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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
#59 - Tom Fitzsimons: 3,073 Miles in a 100 Day Ultramarathon Across America, Alcoholism Redemption, National Day of Sobriety, Free Wi-Fi in McDonalds & A Cowboy Pastor on a White Horse
Matt sits down with Tom Fitzsimons, an ultramarathon runner whose awe-inspiring story of resilience and recovery has touched lives worldwide.
From battling stigma and enduring unimaginable physical challenges to running 3,073 miles across the United States in 100 days, Tom shares how running became more than a sport - it became his lifeline and a means to rewrite his identity.
Tom takes us through his remarkable journey, beginning with his struggles with alcohol addiction and a life-changing realisation that running could be his path to freedom.
Tom recounts harrowing yet heartfelt moments, including training for the Marathon des Sables by running in front of his fireplace and navigating the loneliest road in America with nothing but faith, grit, and a dodgy knee.
His journey is punctuated by surreal encounters with strangers, like a Harley-Davidson rider who reminded him to focus on necessities and a cowboy pastor offering a prayer in the desert. Through his candid storytelling, Tom sheds light on the emotional toll of addiction, the power of community, and the importance of addressing trauma as a society.
This episode is a powerful testament to the human spirit, highlighting how one man turned his pain into purpose. Whether he’s challenging the stigma surrounding addiction or advocating for a National Sobriety Day, Tom’s story is a call to action for empathy, understanding, and resilience.
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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 Believe in People, a British podcast award-winning series about all things addiction, recovery and stigma. My name is Matthew Butler and I'm your host, or, as I like to say, your facilitator. Today's guest is Tom Fitzsimons, an ultramarathon runner who achieved the extraordinary feat of running 3,073 miles across the United States in just 100 days. But this story is much more than physical endurance. It's a testament to resilience, recovery and transformation. Tom's journey from battling addiction to conquering some of the world's toughest endurance challenges highlights the profound impact of determination and personal growth Along the way he uses experiences to challenge stigma, inspire change and reshape how we think about addiction and recovery. I begin our conversation by asking Tom about the moment he realised running could help him break free from addiction and change his life.
Speaker 2:Running was the only option I had in my early days of recovery. So 2007, alcohol services weren't the best. Back then I went to my doctor and asked for some help. I had a problem with alcohol for a long, long time and he looked at me and laughed. He went don't be stupid, tom, you're Irish, it's just what you do. So I decided to do what I tell everyone not to do.
Speaker 2:I went cold turkey and somebody had mentioned to me that this thing called running might help with my addiction. You know, it helps with depression, it helps with anxiety and apparently it would help us with my addiction. And I was like 21 stone at the time. There's no, no way I could run. You know what I mean? Not a chance now. So I went out and ran half an hour, half a mile it was absolutely rubbish Came back home, vomited all over the bathroom and so on. Never got to run again.
Speaker 2:But something changed that night. It was something that I didn't realise how powerful it was going to be. I got a sudden feeling inside my stomach and I hadn't had that feeling for a long, long time, and that feeling was what I now know as happiness and that was going to allow me to run the next day, and then the next day and within six weeks, I'd run a 10K. Three months, I'd run a 10k. Three months to run a half marathon. Um, and I thought you know what this is it? I've cracked it. No, this alcoholics anonymous for me. I could. I didn't have to go stop drinking, all I had to do was run. So run six miles, drink six pints, run eight miles, eight pints. Half marathon, happy days, um, I finally realised that I couldn't do both. I had to stop completely, go through it all again the cold, turkey, the pee, the poo, the vomit, the shakes, the shivers, the sweats and get to a point where running became my vehicle for change, and that was 2007, 2008.
Speaker 2:I started to think about marathons and and did a couple of marathons and people were impressed, people liked it, and I thought to myself do you know what? Well, maybe I can change perceptions, people's perceptions of who I am as a person, because I was always known as tom the guy who likes a drink and then, all of a sudden, I was starting to be tom the runner. So my identity was changing and I think to myself well, if, if I can change my identity just by running, then then we can change perceptions of what people like me are, the perceptions of an alcoholic. What does an alcoholic look like? So I started running further and further.
Speaker 2:I heard about these fantastic things called ultramarathons. I was like you know what are you talking about? An ultramarathon, a marathon, was as far as you could go. But there's this group of crazy people who run further than 26.2 miles. You know, they run 30 miles, they run 35 miles, 40 miles, 50 miles, some of them even 100 miles in a day. And I'm thinking maybe I could do this, maybe that would get more people to be to buy into what we're capable of.
Speaker 2:And I saw there was a race. It was a race across the Sahara Desert called the Marathon de Sables and it's classed as the toughest foot race on earth 155 miles through the Sahara Desert, carrying your own backpack. And I signed up for it and people were like you can't do this, tom. You've only been running for three years. You know this is something you build a lifetime to. I didn't have a lifetime. I'd wasted a lifetime and wasted an entire lifetime. So I knew I didn't have that amount of time to practice and train and so I signed up for it and people laughed and I eventually you know, they laughed at me as I'm training up and down the streets of Wakefield for the hottest desert and, uh in the world, um, in the worst winter we'd ever. Had.
Speaker 2:Back in 2009, 2010, I managed to get to a point where I felt comfortable and confident about doing the race and I arrived on the start in April 2010. Um, before that, I was Tomford Simons, the drunk, the domestic abuser, the drink driver, the waste of a life. And seven days later, on, 155 miles further through the desert, I was Tomford Simons, the finisher of the toughest foot race on earth. Now, for me, that was, that was the pinnacle of of of what life was going to be like, and I was quite happy with that being that pinnacle of success for me. But I didn't want to be one of those people that was walking around saying to young students, because I was speaking in schools at that stage you know, you've got great potential.
Speaker 2:When I hadn't fulfilled my own, I knew there was something else. There was another part of me that could do more, be more, achieve more. And I was watching Red Bull Stratos a lad called Felix Baumgartner who was jumping out of a balloon I don't know if you remember this one, the Red Bull Stratos, like, called Felix Baumgartner, who was jumping out of a balloon, and if you remember this one, the Red Bull Stratos. He jumped out of a balloon from the edge of space and as he got to the edge of space he looked out from from the capsule. He says sometimes you have to come up really high to see how small you are. Well, I already knew how small I was. I'd always been small but it sparked something in me to go I don't want to be small anymore, I want to do something spectacular.
Speaker 2:It was in that moment that I thought well, do you know what? I can? Run across the United States of America, do a Forrest Gump, you know. Get out there and do something spectacular. Show people that I'm not small. Show people, if you take your opportunities, you can achieve anything. And that was really the first point in which I thought about running across the United States of America. So that was where we I say we, it's the royal way, it's my family that's where we started to come up with a plan. Okay, it's okay saying this, but how do you actually do it? How do you actually plan to run across the United States of America, and that's where the fun began. United States of America, and that's where the fun began.
Speaker 2:For me, it was again. When you start talking about these things, you start thinking right, I need sponsors, I need, I need finance, I need to try and organize things and I need to tell my wife that I'm thinking about doing this now. That's a conversation itself. You know, it's okay saying you're going to run across the Sahara Desert, um, you know, and that was that was met with a little bit of you know, eyes rolled to the back of their head, um, but when you're going to run across a continent, that's a different conversation. You know, that's a that's a difficult one to broach, but with everything I do and this is really important for people out there who are trying to navigate their way through any addiction For me, my partner didn't judge.
Speaker 2:Zoe doesn't judge. Everybody needs a Zoe in their life. She listened, she put a very practical spin on it how we're going to pay for it, when are you going to do it but she never once said no. I've been told no all my life, um, and so he never says no. She supports everything I do. So for me, that was the go-ahead. Go and find a sponsor. Go and find a way to do this. Figure out how you're going to get to a point where you can actually stand on the start line of the Martin DeSables or, sorry, of America and run across a continent. So the sponsorship was just how do you find a sponsor to run across America? You know that's.
Speaker 1:Because if you go to someone and tell them this is your plan, like how many people are actually going to take that seriously? Exactly, and I think so. For me there was a.
Speaker 2:I'd spoken at a conference in Berlin of actually going to take that seriously Exactly, and I think so for me.
Speaker 2:I'd spoken at a conference in Berlin for a big company and the management director came up to me at the end of the conference and he says he gave me his business card. He says if there's ever anything you need, give me a call or send me an email. Now I don't know if you've ever had that from somebody and you know they have no intention of helping you. Yeah, you know that's never the actual intention.
Speaker 2:Just make the fuller shit and just trying to yeah their intention is to make themselves look good for a minute, um, and make you feel good about yourself like you've done a really good job at the conference, yeah, and then they put the card in your pocket and you forget about the card and it's done. Well, he was the most at the time, he was probably the most influential person I knew, the person who had access to funds and had done loads of other stuff that I thought I'm going to send him an email. I don't name this guy at all, don't name the company, because they wanted it completely anonymously, and I sent him an email expecting, you know, to hear nothing back. My name's Tom.
Speaker 2:You know we met at a conference in Berlin. You said, if I needed anything, well, I'd like to run across the United States of America, sent the email expecting never to hear back from him, and that was on the Saturday, and he emailed me back on the Monday morning. In principle, tom, we're on, we're going to get this done. So that's when the butterflies start coming in. You know, somebody's called you bluff here, tom, somebody's called you bluff.
Speaker 2:Here are you gonna have to do it now somebody's called bluff and as an addict, I've always been a bullshitter. Now that's you know, that's been, that's, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Then somebody actually says to you I believe you can. I'd never had that, apart from my wife. I'd never had somebody else backing me, somebody else saying you're good enough to do this.
Speaker 2:My entire life had been a complete shambles of people, of me trying to do things and be something. And you know, my career in the construction industry, utility industry, was all about trying to be something better, trying to, you know, climb the corporate ladder. And even though I was an alcoholic, I still climbed that corporate ladder. But people really didn't believe that I could do what I said I could do. So to have this sponsor sitting by and going okay, tom, we're on, we can do this, we can give you a pot of money, we can get this sorted. So then the next thing is when are you going to do it? You know it's okay saying you're going to do it, but how long does it take to train for a run across the United States of America? Most people will go two or three years' time and, like I said earlier on, I'd wasted a lifetime. I didn't have that time. So this was October and I planned it six months. I gave myself six months of preparation to run 3,100 miles across the continent, which, with hindsight, when I'm looking back on it now, I'm thinking to myself what were you thinking?
Speaker 2:Anybody who's in recovery will probably say and I don't know if you agree with this but we tend to be chasing missed opportunities. We tend to be trying to grab back time. We've wasted so much time. I'd wasted 20 years of my life. I had my first drink at 13 years of age and from 13 to 33 I destroyed myself. So I didn't have the time. I felt I didn't have the time. A game of hindsight. I look back and go yeah, you had that. You did have the time to, but I'm pleased I didn't wait.
Speaker 2:Because what you find with people who wait? They find excuses, you know, they find reasons not to. They find injuries, they find family life gets in the way. How many people have you heard in recovery have gone. I'm not ready yet. Now is not the time. I have to wait for the stars to align and and everything to be perfect. Alignment there, you know, the planets have to be right, everything, the weather has to be right every excuse under the sun to not do something, and I didn't have the time for that anymore. I was so impatient with, and frustrated with myself with, how many wasted chances I'd had. Um, so I gave myself six months and started to put the hammer down and trying to get myself into a position where, um, I could actually do this thing and what was the training for that like then?
Speaker 1:how does that look practically? I mean, is it x amount of miles per day? How do you? How do you, how do you, where do you even start, so um for me.
Speaker 2:Um, I use the old adage of my drinking days. So my drinking days was not how many pints I could drink in a day, it was how many days I could do it for. Okay, and that was the way my mind worked and I transferred that into my running. It wasn't how many miles I could do in a day, it's how many days I could do it for. Um, and and it was a more positive way of of having that, that mindset. Um, so for the training, I was already fit to 20, 2010. Did the marathon disables? Kept on running. After the mds few marathons. After the MDS, a few marathons. I was doing about 10 or 11 marathons a year. You know, every year from my recovery.
Speaker 1:I just want to, because the thing is, some people run a marathon and that's their crowning achievement of their life. Is they run a marathon and you're saying you've done 10 to 11 a year like it's nothing. You know, it's just another weekend for you. Do you know a monthly activity that you partake?
Speaker 2:in. Yeah, it was. That's incredible. It became that sort of a mindset of I had so much time to catch up on. I tried to squeeze 20 years of youth into as quick, quick a space as I could know that was. That would backfire on me later on because my knees and things that.
Speaker 2:But I tried to make sure that I didn't want people to think I was just gonna be a one-trick pony. Hmm, didn't want people to go. Oh yeah, here we go. You said you're gonna become a runner and you didn't. He did one marathon and that was it and I always remember I went to a talk a guy called Simon Hartley who is a sports psychologist he was talking to. A guy wrote a book about the all blacks and the all blacks is the worst thing about, the worst type of all black, is having one cap. Yeah, nobody wants to be that all black that only gets one cap. You know what I mean. That means you've represented the all blacks and they didn't like you or you didn't do what you said you were going to do, or you didn't do what you say you were going to do.
Speaker 2:And for me, that was something I kept in the back of my head all the time I wanted to keep on pushing, I wanted to catch that time. So, yeah, I was doing regular marathons. I was out towards the marathon, the Marathon de Sables. I was doing a 10K in front of the fire on a morning to try and get some heat training. I couldn't afford Tenerife and then 15, 16 miles on a night time. So that was the training for the MDS For the run across America. I realised quite quickly there was no way I could replicate the amount of mileage I was going to have to do without getting injured. So I was doing about 150 miles a week, which when you break that down, that's a lot of mileage every week. But when I was going to America it was going to be 210 miles a week every week.
Speaker 1:That's a big difference. So there is, it might not sound like much, but it is a big difference, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I took a different stance on it. I said, right, okay, I'm going to get myself into a position where I can comfortably run 150 miles a week and make sure that I, by the time I get to America, used to force two or three weeks to run into the race or run into the run, get myself fitter as as I got there. But 150 miles a week takes on doing. Hmm, you know, you've got all the things to think about you at the planning of the race or the run, at the planning of how we're going to pay my mortgage. A lot of people do these challenges. There's a lot of people out there doing challenges, celebrity challenges.
Speaker 1:They don't need to worry about all that stuff, they don't have to worry about paying their mortgage they don't have to worry about paying for hotels or anything like that.
Speaker 2:They literally have to just go and run or go and cycle and they've got a sports masseuse. They've got hotels paid for. Everything's sorted out. The communications are all done, Everything's done.
Speaker 1:Separated from reality a lot. I saw an interview recently with Mariah Carey and they're talking about electricity. She didn't know people paid for electricity Do you know what I mean. The disparities between your life and ours is just, it's huge yeah.
Speaker 2:It is huge and I think, when you look at these challenges that people do and there are some really famous people doing some really great work, raising lots of money for charity. But the hard part for me wasn't the running, it was the actual organising. It was working with my wife to make sure we had a route planned, make sure we had enough food, make sure we had a car available, make sure we had enough food, make sure we had a car available, make sure the flights were booked, doing everything at wrong, but then also, when I was away, making sure that my partner wasn't going to lose the house. So all those things had to be planned for. So the running I got to about 150 miles away and then I had to back off a little bit. I thought, right, you know, there's things going wrong here.
Speaker 1:My knee was sore. I was going to say where's the recovery time? There wasn't any. Exactly, there wasn't any recovery time, and it's so important, isn't it?
Speaker 2:So for me, you know, the knee went. I had a torn cartilage in my knee. I had no chance of getting surgery before I went Again. If you're back on the road in six to eight weeks, there was no time for that. The NHS don't work that way, so I had to just get a cortisone injection in my knee and accept that I was going to have to run 3,100 miles in a little bit of pain, just a little bit, a little bit of pain. But here's the thing Running across America in a little bit of pain, just a little bit, a little bit of pain. But here's the thing, um, running across america, a little bit of pain is is it's not as bad as living in pain that I was in my head when it came to my addiction.
Speaker 2:You know, waking up every day not knowing whether you're going to be able to survive the day without destroying yourself, um, and I think when people talk about pain, the life of an addict is the most, in my opinion, is the most painful thing you'll ever go through. But I don't think you know you're in pain until you come out of it. You know, I think that's the thing. You don't know you're in pain. You don't realize that there's that much chaos in your life until you step away from it.
Speaker 2:When I look back on it, knee pain was the least of my worries. You know that to me was something that was. I wore it almost as a badge of honor. You know, pain in my knee was going to remind me that. Do you know what, tom? You're? Pain in my knee was going to remind me that you know what, tom. You're doing this for the right reasons. You're doing this for those who can't. You're doing this for the guy who's still laying on a sofa obliterated in drink. You're doing it for the heroin addict on the street. You're doing it for the person who's smoking crack can't get through the day. You're doing it for the person who's smoking crack can't get through the day.
Speaker 1:You're doing it for the person who's been wounded as a child and for me that was so important to remember why I was doing it we talk a lot about the addicts mentality and it's something that can be said to people who are still in addiction that if you put that addict's mentality to good use you'd achieve great things. And I think what I'm kind of seeing and correct me if I'm wrong but the idea of being addicted to alcohol, it's almost like you know people say cross addiction as a very negative thing, but it's almost like you became addicted to running. Would you agree with that at all? Did that become like the vice that you replaced alcohol with?
Speaker 2:It's always a conversation that comes up. It's a valid conversation and the way I always answer this is running was constructive. Yeah.
Speaker 2:It rebuilt my life. Addiction is destructive. You know when you're addicted to something, and if we take the purest form of addiction, it usually destroys your life. There's very few people who are addicted to something where it constructs, so for me it it was constructing my life. There was elements of it that probably were on the verges of addiction, like running through knee pain, but I had a reason for that and that was almost my penance for 20 years of addiction. You're going to suffer a little bit as well, tom. It's no good if it's easy. You know what I mean. If you're going into this, it's going to be easy. So the argument about it being an addiction for me, I always say, yeah, I can see where that comes from, but for me it was constructive. It remained constructive for a long period of time and when it stopped being constructive I stopped it, and I think that was the thing. It was fairly easy to stop. It wasn't something I would continue to do.
Speaker 1:What about the now, now, now, mentality in the sense of that's one thing that we sometimes see is within an addict. It needs to happen. It needs to happen now. You're saying that's something that should have taken a lifetime to achieve. You did it in your training for six months. Would you agree that that now, now, now, mentality was a positive in your training?
Speaker 2:100. For me it's, and I understand people who have that now. Now, yeah, um, because there are so many um wasted opportunities throughout your addiction. You know, as I've said, I worked in the utility industry and I probably should have been a managing director by now, 50 years of age, had I taken the opportunities I was supposed to, if I hadn't been so caught up in drink or drink, I probably would have been more successful. So there is an element of you've got to do everything today because you don't know what tomorrow's going to bring. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that's the bit that unless you've been in addiction, in active addiction you don't really get that bit because tomorrow's not guaranteed. I think that's the bit for me that was so important that at any stage of my recovery I could mess up any stage of my recovery. The grace that I've been granted could be taken back. So it had to be. For me it was the now, now. Now mentality is still something I have. I have to look at myself and my role and work and make sure I don't push that on others, because it's not always great for people. Some things you do need to take your time with. Some things you do need to step back and go. You know this needs more time. This isn't ready. I didn't have that in me at the time. I couldn't wait. Of course it had to be done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you did the 3,100 miles. How long did it take then?
Speaker 2:So, I arrived on the start line on May 20th 2013. And I'd given myself 100 days, 30 miles a day, and planned to finish on August 27, 2013.
Speaker 1:Isn't that a marathon a day then? More than a marathon a day, 30 miles a day for a hundred days. I just made a comment earlier about doing, you know, 10 to 11 a month now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the stats are pretty crazy. So if you do the stats, I had five days off because because it's five. If you do the stats, I had five days off because five days I think was generous enough. Five days and 100 days. So I did 122 marathons and 95 days of running Fucking hell. That's what it equates to.
Speaker 1:It's hurting my head just thinking about the physical toll that that would have on the human body.
Speaker 2:It was. It's when you look, but when I back on it, I I. It's taken me a long time to look back on it and go do you know what? That was? Absolutely phenomenal. I couldn't even run for a fucking bus do you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:I'm probably just waiting for the next one. I'm the same now.
Speaker 2:I can run a bath now, um yeah, it literally is, it's um, but when I look back on it, it was um something that I had in my head that if you planned it correctly, if you thought about it correctly, then 30 miles a day is doable, and it was, it was doable.
Speaker 1:Just go show the difference in our mentality there. Though You're saying that's doable, I'm just like not a chance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think when you've had experience of running those distances and you research it and you speak to the people who have done things like this before. It's a lot called rory coleman. I spent a lot of time talking to rory. Uh, rory coleman ran from london to lisbon. Um, he said he spoke to you know, spoke to the guys who had done these sorts of things and it's a mindset of it's your job. That's what you do every day. You get up, you put your running kit on, you go and run. You don't have to worry about anything else, you just run.
Speaker 2:But it doesn't stop you questioning things. So, you know, I ran through California, got into Nevada and we hit the longest road. So Nevada is the Highway 50 we chose and the reason I chose the Highway 50, so, soon after leaving California, san Francisco, you know. First of all, when I left San Francisco, I was lost after six miles. I forgot to mention that bit. You know, completely lost. You know where all these maps done on electronic devices then realized they didn't have any access to, like you know, wi-fi or data or anything like that, because things have changed, even since 2013. Data's so much more widely available. The phone that I had didn't have have any data on it. It was a nightmare we had to have wi-fi connection to get the maps.
Speaker 1:The little laptop we had was rubbish can you see you're running now with a sheet of paper. I've got it tattooed in the back of the arm.
Speaker 2:Now east east, just move east, and that was a that was a conscious decision. So, and again, it's a great metaphor for for addiction. There are times. So I knew that if I moved east I would get to where I needed to be. There are some times you have to go north, sometimes you have to go south, sometimes you have to retrace your steps. You know relapse. Sometimes you have to go back, start again. You never have to go back right to the start. You have to maybe retrace your steps a little bit. But if you head east and you pick that direction, you'll get to your destination. So I realized that fairly quickly. So, in a petrol station, by a map and just find the road that took me east, and we just followed it. Now we knew we had to go on the highway 50, which was the loneliest road in America, and the reason we chose that was.
Speaker 2:By the time you leave California anyone who's in addiction and going into recovery will know this you have two weeks and everyone thinks you're brilliant, oh, you've sobered up, phenomenal, oh, you've stopped taking drugs, that's great, so proud of you. And then two weeks later, they get on with their life and you're sat there like what about me? Everyone's forgot about me and I knew that that's how America was going to go. I left San Francisco, went through California. All the Facebook messages were coming in Phenomenal, tom, it's great. Blah, blah, blah. And then, by the time I hit, nevada stopped that messaging has all stopped because people go back to their jobs. They go back to their jobs, they go back to their, their day-to-day lives and they forget about what you're going through.
Speaker 2:So the highway 50 was my way of saying it's a lonely road time magazine described as the loneliest road in america. There's four towns in 450 miles through the Great Basin, 16 mountain passes, all above 7,000 feet. So you've got altitude to deal with, you've got 40 degree heat and you've got complete isolation. And I'm on that road and I'm thinking what am I doing? And I have great faith and I prayed every day. And the good thing about praying in the desert is you can pray like I'm talking to you now. You know you can just go hey God, how you doing? Because everyone knows God's from Yorkshire Just like hey, god, how you doing? And have a bit of crack with God.
Speaker 2:Now, then Now then, hey all right, have a bit of crack with him. And this one particular day I'm thinking to myself do you know what? I've had enough of this. This is doing my head in. I've got sore knees, I've got sunburned. The day before I miss my family. I was just really annoyed. It was red hot.
Speaker 2:So as I'm running down the road, I turn around and I went right. Okay, I don't know what you've got planned for me, god, but have I not suffered enough? You know, I've sobered up. I've run across the Sahara Desert for you. I've spoke to hundreds of thousands of kids. I've done all this sort of stuff. I preach about sobriety to everyone I meet. Have I not suffered enough? And, of course, anyone who's praised the God knows he doesn't answer you and I'm thinking okay, right, whatever you've got planned for me, I trust you. I've got faith. I said my enemy prayers and moved on.
Speaker 2:And as I'm moving on, a motorbike came up, harley-davidson rider. Now, I'm not going to do the accent for the Harley Davidson rider because I'm rubbish at American accents, so we'll pretend he was a Yorkshire. He got off the bike and went hey, how are you doing? He got off the motorbike and he went how are you doing? I said I'm alright, I'm alright. He says have you got water? Yes, I've got water. Have you got some food? Yes, I've got food. And have you got a place to stay tonight? Yes, I've got a place to stay tonight. I was getting quite annoyed with him. Yeah, I've got a place to stay tonight. And he got back in his motorbike and he looked around at me and he went good, I'm just making sure you've got what you need. And he rode off and I looked up to the heavens like, really, I'm harley davidson rider, no chance of an ice cream, god. But the the point of that was so powerful to me yeah we.
Speaker 2:I alluded to it earlier on. When the celebrities do these challenges, they have a winnebago, they have a sports masseuse, they have a doctor, they have hotels. They have everything laid on for them. I wanted all that. I wanted the winnebago, I wanted the sports masseuse, I wanted 20 pairs of trainers to choose from every day. What I needed was food, water and shelter, and it was a great warning, or a great um thing for me to say right, okay, tom, if you focus on what you need, you'll get what you want if you focus on what you want, you'll never get what you need.
Speaker 2:So for me that was a very powerful uh interaction with um, a harley davidson rider, on that road, the loneliest road, and on that road, the loneliest road, and on that road, for me was such a spiritual experience. Anybody who's been an addict, anyone who's in recovery, will know how solitary that life can be. You feel like you're the only one. You feel like nobody's looking out for you. And for me it was so powerful that A, the motorbike rider was there helping me out and about another 100 miles down the road was a cowboy, just a cowboy, a random cowboy. So what's he doing here? So I'm looking after my cattle. He says my farm's 300 miles that way. But I'm the local pastor. You know what the local pastor in this area? He says there's not a church for 500 miles. He says no, it's 300 miles. So I'm the local pastor and he asked me. He says have you got the Lord Jesus Christ in your life? Now you've got a picture of the same, an ultra runner who looks dishevelled, a guy with a white hat on a white horse, asking me about Jesus Christ. I went yes, I have got him in my life, yeah, and he got down off his horse and he put his hands on my shoulders and he prayed for me and it was like the most phenomenal, powerful experience I've ever experienced and it kind of just set me off on.
Speaker 2:This path of this is guided. You know there's somebody else looking out for you. You know we ask for that all the time in our recovery. Is somebody actually looking out for you? Now, this isn't a God thing For me, this is a spiritual thing. You know, I got it further on, when I was in Utah going through the mountains, and I actually felt like the mountains were saying to me it's okay, we've got you. You know, listen to us, follow our path. We've been here for thousands and millions of years. You're just a tiny little speck, but if you trust us, you're going to be all right.
Speaker 2:And I got that really powerful experience quite a few times, especially in the mountains. You know, we talk about the native americans and we talk about the Native Americans and they talk about how they listen to law and I could see, and anyone who's doing anything, spend some time in solitude, because I only had my brother with me and my cousin was there for a little bit and a friend of mine, but most of the time it was just me and my youngest brother. He was driving the support vehicle, so I didn't speak to anyone all day, literally didn't see anyone, didn't talk to anyone apart from my brother. So solitude was so powerful in that, in that whole experience. Um, by the time I'd got to colorado, halfway there, you think to yourself do you know what? I'm not too sure you know I can do this. You know I was way behind the schedule. I'd been trying to do 30 miles a day every day.
Speaker 1:Some days it was 28, some days it was 27 and does that make a massive difference as well, when it doesn't sound like much, does it? You know, just been a couple of miles off, but I'm sure it all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, especially when you add in the five days of, yeah, rest days. So it was starting to chip away at it. Um and it, I got to the halfway point. I said, okay, it's half time, let's have a half time team. So if we continue doing what we're doing, we're not going to finish. Yeah, we're not going to finish in time. So we need to make sure we we change the plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I changed my, my diet to what I could. I changed the mileage, how I was running the mileage. I'd run more at night, when it was a bit cooler, and I tried to change things around and for me that that seemed to work. We started to bring things back around. We started to realize that, yeah, it's okay to change the plan, it's okay to be in a position where you can say this isn't working.
Speaker 2:And again, I try to relate everything back to my addiction. Yeah, you know, when things don't work out, it's very easy for you to throw your hands in there and say I'll go back to what I know. You know when, when things have happened in my life since, um, I would be very easy for me to throw my hands in the air and say, you know, my brother died in 2020 from a drug overdose. Um, it would have been very easy for me to throw my hands in the air and go. I'm not. You know, I'm never going to do this. I'm going to go back to what I know, which is alcohol. But the america run taught me that you can change the plan. You don't have to follow it. It's not linear. You can change the plan. We changed the plan in Colorado and started to alter how we were doing things and started to bring the plan back on track.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned then about your brother. I've got a quote here as well. It says 11 years ago I stood ready to run across the United States of America. I was raising awareness about addiction and recovery. I probably did it in the hope that my brother, adrian, would gain strength from it. He didn't and died from an overdose in 2020. I'm sorry, I didn't try harder. Brother, can you or do you take responsibility for somebody else? Is addiction?
Speaker 2:it's a great question, and and and the truthful answer is yes, I do me personally. Yeah, that doesn't mean you should. Yeah, I've always been so. My brother especially god bless you, adrian. He, he idolized me as a, as a young lot.
Speaker 2:My dad died when I was 13 and he'd have been five, maybe six at the time, maybe a little bit older, but five or six. He, what you know, and he, I took on the dad role. I took on the dad role really badly because I was a 13 year old boy. Oh yeah, I did it really badly. I did everything wrong, I was too hard on him, I was physical, I was relentless in pushing him, but then I was also a bad role model because I had started drinking at 13. So of course, he followed, he followed drinking, he followed doing that sort of stuff, but he didn't follow the sobriety and I couldn't make him follow the sobriety. And we know, I know this you can't make anyone do anything.
Speaker 2:I think that's why it's really important to have this conversation. Is that not everybody gets it? Not everybody gets that, and we have to be aware that people are dying from this. People die from our illness, people die from our condition, people die from our actions, and Adrian was one. He couldn't get it, but I did blame myself, for he died in 2020 and had a proper breakdown after his inquest. When I heard, I think I'd chosen not to listen to how deeply involved in drugs he was.
Speaker 1:I think I'd chosen not to know about his heroin use, his crack use, For what reason Does it come from the idea that you blame yourself for it?
Speaker 2:in some way. Yeah, I think it was so hard for me to get to a point where I'd lost so much connection with him, yeah, that he'd been so far lost that there didn't appear to be any way back for him at the time. And I know that. You know I'm still a firm believer where there's breath, there's hope, you know, and I always hope that one day, and our relationship for the last year of his life was really good compared to what it had been- yeah.
Speaker 2:Because it had been In our adulthood. It was fairly volatile, even in my sobriety. He was fairly antagonistic about me, didn't like the fact that I was sober, thought that I was lording it up above him.
Speaker 1:I was better than him and it was never that way, no, but it's quite easy for that to happen, isn't it? I suppose, yeah, for people to think, oh, you think you're better than me because you've done X, y and Z. You've forgotten where you've come from Exactly that sort of stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2:And I definitely hadn't forgotten where I came from. I knew that I was one bad day away from being back where he was, but I did blame myself and I blamed myself so much in that year after Adrian died.
Speaker 2:I kind of lost myself, yeah, lost who I was as a person. A lot of self-loathing, a lot of emotion of why couldn't I save him? I think every addict's like that why can't we save them all? And I came to the conclusion that Adrian is exactly where Adrian needs to be. His life was led the way he needed to lead it. He couldn't have led it any other way. That was just his way, which is tough. Yeah, it's tough did he?
Speaker 1:he saw you obviously finish this, this massive challenge that you'd taken on. That was done in a way to, like you say, inspire all these people that have gone through so much, especially in regards to addiction. Did he ever say that he felt inspired by you? No, did you ever no?
Speaker 2:Never, no, never, and I think that's.
Speaker 1:Because of all the people I feel like in this journey, of all the people that you're trying to reach. As well as talking to your past self of what can be achieved, I imagine a massive part of this as well was to reach out to your brother and to tell him what can be achieved. So it must be quite heartbreaking to have gone through everything that you've gone through to challenge that stigma, to get that message out there and it not get to the one person that you wanted it to get to A hundred percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been a real blot on my copy book, as it were, but I have to remember, and I have to keep remembering this, that not everybody gets it. Yeah, and I have to remember the people that did become inspired by this, that have continued to be inspired by going out and rolling across a continent, and that was-.
Speaker 1:I'm, inspired by it now hearing this story for the first time, I'm just sat here going wow, what an incredible thing.
Speaker 2:Here's the one thing that I remember in California. No, sorry Colorado, no, it wasn't, it was Pennsylvania. I have to remember my states.
Speaker 1:It's got so many places in such a short space of time.
Speaker 2:So Pennsylvania. By the time I'd got to the end, I was about 10 days out and I'd had enough. I'd given up on myself. Really, I was like you know, I didn't want to be anywhere near running across America. I'd done 90 days on the road and I went into a cafe in Pennsylvania and this woman's talking to me. So what are you doing? You look like you know. By that stage I look like Forrest Gump with the big beard. Um, and I went. This is so. I'm running across America raising awareness, but recovery from addiction. I dismissed her and she went. You need to speak to the guy that runs the cafe. I haven't got time. Too busy Things to do, miles to run. Bring me my breakfast and leave me alone. It's quite rude to it. It was early in the morning and I'd put on a main. I can't imagine you being the happiest, luckiest person taking on this challenge.
Speaker 1:By this stage, my core was uninjected.
Speaker 2:It had worn off, my knee was in bits, I was in a lot of pain. Anyway, she brought the breakfast and she says you need to go and speak to the guy behind the counter. I says all right, yeah, Let me get me pancakes. Tell me, Get me pancakes and me syrup. By that stage it was a combat to pancakes and syrup and bacon, Because when I first turned out there, syrup on your bacon, no chance.
Speaker 1:By course turned out there syrup on your bacon by the time I'd finished you've got to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, syrup on everything. Um, and eventually I felt a bit brighter. I said, okay, I'll go and see him. And I walked him into this kitchen. When this guy's preparing all the breakfasts, he says what are you doing? I said I'm running across america raising awareness, but recovery from addiction? And I said it that and he burst out into tears. And as he burst out into tears it was almost as though somebody had given me a punch in the stomach. Wake up, tom, wake up. And I said what's wrong? He says my son has just died from a heroin overdose and he's left four children behind, he says. And those four children are in a village where the people won't speak to them because their dad was a junkie and they've stopped speaking to the kids. So by this stage my eyes are filled up, I'm in tears, I'm getting angry and I said to him I said make sure you go home tonight. Tell those four children their dad did nothing wrong. Make sure you go home and tell those four children that there's a man out here that's run across an entire continent to try and change people's perspectives on on addiction, on people like their father, that people like their father haven't died in vain and this guy just came over to me and gave me the biggest hug and we shared tears, but tears of joy then, because he almost had hope, and for me that was the most powerful moment of their own. It was a, it was a reminder to me not to give up on this.
Speaker 2:There are days in in the addiction world and the recovery world where you will feel that you're giving up. What is the point? You know, when you see more addicts coming through the door, when you see this world in a mess, you almost think we can't. What can we do? One person at a time, that's all we can do. We can help one person at a time, whether it's by sharing a story, whether it's by listening to them, whether it's by being in their company, whether it's by attending an appointment, whether it's by just giving them another chance. One person at a time. And if we continue to do that, people like those children in america will know that their father didn't die in vain. I will know that my brother didn't die in vain. Yeah, my sister didn't die in vain, that my father didn't die in vain, because that's how addictions affected me. Those three people, yeah, um, just in my life as well, well as friends along the way. But we can't give up hope. We've got to continue to remember that by every step on this journey we take, whether it's running across America, whether it's just walking across Hull. If there's a person you see that needs to have a listening ear or needs to have some words of wisdom, give them to them, share them.
Speaker 2:The worst thing we can do in this world is to go through the world without sharing our experiences, without sharing our knowledge, without sharing who we are as individuals. I'm an addict. There's no way of getting away from that. I am an alcoholic in recovery 17 years. We've walked this path. I will never change that. I getting away from that. I am an alcoholic in recovery 17 years. We've walked this path. I will never change that. I'm proud to be in recovery. I'm proud to be an alcoholic in recovery because I have so much experience that I can share with, with those out there who haven't seen that yet because of the stigma attached to it, because people are too scared to talk about things. I'm proud I can walk this path you've?
Speaker 1:you've spoken before about wanting to create a national sobriety day and using what you've done to promote awareness and reduce that stigma around addiction. How do you see events like this helping individuals and communities affected by addiction?
Speaker 2:so. So I take great inspiration from Gay Pride. One of the most powerful days of my calendar is walking into Leeds in August for Gay Pride and I get really emotional, a big well up of emotion. My daughter just goes oh hey, dad's crying again, and it's so powerful for me. So I grew up in a generation where being gay was wrong. I grew up in that generation of men and women who were told to keep quiet because of their sexuality. And now, now we can have gay pride where we can walk through Leeds, people can walk through Leeds. My daughter, who's lesbian, can walk through Leeds proud of who she is, with no stigma attached.
Speaker 2:Yes, there are some idiots that we have to deal with still, and you're going to get that throughout society. They're always going to be so, but we're better than we were in the 80s. I would love to see a day where we can walk through Leeds or Manchester or Liverpool as a community of addicts, either in recovery or still active, but still saying we exist, we live amongst you, we are proud of who we are and we should be recognised as a community instead of walking through the shadows which we still are. Don't get me wrong, it's phenomenal. This podcast, for example, does phenomenal stuff to get us out of the shadows, but there are still people who would love to see us stay in the shadows. Yeah, that would love to see us. Um, not, not, come out, not, uh, spoil their party. The alcohol industry would probably love us to stay in the shadows.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. They would probably love us to stay down, but I would love to be in a position where we can march through Leeds for one day a year, and I know we have certain Sobriety Recovery marches for me.
Speaker 1:The difference with the Sobriety Recovery marches, though, is we held the recovery walk here in hull last year, but that was the first time and probably the last time that it's going to be here. So those people who are in recovery who maybe have felt, uh, shame and the stigma they've done it once, and if they want to do it again, they're gonna have to travel a ridiculous amount of miles to be part of that event. But there is something about doing it locally in your own town every year, like pride, do pride have, you know, events? It's not just one pride event per year, is it? It's many pride events all across the all across the country. That's where, yeah, I do, you know. I just just to reiterate what you're saying. Yes, there are those things out there, but there's so few and far between, aren't they? Yeah?
Speaker 2:it's getting the people higher up to get behind a National Day of Sobriety, if you want to call it that, whatever you decide to do, but for me a National Day of Sobriety can mean it doesn't have to mean alcohol, it can mean sobriety from anything. Yeah, and we can have a day where we can say to the communities that we live in, not only are we here, but we're active and we're actively putting back into the communities. We're actively supporting those that you've ostracized for years. We're actively back, giving support and love and listening to people who have been marginalized for too long. Hmm, we're probably the most marginalized community in the country. Yeah, you know the recovery community.
Speaker 2:The way drug addicts and alcoholics are treated is still archaic in my opinion, and I have to state this is just my opinion. It's not, you know, it's not anyone else, it's it for me, that's. I think we're so marginalized, it's unbelievable. So a national deserbrary for me, that's. I think we're so marginalized it's unbelievable. So a national deser bright for me. We have to take Power from from the pride community, power from the LGBTQ plus community that they have stepped up Despite being beaten down, despite being Persecuted, sent to prison. Well, who else has been sent to prison. Who else has been persecuted? If you go into our prison system and look at our jails, alcohol and drugs are probably the biggest driver for that, and we're you know not to get too political here.
Speaker 2:No, of course, but we're, you know, we're criminalising the health problem, yeah, yeah, and for me we need to get rid of that.
Speaker 1:Do you think there has been improvements on that? I mean, I feel like I've kind of seen bear in mind. When I first started working in this sector, I was part of a criminal justice only service and now it's a community-based service and I think the criminal justice arm of it is a very small percentage of it. Do you think that has gotten better, then? Percentage of it? Do you think that has gotten better than, rather than seeing it as a criminal issue but seen as a health issue from your experience, I think we're still.
Speaker 2:We're still miles off where we need to be. Yeah, I think when you speak to the police and you listen to how they still perceive it. Yeah, I still think it's dealt with as a criminal issue. Um, we're getting better. Yeah, we are getting better, and it's slowly, slowly. Um, we are getting better. Yeah, yeah, we are getting better and it's slowly, slowly we are getting better, but I still think we have a long way to go before we get to a point where we're treating people for trauma.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're treating people with health problems. I think trauma is a word that we need to deal with more. How many of people who are? You know? We talk immigration. Some of these people are fleeing some of the most traumatic events in modern times and we've ignored that.
Speaker 2:We're ignoring the fact that so many of our young people have grown up in poverty. Over austerity years, where services have been cut back, their parents have been struggling to keep them fed. That's trauma. We need to understand the word. Trauma is not what we originally perceived it to be. It doesn't have to be World War II, you know. A child's trauma can lead to so many other things and I think we need to deal with that.
Speaker 1:Do you know what? It's funny? You should say that because even I think the one thing that I never really understood as a trauma similar to what you just said there. I relate trauma to things like, you know, partaking in, say, the war in Afghanistan and things like that, something of that level, but so many people who struggle around the time of Christmas because they had really awful Christmas days growing up, that in itself is a trauma. Yeah, do you know? And just waking up to nothing and, and you know, parents being under the influence and them being forgotten about at a time when so much of it is about you know, you see it on tv of giving and the magic of christmas and kids waking up to, like that in itself, when you start talking to people, it's like wow, I didn't. I think I just underestimated how traumatic it was to just be someone who lived in those circumstances.
Speaker 2:I think that word trauma needs to be looked at in more depth. It's how you perceive, it's how you've received that Christmas day, how you've experienced it. We often have this conversation about well, they all grew up in the same family. How are they all so different? Well, they're the same parents. Well, they didn't have the same parents. Let's be right about this.
Speaker 2:If you grew up in a family of five, which I did, my mum and dad were very different to my youngest brother than they were to my oldest sister, because they had different years of experience, different life experience. So whether we as parents, we try to say this, all of them are the same. No, we don't. We just don't, because the children experience us differently at different times in their lives, and I think that's really important, that we have to remember that it's how you experience something. I could say something to you now and you've experienced it. As I've said it and as I've meant it, somebody listening to this podcast will go do you know what? I've heard that? Completely different, and if this listened to be 10,000 people, there'll be 10,000 people will hear it differently from their own experience well, that's, that's it.
Speaker 1:It's, um, looking at ourselves as individuals, everyone that we ever meet will experience us in different ways as well. Yeah, like nobody will ever know me, kind of like how I know myself. That's right. Your perception of me will be completely different to robbie's perception of me, or, you know, mike, in the other room, there, they'll all see me differently. Yeah, and that's the thing, isn't it? You know, going back to, as you said, then, growing up in a house, different circumstances, I've got one daughter. Because I've got one daughter, I can afford to do lots of things with that child. If I have two free kids, money's going to be a bit tighter. The third child along there, for instance, is going to have a completely different experience to the first child, just based on the fact that I can't afford the same things for three children as I could for one child. That's right. So it's a really interesting point that I've never actually thought about. But yeah, you're completely right there. Everyone's going to have that really different experience in the family.
Speaker 1:And talking about your family specifically, you mentioned obviously we talked about your brother, adrian. He mentioned your sister as well. All all had problems with addiction. Where do you think that comes from, because you made the joke earlier about being irish going to the doctor and it's like, of course you're irish. Is there something in there that you see the disease, in quotations of addiction, as a hereditary thing that was passed on from your parents, or do you think it was the social environment in which you've grown up in? Explain to me how you think that addiction developed for yourself and for your siblings as well, really on the topic of it, for us it's definitely um.
Speaker 2:Environment, environment is very important in any growth of any addiction and for us. So we were chucking along nicely in the north of Ireland. You know, lovely going away. Now things were tough. You know, dad wasn't exactly the best at times. He struggled with his mental health. He struggled with substance misuse, lost his job, had to work for four years. Then we moved to England and moving to England was a disaster, absolute disaster. For what reason? Well, I always said I explain it to people I didn't want to come to England because I'd heard strange things about the English. I'd heard you were all like the devil, you know, like two horns. You want to come to England because I'd heard strange things about the English.
Speaker 2:I'd heard you were all like the devil, you know, like two horns and you want to kill us. But equally, what I didn't realise was that you didn't like us. Certainly when I came to Wakefield, you know I'd been tied to a tree and beaten with sticks and laughed about. You know, any time a bomber went off playing the paddy kid, any time a teacher asked a question, I answered my funny accent, I laughed, I punched. Um, you know, being an irish kid in the 80s in england, in wakefield specifically, was a tough place to be. I experienced it really tough. I lost my voice, I couldn't speak. Um, I was this streetwise belfast kid who'd come over here knowing how life worked, and then all of a sudden I couldn't speak, didn't want to speak because of my stupid accent, and it destroyed us as a family. And then my dad died. So my dad went to bed one night after having a bottle of whiskey he never drunk, all right. So my dad only drunk one bottle of whiskey in his life. My dad had other issues and one bottle of whiskey in his life, my dad had other issues and he choked to death At 39 years of age.
Speaker 2:Five children, one bottle of whiskey, the trauma that I left behind, of losing your father suddenly like that, in such extreme circumstances, obliterated us as a family. It was like somebody had thrown a hand us as a family. It absolutely. It was like somebody had thrown a hand grenade into our family and blown us all to bits. My mother gave up on us for a few years, you know she'd lost a husband of 19 years, a father of five kids. Sat in his big armchair all day crying and eating food. She got better, but she was focused on my two little brothers. Um, I was left more or less to be the man of the house as I saw it. She never actually said that to me. She never said be the man of the house. And my sisters were the same though. My sister, who passed in 2022. She found my dad. She found him At 14 years of age, walked into her dad's bedroom and found him dead on the bed. Her life was never the same again. You know, it was never the same again.
Speaker 2:My brother, adrian, was dad's complete favourite and again, you know everyone oh, nobody else's favourite Adrian was his favourite, 100% his favourite Adrian. Again, you know everyone, oh, nobody has favourite Adrian was his favourite 100%. His favourite. Adrian would get away with everything and he became mum's favourite. So that whole over mothering, all that sort of stuff destroyed Adrian eventually. So that whole one, those two instances of moving from Ireland to England and my dad dying, where they created a perfect environment for addiction to grow in wakefield as well, where drinking culture the westgate run was very prevalent um, I fell straight into it because I realized as soon as I started drinking I could talk. Nobody laughed at my accent. Actually the girls loved my accent. So as a 13 year old boy with drinking me it was like all my, all my dreams have been answered.
Speaker 2:This thing called alcohol was my saviour. Adrian probably felt the same and Sinead definitely felt the same. After a difficult marriage she had severe mental health issues after the fire in Delhi and struggled all her life with alcohol and drugs prescription medication. So I think it's the environment for me rather than it being a hereditary. I think environment is massive. Poverty helps, you know, it, helps it grow. And trauma and trauma for us was our father going to bed one night 39 years of age and choking to death.
Speaker 1:It's a real mixing pot. There are things that I think, even now talking about it, you know, I've. I guess the interesting thing when I do this podcast is when you hear people's stories like that, you think, christ, if I'd experienced that, I'd probably probably have a problem with substances myself, because it's very easy when we go back to the stigma of it. I think it's very easy for people to judge people with addiction problems whether it be alcohol or drugs who have had a really good upbringing, really good relationship, parents are still married, nice family home, and I think, just try and put yourself in someone else's shoes. This is the whole reason why I do this podcast is I want people to hear other people's stories and just think, actually, if I experience a fraction of that, maybe, maybe I'd be struggling with these things as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I guess that's why it's so important to have these conversations and to hear these stories 100% because we don't know what people are going through or have been through, and I've met some people who have grown up in very nice houses but have still struggled with addiction. Yeah, absolutely. Because what we see as very nice houses possibly has been lacking in love, yeah, or possibly been lacking in something else that they haven't been getting. So it's how you experience that environment.
Speaker 1:The experience is what we're coming back to, isn't it? I guess that's the important thing.
Speaker 2:Everyone's experience of that environment is completely different. I also know people who grew up in my sort of circumstances, who didn't turn around to addiction, didn't go to addiction. So it's how you've experienced it and how you find your escape from the pain. For some people it's work. They throw themselves into a career and they work their way through the pain. For me, it was drink. The pain doesn't go away. I think that's really important to say as well.
Speaker 2:And I'm 17 years in recovery and I still struggle with it. I still struggle with the pain of childhood, the pain of of loss, sudden loss, especially after the loss recently of my brother, my sister sister and my mum. My mother died last November, just a year ago, and losing those three people in my life in such a short space of time triggered back the sudden death of my father from 30-odd years ago. So we have to deal with this again of how it affected me. As a child, I went and did therapy for a year. Yeah, it was brilliant being able to go back to that little boy who was lost and being able to say to him you're all right, you can, you can cope with this. You've been through this before. It's going to be painful but you can cope. I'm being kind to that little boy and I think I was kind.
Speaker 2:I'm now in a position, a year later on from my mum's passing, probably the strongest I've been mentally for many years, certainly since Adrian died and I think it's always to remind yourself that this journey of recovery isn't linear. It's not just going to be once you sober up. It's going to be a straight path to freedom. It's not. You're going to have problems, you're going to have issues, you're going to have difficulties along the road, and it's understanding that you have another way of dealing with it other than your substance.
Speaker 2:So for me, therapy, writing, talking, all those sorts of things for me are so important because I don't roll anymore, because my knees are don't cost you, but they go to the gym five times a week. Try and make sure I do something physical. I write almost daily and I talk to my partner about everything I'm feeling and she talks to me. But everything she's feeling, that's not the set and that makes it sound like we're a couple of right wingers, but we're not you know what I mean sometimes do you know what I don't feel right cracking today.
Speaker 2:I'm like what's going on? And it's not that she's become my counsellor, because that's really unhealthy, it's just that we listen, just sometimes you just need somebody to listen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and sometimes it's not a case of they're expecting a solution to it or anything. It's just nice to say things that are on your mind, get things off your chest, and even that can be a really healthy thing. Going back to we've kind of come back to this in a bit of a roundabout way, but what was the feeling like after completing the 3,100 miles then?
Speaker 2:Again, I'll be as truthful as I can. It was horrendous. So I got to the finish line and there's four people at the finish line. So there's two friends from England who lived in America, my brother and another like person from America. So you have this thing in your head. You're going to run through New York and there's going to be a ticker tape parade. You know what I mean. There's going to be this big fanfare, there's going to be TV cameras and you're going to be running down like Rocky and all these kids are going to be following you through the streets of New York and there's four people at the finish line. And it was fairly, and I think that's that was perfect, because that's exactly how addiction is treated.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's like nobody cares yeah, I know we do no, no, I get it we do, but in the general world, yeah, nobody cares.
Speaker 2:um, it was great to get some of the messages back home, but even when I came back home again, the first person from wake great to get some of the messages back home, but even when I came back home again, the first person from Wakefield to have run across the United States of America thought there'd be a big thing about it. Page 34 of the Wakefield Express. Page 34 of the Wakefield Express. They even got the story wrong.
Speaker 2:They didn't even send the journalist out, they just did it over the phone and got all the states wrong. Yeah. Got the mileage wrong, got everything wrong. Yeah. Did a big full page spread in the centre of it for the people who were doing the Great North Run. Yeah, but little old Tom had run 3,000 miles across a continent page 34.
Speaker 1:I'm still bitter about that yeah, do you know what? No, and rightly so, right.
Speaker 2:Because everything about that. Yeah, do you know what? No, and rightly so, and right, because everything, the story that you've told me. Today, I'm sat here thinking, wow, what a great movie this would make, yeah, but I'm so, I'm so frustrated that I didn't get to more people, that I didn't get this message out to more people. And this is why I'm doing things like this today, 10 years down the track, because I want to get this message to more people that when you, when you do finally decide that today's the day I'm going to recover, there's so many opportunities for you, so many opportunities for you to take, and if you take your opportunities, that'll feed your potential.
Speaker 2:Your potential didn't go away. You're born with potential. Every one of us is born with the same amount of potential. The difference is some of us have better opportunities, and what I've realized is, if I take my opportunities, I will feed my potential, and that's the message that I was so annoyed about not getting out to more people as it, as a, as a, when I finished that role. Page 34field Express. I haven't bought it since. No.
Speaker 1:But yeah, that's it. I've done the same thing. I guess there is something there Like had you known that there wasn't going to be the big fanfare, had you known that it was going to get page 34 in the Wakefield Gazette, or whatever it's called, would you have taken on the challenge?
Speaker 2:Yes, you'd still have done that, I'd still have done it because it was so important to not let that side of me take over, Because that's ego yeah but I think when you're doing something like this, you know ego has to come into it in some respects.
Speaker 1:I don't think you'd take on a challenge like this without it wanting to feed your ego a little bit, Because now you meet someone and you know you'd take on a challenge like this without it wanting to feed your ego a little bit, because now you, you meet someone and you know all the. The only note I had about yourself today was in recovery and had ran 3100 miles across addiction. I was like fucking sold.
Speaker 1:Do you know, I mean can't wait to talk to him. That in itself, I guess that must. You could not that you'd introduce yourself as that, but that's something that you have about yourself which I think is absolutely incredible I think for a few years it was a bit of an embarrassment, really.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but an embarrassment for what reason? I became that person in run across america okay, yeah, and there was so much more to it. Yeah, it wasn't just about running across america. I wanted the conversation to be about addiction recovery, but sobriety. That's why I've called the book it's not about the beard. So I did write a book 2015 and, uh, and I called it it's not about the beard because when I came back telling people the story, all they were interested in was do you condition your beard? You know how long is your beard gonna go? Um, how often do you trim it? And I got really annoyed. One day I went it's not about that fucking beard.
Speaker 2:But the guy that was publishing the book wouldn't go for it. It's not about that beard, so it's not about the beard.
Speaker 1:I saw that on a shelf envelope Lance Armstrong's was.
Speaker 2:it's not about the bike.
Speaker 1:Okay, so for me it's not about the beard.
Speaker 2:And you know, for me that was so important that we tried to continue to share that message that you know it was so much more than a beard or so much more than running across America. It was about passion, it was about love, it was about family, it was about recovery, it was about addiction, it was about death, it was about everything that goes with. It was more than just running across America. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I think you've alluded to the Forrest Gump thing already. One of the things my producer told me was don't mention Forrest Gump Now. You mentioned it before.
Speaker 1:I did, and I guess, with that, though, I get why he said that it's because it does diminish the achievement of what you've done and it does put the highlight on something else, and I imagine, when you talk about that shame of going up to people and and you know that being your story, and I'm talking about the beard, oh yeah, I've run 3,100 miles across America. Oh, like Forrest Gump.
Speaker 1:No not like Forrest fucking Gump, because it's a fictional character and I did it, and I did it for this, this reason. Yeah, the difference between me and forest company.
Speaker 2:Is I'm real?
Speaker 1:yeah, exactly, yeah it is frustrating?
Speaker 2:yeah, it is, but I'll be honest with you. Um, even if you don't mention forest company, if you say to somebody you've run 3100 miles, the stock answer I get at the minute is I do parkrun or I've run london marathon and that it's lovely, but people can't comprehend 3,100 miles is.
Speaker 1:No, no. Well, it was in my head working out, like Sid, the comment of the 10-11 marathons a year, and then when you said about the actual so a good way of doing it when I speak to students in schools.
Speaker 2:3,100 miles from Hull would get you to Iraq, oh god my head Alright, so miles from Hull would get you to Iraq. Oh God, my head All right. So so we get you to a little bit into Iraq. Yeah, so from here to Istanbul is about two and a half thousand miles. Yeah, so another 500 miles takes you into Iraq and all that sort of place. So that's so. When we talk about America, people don't fully comprehend the size of it.
Speaker 2:You know, the Atlantic Ocean is only 2,000 miles wide and I've done 3,100. So it was about trying to-.
Speaker 2:That sounds more impressive if you say you've ran the length of the Atlantic Ocean and it's much smaller as well, I did try and I was trying to row the Atlantic Ocean many years ago, but I couldn't raise the funds, I couldn't buy the boat, so you know. So there's things like when I'm telling the story to people and the Forrest Gump analogy comes up. I laugh at it. Now I'm looking forward to another, maybe another 10 years still telling the story, because it's still got as much power. Yeah, absolutely 10 or 11 years down the track now and it's still got as much power. Now I can't wait until there's grandkids around. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'll be able to tell the story to grandkids and they'll go. You know, go and ask your granddad about running across the United States of America. The Sahara Desert on its own was tough. So you speak to people who have done the Marathon Disciples. So to have that on your running CV. For me I'm immensely proud as a person in recovery to have been able to do something like that to show people that we are worth investing in.
Speaker 1:That is the. Do you know what's crazy? I think had you done that run now, you would have much more profile than you did you. You made the comment earlier about you know, you couldn't even get data in most places in america. With the way the world is now, with tiktok reels and all that and influence, I mean one of the things that when you, when you talked about the ultra marathon, I thought about david goggins and you know someone that you're probably aware of, but what you're doing now sounds like, or what you did do. It sounds like much more of an accomplishment than I think I've ever heard anyone do, so it's incredible that it's not a more well-known story out there.
Speaker 2:I think again. There's a couple of things. It's the time that social media wasn't. I have a McDonald's tattoo on the back of my arm. This is my sobriety tattoo. I've run across America tattoo and I've got a McDonald's logo tattoo in the back of my arm because I knew that if I saw the mcdonald's logo, I could get wi-fi. Yeah, it wasn't about the food, although I did eat loads of mcdonald's as well. It was about it was about wi-fi, yeah, and I could get data and I was able to upload to facebook. So facebook was all we had. Yeah, really. Um, instagram wasn't a thing and twitter, facebook and twitter were the two things that they did as much as they could. But the stigma attached to addiction and I'll keep coming back to that. Had I been running for my dead granny's cancer or my mum's cancer, I'd have raised a million quid.
Speaker 1:You'd have been on, lorraine and everything, I'd have been all over the news.
Speaker 2:But because we're doing it for people who apparently choose to destroy themselves, and that stigma attacks, and that's the bit that I I'm still so passionate about. Um, we need to change that perception of who we are as people. If you invest in us, if you take the time to listen to our story, if you help us deal with our trauma, if, if you help us deal with our substance misuse, we can be good individuals who will contribute to society. You know, and none of us should be given up on Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Now, Tom, it's been an incredible conversation. I like to end all our podcasts with a series of questions unrelated to what we've spoke about today, in honour and memory of James Lipton. So my first question for you is what's your favourite word? Serendipity? Least favourite word Trigger. Tell me something that excites you. Oh what?
Speaker 2:a great question. What excites me? Oh, what a great question. What excites?
Speaker 1:me, my children's future. Tell me something that doesn't excite you. Old age, what sound or noise?
Speaker 2:do you love? You know that shopping sound when you buy something with Apple Pay.
Speaker 1:I love that. What sound or noise do you hear Dogs barking at six in the morning?
Speaker 2:What's your favourite swear word? Am I allowed to? Say it Absolutely it's got to be a cunt. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that online.
Speaker 1:Of course you are. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Mp, what profession would you not like to do Judge? And lastly, you've talked a lot about your faith. What would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? A-hop song. Thank you so much for coming on. Believing People, tom. Faith what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates? I hope so. Thank you so much for coming on. Believing People, tom. This has been an incredible conversation to have. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, and if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believing People podcast, we'd love for you to share it with others who might find it meaningful. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Leaving a review will help us reach more people and continue challenging stigma around addiction and recovery for additional resources, insights and updates. Explore the links in this episode description and to learn more about our mission.
