Joe Sealey: Cocaine Addiction, Alcohol and Recovery Behind the Real Housewives Of Cheshire

In this episode of Believe in People: Addiction, Recovery & Stigma, Joe Sealey joins us to discuss cocaine addiction, alcohol misuse, grief, and recovery. Known to millions as a cast member on The Real Housewives of Cheshire, Joe shares the story that existed long before the cameras - the career-ending injury that ended his football dream, the sudden death of his father, and how trauma and loss of identity pulled him into addiction.

We explore themes of addiction recovery, trauma, peer support, mental health, and the lived experiences that shaped Joe’s journey. Joe describes the moment cocaine felt like it saved his life, how quickly things escalated into dependency, the cycle of relapse and secrecy, and the impact addiction had on his family. He also reflects on what finally changed, why honesty became his turning point, and how routine, communication, and taking recovery one hour at a time helped him rebuild.

This episode offers practical insight for people in recovery, family members, frontline practitioners, and anyone interested in real stories of change.

Search terms: addiction recovery podcast UK, lived experience stories, peer support, trauma and recovery, substance misuse.

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🎵 Music: “Jonathan Tortoise” by Christopher Tait (Belle Ghoul / Electric Six)

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Joe’s Public Persona
• 0:43 Cocaine’s Early “Relief” And Sudden Trauma
• 2:27 Football Dreams, Father’s Mentorship, And Loss
• 5:56 Injury, Career Collapse, And Grief
• 10:23 First Line, Peer Pressure, And Escalation
• 15:15 Daily Use, “Dry Sniffer,” And Family Strain
• 21:39 Rehab Attempts, Anger, And Relapse Deceit
• 28:50 Benders, Legal Trouble, And Moral Reckoning
• 34:21 Fits, Fear Of Death, And The Penny Dropping
• 40:15 Tools For Sobriety And Keeping It Simple
• 46:14 Work, Channelled Drive, And Partnership
• 52:07 Trust, Truth, And Rebuilding At Home
• 57:21 Routines, Quiet Joys, And Maintenance

Transcript

SPEAKER_03: 0:00

This is a renewed original recording. Hello and welcome to Believe in People, a two-time Radio Academy Award nominated and 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 on Believe in People, I'm joined by Joe Seely. Joe's known worldwide as a former cast member on the Real Housewives of Cheshire, a shown seen by millions across the globe. But what you don't always see is the reality behind the cameras. Joe opens up about his battle with cocaine and alcohol addiction, the impact of grief and loss, and how life unraveled while everything looked successful on the outside. This is an honest conversation about recovery, resilience, and what it really takes to rebuild your life one day at a time. I begin my conversation with Joe by exploring a revelation about cocaine that might shock some listeners.

SPEAKER_00: 0:49

Well, straight from me off, I mean the the thing that I I think about is that, and I say it quite often and I hate it, is that at the start cocaine saved my life. By the end it stripped me of everything I was and and am. But at the start I'd gone through quite a lot of trauma, and over a short period of time I I lost my I was a footballer, lost my football career to an injury, and then a week later my dad died. Literally that Yeah, an heart attack in the street. So I got injured the week before, and then the following Sunday got phone calls at home. My dad my dad was a retired footballer, Premier League footballer, and I got a call and he was he he was dead. And so I'd lost everything that I wanted to be, everything I'd worked towards since I was a kid, and also my dad who did that job, who led my career. So I was lost and I didn't talk about it. I didn't want to cry because my mum and daddy's cover since they were 14 years old and I had a little brother, so I used to get in the shower in the morning and crawl crawl up in a bowl, shower would be hitting me, I'd be crying my eyes out, and I'd come out and try and be alright because I was thinking I need to be the man now, which I shouldn't have done. And about nine months after that, someone gave me a line of coke, and actually I felt better. I was probably suicidal without knowing, I was suicidal, I was deep in depression, and actually a lot of that period of my life I don't remember. So that period of my dad remember my dad dying, and then up to I do know when I took drugs for the first time. A lot of that period, I don't have a lot of recognition, I can't remember a lot of it. Like it's completely blank.

SPEAKER_03: 2:27

Talk to me a little bit about the football career then.

SPEAKER_00: 2:29

Yeah, so I started from young like everybody else does, and uh, my dad, a lot of people knew my dad, and he was a goalkeeper at Man United and other clubs, top clubs won a lot of stuff, and I was a centre back, and then when I was about 10, I said, uh, I want to play and goal. You know, it was obvious I had some sort of talent, and I started getting picked up when I was about 12. And he said to me, Is this something you want to do? Because he was my dad was always like, don't matter what you do as long as you're happy.

SPEAKER_03: 2:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 2:54

But if you want to do it, do it, do it properly, whatever it is. Even if you're a bin man, do it and do it, do it properly. So he's like, Do you see something you want to do, yeah, I want to do, or I'll help you, but it's not gonna be easy, it's hard. So he trained me and worked with me, and I'd be I lived in London, Essex at the time, and I'd be living, I used to live in Sheffield at the weekends and play for Sheffield Wednesday. I'd go down to Southampton and play there, and eventually I signed for West Ham when I was when I was 16 when I left school because I wanted to live at home. But like everything my dad did, he said to me, he didn't my dad at the time was at West Ham as a coach, and he said to me, You've got to make your own way in life in this career. So it used to be it used to be about eight miles by car from my house to Chadwell Leaf where West Ham trained. That was a two-hour train journey because you had to go into London and back out, and he made me get the train, he was going to the same place as me. So he'd drive past me and beep on the way home, and I'd be home two hours after, or I'd be leaving at six in the morning to get to eight, and he'd roll in at half past eight and they would have left the house at eight o'clock. But he said, I got but at the time I didn't respect I didn't understand it, but looking back, that taught me a good that taught me a lot of you know, it taught me about life.

SPEAKER_03: 4:00

I suppose the good thing with that is any success that you'd you would have had in football, no one could ever have claimed it was through like nepoters, I mean.

SPEAKER_00: 4:06

That's what he said. So he also said because he didn't want me to go to West Ham now. I chose to sign for West Ham because I I got a lot of offers at that point, and I was in England, I was involved in the England youth system and stuff like that, but it was the only club I could live at home with, and I wanted to live at home. Plus, some clubs at the time didn't have a goalkeeper coach, some did, and to be honest, he was a good goalkeeper coach, and I liked working with him, but he didn't want that people thinking that, so he made it harder for me. It was hard, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 4:32

Was it harsh on you in like front of the boys and everything as well?

SPEAKER_00: 4:34

Yeah, worse than probably too much. Okay, but he got sacked about two years in, and I and I'll be honest with you, I was happy. Okay, I I felt a relief from that. I've I felt a relief from him not being there every day because I felt more stressed. He never treated it never went into a home life like it, it was always kept separate, like that should because I think because he was in that job, and it's a job, like I got brought up to it, like my dad telling me, yeah, people know, but this is my job, like so different. I feed you by playing football, but on the outside, people think it's saying kills, but it's not. So at home it was still doing what's only fools and horses or minder or whatever we were watching. And I had a great childhood. I mean, I've got a loving mum and dad, I've got a brother, nothing ever happened to me. I mean, I had a I had a blessed childhood, I was always fed nice house, went to school, played football, looked after, always warm. Never had anything happen to me until that week, and then it all happened to me at once, and it changed everything.

SPEAKER_03: 5:30

I suppose to unpick that as well, sometimes when we look at the root causes of addiction, we often talk about aces, which is adverse childhood experiences, and it's often people who come from broken homes or homes where there is trauma. It's interesting to hear your story of how good you had it, but then for it all to go wrong in the space of a week, that still creates a trauma, which as you described it as, which has led obviously to substance misuse problems. Tell me about the injury then.

SPEAKER_00: 5:57

What was it? Shoulder. So I I got it, so I I was a goalkeeper. This is a cut in my shoulder when I was 16 twice, and I had to have a full reconstruction, which meant I'm cut around around the hole of my cuff, and then I had like I had to do you seen the film This is that far? Yeah, I had to wear a bodysuit for six months that kept my arm. I wasn't allowed to move my arm. So I had this up and then I wore this bodysuit, and then when they took that off, I couldn't move my arm. So it took another six months of them literally. I mean, it was agony every day. They lay me on my back at Masseurs, put the knee in my hand, and forced my arm open and rub out the muscles. Oh, it was terrible. So I was I was injured when I was 16 for a year, and I come back, but when I had the injury, they said, Look, there's too much trauma to your body. If this happens again when you have this off, there's nothing we can do, and you're gonna end up paralyzed if it goes, like you can't keep doing it. It's too much time out of football as well. And I was okay for a couple of years, and then I was in training one day, ball come through, I should have held it, it spelled out. I got up, and as I got up, I put my hand dived and put my hand on top of the ball, nothing um knew my shot went bang, pop. Yeah, and I knew I was done. I knew instantly it was over for me. And I remember being taken to the hospital, and then I went to a place called Holly House in Buckers still, and my mum and dad walking through the double doors, and I remember breaking down crying because it was like that's all I ever wanted to do, and and I didn't know anything else, like I didn't want to do anything else, and I thought my whole life was gonna be that. And then and then I suppose I didn't really talk about it with my dad. My dad had sorted out when after he died. I found out that a lot of the stuff that then I was doing all gonna happen to me, career-wise, and from my insurance point of view, he'd sorted out with the clubs and and all of that. So all that was done for me, he'd done it all, but we never spoke about it. And football was the most important thing in my life until seven days later, and then I realised it wasn't. It was the first time ever that when he died, and I thought football don't matter because it did matter to me. Like it's all I want to do. I didn't drink when I played football. I didn't, I wouldn't, I wouldn't socialise with you if I got rid of all my friends at school because they smoked weed. Because I thought, this is how naive I was, I never ran anything, that if I was in your house and you smoked weed, or I was walking down the street, I'd breathe it in and I could fail a drug test. Yeah, so I fucked off everyone that was any any around me that was like that. And I think a lot of players do do that to be honest, but I was petrified of it and I didn't I didn't drink. My dad didn't drink really. I saw him drink twice. My mum had a drink when she was 16 and didn't drink, so I wasn't in a house full of alcohol or anything like that. I never saw any of it, anything like it. What caused your dad's heart attack? Do you know? No, playing fit, so it was a random basically the art, one of the art is flood. Okay, and it could be happening to me and you every every day.

SPEAKER_03: 8:40

So I'm thinking it's quite terrible. When you said your dad was obviously, it sounds like similar to you, do you know, quite career-driven, sporty, doesn't drink, you know, whatever that may be. And then to still have a heart attack.

SPEAKER_00: 8:49

Well, you've so it was it's not really a heart. So when you play professional sport for a long time, your heart's a muscle not an organ, so it grows. So it's heart say his heart was twice the size, which is normal. Yeah, a lot of players have it, same thing as Christian Erickson, Mark Vivinfoy died of it as well. His artery fluttered. Now they said even if he was a guy that weighed 50 stone that couldn't move, you wouldn't even know it was happening to you if you've got a normal heart. But where his heart was that big, and it is called something because billions, as it fluttered, his heart pumped, that much blood in it, it blew up basically. Made his heart explode and it killed him instantly. And he had all his checks, he he was well, there was nothing wrong with him.

SPEAKER_03: 9:23

It's quite terrifying that though. I mean, I'm funny enough, yeah. I'm thinking of um familiar with professional wrestling, British Bulldog. British Bulldog, huge guy had a massive heart attack, you know, and it's like you look at him, a lot of people said, Oh, it's from steroid use, it's from this, that and the other. But as you've just said, I never knew that. But if you're a professional athlete, it grows. Yeah, it grows.

SPEAKER_00: 9:42

If you look at it, a lot of play a lot of people, not just in football, have these art tacks on football pictures, rugby pictures, yeah, athletics, and it's always due to that. Okay, the size of your heart. Jeez.

SPEAKER_03: 9:51

So that's that is scary that that could be happening to any number of professional athletes right now, and they would have absolutely no idea.

SPEAKER_00: 9:57

Because it it's not something that starts a year before. So you'd have these you have a scan every year when you played sport, you're having ECGs, wouldn't show.

SPEAKER_03: 10:04

Yeah. I'm just trying to get my myself into your position. So how old was you when you're 18, 19 years old. And I think at that point, you you kind of have this idea of how life's gonna work out for you, don't you? Do you know? I think in a way, sometimes it's from I mean, I used to think this were like the the way the media influences us like we're all gonna leave school and somehow become famous and rock stars. But I suppose with you, you're experiencing an actual career path by the time you're 18, 19, anywhere.

SPEAKER_00: 10:30

And when I look back at it, I'd lived in that because of my dad. Yeah. So like what I struggled with, and this this is this sounds amazing. Like, if I needed a doctor when I was a kid, my dad, my doctor was the main united doctor. He came to my house. Okay, yeah. If I needed a dentist, they'd we got taken to the dentist by the club. It was all club related, not just when I was playing, but like that my whole life because of my dad. Yeah, so I didn't even know how to go to the dentist. Like, I I mean it. I seriously had a problem when I was about 22. I went to the club dentist and still said I was a player and got a club to pay for it. I didn't know how to live. Yeah, because your meals are done. Here's your tracksuit, here's your boots, here's your trainers, beer at nine o'clock, get on this coach, eat your lunch, train again.

SPEAKER_03: 11:08

So routine, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 11:10

I love the I love a routine, I love a routine now.

SPEAKER_03: 11:12

I'm kind of picturing almost like uh coming towards the end of an 18-year-long road, yeah, and it the road finishes, and then you just stood in front of a wide field. It's like, where do I go? What do I do?

SPEAKER_00: 11:22

That's exactly what it was like.

SPEAKER_03: 11:24

Talk to me a little bit about that then, about that transition into going from such heavy routines, yeah. Your dad passing away, which obviously was instrumental as part of that routine, and then into to Northers. Where does where does your life go from that point?

SPEAKER_00: 11:37

Well, my my dad at times sorted out with my agent, and he owned part of this agency, which had now the the world's biggest agency, they're called Stella, CAA Stella. My dad started that business, so I got given a job as an agent that he'd sorted out after my injury before he died, but I never knew. So I went straight into that after he died, uh, and I hated it. I hated it because I hated football. I really hated football.

SPEAKER_03: 12:02

Did you or was that because of your dad passing word? I think it was a bit more.

SPEAKER_00: 12:06

I think more my injury, I think I was bitter.

SPEAKER_03: 12:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:09

I I resented that other people could do it, yeah. And I really struggled with my identity not being a footballer.

SPEAKER_03: 12:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Nothing else was good enough.

SPEAKER_03: 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

Uh I weren't good enough. You know? And that took me a long time to work that out. Is the truth. And yeah, it was like that. I was given this fantastic job with good pay and a nice car, and I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to be there, I didn't want to be around it. I didn't, I just I didn't know any I didn't know what they say, I didn't know what I didn't know, I didn't know anything. Yeah. But I thought, you know, so it was all an act. It was all an act. So what happened after how long was you doing that job for? Well I did that I did that there for 80 months and I eventually sat on my own business and I did sell that when I was 32 for quite a lot of money. But what was your own business that you were doing? Sports agent.

SPEAKER_03: 12:56

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 12:57

So I represented a lot of players, I did Floyd Mayweather, I did the Clitch Goes, but again, Mark I did marketing, more marketing with them in Europe. But footballers, I did about a hundred of them. But I hated it, he would I hated it too. I hated it, I tell you what, I hated it up to a point of when my son started playing football, yeah, and him enjoying it so much made me like football again. Okay, he gave me the enjoyment back, but up to that point, like anyone that I had played with, I didn't want him to do well. I couldn't help it. If they were playing in cup finals, I used to want them to lose. It's terrible. Yeah, it was a terrible way of beating. I was just full of hate and rage. Like my my temper inside was horrendous. Like I couldn't. How do you deal with that then? I didn't. Okay. I mean, I I didn't.

SPEAKER_03: 13:38

I'd have starting to paint a picture here kind of what's going on, you know.

SPEAKER_00: 13:42

I didn't, I didn't uh I didn't deal with it. I didn't deal with it at all. I dealt with it in the worst possible way. Okay, you know. Talk to him about the first time you used cooking. Yeah, uh interesting. So I actually lived, so I lived in Essex and I didn't know anyone that did drugs in well living. I'd never been around drugs, and yeah, yeah. And I'd gone out, so I've got taken to Manchester, actually 500 yards from where I currently live. Right. The pub at the bottom of my road the pub at the bottom of my road. It used to be called the Rectory, now it's called Brown's. And I come up with a guy called Michael Edward Hammond, right, who at the time was Danny Minogue's boyfriend and meant to be a TV producer. He went to prison about eight years ago for breaking into Buckingham Palace and pretending he was a police officer. Do you remember him?

SPEAKER_03: 14:23

I vaguely remember the. He said he was CID. That was him.

SPEAKER_00: 14:26

So I go in the car from London to Manchester, and we're going out with some people in Coronation Street, and we go out to this pub at the bottom of where I now live randomly, and I go taken back to this house in Whitefields, and they put cocaine on the table in the kitchen. So they're doing it, people lining it up, have on a bit of that, and I do it. And I thought, I'll be honest with you, I did it, I think, because of peer pressure, because who I was with.

SPEAKER_03: 14:49

I was gonna say, did you need convincing to do it? Or was it a bit of like a big fit?

SPEAKER_00: 14:53

I think I'm trying to fit in. Yeah, but it instantly made me feel better. Okay. It it instantly changed how I felt. And in what way? I felt happy.

SPEAKER_03: 15:04

Was that a feel like the first time you'd experience happiness in a long period of time?

SPEAKER_00: 15:08

Yeah. Yeah. Looking back at it, yeah. It took me out of myself, it took away my feelings, and it instantly made me feel better. And I did that one line, I talked shit for five hours, then asked for another one, but they'd obviously all done it because that's what people do, and there was no more, and that was fine. And I got on with my life and my week or whatever, and but I'd end up going up to Manchester once a month and having a party. Very normal at that at that point for about six months. So I still didn't know anyone in London that did drugs or where to get drugs, and then I eventually met a drug dealer in Faces in Gance Hill, which was one of my local nightclubs, and then uh, and it was all very nice and normal and going out and was you was you chasing it in between that.

SPEAKER_03: 15:55

No, not at that point.

SPEAKER_00: 15:56

I mean, at that point, even when I found a guy in Essex that sold it, uh I'd bought I remember buying even at this point, no, I bought seven halves, right? And I kept them in a drawer, and every time I went out, I took half with me.

SPEAKER_02: 16:07

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 16:08

That's probably the first and only time I ever done that. Yeah, but that lasted whatever, seven weeks, or if I went out twice a week, three yeah, three weeks, whatever. And then I remember coming out of a meeting one day and and ringing him and going to buy some gear in the daytime, and I thought I did it about two o'clock in the afternoon, and I thought, oh, this is the best thing ever. And it was never the same again.

SPEAKER_03: 16:26

Yeah. I suppose as well, with with the fact that you were able to put it in your drawer and keep it there, that's gonna create a psychological sense of I'm in control of this.

SPEAKER_00: 16:35

Well, at that point it wasn't even that, it was more I do this a bit when I go out.

SPEAKER_03: 16:39

Yeah. And I didn't know any So you didn't even think about it being addictive or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00: 16:42

It was just I'd come home and I'd have used all that half, or the half went back in the drawer. I mean, I didn't think my brain weren't wired then, like I suppose it ended up being. And whether the way you use it, the amount you use, I know I think it does make a difference. So, you know, it was new to me, it was new, my brain was new to it. It was a thing I did when I went out, it wasn't a thing I did all the time. I still probably had this thing about being a druggy, you know, see on the street, and it's not me, and I'm I do I've got a good job and and all of that. You can't recognise you as as the other people because you've got no I'm going out to nightclubs, I'm going out to nightclubs, I'm drinking champagne and I'm in parties and I'm with you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 17:23

Yeah, I'm not doing it on a park bench sort of thing, do you know?

SPEAKER_00: 17:26

Important people that couldn't really give a shit about, but that's what I perceived. Um and I'm I'm a kid, I'm 19, 20 years old, and I'm you know I'm partying.

SPEAKER_03: 17:39

At what point did you realise that it started to I suppose become addictive then? Because like I say, if you're you're able to just take it when you're partying, at what point do you recognise it's starting to escalate?

SPEAKER_00: 17:50

Well very quickly. As soon as I bought it that day in that afternoon, it never went back to that.

SPEAKER_03: 17:56

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 17:57

I think for not this is completely different reason. I don't really like nightclubs. I never did. I don't like alcohol very much. I didn't like the work mummy foot. I never drunk without drugs. So I didn't want to go out to pubs and nightclubs. I had to go to pubs and nightclubs to meet girls, take drugs. That's you know, looking back at it, but I never I still don't like him. I don't like lab music. I I just I don't enjoy that atmosphere, I never have done. I hate it now.

SPEAKER_03: 18:24

See, for me that's something that's come with age, like you know, it sounds like you hated it from the start. I didn't want to do it then.

SPEAKER_00: 18:29

I did it because that's what you do, and that's especially that 20 years ago, 20 years ago, you people it doesn't seem to be as many nightclubs now. That was that's how you met people who didn't have social media, yeah. You know, I met my wife at a nightclub. So at that point when I bought in the day, I started I started using like what I would call using, you know, two, three days at a time. And I still thought at that point, it's great fun, this is amazing. I've absolutely cracked the code of life, I'm happy, and now I ain't gotta go out. So that's what I did.

SPEAKER_03: 19:01

Did it ever become daily use?

SPEAKER_00: 19:03

Yeah, I was daily use. So so by 20 so my 21st birthday, I went to my nan to a Chinese, and I loved my nan and grandad, and I left as quickly as I could. I bought a quarter ounce of gear and a bottle of Jack Daniels from the BP petrol station in Depton, and I sat in my apartment for three days, three and a half days, and I thought this is brilliant, this is what I want to do. And I used to play a game, like how long I could stay awake, like and I thought this was clever. I would try and stay awake for as long as I could doing it, and I was able to function because a lot of that time when I started every day, I was a dry sniffer, really. I didn't really drink. So I would be working and I'd be sniffing. I'd be out and I'd be sniffing and I'd be with people and I'd be sniffing, and then I'd be indoors and I'd be sniffing and not sleeping.

SPEAKER_03: 19:49

And I like the term dry sniffer, I've not actually heard that before. But of course, yeah, because some people it's a case of right, I've had a drink, now I'm gonna have coke.

SPEAKER_00: 19:55

No, no, I was coke first. Yeah, coke first. I didn't I did that for years. I I drive. In fact, that's probably my preferred thing. Because again, I never liked the effect of alcohol. I was very lucky that I don't like the taste of alcohol, I suppose. But I would drink copious amounts of alcohol by the end, litres of neat. I'd drink out of bottles neat because it I would try and weigh off the effects of my cocaine use, but it it ended up getting on top of me. But really, at the start, for years I'd sniff without alcohol. I'd drink if I was out with people, like they do.

SPEAKER_03: 20:27

You mentioned obviously the the love for your your grandparents. Yeah. Did any of your your family, whether that be your mum, your grandparents, did anybody even notice that you were having these problems?

SPEAKER_00: 20:36

I think my mum definitely noticed whether or not she told my grandparents, but it's very I think I was very difficult. I'd obviously gone through what I'd gone through and it was I don't think leaving my line, but she's also going through she lost her husband. Do you know what I mean? So I actually don't know the answer to that, but I can only um I can only say of course they did because I was a raving lunatic. So you you you you wouldn't you you can't not know that someone's doing it every day. My it my nose were bleeding, my nose was watering, you know.

SPEAKER_03: 21:04

I think we talk about how substance misuse and being in addiction can feel quite selfish. I mean when you was going through what you were going through, I think your response is completely, you know, validated after the trauma you experienced, you know, losing your career, losing your dad. Would you even you mentioned your mum then, obviously losing her husband. Was you even really thinking about that at the time or the impact that your use was having on her? Of course I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00: 21:27

So I think I think about it now though, actually. Yeah. Do you feel guilt for it now? Yeah, I do, I think I no, so yeah, I do, I do, I suppose. I've apologised for it, but what I what I think about is if you could go back without knowing at the time I just made that about me, didn't I? I had a younger brother, two years younger than me, who hasn't got any of the problems I've had, who cope well, I think, because I've never spoken to him about it. How come? I don't know. I spoke to him a little bit a couple last year about about one of the first times, but not he's a bit more different to me, he's a bit more quiet, a bit more in you know inside and stuff. And he said something to me about he would look in the mirror and thought he'd play football as well, thought he'd play football and say I'd do it for you, do it for him. And I sitting there and I thought, we should really talk about this, really, yeah, uh, at some point. And I don't see him that much. He's got family, I live 300 miles away. And it's something I probably want to do, to be honest with you, and I think it's something I should do. But no, at the time I look back and I didn't see it as what in effect everyone I no, no, everyone was really worried about me.

SPEAKER_03: 22:27

Yeah, that's it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:28

You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03: 22:29

Yeah, because they're they're gonna be looking at everything that you're going through, then knowing the big career change that you're experiencing, yeah. Knowing that you've just lost your dad as well. Yeah, and some people that's what they do, despite what they're going through, they're thinking about other people, aren't they? I think family was probably thinking about that with yourself.

SPEAKER_00: 22:43

I think my mum definitely was. My mum's very kind, very loving. In fact, probably too much, too soft.

SPEAKER_03: 22:49

Too soft for you. So, in comparison of what your dad was like as well. It's like a bit of a yin and yang. So he was just tripping at home, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:55

Even if I wanted to, so I was 18 years old, I had a girlfriend. If I wanted to go to the pictures, I say it's right if I go to the pictures. Yeah, I worked, my money, I've got a car, but I'd ask my dad if it was okay. It's like a respect thing. Of course, yeah, I get it. And um, like a girlfriend couldn't stack my hat, you know, like that sort of stuff. Actually, I quite I I look back and quite respect it. I'm pleased that I was like, I'm like it with my kids, but yes, and then I lost that at home, and then I was just like, I can do what I want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 23:17

So when when you met when you met your wife, yeah, obviously you said you met her in a nightclub, he was using substance in a nightclub. Did she have any inclination that you were?

SPEAKER_00: 23:25

She's not like me.

SPEAKER_03: 23:26

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00: 23:26

But I'd stopped, so in between, I'd end up letting the drug dealer live with me for free. I'd still be buying drugs off him, but he weren't paying rent, so he lived with me for free.

SPEAKER_03: 23:34

I got rid of him because at that point I'd be wanting the drugs for free if he was living with me.

SPEAKER_00: 23:38

I was dicking some drugs ever so often and stuff, but and I'd do a bit of him, but really I was really had the best of both worlds. But at that point, I was so bad that when I was sniffing by that point, my eye was bleeding, and I was like running. I was in a bad way by that point. But I'm about 23 and I stopped, I wound it down. I'd been awake at one point for 10 days, and I passed out for about two. I woke up my mouth, I was in a right state. Yeah, I didn't knew it was 10 days because my mum went to South Africa and she'd come back and I thought fucking I ain't slept. So I'd wound it back and I was using it what I perceive to be normally again, well, my normal, twice a week, and I'd started going out again. But I would only be going out to too's. Like I won't go out now, I'm only going out to go's, not to do any, not to meet people. And I met her in a nightclub at a bar, and she's not like she's never been like me. She's one of them people that are very happy drunk if she drinks, if she ever if I drinks twice a year, and then with a meal once a week, twice a month, she might have a glass of wine and leave half of it. Frustratingly normal, yeah, very opinionating. Frustratingly normal, very opinionating and judgmental with me. Um very happy with me nowadays, but yeah, so she wasn't aware of what I was like. I could hide it from her for a bit. For a bit, I did alright with hiding it, and then going out and saying I'm doing drugs sometimes when we go out. This is furthering our relationship. And then by the time I got married, she is well aware of what I'm like. In fact, I got back on my honeymoon and I went to rehab a week after. Oh wow. So for well, I left after a week and uh and yeah, I went to rehab for the first time when I was 25. I'd been married a month, been on holiday for a month, come back, went to Ascot, come home, started getting on it, and first time I'd ever done it, she got the ump. I went out and I didn't come back for two days. Have you only been to rehab once? No, done multiple times. No, I twice, but the first time I went, I went to the I didn't well I suppose I didn't want to go, I went, I was there a week. They they sort of said that someone gave me a book, Anger as a drug, because my temper at that point was off the bricter scale. My I was I was angry. I was getting out of cars, I was in problems all the time, I've been arrested. It was lots of stuff going on. I got on a bus and kicked the door through because they blocked me at a T junction and craziness. And they gave me a book called Anger as a Drug. So I thought, I heard that, listened to that, and I went, Oh my problem's not drugs. You found like the root cause of anger, so manger's that. So I got I got hold of that and I left after that week and I went to therapy for anger. Okay, and I drove into London every week on a Friday, like two hours across London, and I'd leave at five and get up at seven to do this therapy. And of course, anger wasn't my problem, it was it was always drugs, and how I felt, and it didn't work. And when I was 30, I went back, and it was bad, you know. Between those two periods, my family, my wife then is then aware she's not like my mum. My wife will front me, but she won't have it.

SPEAKER_03: 26:38

Yeah, she's not soft at all, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:40

She's having it, like she wants me out, or she's stopping me, or she's dragging me, or you know what I mean? She she will confront me. My wife is exactly what I need in life.

SPEAKER_03: 26:48

I was gonna say, I was about to say it sounds like she is what you need, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 26:51

She's the best thing that's ever happened to me by a million miles, but she's my equal in every way. She's the person I love the most, I love spending time with her. I always have done. We've been together 20 years, and that's never changed. So she's always we'd always have a relationship and we still have now that there's a problem, you yeah. She hits me, yeah. She hits me, and yeah, it it so between those two periods it wasn't like how it was, and just before I was ther I was 30, I was in and out of the rooms. I started going to going back, I started going to AA when I was about 22 every so often. Because I knew I was fucked.

SPEAKER_03: 27:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 27:30

And I knew I didn't want to be like it, but I couldn't hear it. I didn't want to hear the message, I didn't want to hear it, I didn't see it. And um I just kept well, I suppose you could say I was relapsed when I weren't even in it, I don't even know what to stand.

SPEAKER_03: 27:40

Yeah, I get I get it, yeah. I think as well, the the the model of the fellowship, I I don't think it necessarily often resonates with younger people. It's hard. The the idea of accepting that you're powerless over, you know, this this substance or this addiction, I think that's quite hard to accept when you're very young. I couldn't accept it. No, I think when you're older you might be a little bit more inclined to and to be open to that. But as a young person, any young person I've met who has gone to the the rooms of of the fellowship often say like they just can't get past the first step because they think this is a behavioural thing. 100%.

SPEAKER_00: 28:12

Yeah. Have you had enough pain? Is that is uh is the thing and then you uh I used to think yeah, in my head I'd probably look I'm I'm smart, I can run businesses, I can make money, I can sort this out. I couldn't. And I went into I went I went into London one morning saying I was uh going to a meeting, AA meeting or CA meeting, and uh 11 o'clock in the morning I'm in the Witherspoons and I'm and I'm using and I met these three Australians that were backpacking and I got on it with her, got on it. They'd obviously like normal people go home at 11 o'clock at night. I ended up, I didn't know what to do, I ended up checking into a hotel in London. And I'd never done that before either at that point. And I was up all night, and in the morning I thought, what am I gonna tell her? So I thought, right, go in the bathroom, there's an air dryer, smash yourself in the head with the air dryer, don't smash yourself up, and then ring her from the payphone and say, I've been arrested for fighting. That's believable in my head. So that's what I do. Right. So I stand in the mirror, I got the got the the back of the air dryer, and I smash myself in the face. Right. Smash my eye up, leave the hotel, I mean Auburn, use a payphone, so I've been arrested. She at this point she don't believe me. She can she was at this point would ring me in the daytime to see what my voice sounded like to know. You can know if I'm using that. I'm like Ozzy Osborne if I'm using at this point when I'm 30. And I go home, she's not there, she's carrying on with her life like normally she's at work, and I make an arrest sheet up on my computer, print it out, fold it up like it's been in my pocket, and I leave it in the kitchen. I then pick up and carry on. She rings me and says, You need you need you need help. This is like ridiculous. And I say, Yeah, I do, and I go to she goes, Oh I'm not taking you, but there's a place at the priory. So I go to the priory in Southcoat, and I check in and I'm there for 30 days. And I'll give it everything I had. Except I knew there was three grams of coke at the top of the kitchen cupboard. Because I used to put things high because my wife's five foot, about five foot one, and I'm six foot three, so high, high in my jacket pocket. So I left that there and I never told her. But I still looking back, I'd I'd give it everything I had at that point except for that. And I left after the 30 days, 28 days, and I went home and I touched it and I felt at ease because it was there. I used using it within two days while doing daycare. Got over that for a few days, and about the fifth day of obviously ramping up because that's fucking why wouldn't I ramp up? I can't get to there. I'm going there, I get the cab to divert. I end up going to a place called Snaresbrook where I sit in a park bench at eight o'clock in the morning sniffing, drinking vodka that I bought from the corner shop out of a brand bag, smoking a cigar and playing sudoku. And I end up pretending to my wife, she obviously at this point they all know I'm fucking off on one. Yeah. They're not listening to the lie that said the cars broke down and all of that. So I'm banned from driving at this point as well. And I end up managing to get into my back garden where I hide for a day using, and she's like looking for me and all of that. And when she gets me, she drives me back to the priory, they won't have me back. And it was a Friday, there was a CA meeting at the Priory on a Friday night, and Dave said no, like he ain't coming back. I I didn't want to go back in as a resident, they won't have me back as daycare. And I'm in the car park after, and I say, I'm gonna wait for the meeting. She tries to run me over in the car park, and she smashes my because I'm banned, she smashes my Mercedes into a tree in the priory. Because I think looking back, you talk to your families with addiction, but if she if I went into rehab now, she would understand more. At the time, you go to rehab, you're spending all that money, you're fixed. Yeah, you're fixed. You've been away from home for 30 28 days, they've not seen you, hardly spoke to you, can they visit you once a week if you're lucky, and that's meant to fix you. And I weren't fixed. So she didn't know how to cope with it.

SPEAKER_03: 32:17

I was gonna say as well, for a family, they're probably thinking, I mean, the priory as well. They're worried that that must have caused them to think, well, if if that doesn't fix it, what what is gonna fix it? I guess that takes me to kind of the the next question. I think we often look at the turning point, whether that'd be the rock bottom moment, and that sounds like quite a rock bottom. Sort of a bottom as well. Tell me one of many. If beating is one of many, hairdryer isn't the rock bottom. That's one of many. I mean tell me what the lowest moment you had. I think there's a prediction.

SPEAKER_00: 32:50

I feel like I think there's a few. Talk me through them. So, I mean, as low, every part from that point to what the bitter end, I'd be in recovery and I'd relapse, and I was a binger. I'd be going three, four days, I'd end up in hotel rooms, and she left, she'd find the hotel, my card would eventually beep. She'd trap me down and dragged me out of the hotel. I was always by myself, and at this point, I'd drink liters and eat vodka out of bag uh out of bottles, even in a hotel room and asking if drugs. Right, so I'm stopped. And there was loads of them. There was loads of them. I mean, I went to I went to lunch. I started off in Manchester one night, she was in London. I'd been out with normal people, went home, carried on, got the train to London at an event she was really wanted to go to, carried on. She realised in the morning she left me there, so I ruined it for her, I carried on. I got the train back to Manchester the next day, I carried on. I then drove to Brighton because I was meant to be doing something for a charity. Stopped on the Sunday, I started on the Wednesday, so I'm in Brighton now, and the only reason I'm stopping because I can't get anything. It's snowing. I don't do the charity thing, and then I drive home and like I'm sorry, there's one, and I looked at her that time I thought I can't do this to you ever again. I sat in my office toilet one afternoon because she'd been away that night, and then come back, and then I thought, where am I gonna go? So I went to the office with vodka and coke and I sat in the cubicle in my offices for 10 hours until everyone left the office. That's pretty fucking shit, isn't it? I'd been arrested. I've what was you arrested for? Drink driving. But actually, well, I used to drug drive a lot all the time. Worst things I ever did, my drive my kisses go a lot, right? It's the worst thing I did. I believe that's the worst I did, but I did it to hide that I was doing it. Yeah, no, I get I get that. Ever fucking horrendous. I mean I'm the complete opposite, I'm quite a morally strong person. My wife sometimes says to me, You're quite just considering what I was like, but when I do other things, I'm the opposite. And everything I stand for is the opposite. I'm horrible. Everything I did makes me so that that I regret more than anything because I could have killed my kids. And there's nothing worse than that, is that? Or it's somebody else. But I didn't you know I didn't. But I still think about that, doing that.

SPEAKER_03: 35:01

The possibility of what could have happened.

SPEAKER_00: 35:02

Well, driving to school. If she weren't there, I'd drive him to school so she didn't know I was using. Yeah. It's crazy, it's crazy thinking. A lot of people do it, and I don't mind talking about that. The last time I used, I was about three days in and I was at home by myself. And I've got a heart defibrillator in my dressing room, right? But I keep at that point I kept my drugs there as well if I was using drinking, I'd hide by in the house by myself. I'm hiding drink behind my clothes and neck in it and then sniffing. And as I'm walking in, I get like this electric, what I think's an electric shock, right? And I manage to stay on my feet and I'm like, fucking. And I think the fibulator that's across the room is giving me an electric shock. So I carry on. But two hours later, I'm jumping out of the bed because I just lay on the bed when I'm doing this, I'm not functioning. Yeah. I'd like to jump out and I go into it again, and I have another one, it hits me again, and I end up on the floor. What I actually had was two fits. Yeah. That didn't stop me. Okay. I still went for another two days. But when I realised at the end, I thought, this is I'm gonna fucking die. I always thought I'm gonna die, but I'd had enough years before I stopped. Like I'd had enough. I I was doing it when they say you have powerless over it. I'm fucking pretty powerless over it. I'm fucking miserable, I'm not enjoying any of it, and actually I'm committing suicide slowly and painfully. That's what I'm doing. I actually want to die. So when I'm drinking and using, I sit on that bed wherever I am, doing it, drinking it as much as I can. I mean litres at a time. I'd do three, four litres of okra in a in a day. I'd drank an eight in an hour once, trying to die. Yeah, I used to think I wish I'd fucking die because I can't stop. I was gonna this is it, because with the with everything you're describing, sounds fucking awful.

SPEAKER_03: 36:47

Horrendous. None of it sounds like the I guess you said it at the beginning, you said cocaine at first, it felt like it saved your life. Yeah. And then to see what it's what it's taken away and what it's doing to you, it just sounds like there's no quality of life there.

SPEAKER_00: 36:59

There was no at all. It stripped me of everything, and in between, I mean, and every time I got stopped, and every time I got sober, I'd say sorry and I meant it. She wouldn't believe me. But every time I said sorry to her, I meant it. Like I just couldn't help it. It was fucking crazy. I couldn't be left alone. If I was by myself, I wouldn't be she used to think I'd plan weeks in advance. I never did that. I used to be by myself overnight. Could be here. I I got levered once about 100 yards from where we're standing, nah, in Hull, in that hotel in that sports bar that's above. Right. And I couldn't be by myself. So she'd have to do something or be away for work. She'd end up like trying not to be away because I couldn't not do it, and then she'd go within an hour. I'm using my favourite thing in the world is to sit at home drinking Diet Coke or water and watching the telly with her. Right. As soon as she's not there, I can't do that. Like I couldn't relax, I can't, my brain, I just couldn't cope. And then I'd learnt over all those years that my coping mechanism was cocaine. Yeah, that's what I taught myself. I taught myself to self-soothe with drugs. It took me a long time to know that, and it took me a long time to do it, but so she'd leave and I'd do it, and then I didn't know why I was doing it, and I couldn't stop, and I wanted to die, and it was never different. But at the same time, I can't stop, and it was horrendous. It was horrendous. I used to think, I wish I'd die. I wasn't brave enough to kill myself. Or I don't want to be no Joe T who committed suicide. I don't know what, but I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. And it didn't matter how much pain I had, if she left me, or if she left me, I could crack on. So that was fucking what so she was terrified of leaving me. And I used to think, fucking hell, like I used to sit there going, like, what is going on? Why? Because no, there's no answer. For me, I still can't tell you why.

SPEAKER_03: 38:57

Yeah. I'm just trying to put myself in literally in in your body now. I imagine that was just like a fucking prison up here.

SPEAKER_00: 39:03

Yeah. Because I couldn't speak at that point. I think I I've I've got that ADHD where if I use drugs, I'm quite talkative and hyperactive anyway. If I use drugs, I'm more calm down a little bit. Yeah. Eventually it'll go far so far past that point where I'm like a zombie. But you know what I mean? So I'm not bouncing off the walls because I'm using I'm numb.

SPEAKER_03: 39:27

What's the moment then after everything that you're going through? Because there's there's the thing with addiction. You can't get you you've got your kids, you've got your wife. They often say you can't get clean for other people, you have to do it for yourself. Yeah. What was the moment then? Because you you're sitting here in front of me now, yeah. Looking really well. Yeah, life is completely different. Completely different, yeah. What was it then where the light bulb did just flick on?

SPEAKER_00: 39:53

It's had enough. I actually truly believe I had enough light. I'd had enough a living. How I was living. Even when I was sober.

SPEAKER_03: 40:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 40:03

I'd had enough. I'd just It was like a switch went off in my head. And it changed. I mean it it changed. Nothing prompted it, it was just I'd gone out five days, I had them two fits, and it's nothing even to do with them. It's not my story, one of my kids is have had problems. And that that child, I'm not gonna say which one it was because it's not filming them. That child was in that house when I was on that five-day binge because I did it the kids. They're adults now, they're in their 20s, was in the house, and he'd he'd be shit, they'd been trying to get away from this substance that they were doing marijuana and begambling for a month, and he's been in the house they're in the house with me for them five days, and I thought that can't happen. Yeah. And it was literally I could I it was like something went bang, and it finally went bang, and the the fucking penny dropped with me and it and it just dropped. And it was and I do feel like that. It wasn't hard, I didn't, I never find not I never found not using normally hard. I didn't I did in my 20s, but in my 30s I didn't, I'd relapse. I was in recovery sometimes. I was close sober a year, I fall over six months, three months. It was always gaps, it always run or stop, but that day that happened, and that week after, and I just thought, no more.

SPEAKER_03: 41:17

What tools did you kind of like practice and put into place and to maintain the sobriety after that penny drop moment then?

SPEAKER_00: 41:23

Lots of different things because I'd been in the fellowship for 15 years, and the truth is I don't really practice the fellowship now. I've changed one of the problems I had, and I do not have a problem with the fellowship, I think it's fucking an unbelievable tool, is that we all use different, we all can't recover differently, and I always struggled with that. So I had to stop trying to because I had that guiltiness of trying to fit in. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was using it wrong. I was using it to network. I was like, this woman was making me a cake. This woman do you know what I mean? I was that person going to the same meet and like manipulating the room. So I had to change that. I'd had a good group of friends around me, most of my friends were in recovery, right? So some were sober for 40 years. So I'd all I'd had that core group of people that actually wanted to be my friend and not because of who I was or what I had. So I had all the network around me I needed. I had a loving wife that didn't use. I had a home life that was settled if I wanted it to be. I was the one fucking destroying that. So all I had to do was just get up in the morning. I also needed to stop thinking about the future. This was a big one for me. I couldn't get sober a lot of the time because I'd go into rooms and say someone went, I'm 10 years sober, I'd think you're fucking liar. And I'd get resentful at people that were sober, yeah, like for longer than me.

SPEAKER_03: 42:33

That was really interesting, though. I hated it.

SPEAKER_00: 42:35

So I don't say now how long I've been sober. Now I've been sober quite a long time. But if anyone asked me, I'm sober today, and I was sober yesterday, and that's all I've got to do. And the minute I kept it honest, so anyone asked me, I'm in recovery, I'm a drug addict, and I keep it in today, I've been alright. Whenever I lied previously, it didn't work for me. So my wife, I think it took her a long while to get used to it because she is quite been on a reality show. My wife's quite private, and she's very East London, like you don't talk about what happens indoors. That's my wife's mentality. So then when I'm going when I'm a drug addict, she's like, now she's not a problem with it. Because I think we had a conversation once where you've got a choice. Do you want this one or you want that one?

SPEAKER_03: 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 43:19

And there's no choice. So I think honesty destroyed it, broke me for it, got me sober, and keeping it simple. I mean, that I heard I'd heard that for 20 years. I had a sponsor once, she's like, keep it stupid, keep it simple, stupid, right? Kiss or keep it simple, sweetheart. See what someone wants to be nice, but I like the stupid thing. And once I did that, it was easy. It it was easy.

SPEAKER_03: 43:43

You felt like you was overcomplicating it in your mind as well. Of course I did.

SPEAKER_00: 43:46

Yeah. We complicated people was a simple problem. Yeah. Really? I love that. We are.

SPEAKER_01: 43:53

That's a really nice little soundboat though.

SPEAKER_00: 43:55

But if I just had to not pick up for this hour, and sometimes it was an hour, right? Yeah. And admit I couldn't stay by myself, which meant at 40 odd years old, and I was sober for that, but at 30 odd years old, I had to ring my mum and say, Mum, can you drive up from London and sit with me because Nicole's away on Tuesday? That's what I did. Yeah, yeah. That's what I did. And I don't need that now. I'm alright by myself now. Amazing that, innit? Yeah. Like, and I couldn't. And just by that doing that, just keeping it literally simple. And if if it was at the start I was struggling, and I had to sit in a bar. A bath used to take it my mind, or walking. If I had to sit in the bar for uh two hours, I would and get through that period, and then I'd be alright. And then you get to bed, and actually, I've done it. I've fucking done it, and I still practice that today. Like, I get up this morning at five, I've driven here, I'm doing this, I've got a meeting after.

SPEAKER_02: 44:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 44:49

I'll drive home, I'll eat my dinner, hopefully, when I get in with my wife, I'll watch what everyone's just telling you, I've ticked a box. I'll talk to some people in recovery on the phone, I've done this, and it's good enough. And every day ain't perfect. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 45:02

From what I do know, you are obviously a successful businessman. Is there I suppose what I'm trying to get at is that addictive or that addiction in terms of the personality as well. Do you think that's crossed over and been an attribute in terms of your success as well?

SPEAKER_00: 45:19

I think a few I do think, yeah, but what I've I always say is I a lot I know a lot of people in sobriety, and what do you know I know about people in sobriety they can achieve a fucking lot because no one works harder than the crack addict looking for crack.

SPEAKER_01: 45:33

Yeah, absolutely. Right? I swear to God.

SPEAKER_00: 45:36

No, no, you'll never work harder when you're trying to get hold of a dealer. Yeah, if you can, if you've got that mentality, let's put it that way, and you're sober, and you can channel it into lots of things, we can do anything we want to do. Because we've gone through things that mentally will destroy that, destroyed us, and you have to rebuild. And I think a lot of you find a lot of success in in those rooms and in sobriety, as much as you do pain. But yeah, you can you can focus. I don't know whether because I I managed to do things when I was amazingly, I managed to do things when I was on when I was on it. But because I was probably not every day at that point and I was a binger, it I was functioning.

SPEAKER_02: 46:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 46:17

I mean, yeah, I I think why not? Why why hasn't it been why why hasn't it been in that way positive for me, my mental state of mind? You deal with people better because you're calmer in general, yeah. You work hard, like I don't mind how long I work for. I don't know is the answer to that, but I think so.

SPEAKER_03: 46:39

I just think it's interesting to think of the you know how how successful you are because the story that you've you've just told me there, and you know, especially post 18, 19 years old after the football, just sounds like you know fucking how many years of just pain. But to be able to to you know, do the things that you've done in between is I'm just I'm thinking fucking hell.

SPEAKER_00: 47:02

But I put that down, I put that down to my wife. So you know what my wife went my wife's successful, right? Started and my wife didn't have the upbringing I've had. My wife had an hard upbringing. She started a business 18 years old, she was homeless, really, digging holes on the railway, started a railway company, and now it's one of the largest in the UK, she's got a thousand staff. She's done that with no help. I've had all the support in the fucking world. But like I've I'd I'd I've had three different businesses now. I had the sports agency, I sold that, then opened a group of gyms and I sold them. Now I own Mr. Whippy, and one of the owners of Mr. Whippy, and we've got bakeries and all sorts of stuff now, and it's a big business. But those first two businesses probably wouldn't have functioned without her. Yeah. Because when I went missing, she filled in.

SPEAKER_03: 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 47:45

For me. And everything I've got is because of her. At the same time, people think I'm crazy for doing this, but I still do it. Every penny I earn, I give her. So I have a credit card that I so I've got a credit card, I've got an express card that I use wherever I go, but I won't keep more than 300 quid in cash in my bank. And it's not because I'm gonna go on a bender. Because I think why do I need that money? I don't I don't get I don't actually know what it is, whether it's a safety net, even, but I think every day I get up and go work for her. Like she's so important to me.

SPEAKER_02: 48:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:21

So everything I earn I give her. And it's like it's like a balance, I suppose, a yin and a yang because I trust her. Yeah. But I think she's the reason I'm successful, yeah, if I'm honest with you.

SPEAKER_03: 48:33

To be fair, do you know, thinking thinking about I've I don't I don't know her obviously never met her or anything, but she sounds incredible to one put up with everything that you've kind of put her through over the years, mad, and then to do you know sort your businesses out when you wasn't there, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 48:48

I don't think you could have done any better, could you? Well, yeah, the best thing ever happened to me. I mean, without showing that, but I say to her, Yeah, I don't know why you've stayed. I wouldn't have. Yeah, I wouldn't have stayed, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 48:58

And and even more so, talking about her upbringing, if I was to That's probably why she stayed. The stig yeah, the sti uh the stigma of addiction. If someone told me her child of story next to your child's story and they said which one becomes the addict, I'd have been looking at her.

SPEAKER_00: 49:12

She's got no of it, none of it. That's incredible, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03: 49:14

Really? It challenges your entire perception of thinking of what people go through and and where they end up. Do you know?

SPEAKER_00: 49:20

My brother's not like it. Same upbringing, same tr trauma, dad died, you're not like it. People react different ways to different things, and I know lots of people in recovery that have had her upbringing that are.

SPEAKER_03: 49:31

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_00: 49:32

She's I do think she could be a bit of a one-off, to be fair, but she was meant to be, and I also think that like if everything's I I was accept everything that's happened to me because I've met her. So I wouldn't change any of it because I wouldn't met her.

SPEAKER_03: 49:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 49:46

And maybe we wouldn't have the relationship we've had without that. Because she's my best friend, like, there's nothing she won't say to me.

SPEAKER_03: 49:53

Yeah, yeah. That's what you need though, isn't it? I mean, I uh weirdly enough, I was at a party of response.

SPEAKER_00: 49:58

I was at a party three weeks ago, really close friend of ours, 60th. I was at her house, it was a house party in the marquee, really nice, and actually no one at that party is like her, like not there's no lunatics, yeah. But I went to the toilet twice, right? And it's not happening, this ain't happened a lot. She'd come over to me, I was talking to someone that was drug, and having a good conversation he has a wine, he owns a wine company talking about his business. And she touched, she hold my hand, she went, Your hands are hot, and I knew instantly what she meant. Okay because you get hot, don't you, if you use drugs, right? I used to get hot. So I looked at her, I went, Do you think I've used drugs? And she said, No, but she did. Yeah, and then she thought it. And she was like, Why are your hands hot? I was like, Well, I'm hot, I must be hot. There's no answer. I was in that atmosphere, I suppose, and you know, she's not used to me being in those places anymore, because I don't actually like parties or things like that, but your relationship evolves and you have to accept that. I have to accept that from her because Yeah, after everything you've after everything you've done, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 51:00

I think it'd be almost I don't know, not unfair, but I guess yeah, I suppose it'd be it'd be unfair to to dismiss her or be mad at her for feeling that way after everything that you've you have done. I think she she may always have that little bit of doubt. Well I always lied. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 51:14

You always lie. Exactly. I mean, why would you tell the truth? If I had a cheese sandwich, I'd had an ham sandwich at that point. I mean, I lied, you lie. Because you're not gonna tell Philball, you're using that used to lie just constantly. She's not getting that, she'll go. Well, when I used to ask you if you were using, you'd say you weren't. I said, Of course I fucking said that. You're mad. Are you mad? Yeah. You're gonna take my drugs off me. I mean, you yeah, well, she can find them, but do you know do you know what I'm saying? So she always has that thing that I've lied to her. The truth is I probably ain't lied to her in years, yeah. I can't remember the last thing I told her that were a drug, yeah, but I think it's good as part of our relationship that she thinks that I'm a lying cunt all the time. Because I was, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I was, and I have to accept that, and I think that has also gets you sober, you accept your acceptance around other people, because actually you don't deserve to be treated any differently, it takes time, but the speed that my life and my relationship improved because I always had a good relationship, which had that look is amazing to have some sort of trust. I never had that that I'm trusted to come here. Of course, yeah. Do you know what I mean? And not why don't you answer your phone? Yeah, where are you? Are you right? Do you know what I mean? Why you spend£100? Why have you got cash out? Do you know what I'm saying? Where now, because I am where I say I am, I'm home generally when I'm at home, cook dinner, do things with the kids.

SPEAKER_03: 52:41

Was it hard to start telling the truth? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sounds like that would have been quite a big change for you to do. I loved lying.

SPEAKER_00: 52:47

I didn't even know I was lying. So I I I say that as well to us.

SPEAKER_01: 52:50

I loved lie, I loved lying. I loved it.

SPEAKER_00: 52:52

But what but I didn't know I was doing I believed it. It's the same as when I said sorry and I meant it.

unknown: 52:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 52:57

I weren't lying, I meant it, but it's lies, the lies were true because actually I believed them.

SPEAKER_03: 53:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:02

Do you know what I mean? I I believe them because you know, why would I say I'm at my dealer's ass or or uh it doesn't matter where it was. Exactly. Why would I say why would I say I've seen this person because she knows that person, someone that you I wouldn't. I would lie.

SPEAKER_02: 53:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 53:14

Because it's life because your life's easier to lie. Yeah. You don't want to I don't want confrontation, I don't want to face anything. Yeah, I want to avoid it.

SPEAKER_03: 53:22

It really is the the definition of burying your head in the sand of the thing. So I want to use my drugs.

SPEAKER_00: 53:26

It's like having gone like being gone. Yeah. It's mine. It's fucking mine. Leave me alone. And it soothed me. It it did soothe me as much as I wanted to fucking die. It took how I felt away. I was lonely by myself.

SPEAKER_03: 53:39

Is there anything that you have to do now to sort of maintain daily sobriety or isn't even it really? No, I do.

SPEAKER_00: 53:44

I like a routine. Yeah. I still like a routine. So I I tend to get up and I do go to the gym. I play paddle every every morning early. As soon as I wake up, I I go in the gym. I try and eat well as best as I can. I try and be honest. I try and I like to go to bed early. So I I like going to bed at nine and I wake up about four to five, and I like those hours by myself. So I might go in the gym at that point, but I'll tell you what, I I why I like it, because it's a fucking blessing to wake up in the morning and not feel like death and actually want to get up. That's one of the biggest joys I've got out of recovery that I didn't know I had waking up. I hated waking up, I hated anything I had to do. And now I wake up, I go downstairs, I talk to the dog, I have a coffee, I go in the gym, I'll do some emails, I'll do whatever I'm doing, then the rest of the ass gets up at seven, eight o'clock, whatever they're doing, and go to work and the chaos begins in the house. But that period is my, I would say is the bit that keeps me sober. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 54:42

It's the little things. One of the stories, obviously, working in in you know substance misuse services for 10 years, one of my favourite stories was one of one of our lads came up to me and he went, Matt, he went, I heard the birds this morning. And I went, yeah. And I didn't understand what he meant. He went, no, no, I aired the birds this morning. I was like, okay, and the pennies still didn't drop my head, and then I had to think, I was like, oh, and what we just had a really good and positive conversation about the little things. Something he went, I hadn't heard he went, I hadn't heard the birds in the morning for like 15 years.

SPEAKER_00: 55:12

But it was it was just that really little thing. I used to funny you say it, I used to hate them wasn't it because if you drop the biggest, yeah, I've heard this story, because then you feel in your head saying it clicks that it's the morning, you're guilty. Yeah. Now I I I can't tell you how much I love waking up early. Well, if I wake up after six o'clock, I feel a bit guilty. I don't need an alarm, but my body now is like even if I go to bed, it's not often I'm in bed at twelve, say midnight or one for whatever reason, I think it's happening, I'm out or whatever. I still wake up, I still my body still wakes up and find it.

SPEAKER_03: 55:42

It's just a natural body clock, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00: 55:44

Yeah, I love it, I won't give that up for anything. And I do think that's a major part of me, my long-term sobriety and that programme. And then talk to people and get on with my life. Yeah, get on with my life and just think about what I've got to do today. And I don't even I'm doing it now without knowing I'm doing it. The fact that I've talked to you today will keep me sober today because I've had pain, I nearly cried. You know, yeah, that remembrance is what you need. Like when I do go to meetings and I do I do pop into meetings and I do talks at meetings or different sobriety events or whatever, and you find someone that's relapsed or new, I go to them, come here. Tell me. Because we don't remember the pain all the time, and we need to. That newcomer or that person that's in suffering is actually better for me than someone that's been sober ten years. That's interesting though. What a grounds you how do you feel? Because you forget. I I recovered from using quick, like within a week, I'm back to normal, say, and I've forgotten how much because I used to think if I could when I was relapsing, if I could keep that pain of the day after you've relapsed, the mental pain, physical pain, the whole thing, I would never use again, but you don't. But new people have got that pain.

SPEAKER_03: 56:50

Give me it, give me it, yeah. Yeah, give me pain. Yeah, I suppose that is one of the benefits. I've never really thought about the the benefits of going to meetings for that reason. But yeah, listening to other people, not just listening to the success stories of how people are intersi, but listening to other people talking about their rock bottom up and thinking, fuck that, I don't want to be there again.

SPEAKER_00: 57:07

You need to give back to them to prove that it can work, but you need their chaos.

SPEAKER_02: 57:10

Yeah, well, I do.

SPEAKER_00: 57:11

I I I certainly do. I mean, yes, completely off. Okay, there's someone that rings me that I've known for a long time, every so often, normally when they're off their tits, needing wanting help. Right. I ain't helping you if you're off your tits while you ring me.

SPEAKER_03: 57:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 57:25

But yesterday, my phone rang and it was him. And I answered the phone, I went, Are you ready? Right? You had enough? And he went, No, no, I'm actually looking for someone to play father side football. But it didn't matter, but that his name came off my phone because someone that might ring me every six months or text me, like my missus left me on it, you know. And him just doing that made me feel better. Even though it weren't even like my brain goes, actually, I'm here for that. Do you know what I mean? I'm here for a dick. I am a fucking recovering drug addict. I'm I'm I'm an addict. I don't pretend I'm anything else. I can be this businessman, I can have this money, I've got a nice house, I've got nice cars, I've got nice kids, I've got an indoor swimming pool, I've got a sauna, I've got I had all that when I was a fucking cunt.

SPEAKER_03: 58:06

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:07

And I wanted to die, and I wanted to burn it down, and I hated my wife, and I hated my kids, and I hated my dog, and even the dog won't come near me. My dog fucking loves me now. Do you know what I mean? And nothing around you will change how this feels. I was in a prison.

SPEAKER_03: 58:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 58:24

I was in a mental prison, whether I was sober or not, I couldn't. I hated myself. Hated myself, I hated everything about me. I didn't like anything to do with me. I actually think I'm quite a good person. Like, don't know what the people think of me.

SPEAKER_03: 58:39

Yeah, but I've enjoyed speaking to you for for the for the last hour. Uh I suppose on the topic of that, then, I mean, we've we've got you know a variety of listeners that listen to this series, we've got you know, people in recovery, people who are still using substances, and then we've got uh students and people that use this for for professional development and learning practice. Is there a message you'd like to tell, I suppose, anybody about I suppose anything really?

SPEAKER_00: 59:04

I think the biggest the biggest thing for me, no matter what you're trying to do and what aspects, whether it's work or getting sober, is communicate. What I've always been good at, even this is on the work side, and what I was really bad at in a life side is not worrying about communicators. So at work, I don't care who I ring, it can be the managed director, Marks or Spencer's and I'll keep ringing them so they tell me to fuck off. But on the other side, I didn't communicate about my pain at all when I should have. So communicate, no matter what you want to do, if you communicate, you'll get somewhere and talk about your pain or talk about your work. It's the biggest thing that has helped me and stopped me in different parts of my life. No, thank you, Joe.

SPEAKER_03: 59:46

We like to finish this series with a a series of uh of random questions. Okay. Uh just to finish on a light hearted note. And my first question is what's your favourite word?

unknown: 59:59

Fuck.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:00

Least favourite word I don't know. Something that excites you. Family. Something that doesn't excite you. Drugs. What sound or noise do you love? My wife's voice. What sound or noise do you hear? My wife's size. That big.

SPEAKER_00: 1:00:30

When she does that when she does that, I look at it, I thought, I want to kill you.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:34

She does it when she's in a bad mood. What's your favourite curse word? Does it still fuck? Probably fuck or can't but I don't want to say I think when you're from London, you get away with the seaword money, you do what you want. Yeah. Fuck okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:47

What's your uh what's your dream job? I suppose you'd I mean you've you've done a plenty, but if you could do a dream. Well my dream, if I could have been any, I would have been a footballer. Yeah, I get that, yeah. What's the worst job you can imagine doing?

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:01

I wouldn't want to be a sewage cleaner or something like that, I suppose I'll be. But any job's good if you're happy. Yeah. Otherwise different. 100%.

SPEAKER_03: 1:01:07

And lastly, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pelegates? You tried your best. Thank you for joining me on Believe in People, Joe. Thank you, Matt. And if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believe in 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 to challenge 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 and hear more incredible stories, you can visit us directly at believinpeoplepodcast.com.