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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
#61 - Paul Haley: Heroin Addiction, Lived Experience Catalyst, Challenging Stigma, Imposter Syndrome & Advocacy In Recovery Services
Paul Haley’s journey is one of transformation, resilience, and purpose. Once caught in the grips of heroin and crack cocaine addiction, Paul reached a devastating rock bottom - an injecting injury that nearly cost him his arm. Faced with the harsh reality of where his addiction had taken him, he made the life-altering decision to turn things around.
With sheer determination, Paul rebuilt his life, channelling the same relentless drive that once fuelled his addiction into something positive. He pursued education, found purpose in helping others, and ultimately carved out a career in the very system that once supported his recovery. Now, with nearly two decades of sobriety, Paul serves as Change Grow Live’s National Service User Involvement Lead, using his lived experience to challenge stigma, empower service users, and advocate for meaningful change in drug and alcohol treatment services.
Paul’s story is not just about overcoming addiction - it’s about proving that recovery is more than just abstinence. It’s about rediscovering identity, reshaping perceptions, and demonstrating that those with lived experience are not defined by their past but by the strength they show in rebuilding their future.
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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, I'm joined by Paul Haley, changegrowlive's National Service Use Involvement Lead, who shares his remarkable journey from heroin and crack cocaine addiction to nearly two decades of sobriety. After reaching rock bottom, Paul rebuilt his life with resilience, purpose and a deep commitment to supporting others, demonstrating that recovery isn't just possible but truly transformative. As our conversation began, I reflected on how, despite knowing Paul for a long time, I'd only recently learned about his lived experience. Paul mentioned that he assumed everyone knew he was in recovery, almost as if it was an unspoken truth. In truth about this, I asked him about what it was like to have addiction shape so much of his identity and how that influenced the way that he saw himself and the world around him.
Speaker 1:Paul welcome to the Believe in People podcast. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. I've asked you to come on today because I've known you for a relatively long time. Ironically, I did say I feel like this is the first time we have met in person, but I've known you a long time, but I only recently found out that you are lived experience and you're in recovery yourself. The interesting thing that I found is, just before we started this, you said you think everybody knows you're in recovery, like we wear it like a badge, and I think that is a common misconception, isn't it that when, when you are in recovery, you feel like everybody knows everything about you? Yeah, tell me, talk to me a little bit about that. To begin with, what's that like to? To kind of have that as such a huge part of your identity?
Speaker 2:um, it's been a positive thing for many years but it felt like a real negative thing to to start well, not exactly to start more mid-range since I since I um, I I got clean from from heroin and crack cocaine. It was, um, initially I felt, like you know, quite popular in the setting that I was in. People were interested, wanted to hear what I had to say. I was a service user rep, so that part was good. But then I moved into employment and there was a part of that where I think this was partly me. I had that imposter syndrome. I felt like I shouldn't be there. I was struggling with the other professionals the addiction therapists, and that imposter syndrome. I felt like I shouldn't be there. I was struggling with the other professionals, the addiction therapists and that kind of stuff, and I felt a bit stigmatized slightly in terms of my ex-service user. There's a lot they can't do in this setting, but you know that was 20 years ago.
Speaker 2:The positives of wearing that badge, so to speak. In the here and now with the, I feel like service user involvement has come up the ladder in terms of priority now it's a big big thing and being able to work doing certain projects I've done Hidden in Plain Sight, domino Effect, that kind of stuff, being part and parcel of groups. You know, with lived experience, having that lived experience myself, being able to relate, get involved, I found it an asset really and I feel now I'm I'm easy to to share that that's why I'm here, I suppose, because there was a time where I just went back on it and never really mentioned it and never disclosed. You know, I didn't really have reason to department I was in, I don't suppose. But now, service User Involvement, department equality, diversity and inclusion, yeah, I utilise it, I like it, it's a real positive thing.
Speaker 1:I think in sectors sectors like this you know that lived experience voice now is is probably more important than ever, and I think there was a time for me, when being at being the service user involvement lead for my local service, that it often felt a little tokenistic like, oh, we need to hear feedback from people with lived experience because of a commissioner report or something like that, and now I feel like that's kind of really embedded into the practice in terms of co-production elements of the service and how this comes through.
Speaker 1:So you know you yourself. You've worked in for this organisation in particular for the last nearly 20 years 19 years, 19 years.
Speaker 2:January the 6th.
Speaker 1:So with that that level of abstinence, then what's changed for you in, because it's such a long period of time? And I guess the point that I'm trying to quickly get to is the the difference between um being in recovery and recovered now after 19 years of working in the service. How long have you been abstinent now from heroin and crack cocaine? So 2003,.
Speaker 2:I had a severe injecting injury like really bad, and it took me about six months after that before I became abstinent from heroin. Crack seemed to fall off the cliff straight away.
Speaker 1:It was heroin Was that like a byproduct of using heroin as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah with it all. But the recovery recovered element and that message for me, I don't knock it. I don't knock the fact that people follow that I'm in recovery, I'm recovered, that kind of thing For me. I'm an addict, I have always been an addict. And you still identify as an addict even now, and I'm an addict now, and do you know something?
Speaker 2:I hear so much negativity about that word. How people are, do you know, called an addict and for me I'm proud. Bizarrely, you might not get where I'm going with this yet, but I'm proud to be an addict and the simple reason is it's what I've been from a child before heroin addiction, before crack cocaine, before alcoholism, to Mazipap, whatever I've been addicted to, they were negative addictions for me. I have an addictive personality and I was brought up being told you're addictive, like it's some disability and weakness that you shouldn't have and you shouldn't allow, do you know, to feed that addictive personality. And I believed that. I thought that's the case. Addiction is terrible, and why is it me that's like this? But I sort of fell into addiction, these negative addictions early 1990s. It's a bizarre story really. So I'm a bit of an ornithologist. That's one of them a bird watcher, okay, a twitcher yeah, a twitcher, a twitcher.
Speaker 2:So basically as a kid, um, I was quite obsessive. It was identified. You know he's a bit obsessive, he's a bit can be a bit funny. So this obsession came about. There'd been all kinds of obsessions as a kid would toys, sports, I loved athletics, I was a champion, runner and all that carry on at some point in school and ornithology were the big thing, um, and I used to spend a lot of time looking into birds and anyway, my favorite birds, and just bear with me because it's bizarre how I'm going from birds to addiction.
Speaker 1:I'm interested to see where it goes, but go on carry on.
Speaker 2:So basically it was Birds of Prey. So as a kid I see this film, the Beastmaster, and there's this dude with a pet tiger and a bird an eagle. So I found out falconry existed. A bird, an eagle so I found out falconry existed. So basically, next thing, it's orchestral for a knave.
Speaker 2:That book Barry Hines' Kez with Billy Casper. So I watched that. So I'm growing up at this point I'm getting about 11, 12 years of age, so I watch this. Billy Casper, he goes to get his falconry book. Where does he go Library and they say, oh no, you can't take it, you're not a member. So he goes and steals one.
Speaker 2:So that was the thing for me, bizarre as it sounds, where I sort of switched path. So quite a nice hobby of ornithology and the thought of falconry. It bizarrely led me into crime because I watched that film and as a kid thought, right, so I stole this book. And then before I knew it, I come quite obsessive about theft. I started to steal, I started to understand it hang on a minute, I haven't really got much of my kid, but I get that. And then what came is I started to meet people. They were shoplifting peers, older people that were around Crossgates in Leeds, where I'm from. And then I learned, right, I steal these things, this is how I can now turn it into money. So you start to turn things into money.
Speaker 2:Then Then the next step thing, school. Um, that were, you know, we're all there with the center partings and that in 1990s, and basically we had to do um work experience. So I said I'd like to go with the fire service. No, no, they didn't. Um, no, you can't go with fire service, they're not teching. So I had nowhere to go.
Speaker 2:So I ended up in a factory, this factory again full of older lads, peers. Now I was already getting a bit of money. No, I'm not talking the earth, you know what I mean. But these older lads, they give me that direct access to drugs. Or do you smoke, spliff, or do you do this? Are you taking acid? Are you doing easy? So I had that direct link.
Speaker 2:So from bizarrely watching a film to then getting the confidence to start shoplifting, just because billy casper did just that childish mentality at that age. Over time it sort of took me down a path and I ended up at about age 14, 15, where I just decided do you know what I'm done, done with school, I'm done. I'm not doing it anymore. The fear of having to go in and do a part of, like a presentation about my work experience with a tipping factor, and I just packed schooling and started knocking about with these lads all the lads, um, from cross gates, like I say and drugs just came straight in and with my addictive personality, with money in my pocket, I latched on and because I was part of a gang and I was part, you know, peers older they were a lot older than us um, but then eventually down, tight down the line, I just sort of shrugged everyone else off and just thought I'm gonna get on with this on my own. People, would you know, try to tech from you.
Speaker 2:It was all the lads influencing you Come with us, do this kind of thing. And eventually it was like do one, I'd do this on my own. But yeah, that's basically how I got into like full-blown heroin addiction.
Speaker 1:Early 1990s Sorry, no, mid to late 1990s, um and just just to talk about a little bit with your childhood and that then, like I, I always think it's really interesting, because sometimes when we have these conversations, um, a reason for substance misuse or that addictive personality is is isn't necessarily the behaviors as such, it's how those behaviors make us feel. For instance, were you with a stealing, there must have been some sort of dopamine release there that made you feel good about it, you enjoyed it and how it made you feel and and people often talk about escapism through substances what was your childhood like? What was your relationship like with you, with your mum and dad? Um, did that have any impact on that um thrill-seeking behavior that you was, that you was trying to get?
Speaker 2:well, I was born with a single mum. Okay, my mum was, I think, 17 when she gave birth to me, um, and we lived with my grandma and grandad and the family home was amazing. It was such a lovely place to be. This is where I might get a bit like emotional, but yeah, it were really good in them, early years, I suppose, and do you know, when you feel the love too? And I, I think, late down the line, we moved with obviously you know she's my mom were working and stuff. So I was spending a lot of time with my grandma and granddad, but my mom moved and I went with my mum, obviously, but, um, my dad, my real dad, as I call him non-existent he was a soldier, I didn't know he was. I remember going to school and we had to see um father driver, the um priest, and I was that young, I didn't even really know and he presented himself as father driver in Palace my mum by basically saying oh, are you my father? Because you know.
Speaker 2:I was a kid like a really young kid. I remember, like other kids at school, going what you don't have a dad and I were like what's a dad? So I didn't have a dad. I had an uncle, john, who was like a big brother. My grandma, my grandad. Just give me a minute, just one second. Sorry, sorry, man, he does this to me every time, sorry take your time sorry mate honestly so yeah, let me just get a grip of my emotions.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it was a nice, nice upbringing up to a certain point, and then it was quite apparent I didn't fit in into someone else's agenda as a young kid.
Speaker 1:So Whose agenda is that Well?
Speaker 2:that's my stepdad, that was my stepdad that come along, pretend to be, do you know, like a bit of a geezer at times, but in reality there's certain things and I'm just mushy, I get, I get mushy with it. So basically, what I did is I lived for a weekend, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents and they were, they were amazing, they were. They were so for me to go down the road that went. They suffered, they did suffer and I were. Do you know? I carried the guilt of that for some time. Yeah, it was difficult, really difficult, but you know, I did what I did and I think that if I hadn't have done that and I hadn't lived the life I lived, I wouldn't be the person that I am today and I'm quite proud of the person that I am today.
Speaker 2:Like I say, the addictive personality side of things and the original question before my emotions got a grip of me, the original question about recovery and being recovered. I don't look at it like that. I look at it now like I'm an addict. I'm no longer fighting with my addictions internally, which is difficult when you are. You've got this really solid addictive personality where you latch on to things and what it worries.
Speaker 2:I would always attach to negatives. Maybe it had something to do with me upbringing and that when it came to not really feeling wanted, that you know you wanted to be loved. You didn't have a dad, that kind of Maybe that were some sort of trauma that were part and parcel of that. I don't know, but I wouldn't really blame that. I think it was just the culture, the environment and where I lived that got me in to drug addiction. Because I wasn't at school. I was knocking about with all the lads I was shoplifting, there were money there and I'm a recovered. No, no, I'm called that. I'd say I'm still an addict. But what I do is now I focus my addictive personality on positive things. So work is key, family life um, that you know, that kind of stuff health, rather than pushing down these negative avenues of addiction. Recent years I fell into a path again with alcohol Really difficult time. So I'm estranged from my mum, I don't speak to her.
Speaker 1:Is that because of things that had happened in your childhood?
Speaker 2:Yeah, Without getting into it. No, I'm not going to push on anything.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Defend herself, I was left feeling deceived and I didn't trust her. And when I took the step To do all the positive things, one key thing that I found let's call it in recovery is I've had to remove people that I've deemed as negative in me in my life. I've had to remove people because it was draining me, making my mindset so that it wasn't as positive as it should have been and it could take me down dark avenues. Then, which is what occurred I went through a separation which I welcomed, if I'm being honest and I took my three children. When I say took, I mean my eldest wanted to come along.
Speaker 1:I didn't go in the midst of the night and run away with my kids.
Speaker 2:My younger two ended up coming with me, so that were all occurring. There were all these issues occurring with shit from my past and memories and trouble and all this deceitful area within my family. So you know, I felt really let down and I felt very angry and I became quite an angry, angry person and I was stressed a lot and unhappy. In all honesty Don't get me wrong. There were some real big positives in my life. I had my three kids with me and I tried my best to be round them, but nevertheless the button got pushed and I started drinking and it was like it wasn't like alcohol per se, it's like any alcohol that I'm sorry, I'm desperate to drink it. It was Peroni. It had to be Peroni Specifically, specifically Bazaar. That's interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, it all started because I wasn't really a big drinker and Bazaarly we work. We went to do some training in London and one of my colleagues said we'll go for a meal the night before. So I went for a meal, right, I'm gonna have a drink. She said I'm gonna pick a drink. I went oh no, I'll just have a diet coke. I'm fine. No, pick a drink. I'm thinking, did she know you was in like?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah, jesus, I didn't think, got it I don't think she understood.
Speaker 2:I don't think she got, evidently yeah. So no, no, get a drink. No, I insist, I'll just have a diet coke. Can I have a slice of lime in it? Well, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll buy you one anyway and said it's a premium lager now. I used to. I'd go to christmas dinner and stuff when I were younger and just not have a drop. It just didn't bother me.
Speaker 2:This pint bang put that back with all the other shit that were going on in my life the stress, the anger, everything that I was thinking about. It became quite a nice start and it became a bit of a comfort thing. I look back five years on. From that point I'd put on about four stone and I looked at myself. I remember thinking what the fuck have you done? What have you? How has this happened to you again? You were an heroin addict, you've shrugged that off and now, all of of a sudden, you're stuck in this again. Anyway, bizarrely, I fell down a flight of stairs, quite a big block, damaged me back, found myself off work, found myself on tablets, pain relief and stuff. I'd made a mess of me back, anyway, went back to work. I'd made a mess of my back. Anyway, went back to work. Things hadn't changed. Do you know I was still drinking heavily on a weekend? Do you know lads that were knocking about with the nickname of Ten Pints Paul?
Speaker 1:you know, it's a great nickname yeah.
Speaker 2:Ten Pints, paul, and it was like I was in that scene again. I was in that scene but Spirit started to sneak in and then this day woke up middle of the night with this pain, like really bad pain, in my stomach, um, and had it like disabilitating. I'm thinking, oh no, there's something seriously wrong here. So, basically, hospital, all these tests, sick note after sick note after sick note, time off, work, like what's going on, and I found myself a lot of the time because I was in pain, I couldn't drink. So that just faded away, but I was still left there, overweight, mentally ill. If I, if I'm being totally honest, um, really struggling with life, and just you know he'd wake up, I'd know to get up, for at the time I'd sleep when I want, in pain. Anyway, I'm on my phone, flicking through my phone, and I started following tyson fury, bizarrely, because it's just these little things in life, but for me, with this addictive personality, it's like have that pint of premium lager, bam, I'm gone. Five years later, a mess. It's like being introduced to heroin 10 years later, before what occurred happened and I, I got off the heroin. So tyson fury's on there and he just pops up on this thing on instagram anyone that's in recovery.
Speaker 2:If you don't have a positive mindset, don't waste your time. Bang went well, I just got a fair point. Actually, I started thinking about I ain't got a positive mindset at all. I'm just thinking bad shit all the time. Negative stuff, focused on past, looking at all these different things that I felt other people had let me down about and I thought listen, this is your life. You need to be positive. Think of the positive things you've got and think of what you can do, what you're capable of. Um, this, bizarrely, again tom hardy pops up and I don't even know if he said this, but this thing come on the screen and it basically said all my life I've been told that addiction is a disability and weakness. It's not. If used correctly, it can be like a superpower. And it were like this turning moment, just this little do you know? Comment that I read on a phone just went bang.
Speaker 2:I started to apply what positive mindset? Get up on my feet again, started to apply positive, positive things into my life, um, routine, um, managing my diabetes type 1 diabetes correctly, exercise, getting out with dogs, going to the gym, all that kind of carry on, and I felt myself getting better. I mean, don't get me wrong, I took the odd knock and fell down on one knee on occasion and there were certain people out there that I could see would try to keep me down. Just had to be strong, I suppose, and stand up and and push forward like I had done. You know, I kept telling myself, mate, you were an heroin addict for 10 years and you come out of that, this should be a doddle started losing weight and started enjoying life again. Yeah, and I mean by that point I'd got a new part. I was with my new partner. Um, my kids were growing up. They were, you know, they were starting college, going to york, um, college, miss, one son were a boxer, a rapper, and you know, I had a lot there around me to be proud of.
Speaker 2:And people at work then started to see that and I got some really good opportunities at work. I got a lot of support from one of the directors, david, but he'd moved on and a new supervisor popped up. I've been here that long I've lost count of the amount of people that have supervised me. But Chris Benfield turned up and he understood, supported me. I explained everything to him. He supported me and he gave me some opportunity. So I started to think right, you've got this personality, apply it at work the best you can. We did the volunteer movies. We did the um volunteer advertisement with a group of people. We lived experience of alcoholism when we did that. I think I were two, two years prior to that, when I virtually stopped drinking, still drink, but on occasion and not to extremes that I didn't.
Speaker 1:It doesn't cause a trigger and a relapse, or anything like that does it? No, no.
Speaker 2:I've got a partner that I love to bits, my fiancée Louise, and she keeps me in place. She keeps an eye on this. She's well aware of what I'm like, what my triggers are, how I can go, and you know, it's not, there's not much effort in it, I don't think, in terms of negatives, to pull me a different way. Now I'm with my partner, I love my children, I love her. Her family are amazing. So I'm now part and parcel of of louise's family and such a warm, loving family that you know all this positivity around me generates positivity. Yeah, infectious, isn't it? It's very infectious. And when I look back to the negative times in my life, with the negative addictions heroin, crack, coke, alcohol, all that carry on I were in a very bad situation in life. I was really unhappy with the situation I was in. So all that was negative, um, and it it's. It always sort of before, though I'd change before, that addictive personality would snap and go different direction. Snap and go different direction, um, I always found myself face down in the dirt before I'd actually stand up and do out about it. The heroin um, the trigger to stop heroin, I I injected like a full syringe of street heroin into an artery and it's when it's pink. Stop and think. There were no stopping and thinking for me that day. All my veins were collapsing. You know we'd had a good run. I'd had a good run. I think, um, I'd had a lot of, I'm not gonna lie, I'd had a lot of fun in part of.
Speaker 2:You know, we were shoplifters. Yeah, we used to obtain lots of goods the way we did and we'd get a lot of money doing that. In the 1990s. You know, sometimes £300, £400 a day in the 1990s, I'd say, were quite a lot of money. Don't get me wrong. It's not Brinks, matt robbery, I don't like that, it's just you know. So there were money clothes on my back, trainers on my feet and all that carry on. Now there were money clothes on my back, trainers on my feet and all that Carry on. Now I got into heroin, looking up and looking up at the other people. They were driving around in XR3Is, xr2s.
Speaker 1:You know, you didn't see the badness that was behind it all. I was going to say you're only seeing the positives, aren't you? Yeah?
Speaker 2:you're seeing, we go and have a laugh. We go shoplifting. We go around North. A laugh We'd go shoplifting. We'd go around North Yorkshire, we'd travel about in these cars, we'd get this money and we'd go and it was fun. But then it wasn't fun.
Speaker 1:There comes a time when the party stops, doesn't it? And it did stop.
Speaker 2:It did stop really harshly and hard.
Speaker 1:Tell me about this then, because with yourself and you might be getting to this point already anyway, so sorry to interject, but with the problems with alcohol, specifically Peroni, you just said that because of the back injury, that just sort of disappeared over time what was the moment in terms of the heroin and the crack addiction where it was right, party's over now, rock bottom, life's low need to sort this shit out, basically, yeah, so party's over now, rock bottom, life's low.
Speaker 2:Need to sort this shit out. Basically, yeah, so party's over. You've injected a load of street heroin into your artery when it's pink. Stop and think, like I say no thinking panicking, trying to get it in to feel well so I can get out at dawn and go try and get some more money to sort myself out later in the day.
Speaker 2:That moment that I did that to myself, the, the feeling of pain, was something that I had never, ever felt in my entire life like this electrical nerve pain down my left arm from my elbow to my hand, and, I kid you not, I screamed at the highest pitch I have ever heard in my entire life and I immediately knew oh shit, I've done something severe here. This is bad. My arm started to swell stupidly, went off, thought no, it'll be. Went and got some more heroin, took that and then went and had to go to hospital. Went to hospital. There's a big waiting room of people and they rushed me straight in and I thought, shit, and everyone I remember yeah, you've to be a fucking junkie to get anywhere in this hospital.
Speaker 2:Anyway, I got in and basically what they did is one of the consultants, or whoever they were, said we might have to remove your arm from the elbow down. So bizarrely, the first thing I thought. I used to work on bins years back and there was a bloke who got his arm trapped in the back of a bin wagon and everybody nicknamed him Stumpy.
Speaker 1:Is this like a real story or like an urban legend? No, it happened, he was there.
Speaker 2:He used to do all books and that, oh Stumpy, bless him. And rather than me thinking, oh shit, I might not have a left arm. How will I operate without a left arm? The first thing I thought is, fuck, my mates are going to nickname me Stumpy and anyway. And I was just like, just when you look back and you think like that, it's like what were you thinking what?
Speaker 1:was going on in your head. That was the first concern yeah, first concern, stumpy my nickname's going to be Stumpy.
Speaker 2:So anyway, they did the operation that opened my arm from the elbow to the palm of my hand, called the fascia on me, unblocked what is your carpal tunnel in your wrist and took a skin graft off the top of my left leg and stapled it with brass staples on the open wound after three days of letting it drain. When they took that off, that was a shocking moment. When they took the pot off my arm and I had to see it open with this same skin graft on it. That that rocked me and, um, I've been on medication. My doctor were great. He looked after me. I didn't go down any of the na routes or anything like that, just want for me just just want for me any of that.
Speaker 2:Um, there were a bit of relapsing to and fro and we're smoking it. But then again I got this opportunity. I booked into college, I went to study social sciences and then hopefully be able to start applying for jobs, start to get some experience.
Speaker 2:But yeah, very quickly, from that moment of sheer terror, thinking oh no, I'm going to be called stumpy, it went from that to, yeah, I had a bandage on my arm and yeah, there were odd bit of piss-techings you know from certain people and that bandage on my arm and yeah, there were odd bit of piss techings, you know, from certain people and that, um, as you know, human race does as people I've done it myself give people a bit of a dig and that just. But I thought, nah, I've got an opportunity and I can get a career out of this. I can use all that fucking bad shit over last 10 years or whatever else, to flip it on its head and I want to be a drugs worker.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm going to do but before we move into the, the moving into the path towards being a drugs worker, that experience in hospital I found really interesting. Um, you said you experienced the sort of, I guess, the stigma from other people in that waiting room. You have to be a junkie to get anything here. Do you feel like you was tricked differently by the medical staff there for being a drug addict? Do you think there was um again that you were stigmatized by them, that you wasn't maybe taken seriously enough, that they didn't care? What was that like in that experience? Because I always hear I always hear interesting things about people's experience and they often think, um again, the people I haven't spoken to that they felt like they would have been trapped better if there wasn't a known heroin addict. What was your experience in that setting?
Speaker 2:that particular setting I felt all right. I thought the track me well, um, like the consultant doctor was sound with me, really nice with me. Nurses really nice with me, nurses generally nice. It wasn't like in comparison to your doctor's receptionist. Okay, yeah, I don't, because I felt it there You've experienced that before. Yeah, yeah and I felt it when I worked for Primary Care Trust as a drugs worker. I felt it from other professionals, Professionals yeah, yeah I really felt that then.
Speaker 2:But, like I say, it was a different era. In 2004, 2005, that had been um, yeah, but I have felt stigma for for openly being an addict and yeah, I've felt it.
Speaker 1:It's interesting there that for me on that story there, the people that I thought would have stigmatized you ie surgeons, consultants they hadn't. No, no, the professionals that you're working alongside, that you're there to help with that lived experience being stigmatised by them. That's quite interesting. You'd think it would be the opposite way around, for that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, bizarre, bizarre. But I've also felt this is weird because I walked into the profession thinking yeah, great my next service shoes, I'll be able to work really well with all these different people, maybe some that I know. I got this immediate feeling from the people from the local area where I was part of that drug using community. I felt like they were thinking, yeah, I don't want nothing to do with him. No, I'm not. I think he is. He thinks he's better than us and I genuinely, genuinely, didn't?
Speaker 2:I just wanted to move on with my life, do it have a career, not a job. A career, that's what I wanted, and I wanted to be able to earn some good money doing some real good things in life with people. Yeah, it won't really. I mean, don't get me wrong, I didn't know everyone, so I had quite a successful time working for the primary care trust with a lot of people, but I saw an opportunity to get out and I went out.
Speaker 1:Do you know, on the topic of that, in terms of peers and you know, being made to feel the way you, you was made to feel by them there, one of the interesting things that that I've spoken about recently with um people who use the service that are in aftercare. So the interesting thing is, when I was using, no one was offering me gear because you know you can, you're gonna pay for it. Yeah, the second, I got abstinent. Everyone starts turning up here, mate, you can have some of mine. And it goes back to the idea of your peer group. They might like to see you do well, but not better than them.
Speaker 1:And if you start to achieve recovery and they're not ready for it or they're not able to do it. They're going to try and drag you back down with them because they don't want to see you do well. Yeah, can you relate to that? Yeah?
Speaker 2:massively. But it's not just that group of people that I used to use drugs with or commit crime with. What I found a lot of the time is there were a lot of people in the community that were looking at me going yeah, scourge your cross-gates dirty, horrible heroin addicts, yeah, and it while. So they looked down on me, I felt there were quite a lot, don't get me wrong, not everybody. I've had a patent back many a time by many a person, genuine people, but there were certain people that you could tell and it always seemed to be about materialistic things if a new car turned up. So I got quite a nice car when I started with Primary Care Trust, because you got a company car so to speak.
Speaker 2:So I got myself this little lovely silver Audi A3. I sensed certain things from certain people at that point. We've got a mortgage, as you do. You've got a career, you're progressing you're moving on.
Speaker 1:Life moves on.
Speaker 2:But you'd feel that sort of from certain people, family members, not my family at that time they were behind me. My mum, she was behind me too, but there were certain elements. You could feel there were certain people and, yeah, to a degree there were certain elements. You could feel there were certain people and, yeah, to a degree there were certain characters in family that you'd feel like and community. The more you step up, you know you get your kitchen done and it's like you could sense that jealousy, jealousy. It's a true thing, it's a real thing. But, like I say, that would have percentage of people, but there were a lot of people that go, wow, is he for real? That's.
Speaker 1:You know there's some real, genuine people out there and positive people out there that just happy for you to do well and knowing how bad you've done at one point in your life, obviously yeah so I think, in terms of your career 19 years with the organisation you've progressed into so many different roles. When I first started talking to you, you was the head of accredited learning.
Speaker 2:Is that the correct?
Speaker 1:title. Now I think maybe the reason why I hadn't made the connection for you to be lived experience is because that job title head of accredited learning sounds very fancy and it's also not necessarily like a lived experience or what I would expect for someone with lived experience to be in yeah um, and I mean the role you do now, service user involvement, the national service user involvement I get that, yeah, because it's working with service users.
Speaker 1:Tell me a little bit about how your experience as an addict has influenced the work that you've done, the jobs you've had, and what has the positives been? Because, as you said, in terms of addiction, that addict mentality is not a weakness if you, if you channel that mentality, mentality into positive things, as you've said, it creates positive outcomes. So talk to me a little bit about your career in drug and alcohol treatment services it sort of come about very quickly.
Speaker 2:I didn't finish the college course that I jumped in to get me into employment. I got opportunities from basically a friend. He was my drugs worker and he basically a friend. He was my drugs worker and he became a friend and I got educated in certain ways and opportunities came to support him as he was a service user involuntarily. So I become a service user rep back in 2004, 2005.
Speaker 2:I started working with commissioners in Leeds about developing community drug treatment services where there would have changed. That would have changed from the old Leeds Addiction Unit which was a horrific environment to go into to think, oh, I've got to get off heroin, I need to stop, I need to go there. It was terrible. So we had the opportunity to start developing community drug treatment services after that there were. So that was service user representative role. After that there were then a privileged access mapping exercise that I got opportunity for paid employment in coordinating and working with a group just like myself. But I got that opportunity of getting to do research and surveys around drug abuse in East Leeds Did that. Then went to work with young people. Young people's sorry, youth offending team weren't there very long, short but small budget, short period of time into our minimization in west leeds drug treatment service and absolutely loved that job. In a needle exchange van driving, driving around West Leeds going and collecting the dirty needles, offering interventions around dam minimisation, referral options, that kind of stuff and leaving the clean needles.
Speaker 1:I love the idea of doing it in a van. I think that's a great idea, though. Going out into the community instead of expecting the community to come to you.
Speaker 2:That's a brilliant idea and meeting active people in active heroin addiction, some people that I sort of recognised from Leeds City Centre and that kind of stuff when we used to shoplift there and I absolutely fucking loved that. I really loved working there for Barker Small, small charity at one time Bramley and Rodley Community Action, something like that. It was called the work I'd done with the Primary Care Trust developing the drug treatment services. Not like it were me, don't think I was sat there on a computer doing all the path yeah, it was my feedback and supporting how the structure should be and I felt listen to too.
Speaker 2:Do you know? If I'm being honest, I did feel listen, it won't talk on this day. Um, and I got a job for primary care trust. It was like, wow, it's been what, 18 months from what happened and I've got a nhs name name badge around my neck that says drugs worker on it. I couldn't have been as proud. Honest to god, it was amazing.
Speaker 1:It makes such a big difference that I don't think. Um, I think I underestimate how much of a big deal it is to get your first name badge. I've still got it. Yeah, do you know what.
Speaker 1:I mean. But it's true, I've met so many, you know, working volunteers in the way that I do For me. I put my work badge on every day. Obviously, I don't wear a uniform, it's a badge. I maybe take it for granted a little bit, but I remember giving one of my volunteers her to go from where she was to where she is now, and I just had underestimated that completely.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I feel that it was such a proud moment I got to work there. I'll be honest, I didn't really like it because what it was there was staff that had come from the old Leeds Addiction Unit into this new structure. I don't think they were entirely happy.
Speaker 1:a lot of resentment when people move over, don't they from methods?
Speaker 2:and ways of thinking in terms of that. Does then service users? No, we don't really want to be yeah, mixing with them, yeah yeah, and having them do things.
Speaker 2:But there were one individual, steve, one of the therapists, and he took me under his wing and were like, look, you've come in from a service user background, there's certain talents there, but let me teach you this professional side of things and really started to push you on certain things. So I was there for a bit. And then that opportunity comes CRI started to come busting up the country and I put it all in the Yorkshire Evening Post loads of CRI jobs. Obviously now Change Grow Live. And I got a job, volunteer coordinator over in York. It was what I thought yeah, I think that'll be good. And we did peer mentor training. So I sort of reflected a lot back on.
Speaker 2:I did a bit, not much time, it was three weeks, trust me, it wasn't a long time. So I did three weeks in prison. Hull um come out, banked some offenses up and we're looking at 18 month. We're thinking, ah, shit, I've done it again. And I, but luckily, probation officer stepped in and said you want to do intensive probation? So I said, yeah, damn right, what, rather than go to prison? Yeah, yeah, that's fine. So I did this intensive probation and there were certain elements that were education. So when it come to working and developing this peer mentor training program and there were people already in place, you know, that had a credit, that had certain bits of accreditation, but it were pitched to I. So there were a lot of redevelopment done and I remember thinking to myself how the fuck have I ended up here? I left school at 15, having the bright idea of being some professional shoplifter extraordinaire, and now, all of it, I had no exams. You know, I passed none of my exams, not even the one where the police dropped me off at school. So how have I ended up doing this? And it felt like the right thing to do to give people the opportunity to have a formal, recognised qualification at Level 2. We got 5,500 people through a Level 2 diploma, which I'm very, very proud of.
Speaker 2:But times changed, changed and then it become more, rather than qualifications, accreditation. So we started with the accreditation. So your qualification, you provide learning evidence. The accreditation, it's about bums on seats and getting people the relevant up-to-date information regarding policy procedure and all that carry on. So that was another side to develop and after covid it seemed like it was dying on its feet and I thought right about the time that the positive mindset kicked in.
Speaker 2:I thought I'm going to change that 200 year one, 700 year two, and then I think it were 1380 or something for year three and I thought, yeah, wow, do you know? So that that was it. I I sort of fell into accredited and regulated learning, but I could see that I, I personally believe what supports recovery calling it recovery, it's education and opportunity, and I felt that these courses will do that and they're going to support people to do it and it become quite well. It still is quite popular that accreditation and it looks like for the future that's what we're going to be doing applying accreditation to so many things to support people coming, you know, with lived experience, from service user in a volunteer and then up in a staff and transferring those, I suppose those, life skills that they've got those experiences into qualifications as well, I think.
Speaker 1:Interestingly, you know you talk about failing your exams. I'm having this conversation. My niece at the moment she's going into do a gcses and I understand the pressure because these are subjects that we all have to do, that we don't necessarily want to do and we're not interested in, but we have to do. And then as you get older, you find, hang on, actually there's more choice. I want to do this course now. I want to do this course now. Sometimes the options aren't there for people, but with what this organization does especially, people have been through, uh, do you know the adversities of addiction to to use those experiences into something positive? And, hang on, there's the possibility that you can get a job here doing something that you want to do. How much more interesting is that to apply that even that addict's mentality, yeah, and that positive mindset, into something that is going to benefit you and not benefit the system. Should we say sort of thing?
Speaker 2:and that that's the thing, it's that opportunity and it's that that I for me him. If we're calling it recovery, my recovery stage in life, it's I attached my addictive personality to getting that career and moving on in life and being able to really look after my children. That was the thing and to enjoy myself. I enjoyed the job. I still do. I absolutely love the job.
Speaker 1:I always say this it don't feel like work some days.
Speaker 2:Does it Some days? You think I'm?
Speaker 1:lucky to be here I've had jobs where I have dreaded going into work on a Monday. I spend my entire Sunday just miserable.
Speaker 1:A day off, spent miserable because I've got work to do. You just don't have that in this sector, do you Very rarely? I'm sure there's plenty of people out there that do, but for me personally, I've never had that, and I think it's such a rewarding job and a rewarding sector that we get to work in. I've worked in this field 10 years now and I've shared this story before, but I'd only ever really last about two or three months in a job before I'd even get the sack or I'd quit. And yet somehow I've done 10 years here, the difference being I'm doing something positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's it key positive, positive mindset, positive attitude and getting people around you that also are pumping positivity, and it just the things that you then do and the the people that you see progress on it a day. Someone from domino effects the message me, um just said I've got the job and it's like fucking, come on, have some of that.
Speaker 1:Talk to me about Domino Effect. So you've gone from. We just ended then on head of accredited learning, but for the last almost a year now, I think it's been, you've been the National Service User Involvement League, which is a big responsibility. Interestingly enough, the friend you were talking about earlier you used to be a service user rep and now you are the national services, involvement that's a proper full circle moment.
Speaker 1:I think You're working on multiple projects that are much like. This podcast is there to challenge stigma and to, I guess, showcase some of the realities of what life and addiction can be like for people and the positives of overcoming those addictions. Let's finish on on these projects that you're working on. Talk to me about the domino effect. How did that come to be and what are the? What the next steps for yourself?
Speaker 2:so I'll take it back two stages so that you fully understand we. I approached my supervisor at the time when this positive surge come and I thought, right, I'm having some of this I want to do. My life's been shit and I've been the cause of that being negative. So previously, many, many years ago, over a decade ago, I'd worked with a let's call him a colleague, kev, from Inspired Youth. We'd done the same, we'd done about three or four similar films and events back then. So when it's come to me thinking right, what can I do?
Speaker 2:I saw a problem that we needed to promote volunteering. They want enough volunteers, I've been told. So I said we need to do a promotion, we need to do an advert film. So this is what we do. We do these groups, we co-produce it with people with lived experience. So we'll go, we'll speak with the volunteers, we'll get them in a room, we'll part, they'll participate in the film. Really had a a good time, really enjoyed myself, took myself back to, way back and this is selfish about building myself back up again. So, working with Kev again. Hadn't seen him for 10 years, so just this one day I picked the phone up, phoned him all right, kev, and he was like all right, paul Like it.
Speaker 1:I've seen him like it like no time had passed.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we did the first one, we did the event and I remember I now got emotional at the start of this podcast. I remember getting emotional. There I was, stood at the front. We finished this volunteer advert was your day. Big round of applause, everyone clapping, and you know when you feel like you're hitting milestones, you're getting places, you you're moving up, confidence-wise, speaking openly, publicly again in front of people.
Speaker 2:And off the back of that I was invited to a meeting in East Lancashire. What is it? East and North and Central, maybe East Lancashire. And what an amazing group of people. The managers up there are. There's, you know, nicky Armitage, she runs it up there, but there's then Danielle Hickey and there's Lisa Curtis, them kind of people.
Speaker 2:And I sat down and I just told my story. I just thought I'm just going to be open and honest here, said where I've been said, now we try to do these different things and we've got these different opportunities by interlinking with kev. It inspired youth. If there's any money we'd be more than happy to do some form of um project. Showed kev's um masterpiece. It's a great piece of work that he'd done. Donkeys years ago called music for care and showed them that. And there were a few tearful moments. Do you know the I got? There were emotion in the room. I felt emotional myself and it were like, right, we'd like to do something. When I look into this and what we want is to do something regarding alcohol awareness. We don't. We're not getting enough people through the door regarding alcoholism. Do something. Amazing experience, what a time we had. We did it in plain sight and premiered it at a cinema in Preston. Amazing event and I felt it again that big step up and really enjoying working with the people in the groups, great groups of people. We lived experience. I'm feeling part and parcel of it all again and feeling like we're making a difference. We are doing things that are going to inspire people into this positive change.
Speaker 2:Off the back of that, I got approached again from jackie in manchester um, straight away, we want, we want to do something. Um, and we come up with a pitch of exactly what it would be that we'd do. We were entered into a journey and we got to know a group of people seven people in the domino effect. And don't get me wrong, I've met some amazing people in Hidden, in Plain Sight, seen them move into employment, zushia being one of the key people and kev jackson that does the drone footage. Two amazing people that stand out from mid and in plain sight come along and supported us to do the domino effect, based on their experience of the previous projects. But the domino crew, we I met such an amazing group of people kat sarah, rob, who's just he's gaining employment dave marching, harriet what an amazing, amazing group of people to to get the privilege of not just knowing but working with two.
Speaker 2:I had so much fun when we started to actually create the film and I became part and parcel of the development of the film and the ideas. Some of the ideas were mine and Kev's combined. We'd do a lot of work in the car driving back from Manchester on M62, sussing out what had happened in the actual session and then how we can start to change it, create the song with liam critical powers, the lyricist, and yeah, I absolutely loved it and I know the group did and the premiere event. You know where I've been talking. We've mentioned my career and how long I've been in this profession and where I've been and what I've done and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:That day for me, that experience as well, and working with them particular seven people stands out for me as being the best part of my career from day dot. Yeah, without a shadow of a doubt. I remember we had to do a promotion event and again I was pushing myself, thinking I need to. One of my big fears is public speaking, so I need to challenge that now and I need to try and achieve more. And I stood up and I did. Like you know, people stand up and say, hiya, my name's Paul, I'm an addict kind of thing, so I didn't say it like that, but I spoke of my lived experience and said about being cleaned, stopped using heroin 20 years ago that some of them stood up and applauded and I got this big and I felt this rush come right up my body like wow, and I felt I had to say just give me a minute.
Speaker 2:You're just going to have to give me a minute and I felt I had to say just give me a minute. You're just going to have to give me a minute and yeah, from that point on working with the Seven, it was out of this world. The music video I think. If you know to any listeners, please go on to just search it. The domino effect inspired youth on Google.
Speaker 1:It's a very emotive piece. I'm quite jaded. I don't often get tearful, although I did recently at the end of Coco, the Disney film.
Speaker 1:It doesn't always happen but when I watched the domino effect I got a similar feeling, I felt the tear sort of in the eyes, you know, and it's just a really powerful piece. And we say, you know, we often say nobody goes into addiction alone, and we know about these things that that are highlighted in the domino effects, but I don't think we give them as much attention as we should and in that piece I think it can't be ignored. It can't be ignored that the effect that it has on children and older children who are then having to look after their siblings, and all this because of substance use, and just what a powerful piece for something. That is. Do you know what? 10 minutes long, just under the music video is 10 minutes long.
Speaker 1:The documentary is about 25, isn't it?
Speaker 2:The documentary is about 25, half an it About 25, half an hour somewhere between.
Speaker 2:But that would have. That would a key thing for me, hidden in plain sight at the time because of the alcohol awareness and where I've been recently with alcohol, but hidden in plain sight. And you know, reflecting back on the start of this podcast and you know I get quite emotional when I speak about family and my grandparents and stuff but doing a project about affected others, I just felt, do you know what? It don't get me wrong it were all about the inspiration of inspiring people into recovery too. But addressing that affected others element and inviting family members into the actual filming of the documentary to give their view and opinion and it did. It made me look back and just think, wow, I wish there'd have been the services available to my grandparents back then so they had somewhere to turn because they didn't, and that that's the key thing as well.
Speaker 1:Did your grandparents ever see you achieve sobriety?
Speaker 2:Well, this is the thing my granddad was still about just after my arm injury, the fasciotomy, the injection into the artery. It was just about not long after, so he saw a bit, but in did he get to? No, I felt the guilt and everything and the fact that I'd left it too late that's what gets you that's what gets me.
Speaker 2:I just wanted him to be proud. My grandma who basically my grandma always had my back. Honestly, my grandad did, but my grandma was always there, like a Jack Russell fighting in the corner, and it didn't matter if I'd done wrong or right. What she'd do then is she'd call me at home and go. You, you little bugger.
Speaker 1:Stick up for you in public. But the second, he's behind closed doors you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, my grandma saw it. My grandma saw the kids start to get brought up. She saw me buy a home. I spent a lot of time with her but then she died many years before she actually died. She got dementia just before I think it was a couple of years before COVID, and I'd go to see her and some days she didn't have a clue, but I'd go see her, I'd go see her anyway. But before she passed bizarre thing I actually turned up at the nursing home this day, went in, sat down and she looked at me and went all right, love. And I'm thinking, fuck this is odd.
Speaker 2:She knew I was. She spoke to me. Covid kicked in. Month after, maybe a couple of weeks after, I never got that privilege again. Month went by, covid kicked in, couldn't see her. Covid killed her and, if I'm honest, it was a relief for me at that point to see her where she was. I remember because I lived with them and spent so much time with them both. They said to me don't ever let us get in that state. Will you put a bullet through his head? Will?
Speaker 1:you. I thought it was that simple for us as family members to do for our loved ones when things like that happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I felt okay, my grandma saw it. I know if there is a God and if my granddad is there in spirit and he's watching, I think he'll be proud. Yeah, absolutely, I can't see how you wouldn't be. No, no, the key thing, you bring them kids up. Paul, I think I've done that.
Speaker 1:Paul, thank you so much for being on the episode. I like to end all my podcasts with a series of 10 questions unrelated to what we've spoken about so far quick fire questions to end on what I like to think is a bit more of a positive note, and my first question is what is your favourite word, word? What I like to think is a bit more of a positive note, and my first question is what is your favourite word?
Speaker 2:Word. Well, that's a. I'm bizarre. Is that a bogey? A bogey, but do you know why that's come up? I just remembered that from being a kid listening to my uncle get asked it and he'd say bogey that's my favourite word.
Speaker 1:Least favourite word Ooh Ooh. Bogey, that's my favourite word. Least favourite word ooh ooh.
Speaker 2:I think smackhead, smackhead the stigma behind it, the stigma behind that smackhead addict for me is positive, but smackhead people say that uneducated about actually what impact it can have tell me something that excites you. Bizarrely work, but falconry Love it. Falconry Holodict is so much. You've asked a question there. I can just go on, go on.
Speaker 1:Tell me something that doesn't excite you.
Speaker 2:That's a difficult one as well. What doesn't excite me? Do you know what I might have to pass on that?
Speaker 1:one. What sound or noise do you love?
Speaker 2:These are bizarre questions what noise do I love? What noise do I love? Ooh, I need to be careful. There's all kinds of shit going through my brain now I'm struggling to answer that. The crowd Do you know what? The crowd that day? The domino effect.
Speaker 1:The crowd An audience applauding yeah. What sound or noise do you hate?
Speaker 2:Do you know what I can't stand? It absolutely winds me up. Do you know, when you're watching telly and you can hear that background noise of another telly or a phone or a radio or something Can't concentrate, that drives me up the wall.
Speaker 1:Favourite swear word.
Speaker 2:I don't know if I should say it. Say it, say it. It's got two meanings, hasn't it? You're either a victim or you're horrible. It can be used in different ways.
Speaker 1:What profession over the neuron would you like to attempt To be a falconer? What profession would you not like to do?
Speaker 2:Be a bin man.
Speaker 1:And lastly, if heaven exists, what would you not like?
Speaker 2:to do Be a bin man and lastly, if heaven exists.
Speaker 1:what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?
Speaker 2:Ooh, your grandma and grandad are waiting for you.
Speaker 1:That's nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you just don't want to be a bin man, because you don't want to end up being another stumpy do you Stumpy, no Brilliant. Cheers, paul. Thank you very much, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
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