot of truancy, internal truancy and bunking off. And on that first time that I was introduced to heroin I was knocking off a mathematics class because I really struggled. And I always remember being in a cubicle and hearing someone next to me, hearing two voices, sort of whispering, hushed voices. I remember hearing lighters flicking and then tinfoil rustling and strange smells and me being me, found myself in there moments later. 12 is a extremely young age.
Speaker 1:Some people don't start smoking, cigarettes or even drinking. You know when you when you hear about them stories with children, they're kind of around around that you know those early years. Was that your first experience of any substance then? Or had you been using alcohol before then? Because I mean, I don't know, based on your age and stuff, the 80s especially, you know glue was quite a prolific thing for young kids to be doing. Was there anything like that before the heroin, or was it straight in there?
Speaker 2:Yes, I had experienced other substances, solvents, alcohol, um, but no, ever really did it for me like everyone did no um, but growing up where I'm from in leeds there were lots of evo stick on bounce lots of people glue, sniffing lots of other solvents, um, and we used to steal t-pegs.
Speaker 2:I always remember we used to go into a stationery shop on Armley Town Street and then Greengrocers, because we'd nick the Tippex and then we'd go get the little bags from the Greengrocers and we'd have a little sniff of Tippex thinners. So I tried other substances and that were pretty much, I'd say, from around age 11, being smoking, weed, taking trips, all different kinds of stuff it's still such a young age to be experiencing them sort of things.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about, like your home life with your family and and was there anything that was happening there?
Speaker 2:that was the reason for me to be using these substances at such a young age, I think definitely there were a sort of an influence by my father who used substances um my, my home life. It were a little bit strange. So my mum and dad going way back, when they got together they met at an engineering firm in Leeds and then they both opened up their own business, which were a custom engineering business sort of after Easy Rider film came out, you know with Dennis Hopper and all these choppers. And my dad were a really talented engineer but he took a lot of substances, a lot of amphetamines and he potentially had undiagnosed mental health issues for a long time as well, and it was quite ignored.
Speaker 1:For that generation, mental health wasn't the way it is now. Now, we're all in tune with our own mental health. Back then it was crack on, wasn't it? Yeah, well, this is it. Do you know? We were all in tune with our own mental health. Back then it was crack on, wasn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, this is it and there wasn't any sort of awareness or understanding. So my dad sort of left my mum. They went bankrupt. My dad left my mum for a younger lady and we went from having two businesses to living in a council house and then my dad set up another business, which were quite successful, and I'd go stop with my dad on a weekend and my dad had no boundaries, no discipline, no, structure he were. He were crazy with my dad, he were. A right laugh, don't get me wrong.
Speaker 1:Well, this is it. Sometimes it's a case of like for some parents, especially in that situation, is they're more bothered about being liked, especially when they're not around as often you know. Sometimes you see when parents split up that the dad kind of wants to be the fun dad. Less rules with dad than with mum, and things like that. And it's interesting how far that can go, especially to to the point it did with yourself.
Speaker 2:So yeah, most definitely so. Like a typical weekend, I'd see me and my dad going out shooting shotguns um, watching 18s, uh, and eating junk food and, as I got a little bit older, I'd smoke weed with my dad and that's what we'd do, and I'd take amphetamines with him and stuff like that. But he was more like my best friend and he were always like that, rather than being a dad um, which, in his maturity and as he aged, he did become um was he a young dad to begin with, then, or I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 2:I don't think so. No, I think there would be an average age, my mum and dad. But I think the impact of my dad leaving my mum and my mum sort of having a change of life and being bankrupt meant that my mum were depressed, sort of clinically depressed, uh, in my informative years and, like I, I'm able to now look back at that and understand that that had a major impact on my development.
Speaker 2:Um, because I want that maternal connection my grandma used to have to come over and feed us both, you know she used to have to open curtains. She used to have to do what my mum um would have been doing because my mum won't able. I love my mum so much and she's always been there for me, same as my dad, but I think that my environment growing up definitely influenced my tendencies to be, so intrigued and want to take drugs because that I was obsessed with Scarface, I was obsessed with gangster films.
Speaker 2:It were all. It's one of them things where, like I used to, I were obsessed with Scarface, I was obsessed with gangster films. It were all Things that you shouldn't be.
Speaker 1:It's one of them, things where, like I used to say this, I remember playing like Grand Theft Auto 3 when I was like 10 or something. I'm like, oh, 18, I can get away with this, but it's now as an adult. I'm like I wouldn't dare let a 10-year-old play Grand Theft Auto. Do you know, because you worry about the, I guess maybe not necessarily immediately, I wasn't exactly going to go do the things in Grand Theft Auto at 10 years old, but you wonder how it can have an impact on your long term, which kind of sounds like what has happened to you in a way of being influenced by these characters like Al Pacino, scarface and things like that. It does have that. Do you know what? The one for us as teenagers was Green Street? Did you ever see the film? Green Street yeah football hooligans.
Speaker 2:Yeah the football hooligans.
Speaker 1:That was a massive influence on us as teenagers, to the detriment of, I mean, one of my friends, lee. He actually, you know he was beaten to death outside shops up on East Hall and sometimes I wonder if that's because the message of Green Street is no matter how many there is, you stand your ground and you fight. And there was only him. Him and his mate, I think there was and about 10 of these lads.
Speaker 1:Instinct should have been to run away, but I think the pride and the influence of that film of standing your ground and fight was the thing that had the impact on him. So it goes to show that these things do have. I mean, that's just me summarising of what was going on in our lives at the time, but it just goes to show that these things do have a massive influence on us in a way, most definitely.
Speaker 2:So at that point, when I'm sort of first introduced to heroin, everything that I was lacking as a person, you know, as a child growing up, I was given instantly. So, like I had, all of a sudden, I had these friends. I was part of a I'll say that, I know it but, um, I had people that sort of had the same motivation as me every day, they were like-minded and all this stuff that I had going on internally, you know, not feeling like I'm good enough, feeling like I don't fit in, feeling like I don't belong, confusion. All that is taken away because I've got wrapped up in this blanket of heroin, this warm thing that's supported me, and that were it From 12 until 13, just using constantly in toilets. Until that sort of came about, I started committing crime to fund my addiction.
Speaker 2:I was excluded from school and I had to register as an heroin addict at Leeds Addiction Unit, and I always remember going there with my dad 19 Springfield Mount, just behind the university, and my dad just not knowing what was going on with me, and queuing up waiting to see doctors with people that sort of I was looking up to, always influenced by people drawn to people that had issues and problems. Because I did, and it's laws of attraction, isn't it? It's like negativity attracts negativity.
Speaker 1:I think there's a thing as well I've spoken about this with someone before about drug use it's a culture and you know, like any, you know you will gravitate to people with them, like-minded opinions, and and I guess that's part of the harder thing of getting recovery as well for a lot of people it's not just giving up the substance, it's giving up a culture, it's giving up an identity, it's giving up a lot of friends, it's giving up, it's giving up all those things that have, kind of, you know, in some way have made you who you are, for better or worse as well, goes beyond just the substance, just going back to it, because obviously you were so young, at what point did you realize?
Speaker 2:because that you was physically addicted to the substance so I think, um, I remember because the quality of erwin you know, compared to what it is currently. Back then it was really, really strong. And I remember rattling and withdrawing from heroin in my school uniform, you know, like going to school thinking I'm going to get some money. You know what I mean. How are we going to?
Speaker 1:So you knew in your head, if you took more heroin, the rattle would stop. You were knowledgeable enough of that do you know something?
Speaker 2:it were all a game. I accepted that I was poorly, but in a way it was kind of like a badge of honour. It was strange. It was like this is who I am. You mentioned it, and this is who I am. Like you mentioned the identity, you know like, and this is who I am, and it's part of it. Um, and it's something to talk about, my friends are. I'm hanging out, I'm rattling. You know what we're gonna do it's almost cool to sit doing with the.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I remember. I remember the first time having a hangover and going to tell my friends they had a hangover and it was like he was almost excited to have a hangover. I imagine it'd be similar in that sense.
Speaker 2:Like I'm rattling it feels like shit, but I'm buzzing about it as well, in a weird way. And it's like, oh, what are we going to do? And again it's that light in my heart. And then it's like, oh, we're going to.
Speaker 1:The thrill of it.
Speaker 2:And that's where nicking teachers' handbags, nicking video, we could from school, banging all those as dinner monies together to score and like the only thing that I remember from that period of my life sort of academic knowledge or anything that I learned is this and I still remember, it's the only thing I remember oh three, seven, oh six, what's that? That's a drug dealer's number. Yeah, he used to switch on at three o'clock, yeah, and there'd be queues and queues of people waiting for him. Wow, and that's the only thing I can remember. I remember being in trouble, but like there's no moment, no, like eureka moment, where I've learned something and it pennies dropped and it's like oh, I remember that. The only thing I remember is that phone number from that period of my life.
Speaker 2:That's crazy, and it's an analog phone and it's not even a digital it's an old analog phone, yeah, from 1996, 95, 96, something like that was there a lot of was?
Speaker 1:obviously you said about your friends. Was there a lot of you that was in this, because I know you said it started with just the three of you in the toilet, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So it decimated my community. Did it win? You know what I mean? It sort of. There was a massive boom in the late 80s to fund war in Afghanistan against Russia and lots and lots of it found it's way into the country, mainly to the north west, liverpool and Manchester, and then to Leeds. So I remember as well. It was trendy, it was cool, you know, like heroin chic you had models that were mimicking being heroin addicts.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean with all the makeup. Not the most glamorous of films, but like Trainspotting come out and it's like that's us, that's what we do, and like that identification again, something to identify with, it glamorises it.
Speaker 1:I know there's messages in there that kind of say this is the reason why you shouldn't be taking heroin, but there is something in there where you kind of what I was saying about Green Street you see it and you associate yourselves with it and you look up to it and you kind of aspire to be it, despite the message at the end of it being don't take heroin, don't be a football hooligan. You kind of ignore the final message bit and you see all the glamorisation of the rest of it.
Speaker 2:Don't you, it were, all it were all. At that point it were all glamorous and like again, I remember I used to have to wear a blazer and I used to have to put my foil in my pocket and I always used to get soot on my white shirt and I'd have my little tooter. Do you know what I mean? It's a little box that I had so it didn't get squashed so I could toot my and get squashed so I could took my gear. I'd have a little flicker lighter. You know, I'd know how to foil, how to like get the foil just right so I could run gear down it and it were all like. It were like a toy to a kid and it were just way that things were and it. But it gave me, like I say, it gave me an identity, it gave me something. It's just who I was and people knew me for that.
Speaker 1:Crazy, did your mum, and I guess was your mum aware of it.
Speaker 2:So the first time that anybody became aware of it, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on. That anybody became aware of it, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on. My dad sort of really Cos I'd left my mum's to live with my dad and I remember my dad waiting one day because he'd opened some mail that I'd received because I'd made an appointment with Leeds Addiction Unit for somebody to come out and see me to start the proceedings of registering, and this one to tackle my addiction. It was to get medication Like part of it. This is what you do and this is what everybody's registered. Now you know, and he were there and I kept thinking you need to go, you know, because this drug worker's coming now, steve Redknapp, he was called and he'd just hung about. And he hung about and he didn't go. And then that's how it became common knowledge Because it was like, okay, fess up. Now this is what's going on with me.
Speaker 1:But my dad and mum were so confused as to why I was behaving it's interesting that your dad was confused because from what you tell me about your childhood there with your dad and the amphetamine use and the cannabis use I'd be thinking of. Well, of course he's moved on to heroin, do you know?
Speaker 2:But this is the thing they want that knowledge within my dad. My dad never had any involvement with heroin. Heroin didn't know anything about it. Yeah, yeah, he was more.
Speaker 1:He used to take amphetamines to stay up, days and days working, doing, doing jobs so he was using it as a, I guess, for productivity, rather than just like recreational, yeah, so I think a bit of both.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um and looking, my dad definitely was an addict, sort of in how he was and what I've learned about addiction. But he just didn't have any concept or any understanding or any ideas of what was going on with me taking heroin because it wasn't ever part of his world, so he didn't know. I remember gouging out in front of my mum and my mum not knowing what was going on and saying you need to go to bed, you're tired, and I'd just been tooting gear.
Speaker 1:You're going for withdrawals. She thinks you've just got a bit of flu sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Go have a load home, this is the thing I'd be. I wouldn't ever be in bed rattling, I'd always be out, I'd always be out and sort of. I went through lots of withdrawals when they became aware of it and it became a bit of an event, if I'm honest, because they'd be like they'd make special allowances for me and like, oh, we go to the seas, to seaside, for weekend, we'll get a Chinese takeaway and it's and I remember my dad saying I'm getting sick of this. Now do not. I mean, do you know? Like it's a bit of a game that we're playing, because I wouldn't really ever ready to stop taking drugs. But I'd have it get to a point where it'd have to happen and I'd have to go through withdrawals and complete a detox and then be straight back at it because I didn't want to change. You know, it wasn't like there were anything in me that said, oh, this problem's getting out of hand.
Speaker 2:It was just a game, yeah, and it went from smoking to injecting pretty quick.
Speaker 1:I was going to say what age did you start injecting heroin?
Speaker 2:I'd say that we're about 14.
Speaker 1:Wow, even that is very, very.
Speaker 2:I remember going to hospital and getting abscesses lanced. Wow. As a kid, we're like getting them all squeezed and drained from misses, from injecting.
Speaker 1:And did they know what it was from as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Like I say, it was just a game, because they want the support available, they want the Leeds Addiction Unit, but they want the education they want the understanding.
Speaker 1:they want the awareness Because even from a social services perspective and a safeguarding perspective you'd think that that would have been. If you're having to drain absences from a 14-year-old boy, you'd be thinking right, we need to, and you know where them absences have come from At 14, you would have struggled to pin me down to one address Ah, okay, because I would have just gone, just moved from place to place as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was just gone. And then I started from the age of 15, started going to prison constantly. So just in and out of prison.
Speaker 1:And what sort of things was you going in and out of prison for?
Speaker 2:So the first time I went to prison that was for stabbing somebody. Jeez, that nearly killed a man in Bradford. And you was 15? When I was 15.
Speaker 2:So I moved to Bradford with my dad, to his girlfriend's in another attempt to get clean and straightaway replaced my heroin addiction with just drinking alcohol and then I'm world's worst drunk.
Speaker 2:I've become very violent and I always had something to prove. So from being this child growing up and feeling like I had these inadequacies and there was something wrong with me and this lack of connection Kids are very narcissistic, in fact, that they can't understand other people's feelings or what's going on for anybody else. So me, growing up without this connection to my mum made me form this massive ego. You know, it's like they say that an ego's formed the first time that a child sees itself away from its mother and it's like a survival mechanism, you know. So I've got all these confidence issues, but my way of dealing with that is being overly sort of confrontational and to seem like I'm really confident to be really challenging. But inside I've got all these sort of issues where I don't feel like I'm good enough, where I'm struggling, and I had a real problem learning as well in a sort of conventional way, sitting down and doing something from a textbook, but pretty good, mechanical learning and being shown how to do things and picking things up.
Speaker 1:And even back then they didn't really cater to different learning styles. It was just this is how we're teaching it. You either learn it or you don't, whereas now there's all the differences of visual learners and there's things like I don't even know the kinesthetic learners. There's all these different types of words or methods of how people learn differently. But back then I imagine it was here's the curriculum, here's how you're going to learn. If you haven't got it, you're fucked, you know.
Speaker 2:And this is the thing. Isn't it Like I got more from school by standing up and taking mickey out of teacher? Yeah, you know, because it being class clown made made me feel like I value. Yeah, you know, I made people laugh. That made me feel good, I'd be very challenging, very confrontational. That's why school didn't last right long. School was just an opportunity to get more drugs and and then, when that ended, it'd be just to graft. So, like I said the first time, I went to prison for stabbing somebody. What was the context of that? Why did it happen? It was just daftness, absolute daftness. We went trying to underage drink. We were already off our heads and a fella hit my mate for no.
Speaker 2:So we're like we're gonna get him. Do you know what I?
Speaker 2:mean so we ambushed him on way out, um went and armed ourselves and come back and put a brick through the window and then, when he come, stabbed him, you know, and I ended up in Doncaster for I think nine, ten months on remand and then I went guilty to a Section 20, which is a wounding without intent. And when I did that I'll always remember Judge Coles. He remitted it back to youth court and when he did that it meant that I'd already served the maximum sentence that they could give me. So I went from looking at a 10 stretch To maximum being able To be imposed on me 12 months.
Speaker 1:Very lucky yeah.
Speaker 2:I was the first young offender To get tagged in Bradford claim to fame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say that one like a badge of honour.
Speaker 2:One of them and yeah, so I got tagged, but upon release just went straight back to crazy living, you know, and it were only a matter of time before I were using class A substances again what was prison like back then, though, because now.
Speaker 1:I think from my knowledge I've had this conversation with friends where they say, oh, there's pool tables and TVs and they can do all this stuff in prison. Now I was like, yeah, because prison's more about rehabilitation than punishment now, but back when you was younger I imagine it was a little bit more about punishment than rehabilitation, so we didn't have TVs.
Speaker 2:No, there were pool tables, okay, and I knew lots of people anyway, yeah, so it was like it was very territorial back then. So if you were from Leeds, you're stuck with Leeds lads and it was like.
Speaker 2:South Yorkshire lads Doncaster, sheffield, barnsley they all stuck together. But Doncaster, sheffield, barnsley, they all stuck together but the majority of the time it would just bang up. It were a remand jail it would bang up. It was pretty much like a youth club. And there's some people that I'm in recovery now. One of the guys that's in recovery we've had mates together. He's in recovery now and that's amazing together. You know he's in recovery now and that's amazing to see. But we're just kids detained.
Speaker 1:Not necessarily really knowing the severity of the situation. You wasn't either at that point. This is the thing, it was just a game.
Speaker 2:That's what I mean yeah, that's what I think it comes back to a lot of the times we've at that age.
Speaker 1:everything's a game, everything's a bit of a laugh and everything's an experience, isn't it Positive or negative? It's an experience. Doncaster, here we come yeah yeah, yeah, lads on tour after Doncaster Prison and they were like this part of it.
Speaker 2:who's on wing? Yeah, Madness, but being released that first time. I'd say it were only four months before I was back taking heroin, and that were in Bradford. So I moved back to Leeds and then got back into crime with people that were in addiction around there.
Speaker 1:Was there anything in the prison in terms of like for achieving abstinence? What was the methadone programs?
Speaker 2:Or was it a case if? You just rattle it out, and so they give you, they get, so they put you on a detox wing. Okay, which were a right laugh yeah which one big dorm, big, massive tv, because you didn't have tvs. But in that dorm you had the TV, and not only that, you had MTV on it do you? Know what I mean. So all music and I understand things now as spiritual awakenings.
Speaker 2:When my body's coming back to normal detoxing and stuff like that, but being so sort of influenced and connected to music and stuff that were going on Whenever there's a music quiz on now, when I hear a song and it's from that year, I know, you know, yeah, it's 1998, yeah yeah uh, doncaster, do you know? I mean, that's when that come out, yeah but it were like it were a laugh.
Speaker 2:But the medication they give you, they give you something called brittle effects or lefexidine I've had a lefexidine yeah, so they're non-opiate ones and what they do is they sort of influence your endorphins to come back naturally, so they like speed up your withdrawal, so you go through it, but it's like the biggest. There's a physical aspect, sort of an opiate addiction. Without a doubt I understand that, but I think the biggest thing within it all is the mental addiction.
Speaker 2:And whenever I was in prison I understood that the thing within it all is the mental addiction, and whenever I was in prison, I understood that the game were up and that the rattle had to get done, and the rattle were always easier in prison than it were out in community because you couldn't give in to the temptation of going to your dealer and getting couldn't score. Couldn't get a graft, couldn't score.
Speaker 1:Simple as that so you just had to. You had no other option but to do it, yeah you make best of it.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? I get that yeah um, but when you're rattling it, community, you know that somebody's got gear, yeah, and you know that you and, and then rattled, the sort of symptoms are heightened by that. You know it's like, but in reality, when you've got to get it done, you've got to get it done and that's something that stayed with me, that mentality towards dealing with it.
Speaker 1:Because that's something that I don't understand, and I'm sure there is logical explanations for it. But when lads are coming out of prison after five, six years and they're on a methadone programme in the prison, so the methadone programme then continues in the community, and I'm just thinking how could this person not get clean, how could they not get off the methadone in prison? This is the thing. How is that? Why have you done five years of methadone in prison?
Speaker 1:Surely if there's any time to get off the methadone it's in the environment, but maybe that's ignorant of me to think like that but ignorant of me to think like that.
Speaker 2:But I do wonder, yeah, well, I think that when we look at people, we've got to look at individuals and, like for me, I identify as an addict. I understand what that means now you know I'm an addict in long-term recovery.
Speaker 2:But without recovery, you know, anything that I can take that changes how I feel, yeah, that fills this void that I have within myself. I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna take it. And it's like if you can score in jail, you know, like anything that you're taking on top of your meds, you're only gonna boost it, do you know? So't know People, addiction's a funny thing? Yeah, absolutely. And people become conditioned. You know like an amount of time that I've spent in meds queues, in prison waiting for my methadone, because it's just what I did, it's what I did in community and it's what my life is, you know, and I were packed up on medication for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I understand that. So coming out of prison, then back onto the gear four months later? How old are you at this point?
Speaker 2:So there I've just been, 16, 17. Still really young to have gone through everything that you've gone through. He's a kid. This is the thing. He's a kid, I'm a kid, I'm a child. And the thing is I've had no sort of development, so I hadn't had any education, I hadn't had any positive social influence, I've just been conditioned by my environment. So it's like these behaviours are only going to continue. And it's still fun, it's still exciting, it's still a game, you know, and it means that it continues.
Speaker 1:At what age did you get to where it wasn't exciting anymore. It wasn't fun where you realised that it had been taking its toll on you.
Speaker 2:At the age of 20 and being a bit of a career criminal, so doing petty crime, and then sort of graduating to burglaries and stuff like that and then being involved in selling drugs. Um, at that age, like I always remember, I lied at court to get to armley jail, where I'm from, because at that time I had a girlfriend who'd been bringing me visits we call them fat visits. Girlfriend who'd been bringing me visits we call them fat visits, so she'd been bringing me gear up to Doncaster.
Speaker 2:Really easy to get in. Do you know what I mean? Really easy back then to get in, and my thinking is I've supported her throughout my addiction in community.
Speaker 1:She can support you now you're in prison. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I make her transactional yeah so I make her life easier, I'll blag it to go to wamley, because when you're at court they ask your date of birth and your address and then group four. I'd go off that and then look at how old you are and they just send you to wherever. So I just added a year on, do you know what I mean? And I remember being 20, going to armley jail, um, and thinking that you know everything was going to be great and it was just a massive culture shock. So doncaster marsh gate is a new build private prison. Armley is an old castle run by Her Majesty's Prison Service. Big difference the inmates looked huge.
Speaker 2:I'm this little kid do you know what I mean Still not mature, still not grown. And whenever I'm trying to contact my girlfriend she's not answering my call. And then I start hearing after a couple of weeks that she's working on beach. So she's selling her body now. So I introduced her to heroin. I was the one that gave her her first go and I was the one that sort of supported us throughout her addiction. So she had a job. When I met her, you know, she had ambition and all that were taken away and she was selling herself to get money to fund her habit.
Speaker 2:And then she got involved with another guy you know who was allegedly pimping her out, and it was just like it was the first time where I felt accountable for anything and I really thought about anybody else other than myself.
Speaker 1:You said, obviously, when you were a kid, the ego, you're not thinking about other people?
Speaker 2:are you?
Speaker 1:this is the thing this is the first time you're starting to look at the impact that you're having on others.
Speaker 2:I never thought about the victims of my crime. My needs were always greater. But when it come to sort of looking at how this girl were having a work on B and sell herself to raise money for a drug up it which I potentially introduced to it and it really at home, and that what first time where I thought things that good and I also learned that I'd got hepatitis C from injecting with dairy equipment and equipment and it were like that would have wake up call, but it wasn't enough to stop me and the game started upon release.
Speaker 2:I got out of Everthorpe, but then at that point I'd been hanging around with lads and there'd been a shift in me and I'd been sort of awoken by bassline bassline music and niche and castle locos and everybody had these tapes and they were all listening to this music and I had these sort of notions, these fantasies that I was going to get out and I was going to be involved in this. I was going to get out and I was going to be involved in this. I was going to sell ease, you know.
Speaker 2:I was going to go to Castle Ocos on a weekend, sort of not be involved with heroin or crack and sort of stigmatise that a little bit. And that's what happened. I practised my dance moves do you know what I mean? And I got out and did a bit of raving, started selling pills, got a driving license, got a new girlfriend, got her pregnant Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:What happened to the other girlfriend then, upon release?
Speaker 2:I saw her once and like I had a resentment towards her because she'd not supported me in my sort of mindset mentality. She hadn't supported me, she hadn't been there for me, the amount of sort of crime that I'd committed to fund our habits in my mind, I looked after her. Do you know what I?
Speaker 1:mean, yeah, if she was an addiction as well. If she's having to, as you said, work on the beach, she's just going to be thinking about herself on her own.
Speaker 2:Well, it's kind of almost regressing to the way you was and not thinking about other people addiction source, that you're selfish, yeah, nothing else is like she's not going to care about even prison issue in that moment no, and started that had already started when I was in Doncaster because she'd stopped bringing them up and she'd say I'll send it in a card. And I'd get a couple of cards, birthday cards where she'd craft it in. Do you know what I mean? But then she'd start lying to me oh, I've posted one. And I'd be like, well, I ain't got it. It's because she's got an habit that she's feeding herself.
Speaker 1:I mean, I don't know if you hear from her now, but how do you feel about that now? Like looking back at that, thinking that you introduced her and how your influence probably changed her life's trajectory by introducing her to heroin. When we talk about things like resentment and making amends and stuff. How do you cope with that? Now, those thoughts so.
Speaker 2:I work a 12-step program and that allows me to be able to deal with that stuff. Um, she's on a list of amends that need to be made, um, and sort of if I see her, I'll make, I'll make that amends, and sort of see if there's anything I can do to rectify or amend what went on. But I do. I have a lot of guilt and shame about a lot of things that I've done in the past. I can imagine, yeah, you know, and how I used to live and sort of that's a motivating factor for how I am today and how I live today. But back then, you know like it was just when I bumped into her and saw her upon release, it was like, oh yeah, do you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Straight back to being that sort of selfish man, yeah, and like I was focused on me. I was focused on Stone Island, I was focused on Mitsubishi's, I was focused on whatever I could do. You know what I mean these material things. Do you know me again filling this void with summer having new identity?
Speaker 1:this is who I am so moving into and selling ecstasy and, like you said you know, following the flight baseline and things like that. How did that change you? You know, because you said you're stigmatizing, I suppose, everyone in crack. Now he's look glamorous, don't they?
Speaker 2:and this is that lifestyle looks glamorous. So tell me about that like that. So yeah, it's like I was really influenced by music, so I'd always be playing music and I'd always be there'd be a soundtrack to it. You know what I'm saying? There were a soundtrack to it.
Speaker 1:It's like being in a movie.
Speaker 4:You've got to think about the soundtrack behind you and the soundtrack to the life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is my life. That's how I used to live, because I never had a relationship with myself. I didn't know who I was. I was always looking at other people that I aspired to be like like Al Pacino and Scarface.
Speaker 1:Yeah, finding something you can identify with, like Sean and Replica yeah, how would they act in this situation?
Speaker 2:what would they do? Yeah, do you. You know, like you know, and that's I never, never won me. So I started selling drugs At that time, learned how to grow cannabis, I started selling cannabis skunk and I started. I did all right.
Speaker 1:Was you using heroin at this time, or did you just have a kick to that at that point?
Speaker 2:So I was just smoking endless amounts of bud, taking drugs. I was sneaking off and smoking crack, though, because I knew other people that were doing that and because they were doing that, that were all right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:It almost gives you the past, doesn't it? Yeah, this is it. You look for it. It's like you say. It's connections, though, and being with people and finding that again, going back to the culture of it, really Most definitely Finding a culture.
Speaker 2:But I stayed away from heroin until I was stabbed. Do you know what I mean? And because of what I was involved in with sort of selling drugs, I ended up getting rammed off at road, um, and, and being attacked by four masked men with uh axes what target it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so like an ongoing feud they're an ongoing feud and um got myself into a situation which nearly cost me my life. Got stabbed multiple times, rammed off at road and ended up in hospital and straight away, as a way of dealing with things, had some heroin dropped off and then that started again.
Speaker 1:Then what was that like? I mean going to the hospital with multiple stab wounds, because that's face-to-face with death. That isn't it. Did you feel like you was going to die at that point? So, I was off my head when I got stabbed. Yeah, so you wasn't really consciously thinking of what was going on. Yeah, so I didn't really feel it.
Speaker 2:I didn't really feel it and it's mental, because just before I got stabbed, I'd been sniffing loads of coke. While I was waiting for an ambulance to come, I'd been taken into a flat and I was sniffing loads of coke and then, when I was in hospital, I was pumped full of loads of painkillers and I punctured lung, head injuries, stab wounds, lacerations, and I didn't really feel it and it wasn't necessarily because I were in pain, sort of physical pain.
Speaker 2:I just think that it were a way of coping and it were a way of dealing with the situation and the realities of what had gone on, um, to immerse myself in that warm blanket. I knew so well that that painkiller, that that thing, that just took everything away. And I remember I got my elbow smashed in and I've got a pin in it, I've got a big cast on my arm and like the kid that I've got to drop the gear off and say, right now we need to go into toilets and you need to run it for me, you don't foil. And getting him to do that and getting caught by security. You know, on numerous occasions in toilets smoking in the winter, at a point where they're like, right, it's time for you to go now.
Speaker 2:Then, at that point, my partner that I was with at the time she'd moved out, she'd done one, she couldn't live that life with my daughter, um, and I went to stay with her and it were like, um, I had to reinvent myself again. So sort of overcoming that trauma, dealing with sort of the injuries, both mentally and psychologically, I I told myself, I won't be beat, you know, I'll just work out how I can graft in a different way and just went back to selling drugs, but just focusing not on class A's on bud and selling skunk, and that's what I did for a period, until I realised that I wasn't making as much and I felt like I was missing opportunities.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I started taking heroin again because I started selling it.
Speaker 1:You mentioned your daughter, then how do you think all this and your drug use and I guess, when you talk about these characters that you've almost played out how do you think all of this has impacted her growing up?
Speaker 2:The impact to my children. So I've got two daughters One's 16 tomorrow, one's 18 on 20th Massively. They were brought up, visit me in and out of prisons. They used to go back to school and they used to pat each other down and pat their friends down like they were prison officers. I've had them out committing crime with me. I've taught them a lot of negative sort of I had a really negative influence on them, on their development, and that's that's apparent now by where they live. You know, I'm in recovery now and I try to lead by example and I try to be a part of their lives and that's been sort of a consistent theme since I've been in recovery and being responsible. But yeah, massive, massive the damage, a lot of damage being done, a lot of damage being done, um, and my actions definitely have impacted their development and their sort of approach to how they live, where that they interact with people, um, and their values on themselves.
Speaker 2:I think massive, massive stuff that must be hard for you as a parent, though, to see that you've had that, that they interact with people and their values on themselves. I think Massive massive stuff.
Speaker 1:It must be hard for you as a parent, though, to see that you've had that negative impact as well. Do you know?
Speaker 2:It's really difficult. It's really difficult, but I have an understanding.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is the interesting thing, at least you're holding yourself accountable and you're not like oh well, that's their thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no definitely accountable and you're not like, oh well, that's their thing. Yeah, no, definitely, and like the door's always open to him and I'll support him. We go on holiday once a year to come abroad, uh, and I'll support him best I can, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to give him money every time it means that I'm going to be support comes in many ways.
Speaker 1:It doesn't just mean financial, does it? This is it, and it's a minute, though that's all they're interested in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I get, and it's At the minute though. That's all they're interested in. Yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1:Well, it's because probably at that age as well they won't have a lot of their own money as well. I don't know my eldest is a grafter.
Speaker 2:Oh is she. So she's a grafter, she's got a job, she's got a couple of little side hustles as well, not necessarily legal, but she's got drive and she's got ambition. And I think life's a journey.
Speaker 1:They're on their own journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're on their own journey and sort of all I can do is be that consistent sort of person that lives by values that I have today. You know principles that I live by and be available to support, however that looks um and like. If only time the answer phone to me is when is when they want something.
Speaker 1:You know that's just how it is right now, yeah, so having that accepting of that as well in it and understand of why it is the way it is, and like I mean, we talked about your own dad and, yeah, he didn't understand heroin addiction, but he was looking at you a little bit confused as to why you went the way he was going. You're looking at your do you know? Children as, as with a lot of understanding of why they are the way they are, based on your own actions as well, I think, which is an interesting way of looking at it, most definitely and I get that as well from my dad, because my dad were always staunch, in fact, that he'd visit me wherever I in prison and he'd always support me, and I remember him saying to me I don't understand why you live like this, I don't understand why you keep ending up back here, but if this is the life you're choosing, I'll continue to visit you.
Speaker 2:I'll continue to send you postal orders, um, and I'll be part of your life, and my dad were aware of his sort of impact to me, uh, his influence on me. Him and my mum are really good friends, which is quite strange, or the war, should I say. Um, and my dad used to visit me.
Speaker 2:My mum couldn't stand it my mum didn't like seeing me in prison. She didn't like environment, she didn't like being searched, she didn't like coming there, um, but a door would always open when I were released and they were always available for me because I think they had a good awareness of their actions and how they impacted my development as a kid and they felt responsible to a degree. Um, but like the last prison sentence that I served were in hmp wheelston, so like my dad were visiting me and he started to look really poorly and he'd have lots of health complications. And I remember saying to him I hope you haven't got tap dancer and I was laughing, you know, like him having cancer.
Speaker 2:Um, and then it turned out he did have cancer you know and that it was terminal and that it were going to die. And I remember feeling so helpless, away from my family, not being able to support my father, not being able to support my mum, and wanting to be able to do something, and all I could do at that point was think what can I do for future? So I enrolled on a course for learning how to lay a rail track with Network Rail and as part of that it meant that I had to come off my methadone and that, accompanied with a treatment of interferon, which were like to treat hepatitis C, which back then it were really harsh.
Speaker 1:Very invasive, wasn't it the old hep C treatment?
Speaker 2:So it were injections in belly and then tablets as well that you had to take and it were really it used to, really it were likened to chemotherapy, it was really harsh.
Speaker 1:It's crazy that because now it literally is just one, it's like a tablet a day, isn't it? It's like just taking a course of antibiotics now, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but back then I remember being so desperate that I sort of told pharmacists in prison I'm coming off methadone and I'm doing it rapidly and being advised not to do that. It's not safe, don't do that, but saying no rapidly and being advised not to do that. You know it's not safe, you know don't do that, but saying no, that's how I'm doing it, you know like.
Speaker 1:And then just did that work for you then?
Speaker 2:well, yeah, so, like I said, that mentality, you know, just dealing with it, getting on my bed yeah, I had comforts to a degree. I had a bed to get in, I had I had warmth, I had shelter, I had everything that I knew that I needed. But I had a vision, I had a plan, and the plan was to complete the EPC treatment, get rid of EPC and to come off methadone so I could do this rail track qualification. Now, that were a big ask because academically I'm not very sound. I really struggled in that environment and the biggest part of that course was sort of studying and learning how to do summer and I told myself that I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it. But I kept on doing it and I qualified, you know, and I got rid of hepatitis c and I detoxed off of methadone.
Speaker 2:And the last time that I saw my dad, um were in my mum's front room and I were accompanied by four prison officers on a lead on on like a dog lead, to call it, a long chain. And I remember trying to talk to my dad and convince him that things were going to be different this time and I remember look at her in my dad's eyes because he realized it's the last time that he's going to see me, and with four prison officers, and I'm telling him a load of lies again. Do you know what I mean? Because he didn't's the last time that he's going to see me and we're four prison officers and I'm telling him a load of lies again. Do you know what I mean? Because he didn't believe it, because why would he?
Speaker 2:Because, you know, all he'd heard all my life were things are going to be different Things are going to be different Things, not being different. And like it was really sad because he died ten weeks before I got out and we didn't bury him straight away because I said I had to go into his funeral in handcuffs. I'm not doing that.
Speaker 2:So we waited until I was released and then I went to my dad's funeral. But even that day, then I didn't understand addiction. But that day, like I had to have something. And I remember phoning up somebody and getting them to have some flake waiting for me. And I remember speaking to them on the phone and being desperate saying make sure it's there, make sure it's there for when I get out.
Speaker 2:And him saying why do you want some flake for when you're going to your dad's funeral? It's not like you're going in a lead to party. Why do you want flake? I don't understand. Do you know what I mean? And me saying like I just need something there because I couldn't deal with it. I'd never been able to deal with life without summer. Yeah, that changed how I felt never. And I remember I don't even like cocaine. This is the thing when I it. It makes me really paranoid, makes me really anxious, makes me really uncomfortable. And then I have this big line first day that I get out and I remember sitting in a barber's shop getting my hair cut, just being completely paranoid and full of anxiety and then going to the funeral and people trying to talk to me and just not being able to to deal with situation present, but not really being present.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just not being able to.
Speaker 2:I just I couldn't cope and I remember it being a fight all day, not going to score at a win, because I said I'm not going to do that. I promised my dad, I promised my mom I won't going to do it. But come one o'clock in the morning, I'm finding myself down on beat looking for a working girl that can score some gear for me and then smoking it in cubicle, in phone box, even down in Albeck, knowing full well that I'd just turned that egg timer over again and that it only would have been a matter of time before my life was desperate and before I was back in prison, because that had been my experience.
Speaker 2:Fast forward eight weeks. I'm now homeless, you know, and it's like my mum has tried to support me the best I can, but I've just used my dad's death and passing as a way to manipulate her to get more from her, because she's given me somewhere to live. I'm supposed to be rebuilding my life, getting this job on railways, supposed to be doing all this stuff, but all I'm motivated by is getting heroin, heroin and crack. That's all my obsession is. It's just an overwhelming obsession. And it comes to a point where I'm lying to her, where I'm stealing from her, where she just can't cope, she can't deal with it. So she says you need to leave. And then guess what? She's a bitch. How can you put me out on the street, me, me?
Speaker 1:someone else's fault, isn't it me?
Speaker 2:Me me, me, me. How can you? You know, I've just lost my dad, I can't cope, and all this lot and it's manipulation just to get more so I can feed this addiction. So at that point I'm homeless, I'm a PPO, which is a priority prolific offender, and I have to provide urine samples. Now, these urine samples, they have to be clean. I can't give a clean sample. I can tell you I'm going to give a clean sample and I can tell myself it's going to be clean.
Speaker 1:But actually being clean is a different thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because in reality, my addiction always speaks louder to me and it tells me you get away with it one more time. Just water up, water up. You know, urine up, it'll come back negative. It come, come back negative. The combat negative and I'll do it to death until point where it's like it's positive, nail done, it's positive cuz I've been using hard hmm, and like at that point.
Speaker 2:I'm actually in hospital now because I've been injecting in my groin and my leg's swelled up. It's red, raw, I can't bear any weight on it, but I still don't stop using drugs until I can't move and then I have to be put in an ambulance and, like, the crazy thing is, I still don't stop when I'm in hospital and I'm telling myself you've got a DVT, you're going to lose your leg, this is your life, you're gonna die, this is how you're gonna die. And I accept that because I'm powerless for my addiction. And it's like I remember being booted out of hospital again because of my drug use, being given sort of antibiotics and sent on my way because fortunately it was cellulitis from injecting in sort of my groin with used equipment. And I remember my mum being absolutely desperate desperate that I sorted myself out because my dad had died not long before and I was posed with going back to prison now because I had to go report to my probation worker and I had to give this sample that had to be clean and my mum's expecting it to be clean, my probation worker's expecting it to be clean. I'm in hospital but I know it's not going to be clean and guess what it won't. But my probation worker gave me an ultimatum. You know she gave me an opportunity and this is mental. I always remember she's called Donna Ruff, bless her.
Speaker 2:There were a volunteer there that were helping facilitate these samples and he was in recovery and he mentioned a meeting, a 12-step meeting, that had had anonymous in the title, in its name. So I'm like I didn't finish school, but I know what anonymous means. You know what I mean. And my probation worker goes why don't you try these meetings? So my addiction saying she's stupid. Do you know what I mean? She, she's gonna either recall me back to jail for two years or she wants me to go to a meeting where she don't even know if I've been or not. So I'm like, yeah, I'll go. Do you know what I mean? But my addiction already told me it's not going to work for you. Nobody goes to meetings. That's like you, nobody that's lived like you. Nobody's used drugs like you. Nobody's been in that prison like you. Meetings out for you, they're for middle class people.
Speaker 2:You know they have different lifestyles to you and all this nonsense going on in my head. But it's an opportunity for my addiction to continue in my mind because my mum's I'll move you back in, we'll sort, sort you out. This is going to work, this can work, it's an opportunity. So, in true addict style, I made sure that I went to this meeting and I went with my little brother so he could vouch for me.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean. And he could say yeah, he's trying mum. Do you know what I mean? He's trying his hardest, do you know?
Speaker 1:what I mean. He's trying. It's trying his hardest. So you've got a witness there to help with the bullshit story that you're going to tell. Well, this is the idea.
Speaker 2:This is the plan. So the plan is I'm going to go pick up some jargon, pick up some spiel, get some information, some leaflets, if they've got them, whatever, do you know what I mean? And then I'll be able to blag everybody. I'm trying, I'm trying okay, I've relapsed, but I'm trying and I know my mum's gonna give me money. Do you know what I mean? To get to these meetings, so that means I can score. Do you know what I mean? So yeah, so like it's an opportunity, it's a, it's a lifeline for my addiction, so to speak. So if I can get to this meeting, pick up some knowledge that I can share with somebody a bit of spiel, a bit of jargon.
Speaker 2:I've got a few leaflets. Do you know what I mean? My mum's gonna support me. My probation worker's not gonna recall me.
Speaker 1:It's an opportunity it's a win-win situation. It's an opportunity. I'm nice, my addiction is rubbing its hands together um are you gonna tell me that you went to the meeting and you actually loved it? Is this what?
Speaker 2:happened. So this blows my mind to this day. I turn up at this meeting with my little brother and I'm like, yeah, I'm blagged and I mean this is going to work. Was your brother in on it as well? No, my brother. And I'm like, yeah, yeah. I'm blagged and I mean well, this is gonna work yeah was your brother in on it as well?
Speaker 1:no, my brother 10 years, my junior so you thought he was going for sincere reasons as well my brother's had to deal with so much.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? Throughout my addiction. Do you know what I mean? He's had people trying to kidnap him and all kinds of stuff throughout criminality and like he's had people trying to kidnap him and all kinds of stuff throughout criminality and he's lived under this shadow and this addiction that's just impacted everybody around him.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. It affects everybody, doesn't it? Not just yourself.
Speaker 2:So he's desperate for it to work as well. Do you know what I mean? And we turn up and I go to this meeting and this guy opens the door and it's like this guy used to sell me weights of crack to sell.
Speaker 1:So you recognise him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I know I didn't know he took drugs. I knew that he sold drugs, but I didn't know that he took drugs. I thought that he just supplied. I didn't think that he got high, but he was getting high on his own supply and he got psychosis because he'd been smoking crack in closet. Nobody knew about it and he tried committing suicide. So he jumped off a block of flats in Leeds and he'd landed in this anonymous meeting and I knew straight away when he was talking to me that he were credible because he had lived like me, he had that experience.
Speaker 1:Someone you could instantly relate to, because you knew him from your own journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it was like he were a credible character. And he took me inside and he said, chris, if you carry on, there's three things that's waiting for you, and that's jails, institutions and death. And I knew what he was saying were right because I'd experienced all three of them. I'd been in and out of institutions since I was a kid. I'd been in and out of prison since I was a kid, and the amount of times that I nearly lost my life due to overdoses, due to being stabbed, due to car accidents, serious accidents, all related to criminality and addiction, and my life was miserable. I was hobbling into a meeting but in my mind, my addiction telling me I've got it all going on, I've got got a plan, everything's cool.
Speaker 2:But I lacked powerlessness to addiction. And then, when I sat down and I listened to what was being shared in this mutual aid environment, this peer-to-peer support, it was just so powerful. It was like a penny dropped, because for years and years I'd worn these masks, I'd been these film stars, I'd been these characters. I'd never had a relationship with myself. I didn't know who I was.
Speaker 2:I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know how to think. I didn't know how to embrace emotion. I didn't know any of that. I didn't know how to live, but yet there were people that I had courage to talk about the feelings and what was really going on for them. And what they were talking about were how I'd been feeling all my life. You know what I'm saying and it was just so powerful the identification and the fact that potentially there's a solution for me. Do you know what I mean? And it involves working a program in my life and embracing spiritual principles such as honesty, open-mindedness, willingness did you struggle with the ideas of the program when you was first introduced to it?
Speaker 1:not at all.
Speaker 2:It made sense to sense, not all. The only thing that I struggled with it? Uh, with the 12-step program initially. What the? The word god, um, and a power being greater than me because of my ego no one's greater than no one's greater than me, do you know? You're in control of everything and I couldn't surrender, you know and like initially, I got 13 months clean and I wasn't willing to embrace all aspects of this program.
Speaker 1:It was like a self-service buffet, just took the bits I like yeah, and that'll work for so long. It does work for so long, for so long.
Speaker 2:But this is the thing, but I couldn't pray because I didn't believe I'd been brought up by my dad that said people that pray and people that believe in God are nutters, and I didn't understand that it were a God or my understanding.
Speaker 1:So it doesn't necessarily you were thinking of the religious Christian God in that sense and I give that that sense.
Speaker 2:I give it a go. I try going to church. Do you know what I mean? I look at these. I think you're nuts. You're locked you know, what I mean. This isn't for me, and then that's my addiction as well you know, I mean separating me from summer, um, and like I got 13 months clean and I become obsessed then with boxing, going to gym, chasing women, doing things that fill this void.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, yeah, you've got to fill it, the void's still there it's not going to work, so you're trying to replace it with other things.
Speaker 2:And I had like a prison mentality still. So I lived in a recovery house and I had this sort of like I'm the king of the wing mentality. Do you know what I mean? This is my house. I've got it on lockdown. I've been lending money for Double Bubble to people knowing full well that they're going to score. Do you know what I mean? I'm just living dishonestly and going through emotions and not surrendering, not embracing this programme. And it got to 13 months clean and I relapsed, got involved with a girl that was still on medication inactive addiction. My head told me it's a good idea.
Speaker 2:It's a good idea. You'll be all right, you'll manage. Because I'd stopped going to meetings, I'd sacked my sponsor. Do you know?
Speaker 1:I'd stopped engaging in recovery after 30 months, I imagine as well. There's party that feels like right, you've cracked this. Now you don't all.
Speaker 2:Right, you don't need anymore this is the thing, and that was I was taking advice from people in boxing gym about recovery. Yeah, you know, and one of the best lessons that I ever learned, when my dad, when he took me under his wing when I was excluded because I'd go to work with him and he had a business uh where, if you want a sausage, you see butcher, did I mean, yeah, so if you want to talk about recovery, you don't talk to a boxer, do you know? I mean, if you want to learn about boxing, you talk to a boxer yeah yeah, you want to learn about recovery.
Speaker 2:You, you talk to a boxer. Yeah, yeah, you want to learn about recovery. You go find a mentor, you go find a sponsor and then you learn about recovery. But I would get misinformation and it would just feed into my addiction.
Speaker 1:And at that point as well, you're a bit of a sponge to everything that's around you as well.
Speaker 2:So all advice is advice, isn't it at the end of the day.
Speaker 2:And, like you said, with with the buffer, you're taking bits of what everyone's saying the people in the boxing gym, the people in the recovery, do you know? And this is the thing. And if it's feeding into the narrative that that my addiction has and it is running along and it's feeding into that, then I'm going to buy into it. If somebody's telling me I'm not a good idea, it's not a good idea to get involved with girls in early recovery and get in a relationship, I'm gonna think it's because you can't, man.
Speaker 1:Yeah I mean, you can't get a girlfriend watch me I love five. I always say this is the classic. You know, wet paint don't touch. I'm guy always. Is it still wet?
Speaker 2:yeah, this is it.
Speaker 1:Red button, do not push now I want to push the button. You know, when people tell you not to do something, you want to it more. And I think, especially when it comes to relationships and women, there's a lot of people that struggle with that in the early days of recovery. I mean, it's a long time to be absent from sexual relationships when you're trying to work on yourself, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Most definitely, and I think that you get so much from that as well.
Speaker 2:So there's all that sort of your libidos are walking to feel attractive for somebody to be attracted, so there's all that sort of your libidos are walking, you know, to feel attractive, you know, for somebody to be attracted to you, to feel like you're going to be loved, to feel like you're special, the thrill, the chase, all that stuff there. I just liken it to my addiction, you know, and what I was lacking in certain areas of my life and like I say this have this, this, this stuff that's going on for me that I'm trying to fix with. You know. So, like getting in that relationship had me in a 11-month relapse, but that 11-month relapse were nasty, and I mean nasty.
Speaker 2:I was involved in things where, when I came back, I was on bail for domestic violence, which is something that I'd never say. One of them, things I'll never do. That's not who I am due to my insecurities, walking on eggshells because of crime that I've been involved in you know what I mean and stuff that I've been doing, thing to feed my addiction. Because at this point then I started snowballing, which I'd never done before, and that's where heroin and crack together yeah injecting it and like that took me to an all new level.
Speaker 2:Do you know what I mean? All new level of madness. And when I look back at it now, because I'd moved areas, I'd got into this relationship that were really codependent. I were addicted to crime that I was committing, I was addicted to relationship and I was addicted to area. Do you know it's mad. It had like a massive hold on me, like a big pull, uh, to a point where I broke it, to a point where I had to move back to on these charges, um, and like I wasn't allowed in that area, I wasn't allowed to speak to that girl, do you know? Um, and obviously I was removed from crime that I was committing. So, coming back to leeds and stopping at my mum's where I was bailed, we had some, some heartfelt conversations and like my biggest fear is that I go to prison and my mum dies. That's the biggest fear that I had still have. You know, it's like being away from my mum like I would with my dad you don't want to repeat what happened, do you?
Speaker 2:yeah, it was just something that I don't bear thinking about. So it was like the conversations that we had and sort of the encouragement to have another go at recovery, you know, and it was like I had a go. Then I decided, you know what, I'm going to show some humility and I'm going to go back because it worked. Do you know what I mean? I didn't work it properly. That worked and it continues to work.
Speaker 1:I always hear people say the programme works if you work the programme and it has to be, as you said earlier about being a buffer, you have to work all areas of that program.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can't pick and choose. You. You've got to be all in on it, haven't you? This is the thing. There's four suggested things. So that's that's. Meeting attendance. Yeah, that service within that's that structure. Do you know? Um, sponsorship, getting a sponsor and working the steps and in order to do all them things, the adaptation, the understanding and the embracing of spiritual principles I speak about mean that all that's possible means that I can look at myself, means that I can commit to service, means that I can have a relationship with somebody where I can be totally honest about everything that's gone on in my life and have no secrets, you know, not have no shame in any guilt, and then work these steps and develop a relationship with myself and be able to make an amends for how I lived in past, for what, what I did, and become this version of myself which I never knew.
Speaker 1:How long have you been abstinent, Nolan? Six and a half years now Six and a half years. What has been different this time to the other times? Then Surrender.
Speaker 2:Surrender and the spiritual principles. I talk about the honesty, the know, the humility massive for me, massive, the humility aspect of it. Do you know what I mean? The willingness and the open-mindedness With all that and embracing it and living it not just talking it, but living it has meant that I've found a freedom which I never had before and, like now, I'm happy being me, I'm truly happy.
Speaker 1:And you know who you are now as well.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm continuing to learn. This is the thing, nice, I'm continuing to learn who I am. Yeah, and I have a finished article. There's lots more work to be done, absolutely Lots more work to be done, absolutely Lots more work to be done, yeah, but it's exciting Getting to know yourself.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you don't mind me asking, what age are you at? How old do you think I am?
Speaker 2:As a question. Oh no, I'm going to put you down for about 40, 43. Next 44? 43. Oh really, next, yeah, nice 43, july 20th.
Speaker 1:I'm happy with that. Birthday cards welcome. Yeah, I'll take that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so July 20th is my birthday, july 20th 1981. And on July 20th I'll be 43. And my life now is unrecognizable to what it was and it feels kind of at times like it was somebody else. You know, like somebody else has lived that, yeah. But I still get recall, I still get thoughts that come back, of course, yeah, yeah, I still get memories.
Speaker 1:It's about knowing what to do with those thoughts, isn't it?
Speaker 2:They're just passing thoughts, you know, and I'm not just necessarily talking about using thoughts, you know, I'm just talking about the shame and guilt like using force. You know, I'm just talking about the shame and guilt, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a massive one. I bump into somebody and I think you know, like I know, what I've done to them.
Speaker 1:They don't know what I've done to them, but it's not necessarily said out loud sort of thing.
Speaker 2:No. Well, the thing is with the amends process. Is you make the amends if it's not going to cause further harm? Yeah. Cause further harm, yeah. So if it's going to cause further harm, then I'm not going to do it.
Speaker 1:I'll make it, just go out. Make amends just to make yourself feel better, if it's going to make someone else feel worse this is the thing.
Speaker 2:And like I got it twisted. Do you know what I mean? Because, like when I first came into recovery, I think I was 30 days clean and I was going to say people that committed crimes again. I'm really sorry I did that. Do you know what I mean? And like expecting them to be proud of me because I'm in recovery and look at me and really I've brought, I've dragged something up from five years ago that they were forgotten about yeah, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:and it's like, and then me looking at them at that point in my life thinking what's wrong with you?
Speaker 1:because I didn't understand, uh, and I jumped I'd massively jumped the steps because you've done it to make yourself feel better in a way, haven't you, I think I've seen that so many times of people who are in recovery in that amends process just doing, doing what they're doing because they want to feel better. It's like, well, hang about, mate, you know. Think about how that is going to make other people feel they don't understand the full uh context, that situation. Only make amends if it's going to make a situation better.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and if it is amendable and it's not, some things aren't amendable. That's the reality of it. Some things aren't amendable, of course they are.
Speaker 1:And they're not. Maybe I mean I'm not putting words in your mouth as such, but your relationship with your daughters, maybe that can't be fully amended just yet but, who knows, 10 years from now, it could be a different, it could be something completely different.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all I need to do with that area there is continue working on myself. Yeah, and in the person that I am today and the person that potentially I'm going to be tomorrow. Um, I'm sure that things will come good, you know, because I'm available. I'm available, I'm accountable, but I'm also resourceful as well, and it means that, like, at any point when they need me, I'm there for them, but, like I say, they're on their own journeys.
Speaker 1:Journey. Yeah, and they're their own people. Speaking about being resourceful, I'm interested in talking about your new CIC cic getting clean, yes, so let's talk about that, yeah, let's talk about that.
Speaker 2:So getting clean cic is a lero. So that's a lived experience recovery organization and I founded that um. Initially it started as an unconstituted volunteers group, so I was in recovery Now I completed a structured daycare program and after that I completed and I had a period of abstinence of about a year. I started doing support work, casual shifts for homeless charities in leeds, um, and then so I I was introduced to somebody that had a, a business, a charity, a foundation, um, and they were what seemed to be potentially really attractive. It were was like you know, they had this approach business building futures. They were business people. I was interested in business, I believed I was going to be mentored and I worked for them for a period, but it wasn't a good experience and I felt like I'd been employed as a token sort of tokenistic, just to show just to spiel, to get out and look at what we do
Speaker 2:and also let's raise some funds, let's, you know, develop relationships. But I learnt a lot in that role and then I went back to supporting people in homeless community in Leeds but I realized my lived experience had so much more to offer. So whilst I was doing that, I went about creating a volunteers group that allowed people that were in recovery to come together to support each other and the community. An inclusive group so that accepts people from any sort of background, any religion, any culture, um any form of recovery. So, whether it's 12 step, whether it's smart, whether it's no recovery at all, but interested in in achieving abstinence, um, and tackling environmental issues in community, because I understand and appreciate that I am a product of my environment and I've been throughout my life and it's like in my mind. I think if we can make better environments, better communities and we make better people.
Speaker 1:Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:And if we can do what we're doing in the way that we are, we can change the perception of addiction. We can challenge stigma. So I bring these people together, I organize it and say look, I'm just going to pick a litter on a Saturday morning. We'll come together as a group there's other people doing it in Leeds as well, you know like we'll do a bit of that. And it starts to gain momentum. People start being interested because I understand throughout my recovery um, I lacked purpose um uh, I had a real issue with my identity and who I was.
Speaker 2:I was learning how to live, but I was learning from peers. They had lived experience. So we started picking litter, and I'm always a bit of a deep thinker. So we're coming together as a group, we're picking all these bags of litter, mountains of litter, putting them in these purple bags and then putting them outside at road, and then council collects them, but I'm thinking what happens to them?
Speaker 1:where do they go? Where do they go, yeah? What happens next? Yeah?
Speaker 2:so, like we, we find out. So I organize a, like a little educational excursion for the group. Get a minibus full of us and we go up to this. Uh, plant viola leeds. It's a big incinerator, yeah, and it burns the waste at a high temperature, which lessens the impact to the ozone layer, and with the energy that's created they heat the hospital st james's hospital and a few warms in that area, yeah, but when all said and done, it's still going into environment of, of course, yeah, yeah, so we learnt what happens there and we realised that there's recycling to look at.
Speaker 2:So we have another little trip down to the recycling plant on Garnet Road in Leeds, beeston, and it makes me laugh because I find out that the plastic, yeah, is turned to flake, yeah, and we're talking about flake again. Now I've come full circle. You know I'm looking for a flake contact do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:So we decide as a group what we're going to do is, when we pick litter, we're going to process it, we're going to recycle it, we're going to promote what we're doing on social media. Hopefully that's going to influence people to start recycling, you know, and start looking after the environment. And as this group starts to grow, I identify that there's lots of skills within this group, lots of people that have come from all walks of life that can do so much more. So we start, we link him with ed carlisle, big up, ed carlisle, green party councillor, uh, link up with him, uh. And he has people in his constituency, in his area, in his ward, that um need jobs doing vulnerable people, disabled people, people that can't do things themselves, but we can. So we set about doing garden renovations, diy decorating, repair jobs, whatever we can to make a difference in our communities and to feel like we're valued members of that community. To help people look past the antisocial aspects of addiction, the crime, all that stuff, to actually see that recovery is possible and that we're people. We're addicts, but we're people, people in recovery. Start creating wildflower meadows, you know. Do conservation work, do as much as we can to support our communities and our planet and each other while we're doing it. So you have broken people potentially rebuilding themselves, and communities which were really powerful, really sort of inspirational.
Speaker 2:So in 2021, november, we're a volunteers group. Last year in August, we transitioned to a community interest company Now to fund all our activities. I understood straight away that we needed an income stream. Now, as a community interest company, you can't raise. Well, you can raise funds through fundraising and donations, but they're taxed at 20%, so it's not viable. It doesn't make sense. What a community interest company does is it provides services and products. So I realised straight away we need a product and that's where we come up with the getting clean soap.
Speaker 2:So, it's a bit of a play on words. Now, this soap is made by our people, our volunteers, our members that are all in recovery, that are all tackling addiction, that are all supporting each other in a therapeutic workshop, from natural ingredients. Everything about it is ethical, right down to its packaging, which is recycled materials papers and tapes and stuff like that and it's made in a therapeutic workshop where people learn how to do something. It's about empowerment, it's about teaching each other. It's about that development.
Speaker 2:It's a community, and then we take it to market, and then we're public-facing and we talk to people. We let them know that when they buy a bar of soap, it's not just any bar of soap. It's not just any bar of soap, it's soap with hope. That's the product line soap with hope.
Speaker 2:We've got moulds made, so when it comes out and it's cut, it says hope in the side and it's a bar that reduces crime. It's a bar that tackles environmental issues. It's a bar that when you actually use it on a morning, you're cleaning yourself but you're also cleaning the streets of leeds. You know. It's a bar that when you use it you're helping an old lady that can't fix a fence. Get a fence fixed.
Speaker 2:It's a bar that just keeps going yeah, the domino effect to the buyer yeah, and the people that are learning how to make it are teaching new people how to make it and they're becoming empowered and skilled and finding all this confidence and belief in themselves that they can do something and they can change the perception of addiction. The mad thing is that's one product line bars from the other one yeah, so you've got Soap With Hope. The mad thing is that's one product line Bars from the other one yeah, so you've got Soap With Hope. Yeah, the next product line is bars from behind bars.
Speaker 1:So people are making them in prison.
Speaker 2:So I go into prison now? Yeah, and like the last prison that I were in Wheelston, hmp Wheelston, because of our activity on social media, the diet team there, the drug and alcohol recovery team, contacted me and said would you be willing to come in and speak to some of the lads?
Speaker 1:so I'm like, yeah, I'd love that that we'd go in prison and nobody could get out again this one.
Speaker 2:this is the craziest and most emotional experience that I go on in prison and nobody could get out again this one. This is the craziest and most emotional experience that I probably had in prison, the last time that I were in HMP Wheelston in the visits hall where my mum came to visit me and she came to talk to me about my dad passing and my mum didn't normally come to prison because she couldn't. She couldn't handle it and, like I've said, that throughout my life and our relationship there's never really been a connection you know that it's always been strained, um, through my early childhood and then through my addiction.
Speaker 2:It were like my mum coming to see me and being emotionally available for the first time and wanting to connect with me and and I always remember in that visits all wanting to start crying and wanting to tell me and to walk me and tell me about my dad dying, and I always remember saying stop crying, we'll deal this later.
Speaker 2:I can't go back to wing crying like a little baby Do you know what I mean? Because I've got this jail head on. I've got this mask on. I can't deal with that emotion, so I shut her down. The first time that she were available, I shut her down in that visits hall. Now fast forward 11 years, however. 11, 12 years I'm in that same visits. All we're 16 in myths now. These guys I've either sold drugs to taken drugs with or done time with.
Speaker 2:So they know me hmm, and I'm there and I'm talking to him about recovery. I'm talking to him about social enterprise. I'm talking to them about recovery. I'm talking to them about social enterprise. I'm talking to them about transferring skills you know and finding a way to live, and it went down so well that they invited me back to see the governor and I did a little presentation, shared my journey, my experience, and Diane Lewis, another big up governor at Wheelston, invited me to a regional drug strategy meeting, which I attend now every time as a Lero, as a lived experience recovery organisation and I now go into prisons and I make soap with hope, but bars from behind bars, and that allows these people that are in custody to form an understanding and a relationship that can continue upon release.
Speaker 2:Yeah. With people that have lived experience, you know, that have found a new way to live and that aren't committing crime anymore, you know, and that are trapped in that obsession and addiction.
Speaker 1:So Honestly, chris, it's been fantastic. I think, listening to your journey, I feel like I'm talking to two different people, based on everything that you've gone through. It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast today to hear about your story and I hope it'll help other people that are listening to it as well, and I think getting clean sounds fantastic. But before I finished, I have a random set of 10 questions I'd like to ask all my guests quick fire questions, not anything that was spoken about what's your favorite word, what's?
Speaker 2:my favorite word? Ooh, my favorite word Quickfire questions.
Speaker 1:Positivity Like it Least favourite word, negativity. What excites you, either creatively, spiritually or emotionally? Love. Tell me something that doesn't excite you. Hate. What's your favourite curse word?
Speaker 2:Favourite curse word yeah, I can't say that. Are you sure?
Speaker 1:Yeah To be fair't say that Are you sure yeah. To be fair, it's surprising, but you haven't actually sweared this entire podcast. What sound or noise do you love?
Speaker 2:Cash register.
Speaker 1:What sound or noise?
Speaker 2:do you hate my phone ringing?
Speaker 1:If you wasn't doing what you're doing. Now we're getting clean. What would you like to do?
Speaker 2:Be on holiday.
Speaker 1:Tell me something that you wouldn't like to do. What's the worst job that you can imagine doing?
Speaker 2:Worst job that I can imagine doing. I'd say I don't want to say it, but no, I'm not going to say it. But no, I'm not going to say it because it was positive.
Speaker 1:Worst job that I've had. It doesn't have to be to be fair. It's about you personally, like for me, I can think of jobs that Stood on a conveyor belt in a factory.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's fine A monotonous job.
Speaker 1:I get that, yeah, completely. If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Speaker 2:Welcome.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Chris. You've been absolutely fantastic. Thank you so much for coming on the Believe in People podcast and sharing your story.
Speaker 1:And if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believe in 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 H-U-L-L. 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 Believe in People podcast on your favourite 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.
