#45 - Chris Sylvester - Heroin Aged 12, Crime, Trauma, Accountability, Hepatitis C, Cocaine, Manipulation, Homelessness, Drug Dealing, Working the 12 Steps & The Power of Second Chances

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This is a Renew Original Recording.

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Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast, a 2024 Radio Academy Award nominated podcast, to talk all things addiction recovery and stigma.

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Today we have Chris Sylvester, whose journey into heroin addiction started at only 12 years old.

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Chris sheds light on the silent struggles endured by those battling addiction.

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Chris recalls his time in the prison system and finally talks about becoming the founder of Getting Clean, an organisation to provide a platform for individuals in recovery.

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Chris, thank you so much for joining us on the Believe in People podcast.

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No problem, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what brings you to this chair today?

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Tell me a little bit about your journey.

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So I'm Chris Sylvester.

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I'm an addict in long-term recovery, and I first started using heroin when I was 12 years old.

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I was introduced to it in the high school toilets.

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Wow.

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At that point in my life I'd had lots of issues growing up.

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I found it really difficult, didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere like I fit in.

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Didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere like I fit in.

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I've learned a lot more about myself since I've been in recovery but at that point I just really struggled learning in a conventional way.

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So I do a lot of truancy, internal truancy and bunking off.

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And on that first time that I was introduced to heroin I was knocking off a mathematics class because I really struggled.

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And I always remember being in a cubicle and hearing someone next to me, hearing two voices, sort of whispering, hushed voices.

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I remember hearing lighters flicking and then tinfoil rustling and strange smells and me being me, found myself in there moments later.

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12 is a extremely young age.

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Some people don't start smoking, cigarettes or even drinking.

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You know when you when you hear about them stories with children, they're kind of around around that you know those early years.

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Was that your first experience of any substance then?

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Or had you been using alcohol before then?

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Because I mean, I don't know, based on your age and stuff, the 80s especially, you know glue was quite a prolific thing for young kids to be doing.

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Was there anything like that before the heroin, or was it straight in there?

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Yes, I had experienced other substances, solvents, alcohol, um, but no, ever really did it for me like everyone did no um, but growing up where I'm from in leeds there were lots of evo stick on bounce lots of people glue, sniffing lots of other solvents, um, and we used to steal t-pegs.

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I always remember we used to go into a stationery shop on Armley Town Street and then Greengrocers, because we'd nick the Tippex and then we'd go get the little bags from the Greengrocers and we'd have a little sniff of Tippex thinners.

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So I tried other substances and that were pretty much, I'd say, from around age 11, being smoking, weed, taking trips, all different kinds of stuff it's still such a young age to be experiencing them sort of things.

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Tell me a little bit about, like your home life with your family and and was there anything that was happening there?

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that was the reason for me to be using these substances at such a young age, I think definitely there were a sort of an influence by my father who used substances um my, my home life.

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It were a little bit strange.

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So my mum and dad going way back, when they got together they met at an engineering firm in Leeds and then they both opened up their own business, which were a custom engineering business sort of after Easy Rider film came out, you know with Dennis Hopper and all these choppers.

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And my dad were a really talented engineer but he took a lot of substances, a lot of amphetamines and he potentially had undiagnosed mental health issues for a long time as well, and it was quite ignored.

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For that generation, mental health wasn't the way it is now.

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Now, we're all in tune with our own mental health.

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Back then it was crack on, wasn't it?

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Yeah, well, this is it.

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Do you know?

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We were all in tune with our own mental health.

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Back then it was crack on, wasn't it?

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Yeah, well, this is it and there wasn't any sort of awareness or understanding.

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So my dad sort of left my mum.

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They went bankrupt.

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My dad left my mum for a younger lady and we went from having two businesses to living in a council house and then my dad set up another business, which were quite successful, and I'd go stop with my dad on a weekend and my dad had no boundaries, no discipline, no, structure he were.

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He were crazy with my dad, he were.

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A right laugh, don't get me wrong.

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Well, this is it.

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Sometimes it's a case of like for some parents, especially in that situation, is they're more bothered about being liked, especially when they're not around as often you know.

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Sometimes you see when parents split up that the dad kind of wants to be the fun dad.

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Less rules with dad than with mum, and things like that.

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And it's interesting how far that can go, especially to to the point it did with yourself.

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So yeah, most definitely so.

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Like a typical weekend, I'd see me and my dad going out shooting shotguns um, watching 18s, uh, and eating junk food and, as I got a little bit older, I'd smoke weed with my dad and that's what we'd do, and I'd take amphetamines with him and stuff like that.

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But he was more like my best friend and he were always like that, rather than being a dad um, which, in his maturity and as he aged, he did become um was he a young dad to begin with, then, or I'm not quite sure.

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I don't think so.

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No, I think there would be an average age, my mum and dad.

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But I think the impact of my dad leaving my mum and my mum sort of having a change of life and being bankrupt meant that my mum were depressed, sort of clinically depressed, uh, in my informative years and, like I, I'm able to now look back at that and understand that that had a major impact on my development.

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Um, because I want that maternal connection my grandma used to have to come over and feed us both, you know she used to have to open curtains.

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She used to have to do what my mum um would have been doing because my mum won't able.

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I love my mum so much and she's always been there for me, same as my dad, but I think that my environment growing up definitely influenced my tendencies to be, so intrigued and want to take drugs because that I was obsessed with Scarface, I was obsessed with gangster films.

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It were all.

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It's one of them things where, like I used to, I were obsessed with Scarface, I was obsessed with gangster films.

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It were all Things that you shouldn't be.

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It's one of them, things where, like I used to say this, I remember playing like Grand Theft Auto 3 when I was like 10 or something.

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I'm like, oh, 18, I can get away with this, but it's now as an adult.

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I'm like I wouldn't dare let a 10-year-old play Grand Theft Auto.

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Do you know, because you worry about the, I guess maybe not necessarily immediately, I wasn't exactly going to go do the things in Grand Theft Auto at 10 years old, but you wonder how it can have an impact on your long term, which kind of sounds like what has happened to you in a way of being influenced by these characters like Al Pacino, scarface and things like that.

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It does have that.

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Do you know what?

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The one for us as teenagers was Green Street?

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Did you ever see the film?

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Green Street yeah football hooligans.

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Yeah the football hooligans.

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That was a massive influence on us as teenagers, to the detriment of, I mean, one of my friends, lee.

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He actually, you know he was beaten to death outside shops up on East Hall and sometimes I wonder if that's because the message of Green Street is no matter how many there is, you stand your ground and you fight.

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And there was only him.

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Him and his mate, I think there was and about 10 of these lads.

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Instinct should have been to run away, but I think the pride and the influence of that film of standing your ground and fight was the thing that had the impact on him.

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So it goes to show that these things do have.

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I mean, that's just me summarising of what was going on in our lives at the time, but it just goes to show that these things do have a massive influence on us in a way, most definitely.

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So at that point, when I'm sort of first introduced to heroin, everything that I was lacking as a person, you know, as a child growing up, I was given instantly.

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So, like I had, all of a sudden, I had these friends.

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I was part of a I'll say that, I know it but, um, I had people that sort of had the same motivation as me every day, they were like-minded and all this stuff that I had going on internally, you know, not feeling like I'm good enough, feeling like I don't fit in, feeling like I don't belong, confusion.

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All that is taken away because I've got wrapped up in this blanket of heroin, this warm thing that's supported me, and that were it From 12 until 13, just using constantly in toilets.

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Until that sort of came about, I started committing crime to fund my addiction.

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I was excluded from school and I had to register as an heroin addict at Leeds Addiction Unit, and I always remember going there with my dad 19 Springfield Mount, just behind the university, and my dad just not knowing what was going on with me, and queuing up waiting to see doctors with people that sort of I was looking up to, always influenced by people drawn to people that had issues and problems.

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Because I did, and it's laws of attraction, isn't it?

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It's like negativity attracts negativity.

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I think there's a thing as well I've spoken about this with someone before about drug use it's a culture and you know, like any, you know you will gravitate to people with them, like-minded opinions, and and I guess that's part of the harder thing of getting recovery as well for a lot of people it's not just giving up the substance, it's giving up a culture, it's giving up an identity, it's giving up a lot of friends, it's giving up, it's giving up all those things that have, kind of, you know, in some way have made you who you are, for better or worse as well, goes beyond just the substance, just going back to it, because obviously you were so young, at what point did you realize?

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because that you was physically addicted to the substance so I think, um, I remember because the quality of erwin you know, compared to what it is currently.

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Back then it was really, really strong.

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And I remember rattling and withdrawing from heroin in my school uniform, you know, like going to school thinking I'm going to get some money.

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You know what I mean.

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How are we going to?

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So you knew in your head, if you took more heroin, the rattle would stop.

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You were knowledgeable enough of that do you know something?

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it were all a game.

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I accepted that I was poorly, but in a way it was kind of like a badge of honour.

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It was strange.

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It was like this is who I am.

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You mentioned it, and this is who I am.

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Like you mentioned the identity, you know like, and this is who I am, and it's part of it.

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Um, and it's something to talk about, my friends are.

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I'm hanging out, I'm rattling.

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You know what we're gonna do it's almost cool to sit doing with the.

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Yeah, I remember.

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I remember the first time having a hangover and going to tell my friends they had a hangover and it was like he was almost excited to have a hangover.

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I imagine it'd be similar in that sense.

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Like I'm rattling it feels like shit, but I'm buzzing about it as well, in a weird way.

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And it's like, oh, what are we going to do?

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And again it's that light in my heart.

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And then it's like, oh, we're going to.

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The thrill of it.

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And that's where nicking teachers' handbags, nicking video, we could from school, banging all those as dinner monies together to score and like the only thing that I remember from that period of my life sort of academic knowledge or anything that I learned is this and I still remember, it's the only thing I remember oh three, seven, oh six, what's that?

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That's a drug dealer's number.

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Yeah, he used to switch on at three o'clock, yeah, and there'd be queues and queues of people waiting for him.

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Wow, and that's the only thing I can remember.

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I remember being in trouble, but like there's no moment, no, like eureka moment, where I've learned something and it pennies dropped and it's like oh, I remember that.

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The only thing I remember is that phone number from that period of my life.

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That's crazy, and it's an analog phone and it's not even a digital it's an old analog phone, yeah, from 1996, 95, 96, something like that was there a lot of was?

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obviously you said about your friends.

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Was there a lot of you that was in this, because I know you said it started with just the three of you in the toilet, oh yeah.

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So it decimated my community.

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Did it win?

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You know what I mean?

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It sort of.

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There was a massive boom in the late 80s to fund war in Afghanistan against Russia and lots and lots of it found it's way into the country, mainly to the north west, liverpool and Manchester, and then to Leeds.

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So I remember as well.

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It was trendy, it was cool, you know, like heroin chic you had models that were mimicking being heroin addicts.

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You know what I mean with all the makeup.

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Not the most glamorous of films, but like Trainspotting come out and it's like that's us, that's what we do, and like that identification again, something to identify with, it glamorises it.

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I know there's messages in there that kind of say this is the reason why you shouldn't be taking heroin, but there is something in there where you kind of what I was saying about Green Street you see it and you associate yourselves with it and you look up to it and you kind of aspire to be it, despite the message at the end of it being don't take heroin, don't be a football hooligan.

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You kind of ignore the final message bit and you see all the glamorisation of the rest of it.

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Don't you, it were, all it were all.

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At that point it were all glamorous and like again, I remember I used to have to wear a blazer and I used to have to put my foil in my pocket and I always used to get soot on my white shirt and I'd have my little tooter.

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Do you know what I mean?

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It's a little box that I had so it didn't get squashed so I could toot my and get squashed so I could took my gear.

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I'd have a little flicker lighter.

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You know, I'd know how to foil, how to like get the foil just right so I could run gear down it and it were all like.

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It were like a toy to a kid and it were just way that things were and it.

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But it gave me, like I say, it gave me an identity, it gave me something.

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It's just who I was and people knew me for that.

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Crazy, did your mum, and I guess was your mum aware of it.

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So the first time that anybody became aware of it, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on.

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That anybody became aware of it, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on.

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My dad sort of really Cos I'd left my mum's to live with my dad and I remember my dad waiting one day because he'd opened some mail that I'd received because I'd made an appointment with Leeds Addiction Unit for somebody to come out and see me to start the proceedings of registering, and this one to tackle my addiction.

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It was to get medication Like part of it.

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This is what you do and this is what everybody's registered.

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Now you know, and he were there and I kept thinking you need to go, you know, because this drug worker's coming now, steve Redknapp, he was called and he'd just hung about.

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And he hung about and he didn't go.

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And then that's how it became common knowledge Because it was like, okay, fess up.

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Now this is what's going on with me.

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But my dad and mum were so confused as to why I was behaving it's interesting that your dad was confused because from what you tell me about your childhood there with your dad and the amphetamine use and the cannabis use I'd be thinking of.

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Well, of course he's moved on to heroin, do you know?

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But this is the thing they want that knowledge within my dad.

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My dad never had any involvement with heroin.

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Heroin didn't know anything about it.

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Yeah, yeah, he was more.

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He used to take amphetamines to stay up, days and days working, doing, doing jobs so he was using it as a, I guess, for productivity, rather than just like recreational, yeah, so I think a bit of both.

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Yeah, um and looking, my dad definitely was an addict, sort of in how he was and what I've learned about addiction.

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But he just didn't have any concept or any understanding or any ideas of what was going on with me taking heroin because it wasn't ever part of his world, so he didn't know.

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I remember gouging out in front of my mum and my mum not knowing what was going on and saying you need to go to bed, you're tired, and I'd just been tooting gear.

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You're going for withdrawals.

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She thinks you've just got a bit of flu sort of thing.

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Go have a load home, this is the thing I'd be.

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I wouldn't ever be in bed rattling, I'd always be out, I'd always be out and sort of.

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I went through lots of withdrawals when they became aware of it and it became a bit of an event, if I'm honest, because they'd be like they'd make special allowances for me and like, oh, we go to the seas, to seaside, for weekend, we'll get a Chinese takeaway and it's and I remember my dad saying I'm getting sick of this.

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Now do not.

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I mean, do you know?

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Like it's a bit of a game that we're playing, because I wouldn't really ever ready to stop taking drugs.

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But I'd have it get to a point where it'd have to happen and I'd have to go through withdrawals and complete a detox and then be straight back at it because I didn't want to change.

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You know, it wasn't like there were anything in me that said, oh, this problem's getting out of hand.

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It was just a game, yeah, and it went from smoking to injecting pretty quick.

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I was going to say what age did you start injecting heroin?

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I'd say that we're about 14.

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Wow, even that is very, very.

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I remember going to hospital and getting abscesses lanced.

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Wow.

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As a kid, we're like getting them all squeezed and drained from misses, from injecting.

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And did they know what it was from as well?

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Yeah, Like I say, it was just a game, because they want the support available, they want the Leeds Addiction Unit, but they want the education they want the understanding.

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they want the awareness Because even from a social services perspective and a safeguarding perspective you'd think that that would have been.

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If you're having to drain absences from a 14-year-old boy, you'd be thinking right, we need to, and you know where them absences have come from At 14, you would have struggled to pin me down to one address Ah, okay, because I would have just gone, just moved from place to place as well.

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Yeah, I was just gone.

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And then I started from the age of 15, started going to prison constantly.

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So just in and out of prison.

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And what sort of things was you going in and out of prison for?

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So the first time I went to prison that was for stabbing somebody.

00:20:21.194 --> 00:20:31.594
Jeez, that nearly killed a man in Bradford.

00:20:31.594 --> 00:20:32.016
And you was 15?

00:20:32.016 --> 00:20:32.419
When I was 15.

00:20:32.439 --> 00:20:43.859
So I moved to Bradford with my dad, to his girlfriend's in another attempt to get clean and straightaway replaced my heroin addiction with just drinking alcohol and then I'm world's worst drunk.

00:20:44.731 --> 00:20:49.317
I've become very violent and I always had something to prove.

00:20:49.317 --> 00:21:04.877
So from being this child growing up and feeling like I had these inadequacies and there was something wrong with me and this lack of connection Kids are very narcissistic, in fact, that they can't understand other people's feelings or what's going on for anybody else.

00:21:04.877 --> 00:21:11.499
So me, growing up without this connection to my mum made me form this massive ego.

00:21:11.499 --> 00:21:22.830
You know, it's like they say that an ego's formed the first time that a child sees itself away from its mother and it's like a survival mechanism, you know.

00:21:22.830 --> 00:21:33.800
So I've got all these confidence issues, but my way of dealing with that is being overly sort of confrontational and to seem like I'm really confident to be really challenging.

00:21:33.800 --> 00:21:55.597
But inside I've got all these sort of issues where I don't feel like I'm good enough, where I'm struggling, and I had a real problem learning as well in a sort of conventional way, sitting down and doing something from a textbook, but pretty good, mechanical learning and being shown how to do things and picking things up.

00:21:55.798 --> 00:21:59.339
And even back then they didn't really cater to different learning styles.

00:21:59.339 --> 00:22:01.719
It was just this is how we're teaching it.

00:22:01.719 --> 00:22:10.516
You either learn it or you don't, whereas now there's all the differences of visual learners and there's things like I don't even know the kinesthetic learners.

00:22:10.516 --> 00:22:15.175
There's all these different types of words or methods of how people learn differently.

00:22:15.175 --> 00:22:18.589
But back then I imagine it was here's the curriculum, here's how you're going to learn.

00:22:18.589 --> 00:22:20.817
If you haven't got it, you're fucked, you know.

00:22:21.211 --> 00:22:22.134
And this is the thing.

00:22:22.134 --> 00:22:31.034
Isn't it Like I got more from school by standing up and taking mickey out of teacher?

00:22:31.034 --> 00:22:34.461
Yeah, you know, because it being class clown made made me feel like I value.

00:22:34.461 --> 00:22:35.883
Yeah, you know, I made people laugh.

00:22:35.883 --> 00:22:40.058
That made me feel good, I'd be very challenging, very confrontational.

00:22:40.058 --> 00:22:41.750
That's why school didn't last right long.

00:22:41.750 --> 00:22:49.265
School was just an opportunity to get more drugs and and then, when that ended, it'd be just to graft.

00:22:49.265 --> 00:22:54.162
So, like I said the first time, I went to prison for stabbing somebody.

00:22:54.162 --> 00:22:56.615
What was the context of that?

00:22:56.615 --> 00:22:57.357
Why did it happen?

00:22:57.357 --> 00:23:02.241
It was just daftness, absolute daftness.

00:23:02.241 --> 00:23:04.778
We went trying to underage drink.

00:23:04.778 --> 00:23:12.653
We were already off our heads and a fella hit my mate for no.

00:23:12.673 --> 00:23:13.635
So we're like we're gonna get him.

00:23:13.635 --> 00:23:14.277
Do you know what I?

00:23:14.297 --> 00:23:37.922
mean so we ambushed him on way out, um went and armed ourselves and come back and put a brick through the window and then, when he come, stabbed him, you know, and I ended up in Doncaster for I think nine, ten months on remand and then I went guilty to a Section 20, which is a wounding without intent.

00:23:37.922 --> 00:23:42.119
And when I did that I'll always remember Judge Coles.

00:23:42.119 --> 00:23:51.679
He remitted it back to youth court and when he did that it meant that I'd already served the maximum sentence that they could give me.

00:23:51.679 --> 00:23:58.817
So I went from looking at a 10 stretch To maximum being able To be imposed on me 12 months.

00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:02.782
Very lucky yeah.

00:24:05.343 --> 00:24:09.700
I was the first young offender To get tagged in Bradford claim to fame.

00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:12.157
Yeah, I was going to say that one like a badge of honour.

00:24:12.659 --> 00:24:29.511
One of them and yeah, so I got tagged, but upon release just went straight back to crazy living, you know, and it were only a matter of time before I were using class A substances again what was prison like back then, though, because now.

00:24:29.571 --> 00:24:38.616
I think from my knowledge I've had this conversation with friends where they say, oh, there's pool tables and TVs and they can do all this stuff in prison.

00:24:38.616 --> 00:24:48.435
Now I was like, yeah, because prison's more about rehabilitation than punishment now, but back when you was younger I imagine it was a little bit more about punishment than rehabilitation, so we didn't have TVs.

00:24:48.596 --> 00:24:58.179
No, there were pool tables, okay, and I knew lots of people anyway, yeah, so it was like it was very territorial back then.

00:24:58.179 --> 00:25:01.630
So if you were from Leeds, you're stuck with Leeds lads and it was like.

00:25:01.810 --> 00:25:06.037
South Yorkshire lads Doncaster, sheffield, barnsley they all stuck together.

00:25:06.037 --> 00:25:15.241
But Doncaster, sheffield, barnsley, they all stuck together but the majority of the time it would just bang up.

00:25:15.241 --> 00:25:17.709
It were a remand jail it would bang up.

00:25:17.709 --> 00:25:21.449
It was pretty much like a youth club.

00:25:21.449 --> 00:25:23.153
And there's some people that I'm in recovery now.

00:25:23.153 --> 00:25:25.762
One of the guys that's in recovery we've had mates together.

00:25:25.762 --> 00:25:27.821
He's in recovery now and that's amazing together.

00:25:27.821 --> 00:25:29.352
You know he's in recovery now and that's amazing to see.

00:25:29.352 --> 00:25:32.916
But we're just kids detained.

00:25:34.330 --> 00:25:36.439
Not necessarily really knowing the severity of the situation.

00:25:36.439 --> 00:25:37.894
You wasn't either at that point.

00:25:37.894 --> 00:25:39.358
This is the thing, it was just a game.

00:25:39.378 --> 00:25:43.432
That's what I mean yeah, that's what I think it comes back to a lot of the times we've at that age.

00:25:43.633 --> 00:25:48.218
everything's a game, everything's a bit of a laugh and everything's an experience, isn't it Positive or negative?

00:25:48.218 --> 00:25:49.278
It's an experience.

00:25:49.278 --> 00:25:56.385
Doncaster, here we come yeah yeah, yeah, lads on tour after Doncaster Prison and they were like this part of it.

00:25:56.405 --> 00:25:57.106
who's on wing?

00:25:57.106 --> 00:26:02.501
Yeah, Madness, but being released that first time.

00:26:02.501 --> 00:26:12.506
I'd say it were only four months before I was back taking heroin, and that were in Bradford.

00:26:12.506 --> 00:26:19.000
So I moved back to Leeds and then got back into crime with people that were in addiction around there.

00:26:19.410 --> 00:26:24.563
Was there anything in the prison in terms of like for achieving abstinence?

00:26:24.563 --> 00:26:26.257
What was the methadone programs?

00:26:26.549 --> 00:26:27.272
Or was it a case if?

00:26:27.272 --> 00:26:33.760
You just rattle it out, and so they give you, they get, so they put you on a detox wing.

00:26:33.760 --> 00:26:42.557
Okay, which were a right laugh yeah which one big dorm, big, massive tv, because you didn't have tvs.

00:26:42.557 --> 00:26:49.046
But in that dorm you had the TV, and not only that, you had MTV on it do you?

00:26:49.046 --> 00:26:49.465
Know what I mean.

00:26:49.465 --> 00:26:55.201
So all music and I understand things now as spiritual awakenings.

00:26:55.250 --> 00:27:14.309
When my body's coming back to normal detoxing and stuff like that, but being so sort of influenced and connected to music and stuff that were going on Whenever there's a music quiz on now, when I hear a song and it's from that year, I know, you know, yeah, it's 1998, yeah yeah uh, doncaster, do you know?

00:27:14.309 --> 00:27:18.118
I mean, that's when that come out, yeah but it were like it were a laugh.

00:27:18.179 --> 00:27:37.750
But the medication they give you, they give you something called brittle effects or lefexidine I've had a lefexidine yeah, so they're non-opiate ones and what they do is they sort of influence your endorphins to come back naturally, so they like speed up your withdrawal, so you go through it, but it's like the biggest.

00:27:37.750 --> 00:27:41.537
There's a physical aspect, sort of an opiate addiction.

00:27:41.537 --> 00:27:47.170
Without a doubt I understand that, but I think the biggest thing within it all is the mental addiction.

00:27:47.190 --> 00:28:01.996
And whenever I was in prison I understood that the thing within it all is the mental addiction, and whenever I was in prison, I understood that the game were up and that the rattle had to get done, and the rattle were always easier in prison than it were out in community because you couldn't give in to the temptation of going to your dealer and getting couldn't score.

00:28:01.996 --> 00:28:03.313
Couldn't get a graft, couldn't score.

00:28:03.574 --> 00:28:05.493
Simple as that so you just had to.

00:28:05.493 --> 00:28:09.159
You had no other option but to do it, yeah you make best of it.

00:28:09.230 --> 00:28:09.853
Do you know what I mean?

00:28:09.853 --> 00:28:20.852
I get that yeah um, but when you're rattling it, community, you know that somebody's got gear, yeah, and you know that you and, and then rattled, the sort of symptoms are heightened by that.

00:28:20.852 --> 00:28:32.300
You know it's like, but in reality, when you've got to get it done, you've got to get it done and that's something that stayed with me, that mentality towards dealing with it.

00:28:34.113 --> 00:28:38.278
Because that's something that I don't understand, and I'm sure there is logical explanations for it.

00:28:38.278 --> 00:28:53.259
But when lads are coming out of prison after five, six years and they're on a methadone programme in the prison, so the methadone programme then continues in the community, and I'm just thinking how could this person not get clean, how could they not get off the methadone in prison?

00:28:53.259 --> 00:28:55.020
This is the thing.

00:28:55.020 --> 00:28:55.821
How is that?

00:28:55.821 --> 00:28:58.064
Why have you done five years of methadone in prison?

00:28:58.104 --> 00:29:09.372
Surely if there's any time to get off the methadone it's in the environment, but maybe that's ignorant of me to think like that but ignorant of me to think like that.

00:29:09.392 --> 00:29:13.921
But I do wonder, yeah, well, I think that when we look at people, we've got to look at individuals and, like for me, I identify as an addict.

00:29:13.921 --> 00:29:18.179
I understand what that means now you know I'm an addict in long-term recovery.

00:29:18.961 --> 00:29:29.329
But without recovery, you know, anything that I can take that changes how I feel, yeah, that fills this void that I have within myself.

00:29:29.329 --> 00:29:32.218
I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna take it.

00:29:32.218 --> 00:29:45.519
And it's like if you can score in jail, you know, like anything that you're taking on top of your meds, you're only gonna boost it, do you know?

00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:48.928
So't know People, addiction's a funny thing?

00:29:48.928 --> 00:29:49.609
Yeah, absolutely.

00:29:49.609 --> 00:29:51.676
And people become conditioned.

00:29:51.676 --> 00:30:05.378
You know like an amount of time that I've spent in meds queues, in prison waiting for my methadone, because it's just what I did, it's what I did in community and it's what my life is, you know, and I were packed up on medication for a long time.

00:30:06.250 --> 00:30:07.395
Yeah, I understand that.

00:30:07.395 --> 00:30:12.821
So coming out of prison, then back onto the gear four months later?

00:30:12.821 --> 00:30:14.355
How old are you at this point?

00:30:15.029 --> 00:30:17.278
So there I've just been, 16, 17.

00:30:17.278 --> 00:30:20.419
Still really young to have gone through everything that you've gone through.

00:30:20.419 --> 00:30:21.141
He's a kid.

00:30:21.141 --> 00:30:22.213
This is the thing.

00:30:22.213 --> 00:30:24.910
He's a kid, I'm a kid, I'm a child.

00:30:24.910 --> 00:30:36.980
And the thing is I've had no sort of development, so I hadn't had any education, I hadn't had any positive social influence, I've just been conditioned by my environment.

00:30:36.980 --> 00:30:40.178
So it's like these behaviours are only going to continue.

00:30:40.178 --> 00:30:47.759
And it's still fun, it's still exciting, it's still a game, you know, and it means that it continues.

00:30:48.172 --> 00:30:51.589
At what age did you get to where it wasn't exciting anymore.

00:30:51.589 --> 00:30:56.058
It wasn't fun where you realised that it had been taking its toll on you.

00:30:58.336 --> 00:31:12.656
At the age of 20 and being a bit of a career criminal, so doing petty crime, and then sort of graduating to burglaries and stuff like that and then being involved in selling drugs.

00:31:12.656 --> 00:31:26.259
Um, at that age, like I always remember, I lied at court to get to armley jail, where I'm from, because at that time I had a girlfriend who'd been bringing me visits we call them fat visits.

00:31:26.259 --> 00:31:30.900
Girlfriend who'd been bringing me visits we call them fat visits, so she'd been bringing me gear up to Doncaster.

00:31:32.830 --> 00:31:33.994
Really easy to get in.

00:31:33.994 --> 00:31:34.778
Do you know what I mean?

00:31:34.778 --> 00:31:43.763
Really easy back then to get in, and my thinking is I've supported her throughout my addiction in community.

00:31:44.691 --> 00:31:46.640
She can support you now you're in prison.

00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:46.820
Yeah.

00:31:46.970 --> 00:31:58.896
So I make her transactional yeah so I make her life easier, I'll blag it to go to wamley, because when you're at court they ask your date of birth and your address and then group four.

00:31:58.896 --> 00:32:03.614
I'd go off that and then look at how old you are and they just send you to wherever.

00:32:03.614 --> 00:32:06.701
So I just added a year on, do you know what I mean?

00:32:06.701 --> 00:32:17.911
And I remember being 20, going to armley jail, um, and thinking that you know everything was going to be great and it was just a massive culture shock.

00:32:17.911 --> 00:32:22.155
So doncaster marsh gate is a new build private prison.

00:32:22.155 --> 00:32:28.825
Armley is an old castle run by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

00:32:28.825 --> 00:32:32.215
Big difference the inmates looked huge.

00:32:32.650 --> 00:32:36.096
I'm this little kid do you know what I mean Still not mature, still not grown.

00:32:36.096 --> 00:32:42.654
And whenever I'm trying to contact my girlfriend she's not answering my call.

00:32:42.654 --> 00:32:47.815
And then I start hearing after a couple of weeks that she's working on beach.

00:32:47.815 --> 00:32:49.721
So she's selling her body now.

00:32:49.721 --> 00:32:53.681
So I introduced her to heroin.

00:32:53.681 --> 00:33:00.942
I was the one that gave her her first go and I was the one that sort of supported us throughout her addiction.

00:33:00.942 --> 00:33:03.438
So she had a job.

00:33:03.438 --> 00:33:13.481
When I met her, you know, she had ambition and all that were taken away and she was selling herself to get money to fund her habit.

00:33:14.250 --> 00:33:28.009
And then she got involved with another guy you know who was allegedly pimping her out, and it was just like it was the first time where I felt accountable for anything and I really thought about anybody else other than myself.

00:33:28.511 --> 00:33:32.363
You said, obviously, when you were a kid, the ego, you're not thinking about other people?

00:33:32.403 --> 00:33:32.664
are you?

00:33:32.905 --> 00:33:37.381
this is the thing this is the first time you're starting to look at the impact that you're having on others.

00:33:37.671 --> 00:33:39.617
I never thought about the victims of my crime.

00:33:39.617 --> 00:33:42.490
My needs were always greater.

00:33:42.490 --> 00:34:20.081
But when it come to sort of looking at how this girl were having a work on B and sell herself to raise money for a drug up it which I potentially introduced to it and it really at home, and that what first time where I thought things that good and I also learned that I'd got hepatitis C from injecting with dairy equipment and equipment and it were like that would have wake up call, but it wasn't enough to stop me and the game started upon release.

00:34:20.731 --> 00:34:47.887
I got out of Everthorpe, but then at that point I'd been hanging around with lads and there'd been a shift in me and I'd been sort of awoken by bassline bassline music and niche and castle locos and everybody had these tapes and they were all listening to this music and I had these sort of notions, these fantasies that I was going to get out and I was going to be involved in this.

00:34:47.887 --> 00:34:48.454
I was going to get out and I was going to be involved in this.

00:34:48.454 --> 00:34:51.259
I was going to sell ease, you know.

00:34:51.791 --> 00:35:01.601
I was going to go to Castle Ocos on a weekend, sort of not be involved with heroin or crack and sort of stigmatise that a little bit.

00:35:01.601 --> 00:35:03.795
And that's what happened.

00:35:03.795 --> 00:35:08.333
I practised my dance moves do you know what I mean?

00:35:08.333 --> 00:35:18.865
And I got out and did a bit of raving, started selling pills, got a driving license, got a new girlfriend, got her pregnant Do you know what I mean?

00:35:21.190 --> 00:35:22.956
What happened to the other girlfriend then, upon release?

00:35:23.157 --> 00:35:35.264
I saw her once and like I had a resentment towards her because she'd not supported me in my sort of mindset mentality.

00:35:35.264 --> 00:35:45.896
She hadn't supported me, she hadn't been there for me, the amount of sort of crime that I'd committed to fund our habits in my mind, I looked after her.

00:35:45.896 --> 00:35:46.818
Do you know what I?

00:35:46.838 --> 00:35:48.891
mean, yeah, if she was an addiction as well.

00:35:48.891 --> 00:35:53.974
If she's having to, as you said, work on the beach, she's just going to be thinking about herself on her own.

00:35:54.173 --> 00:36:12.956
Well, it's kind of almost regressing to the way you was and not thinking about other people addiction source, that you're selfish, yeah, nothing else is like she's not going to care about even prison issue in that moment no, and started that had already started when I was in Doncaster because she'd stopped bringing them up and she'd say I'll send it in a card.

00:36:12.956 --> 00:36:16.164
And I'd get a couple of cards, birthday cards where she'd craft it in.

00:36:16.164 --> 00:36:16.690
Do you know what I mean?

00:36:16.690 --> 00:36:20.380
But then she'd start lying to me oh, I've posted one.

00:36:20.380 --> 00:36:22.693
And I'd be like, well, I ain't got it.

00:36:22.693 --> 00:36:25.798
It's because she's got an habit that she's feeding herself.

00:36:26.259 --> 00:36:29.585
I mean, I don't know if you hear from her now, but how do you feel about that now?

00:36:29.585 --> 00:36:37.697
Like looking back at that, thinking that you introduced her and how your influence probably changed her life's trajectory by introducing her to heroin.

00:36:37.697 --> 00:36:41.920
When we talk about things like resentment and making amends and stuff.

00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:43.355
How do you cope with that?

00:36:43.355 --> 00:36:44.992
Now, those thoughts so.

00:36:45.514 --> 00:36:52.034
I work a 12-step program and that allows me to be able to deal with that stuff.

00:36:52.034 --> 00:37:08.297
Um, she's on a list of amends that need to be made, um, and sort of if I see her, I'll make, I'll make that amends, and sort of see if there's anything I can do to rectify or amend what went on.

00:37:08.297 --> 00:37:10.012
But I do.

00:37:10.012 --> 00:37:12.920
I have a lot of guilt and shame about a lot of things that I've done in the past.

00:37:12.920 --> 00:37:20.699
I can imagine, yeah, you know, and how I used to live and sort of that's a motivating factor for how I am today and how I live today.

00:37:20.699 --> 00:37:28.780
But back then, you know like it was just when I bumped into her and saw her upon release, it was like, oh yeah, do you know what I mean.

00:37:31.150 --> 00:37:33.148
Straight back to being that sort of selfish man, yeah, and like I was focused on me.

00:37:33.148 --> 00:37:38.655
I was focused on Stone Island, I was focused on Mitsubishi's, I was focused on whatever I could do.

00:37:38.655 --> 00:37:41.635
You know what I mean these material things.

00:37:41.635 --> 00:37:48.318
Do you know me again filling this void with summer having new identity?

00:37:48.338 --> 00:37:55.081
this is who I am so moving into and selling ecstasy and, like you said you know, following the flight baseline and things like that.

00:37:55.081 --> 00:37:57.217
How did that change you?

00:37:57.217 --> 00:38:00.070
You know, because you said you're stigmatizing, I suppose, everyone in crack.

00:38:00.070 --> 00:38:02.679
Now he's look glamorous, don't they?

00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:04.626
and this is that lifestyle looks glamorous.

00:38:04.626 --> 00:38:06.351
So tell me about that like that.

00:38:06.351 --> 00:38:15.295
So yeah, it's like I was really influenced by music, so I'd always be playing music and I'd always be there'd be a soundtrack to it.

00:38:15.295 --> 00:38:16.358
You know what I'm saying?

00:38:16.358 --> 00:38:18.074
There were a soundtrack to it.

00:38:18.315 --> 00:38:19.298
It's like being in a movie.

00:38:19.630 --> 00:38:23.356
You've got to think about the soundtrack behind you and the soundtrack to the life.

00:38:23.730 --> 00:38:25.733
Yeah, and this is my life.

00:38:25.733 --> 00:38:29.681
That's how I used to live, because I never had a relationship with myself.

00:38:29.681 --> 00:38:30.824
I didn't know who I was.

00:38:30.824 --> 00:38:35.585
I was always looking at other people that I aspired to be like like Al Pacino and Scarface.

00:38:35.605 --> 00:38:40.909
Yeah, finding something you can identify with, like Sean and Replica yeah, how would they act in this situation?

00:38:41.150 --> 00:38:41.994
what would they do?

00:38:41.994 --> 00:38:42.952
Yeah, do you.

00:38:42.952 --> 00:38:47.420
You know, like you know, and that's I never, never won me.

00:38:47.420 --> 00:39:05.032
So I started selling drugs At that time, learned how to grow cannabis, I started selling cannabis skunk and I started.

00:39:05.032 --> 00:39:05.653
I did all right.

00:39:06.333 --> 00:39:09.077
Was you using heroin at this time, or did you just have a kick to that at that point?

00:39:09.476 --> 00:39:15.463
So I was just smoking endless amounts of bud, taking drugs.

00:39:15.463 --> 00:39:21.768
I was sneaking off and smoking crack, though, because I knew other people that were doing that and because they were doing that, that were all right.

00:39:21.768 --> 00:39:22.228
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:39:22.228 --> 00:39:22.849
You know what I mean.

00:39:22.949 --> 00:39:24.329
It almost gives you the past, doesn't it?

00:39:24.329 --> 00:39:26.195
Yeah, this is it.

00:39:26.195 --> 00:39:26.836
You look for it.

00:39:26.836 --> 00:39:28.000
It's like you say.

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:34.701
It's connections, though, and being with people and finding that again, going back to the culture of it, really Most definitely Finding a culture.

00:39:35.990 --> 00:39:38.498
But I stayed away from heroin until I was stabbed.

00:39:38.498 --> 00:39:39.722
Do you know what I mean?

00:39:39.722 --> 00:39:56.599
And because of what I was involved in with sort of selling drugs, I ended up getting rammed off at road, um, and, and being attacked by four masked men with uh axes what target it was.

00:39:56.641 --> 00:40:06.434
Yeah, so like an ongoing feud they're an ongoing feud and um got myself into a situation which nearly cost me my life.

00:40:06.434 --> 00:40:23.983
Got stabbed multiple times, rammed off at road and ended up in hospital and straight away, as a way of dealing with things, had some heroin dropped off and then that started again.

00:40:24.023 --> 00:40:25.724
Then what was that like?

00:40:25.724 --> 00:40:29.887
I mean going to the hospital with multiple stab wounds, because that's face-to-face with death.

00:40:29.887 --> 00:40:30.686
That isn't it.

00:40:30.686 --> 00:40:32.327
Did you feel like you was going to die at that point?

00:40:32.327 --> 00:40:35.096
So, I was off my head when I got stabbed.

00:40:35.096 --> 00:40:36.869
Yeah, so you wasn't really consciously thinking of what was going on.

00:40:36.869 --> 00:40:38.019
Yeah, so I didn't really feel it.

00:40:38.751 --> 00:40:48.836
I didn't really feel it and it's mental, because just before I got stabbed, I'd been sniffing loads of coke.

00:40:48.836 --> 00:41:11.713
While I was waiting for an ambulance to come, I'd been taken into a flat and I was sniffing loads of coke and then, when I was in hospital, I was pumped full of loads of painkillers and I punctured lung, head injuries, stab wounds, lacerations, and I didn't really feel it and it wasn't necessarily because I were in pain, sort of physical pain.

00:41:11.894 --> 00:41:23.083
I just think that it were a way of coping and it were a way of dealing with the situation and the realities of what had gone on, um, to immerse myself in that warm blanket.

00:41:23.083 --> 00:41:28.322
I knew so well that that painkiller, that that thing, that just took everything away.

00:41:28.322 --> 00:41:42.293
And I remember I got my elbow smashed in and I've got a pin in it, I've got a big cast on my arm and like the kid that I've got to drop the gear off and say, right now we need to go into toilets and you need to run it for me, you don't foil.

00:41:42.293 --> 00:41:48.101
And getting him to do that and getting caught by security.

00:41:48.101 --> 00:41:56.119
You know, on numerous occasions in toilets smoking in the winter, at a point where they're like, right, it's time for you to go now.

00:41:58.610 --> 00:42:16.465
Then, at that point, my partner that I was with at the time she'd moved out, she'd done one, she couldn't live that life with my daughter, um, and I went to stay with her and it were like, um, I had to reinvent myself again.

00:42:16.465 --> 00:42:53.646
So sort of overcoming that trauma, dealing with sort of the injuries, both mentally and psychologically, I I told myself, I won't be beat, you know, I'll just work out how I can graft in a different way and just went back to selling drugs, but just focusing not on class A's on bud and selling skunk, and that's what I did for a period, until I realised that I wasn't making as much and I felt like I was missing opportunities.

00:42:53.666 --> 00:42:59.601
Yeah, and I started taking heroin again because I started selling it.

00:43:00.871 --> 00:43:15.259
You mentioned your daughter, then how do you think all this and your drug use and I guess, when you talk about these characters that you've almost played out how do you think all of this has impacted her growing up?

00:43:16.614 --> 00:43:17.889
The impact to my children.

00:43:17.889 --> 00:43:30.032
So I've got two daughters One's 16 tomorrow, one's 18 on 20th Massively.

00:43:30.032 --> 00:43:32.519
They were brought up, visit me in and out of prisons.

00:43:32.519 --> 00:43:38.418
They used to go back to school and they used to pat each other down and pat their friends down like they were prison officers.

00:43:38.418 --> 00:43:42.338
I've had them out committing crime with me.

00:43:42.338 --> 00:43:55.918
I've taught them a lot of negative sort of I had a really negative influence on them, on their development, and that's that's apparent now by where they live.

00:43:55.918 --> 00:44:07.643
You know, I'm in recovery now and I try to lead by example and I try to be a part of their lives and that's been sort of a consistent theme since I've been in recovery and being responsible.

00:44:07.643 --> 00:44:26.882
But yeah, massive, massive the damage, a lot of damage being done, a lot of damage being done, um, and my actions definitely have impacted their development and their sort of approach to how they live, where that they interact with people, um, and their values on themselves.

00:44:26.942 --> 00:44:29.675
I think massive, massive stuff that must be hard for you as a parent, though, to see that you've had that, that they interact with people and their values on themselves.

00:44:29.675 --> 00:44:30.148
I think Massive massive stuff.

00:44:31.469 --> 00:44:33.659
It must be hard for you as a parent, though, to see that you've had that negative impact as well.

00:44:33.659 --> 00:44:34.021
Do you know?

00:44:34.431 --> 00:44:35.541
It's really difficult.

00:44:35.541 --> 00:44:38.505
It's really difficult, but I have an understanding.

00:44:38.909 --> 00:44:44.760
Yeah, I think that is the interesting thing, at least you're holding yourself accountable and you're not like oh well, that's their thing.

00:44:45.059 --> 00:44:47.414
Yeah, no definitely accountable and you're not like, oh well, that's their thing.

00:44:47.414 --> 00:44:49.617
Yeah, no, definitely, and like the door's always open to him and I'll support him.

00:44:49.617 --> 00:45:01.380
We go on holiday once a year to come abroad, uh, and I'll support him best I can, but that doesn't necessarily mean that I'm going to give him money every time it means that I'm going to be support comes in many ways.

00:45:01.420 --> 00:45:02.824
It doesn't just mean financial, does it?

00:45:02.824 --> 00:45:05.860
This is it, and it's a minute, though that's all they're interested in.

00:45:05.880 --> 00:45:07.005
Yeah, I get, and it's At the minute though.

00:45:07.005 --> 00:45:07.867
That's all they're interested in.

00:45:07.867 --> 00:45:08.269
Yeah, I get that.

00:45:08.809 --> 00:45:12.016
Well, it's because probably at that age as well they won't have a lot of their own money as well.

00:45:12.016 --> 00:45:15.016
I don't know my eldest is a grafter.

00:45:15.036 --> 00:45:15.498
Oh is she.

00:45:15.498 --> 00:45:29.943
So she's a grafter, she's got a job, she's got a couple of little side hustles as well, not necessarily legal, but she's got drive and she's got ambition.

00:45:29.943 --> 00:45:34.059
And I think life's a journey.

00:45:34.079 --> 00:45:35.045
They're on their own journey.

00:45:36.150 --> 00:45:43.237
Yeah, they're on their own journey and sort of all I can do is be that consistent sort of person that lives by values that I have today.

00:45:43.237 --> 00:45:51.775
You know principles that I live by and be available to support, however that looks um and like.

00:45:51.775 --> 00:45:56.248
If only time the answer phone to me is when is when they want something.

00:45:56.528 --> 00:46:12.670
You know that's just how it is right now, yeah, so having that accepting of that as well in it and understand of why it is the way it is, and like I mean, we talked about your own dad and, yeah, he didn't understand heroin addiction, but he was looking at you a little bit confused as to why you went the way he was going.

00:46:12.670 --> 00:46:14.054
You're looking at your do you know?

00:46:14.054 --> 00:46:43.195
Children as, as with a lot of understanding of why they are the way they are, based on your own actions as well, I think, which is an interesting way of looking at it, most definitely and I get that as well from my dad, because my dad were always staunch, in fact, that he'd visit me wherever I in prison and he'd always support me, and I remember him saying to me I don't understand why you live like this, I don't understand why you keep ending up back here, but if this is the life you're choosing, I'll continue to visit you.

00:46:43.434 --> 00:46:54.559
I'll continue to send you postal orders, um, and I'll be part of your life, and my dad were aware of his sort of impact to me, uh, his influence on me.

00:46:54.559 --> 00:46:59.355
Him and my mum are really good friends, which is quite strange, or the war, should I say.

00:46:59.355 --> 00:47:02.922
Um, and my dad used to visit me.

00:47:02.942 --> 00:47:06.172
My mum couldn't stand it my mum didn't like seeing me in prison.

00:47:06.172 --> 00:47:26.438
She didn't like environment, she didn't like being searched, she didn't like coming there, um, but a door would always open when I were released and they were always available for me because I think they had a good awareness of their actions and how they impacted my development as a kid and they felt responsible to a degree.

00:47:26.438 --> 00:47:48.242
Um, but like the last prison sentence that I served were in hmp wheelston, so like my dad were visiting me and he started to look really poorly and he'd have lots of health complications.

00:47:48.242 --> 00:47:54.697
And I remember saying to him I hope you haven't got tap dancer and I was laughing, you know, like him having cancer.

00:47:55.958 --> 00:48:04.719
Um, and then it turned out he did have cancer you know and that it was terminal and that it were going to die.

00:48:04.719 --> 00:48:22.840
And I remember feeling so helpless, away from my family, not being able to support my father, not being able to support my mum, and wanting to be able to do something, and all I could do at that point was think what can I do for future?

00:48:22.840 --> 00:48:52.635
So I enrolled on a course for learning how to lay a rail track with Network Rail and as part of that it meant that I had to come off my methadone and that, accompanied with a treatment of interferon, which were like to treat hepatitis C, which back then it were really harsh.

00:48:53.210 --> 00:48:55.496
Very invasive, wasn't it the old hep C treatment?

00:48:55.831 --> 00:49:07.570
So it were injections in belly and then tablets as well that you had to take and it were really it used to, really it were likened to chemotherapy, it was really harsh.

00:49:07.610 --> 00:49:10.510
It's crazy that because now it literally is just one, it's like a tablet a day, isn't it?

00:49:10.510 --> 00:49:13.018
It's like just taking a course of antibiotics now, isn't it?

00:49:13.329 --> 00:49:25.157
Yeah, but back then I remember being so desperate that I sort of told pharmacists in prison I'm coming off methadone and I'm doing it rapidly and being advised not to do that.

00:49:25.157 --> 00:49:29.335
It's not safe, don't do that, but saying no rapidly and being advised not to do that.

00:49:29.335 --> 00:49:31.402
You know it's not safe, you know don't do that, but saying no, that's how I'm doing it, you know like.

00:49:31.422 --> 00:49:32.507
And then just did that work for you then?

00:49:32.527 --> 00:49:39.231
well, yeah, so, like I said, that mentality, you know, just dealing with it, getting on my bed yeah, I had comforts to a degree.

00:49:39.231 --> 00:49:45.291
I had a bed to get in, I had I had warmth, I had shelter, I had everything that I knew that I needed.

00:49:45.291 --> 00:49:54.780
But I had a vision, I had a plan, and the plan was to complete the EPC treatment, get rid of EPC and to come off methadone so I could do this rail track qualification.

00:49:54.780 --> 00:49:58.760
Now, that were a big ask because academically I'm not very sound.

00:49:58.760 --> 00:50:10.253
I really struggled in that environment and the biggest part of that course was sort of studying and learning how to do summer and I told myself that I couldn't do it.

00:50:10.253 --> 00:50:11.456
I couldn't do it, I couldn't do it.

00:50:11.456 --> 00:50:20.842
But I kept on doing it and I qualified, you know, and I got rid of hepatitis c and I detoxed off of methadone.

00:50:20.862 --> 00:50:34.436
And the last time that I saw my dad, um were in my mum's front room and I were accompanied by four prison officers on a lead on on like a dog lead, to call it, a long chain.

00:50:34.436 --> 00:50:47.927
And I remember trying to talk to my dad and convince him that things were going to be different this time and I remember look at her in my dad's eyes because he realized it's the last time that he's going to see me, and with four prison officers, and I'm telling him a load of lies again.

00:50:47.927 --> 00:50:48.144
Do you know what I mean?

00:50:48.144 --> 00:50:49.532
Because he didn't's the last time that he's going to see me and we're four prison officers and I'm telling him a load of lies again.

00:50:49.532 --> 00:50:49.690
Do you know what I mean?

00:50:49.690 --> 00:50:52.135
Because he didn't believe it, because why would he?

00:50:52.550 --> 00:50:58.420
Because, you know, all he'd heard all my life were things are going to be different Things are going to be different Things, not being different.

00:50:58.420 --> 00:51:10.516
And like it was really sad because he died ten weeks before I got out and we didn't bury him straight away because I said I had to go into his funeral in handcuffs.

00:51:10.516 --> 00:51:11.559
I'm not doing that.

00:51:11.929 --> 00:51:17.302
So we waited until I was released and then I went to my dad's funeral.

00:51:17.302 --> 00:51:20.880
But even that day, then I didn't understand addiction.

00:51:20.880 --> 00:51:26.541
But that day, like I had to have something.

00:51:26.541 --> 00:51:32.135
And I remember phoning up somebody and getting them to have some flake waiting for me.

00:51:32.135 --> 00:51:39.835
And I remember speaking to them on the phone and being desperate saying make sure it's there, make sure it's there for when I get out.

00:51:41.494 --> 00:51:44.688
And him saying why do you want some flake for when you're going to your dad's funeral?

00:51:44.688 --> 00:51:46.829
It's not like you're going in a lead to party.

00:51:46.829 --> 00:51:48.815
Why do you want flake?

00:51:48.815 --> 00:51:49.637
I don't understand.

00:51:49.637 --> 00:51:50.539
Do you know what I mean?

00:51:50.539 --> 00:51:54.739
And me saying like I just need something there because I couldn't deal with it.

00:51:54.739 --> 00:51:57.913
I'd never been able to deal with life without summer.

00:51:57.913 --> 00:52:01.179
Yeah, that changed how I felt never.

00:52:01.179 --> 00:52:04.791
And I remember I don't even like cocaine.

00:52:04.791 --> 00:52:06.797
This is the thing when I it.

00:52:06.797 --> 00:52:11.740
It makes me really paranoid, makes me really anxious, makes me really uncomfortable.

00:52:11.740 --> 00:52:31.764
And then I have this big line first day that I get out and I remember sitting in a barber's shop getting my hair cut, just being completely paranoid and full of anxiety and then going to the funeral and people trying to talk to me and just not being able to to deal with situation present, but not really being present.

00:52:31.784 --> 00:52:33.371
Yeah, I'm just not being able to.

00:52:33.811 --> 00:52:41.351
I just I couldn't cope and I remember it being a fight all day, not going to score at a win, because I said I'm not going to do that.

00:52:41.351 --> 00:52:45.177
I promised my dad, I promised my mom I won't going to do it.

00:52:45.177 --> 00:53:15.358
But come one o'clock in the morning, I'm finding myself down on beat looking for a working girl that can score some gear for me and then smoking it in cubicle, in phone box, even down in Albeck, knowing full well that I'd just turned that egg timer over again and that it only would have been a matter of time before my life was desperate and before I was back in prison, because that had been my experience.

00:53:16.469 --> 00:53:17.653
Fast forward eight weeks.

00:53:17.653 --> 00:53:35.617
I'm now homeless, you know, and it's like my mum has tried to support me the best I can, but I've just used my dad's death and passing as a way to manipulate her to get more from her, because she's given me somewhere to live.00:53:35.617 --> 00:53:45.414


I'm supposed to be rebuilding my life, getting this job on railways, supposed to be doing all this stuff, but all I'm motivated by is getting heroin, heroin and crack.00:53:45.414 --> 00:53:46.759


That's all my obsession is.00:53:46.759 --> 00:53:48.936


It's just an overwhelming obsession.00:53:48.936 --> 00:53:55.233


And it comes to a point where I'm lying to her, where I'm stealing from her, where she just can't cope, she can't deal with it.00:53:55.233 --> 00:53:57.038


So she says you need to leave.00:53:57.038 --> 00:53:58.483


And then guess what?00:53:58.483 --> 00:53:59.164


She's a bitch.00:53:59.164 --> 00:54:02.512


How can you put me out on the street, me, me?00:54:02.612 --> 00:54:03.996


someone else's fault, isn't it me?00:54:04.056 --> 00:54:05.057


Me me, me, me.00:54:05.057 --> 00:54:06.199


How can you?00:54:06.199 --> 00:54:14.202


You know, I've just lost my dad, I can't cope, and all this lot and it's manipulation just to get more so I can feed this addiction.00:54:14.202 --> 00:54:24.599


So at that point I'm homeless, I'm a PPO, which is a priority prolific offender, and I have to provide urine samples.00:54:24.599 --> 00:54:27.318


Now, these urine samples, they have to be clean.00:54:27.318 --> 00:54:30.996


I can't give a clean sample.00:54:30.996 --> 00:54:35.039


I can tell you I'm going to give a clean sample and I can tell myself it's going to be clean.00:54:35.615 --> 00:54:37.253


But actually being clean is a different thing.00:54:37.273 --> 00:54:42.797


Yeah, because in reality, my addiction always speaks louder to me and it tells me you get away with it one more time.00:54:42.797 --> 00:54:44.516


Just water up, water up.00:54:44.516 --> 00:54:47.456


You know, urine up, it'll come back negative.00:54:47.456 --> 00:54:48.501


It come, come back negative.00:54:48.501 --> 00:54:59.675


The combat negative and I'll do it to death until point where it's like it's positive, nail done, it's positive cuz I've been using hard hmm, and like at that point.00:55:01.396 --> 00:55:08.465


I'm actually in hospital now because I've been injecting in my groin and my leg's swelled up.00:55:08.465 --> 00:55:31.795


It's red, raw, I can't bear any weight on it, but I still don't stop using drugs until I can't move and then I have to be put in an ambulance and, like, the crazy thing is, I still don't stop when I'm in hospital and I'm telling myself you've got a DVT, you're going to lose your leg, this is your life, you're gonna die, this is how you're gonna die.00:55:31.795 --> 00:55:35.650


And I accept that because I'm powerless for my addiction.00:55:35.650 --> 00:55:51.273


And it's like I remember being booted out of hospital again because of my drug use, being given sort of antibiotics and sent on my way because fortunately it was cellulitis from injecting in sort of my groin with used equipment.00:55:51.273 --> 00:56:19.050


And I remember my mum being absolutely desperate desperate that I sorted myself out because my dad had died not long before and I was posed with going back to prison now because I had to go report to my probation worker and I had to give this sample that had to be clean and my mum's expecting it to be clean, my probation worker's expecting it to be clean.00:56:19.050 --> 00:56:25.849


I'm in hospital but I know it's not going to be clean and guess what it won't.00:56:25.849 --> 00:56:29.552


But my probation worker gave me an ultimatum.00:56:29.552 --> 00:56:34.530


You know she gave me an opportunity and this is mental.00:56:34.530 --> 00:56:37.213


I always remember she's called Donna Ruff, bless her.00:56:39.324 --> 00:56:57.679


There were a volunteer there that were helping facilitate these samples and he was in recovery and he mentioned a meeting, a 12-step meeting, that had had anonymous in the title, in its name.00:56:57.679 --> 00:57:03.231


So I'm like I didn't finish school, but I know what anonymous means.00:57:03.231 --> 00:57:04.032


You know what I mean.00:57:04.032 --> 00:57:07.708


And my probation worker goes why don't you try these meetings?00:57:07.708 --> 00:57:10.215


So my addiction saying she's stupid.00:57:10.215 --> 00:57:11.077


Do you know what I mean?00:57:11.077 --> 00:57:19.800


She, she's gonna either recall me back to jail for two years or she wants me to go to a meeting where she don't even know if I've been or not.00:57:19.800 --> 00:57:21.652


So I'm like, yeah, I'll go.00:57:21.652 --> 00:57:22.596


Do you know what I mean?00:57:22.596 --> 00:57:25.766


But my addiction already told me it's not going to work for you.00:57:25.766 --> 00:57:27.630


Nobody goes to meetings.00:57:27.630 --> 00:57:30.617


That's like you, nobody that's lived like you.00:57:30.617 --> 00:57:32.007


Nobody's used drugs like you.00:57:32.007 --> 00:57:34.125


Nobody's been in that prison like you.00:57:34.125 --> 00:57:37.253


Meetings out for you, they're for middle class people.00:57:37.273 --> 00:57:42.052


You know they have different lifestyles to you and all this nonsense going on in my head.00:57:42.052 --> 00:57:51.251


But it's an opportunity for my addiction to continue in my mind because my mum's I'll move you back in, we'll sort, sort you out.00:57:51.251 --> 00:57:53.715


This is going to work, this can work, it's an opportunity.00:57:53.715 --> 00:58:03.931


So, in true addict style, I made sure that I went to this meeting and I went with my little brother so he could vouch for me.00:58:04.273 --> 00:58:04.994


Do you know what I mean.00:58:04.994 --> 00:58:07.652


And he could say yeah, he's trying mum.00:58:07.652 --> 00:58:09.820


Do you know what I mean?00:58:09.820 --> 00:58:12.876


He's trying his hardest, do you know?00:58:12.851 --> 00:58:13.083


what I mean.00:58:13.083 --> 00:58:13.315


He's trying.00:58:13.315 --> 00:58:13.956


It's trying his hardest.00:58:13.956 --> 00:58:18.686


So you've got a witness there to help with the bullshit story that you're going to tell.00:58:18.686 --> 00:58:19.690


Well, this is the idea.00:58:19.750 --> 00:58:20.393


This is the plan.00:58:20.393 --> 00:58:31.288


So the plan is I'm going to go pick up some jargon, pick up some spiel, get some information, some leaflets, if they've got them, whatever, do you know what I mean?00:58:31.288 --> 00:58:33.447


And then I'll be able to blag everybody.00:58:33.447 --> 00:58:38.978


I'm trying, I'm trying okay, I've relapsed, but I'm trying and I know my mum's gonna give me money.00:58:38.978 --> 00:58:40.168


Do you know what I mean?00:58:40.168 --> 00:58:42.875


To get to these meetings, so that means I can score.00:58:42.875 --> 00:58:43.777


Do you know what I mean?00:58:43.777 --> 00:58:50.579


So yeah, so like it's an opportunity, it's a, it's a lifeline for my addiction, so to speak.00:58:50.579 --> 00:58:59.492


So if I can get to this meeting, pick up some knowledge that I can share with somebody a bit of spiel, a bit of jargon.00:58:59.512 --> 00:59:01.036


I've got a few leaflets.00:59:01.036 --> 00:59:02.018


Do you know what I mean?00:59:02.018 --> 00:59:03.851


My mum's gonna support me.00:59:03.851 --> 00:59:06.759


My probation worker's not gonna recall me.00:59:07.661 --> 00:59:09.608


It's an opportunity it's a win-win situation.00:59:09.608 --> 00:59:10.733


It's an opportunity.00:59:10.733 --> 00:59:18.130


I'm nice, my addiction is rubbing its hands together um are you gonna tell me that you went to the meeting and you actually loved it?00:59:18.130 --> 00:59:20.112


Is this what?00:59:20.132 --> 00:59:20.614


happened.00:59:20.614 --> 00:59:23.869


So this blows my mind to this day.00:59:23.869 --> 00:59:32.652


I turn up at this meeting with my little brother and I'm like, yeah, I'm blagged and I mean this is going to work.00:59:32.652 --> 00:59:33.570


Was your brother in on it as well?00:59:33.570 --> 00:59:33.690


No, my brother.00:59:33.690 --> 00:59:33.824


And I'm like, yeah, yeah.00:59:33.824 --> 00:59:36.101


I'm blagged and I mean well, this is gonna work yeah was your brother in on it as well?00:59:36.206 --> 00:59:45.735


no, my brother 10 years, my junior so you thought he was going for sincere reasons as well my brother's had to deal with so much.00:59:45.784 --> 00:59:47.036


Do you know what I mean?00:59:47.036 --> 00:59:48.025


Throughout my addiction.00:59:48.025 --> 00:59:49.010


Do you know what I mean?00:59:49.010 --> 01:00:02.197


He's had people trying to kidnap him and all kinds of stuff throughout criminality and like he's had people trying to kidnap him and all kinds of stuff throughout criminality and he's lived under this shadow and this addiction that's just impacted everybody around him.01:00:02.217 --> 01:00:02.619


That's what I mean.01:00:02.619 --> 01:00:03.759


It affects everybody, doesn't it?01:00:03.759 --> 01:00:04.224


Not just yourself.01:00:04.224 --> 01:00:06.373


So he's desperate for it to work as well.01:00:06.373 --> 01:00:07.317


Do you know what I mean?01:00:07.317 --> 01:00:20.476


And we turn up and I go to this meeting and this guy opens the door and it's like this guy used to sell me weights of crack to sell.01:00:20.775 --> 01:00:21.557


So you recognise him.01:00:21.577 --> 01:00:24.411


Yeah, well, I know I didn't know he took drugs.01:00:24.411 --> 01:00:28.536


I knew that he sold drugs, but I didn't know that he took drugs.01:00:28.536 --> 01:00:30.972


I thought that he just supplied.01:00:30.972 --> 01:00:40.998


I didn't think that he got high, but he was getting high on his own supply and he got psychosis because he'd been smoking crack in closet.01:00:40.998 --> 01:00:45.711


Nobody knew about it and he tried committing suicide.01:00:45.711 --> 01:01:02.192


So he jumped off a block of flats in Leeds and he'd landed in this anonymous meeting and I knew straight away when he was talking to me that he were credible because he had lived like me, he had that experience.01:01:02.746 --> 01:01:05.990


Someone you could instantly relate to, because you knew him from your own journey.01:01:06.224 --> 01:01:09.034


Yeah, and it was like he were a credible character.01:01:09.034 --> 01:01:18.695


And he took me inside and he said, chris, if you carry on, there's three things that's waiting for you, and that's jails, institutions and death.01:01:18.695 --> 01:01:24.490


And I knew what he was saying were right because I'd experienced all three of them.01:01:24.490 --> 01:01:27.378


I'd been in and out of institutions since I was a kid.01:01:27.378 --> 01:01:44.889


I'd been in and out of prison since I was a kid, and the amount of times that I nearly lost my life due to overdoses, due to being stabbed, due to car accidents, serious accidents, all related to criminality and addiction, and my life was miserable.01:01:44.889 --> 01:01:51.972


I was hobbling into a meeting but in my mind, my addiction telling me I've got it all going on, I've got got a plan, everything's cool.01:01:52.574 --> 01:01:54.137


But I lacked powerlessness to addiction.01:01:54.137 --> 01:02:03.373


And then, when I sat down and I listened to what was being shared in this mutual aid environment, this peer-to-peer support, it was just so powerful.01:02:03.373 --> 01:02:12.351


It was like a penny dropped, because for years and years I'd worn these masks, I'd been these film stars, I'd been these characters.01:02:12.351 --> 01:02:14.769


I'd never had a relationship with myself.01:02:14.769 --> 01:02:15.833


I didn't know who I was.01:02:15.853 --> 01:02:16.835


I didn't know how to feel.01:02:16.835 --> 01:02:17.797


I didn't know how to think.01:02:17.797 --> 01:02:19.909


I didn't know how to embrace emotion.01:02:19.909 --> 01:02:20.853


I didn't know any of that.01:02:20.853 --> 01:02:27.472


I didn't know how to live, but yet there were people that I had courage to talk about the feelings and what was really going on for them.01:02:27.472 --> 01:02:36.590


And what they were talking about were how I'd been feeling all my life.01:02:36.590 --> 01:02:39.780


You know what I'm saying and it was just so powerful the identification and the fact that potentially there's a solution for me.01:02:39.780 --> 01:02:40.985


Do you know what I mean?01:02:40.985 --> 01:02:54.467


And it involves working a program in my life and embracing spiritual principles such as honesty, open-mindedness, willingness did you struggle with the ideas of the program when you was first introduced to it?01:02:54.507 --> 01:02:55.148


not at all.01:02:55.429 --> 01:02:56.612


It made sense to sense, not all.01:02:56.612 --> 01:02:58.197


The only thing that I struggled with it?01:02:58.197 --> 01:03:01.230


Uh, with the 12-step program initially.01:03:01.230 --> 01:03:02.251


What the?01:03:02.251 --> 01:03:11.871


The word god, um, and a power being greater than me because of my ego no one's greater than no one's greater than me, do you know?01:03:11.871 --> 01:03:23.311


You're in control of everything and I couldn't surrender, you know and like initially, I got 13 months clean and I wasn't willing to embrace all aspects of this program.01:03:24.092 --> 01:03:30.329


It was like a self-service buffet, just took the bits I like yeah, and that'll work for so long.01:03:30.329 --> 01:03:31.592


It does work for so long, for so long.01:03:31.612 --> 01:03:44.784


But this is the thing, but I couldn't pray because I didn't believe I'd been brought up by my dad that said people that pray and people that believe in God are nutters, and I didn't understand that it were a God or my understanding.01:03:45.836 --> 01:03:51.987


So it doesn't necessarily you were thinking of the religious Christian God in that sense and I give that that sense.01:03:52.007 --> 01:03:52.528


I give it a go.01:03:52.528 --> 01:03:53.672


I try going to church.01:03:53.672 --> 01:03:54.434


Do you know what I mean?01:03:54.434 --> 01:03:55.085


I look at these.01:03:55.085 --> 01:03:55.967


I think you're nuts.01:03:55.967 --> 01:03:57.170


You're locked you know, what I mean.01:03:57.170 --> 01:04:16.181


This isn't for me, and then that's my addiction as well you know, I mean separating me from summer, um, and like I got 13 months clean and I become obsessed then with boxing, going to gym, chasing women, doing things that fill this void.01:04:16.204 --> 01:04:20.914


I was going to say, yeah, you've got to fill it, the void's still there it's not going to work, so you're trying to replace it with other things.01:04:21.445 --> 01:04:23.733


And I had like a prison mentality still.01:04:23.733 --> 01:04:32.637


So I lived in a recovery house and I had this sort of like I'm the king of the wing mentality.01:04:32.637 --> 01:04:33.518


Do you know what I mean?01:04:33.518 --> 01:04:36.291


This is my house.01:04:36.291 --> 01:04:37.235


I've got it on lockdown.01:04:37.235 --> 01:04:42.271


I've been lending money for Double Bubble to people knowing full well that they're going to score.01:04:42.271 --> 01:04:44.318


Do you know what I mean?01:04:44.318 --> 01:04:52.856


I'm just living dishonestly and going through emotions and not surrendering, not embracing this programme.01:04:52.856 --> 01:05:04.610


And it got to 13 months clean and I relapsed, got involved with a girl that was still on medication inactive addiction.01:05:04.610 --> 01:05:06.769


My head told me it's a good idea.01:05:07.371 --> 01:05:08.074


It's a good idea.01:05:08.074 --> 01:05:09.891


You'll be all right, you'll manage.01:05:09.891 --> 01:05:15.057


Because I'd stopped going to meetings, I'd sacked my sponsor.01:05:15.057 --> 01:05:16.186


Do you know?01:05:16.507 --> 01:05:21.521


I'd stopped engaging in recovery after 30 months, I imagine as well.01:05:21.521 --> 01:05:23.347


There's party that feels like right, you've cracked this.01:05:23.347 --> 01:05:24.050


Now you don't all.01:05:24.070 --> 01:05:30.634


Right, you don't need anymore this is the thing, and that was I was taking advice from people in boxing gym about recovery.01:05:30.634 --> 01:05:48.090


Yeah, you know, and one of the best lessons that I ever learned, when my dad, when he took me under his wing when I was excluded because I'd go to work with him and he had a business uh where, if you want a sausage, you see butcher, did I mean, yeah, so if you want to talk about recovery, you don't talk to a boxer, do you know?01:05:48.090 --> 01:05:52.697


I mean, if you want to learn about boxing, you talk to a boxer yeah yeah, you want to learn about recovery.01:05:52.717 --> 01:05:53.179


You, you talk to a boxer.01:05:53.179 --> 01:05:54.063


Yeah, yeah, you want to learn about recovery.01:05:54.063 --> 01:05:57.293


You go find a mentor, you go find a sponsor and then you learn about recovery.01:05:57.293 --> 01:06:01.436


But I would get misinformation and it would just feed into my addiction.01:06:01.786 --> 01:06:04.771


And at that point as well, you're a bit of a sponge to everything that's around you as well.01:06:08.492 --> 01:06:10.659


So all advice is advice, isn't it at the end of the day.01:06:15.864 --> 01:06:19.876


And, like you said, with with the buffer, you're taking bits of what everyone's saying the people in the boxing gym, the people in the recovery, do you know?01:06:19.876 --> 01:06:20.458


And this is the thing.01:06:20.458 --> 01:06:27.556


And if it's feeding into the narrative that that my addiction has and it is running along and it's feeding into that, then I'm going to buy into it.01:06:27.556 --> 01:06:36.976


If somebody's telling me I'm not a good idea, it's not a good idea to get involved with girls in early recovery and get in a relationship, I'm gonna think it's because you can't, man.01:06:37.016 --> 01:06:40.688


Yeah I mean, you can't get a girlfriend watch me I love five.01:06:40.688 --> 01:06:42.032


I always say this is the classic.01:06:42.032 --> 01:06:43.465


You know, wet paint don't touch.01:06:43.465 --> 01:06:44.447


I'm guy always.01:06:44.447 --> 01:06:45.369


Is it still wet?01:06:45.550 --> 01:06:46.572


yeah, this is it.01:06:46.612 --> 01:06:48.806


Red button, do not push now I want to push the button.01:06:48.806 --> 01:06:51.090


You know, when people tell you not to do something, you want to it more.01:06:51.090 --> 01:06:56.833


And I think, especially when it comes to relationships and women, there's a lot of people that struggle with that in the early days of recovery.01:06:56.833 --> 01:07:04.393


I mean, it's a long time to be absent from sexual relationships when you're trying to work on yourself, isn't it?01:07:04.773 --> 01:07:08.173


Most definitely, and I think that you get so much from that as well.01:07:09.125 --> 01:07:24.237


So there's all that sort of your libidos are walking to feel attractive for somebody to be attracted, so there's all that sort of your libidos are walking, you know, to feel attractive, you know, for somebody to be attracted to you, to feel like you're going to be loved, to feel like you're special, the thrill, the chase, all that stuff there.01:07:24.237 --> 01:07:35.989


I just liken it to my addiction, you know, and what I was lacking in certain areas of my life and like I say this have this, this, this stuff that's going on for me that I'm trying to fix with.01:07:35.989 --> 01:07:37.331


You know.01:07:37.331 --> 01:07:49.112


So, like getting in that relationship had me in a 11-month relapse, but that 11-month relapse were nasty, and I mean nasty.01:07:49.532 --> 01:08:01.891


I was involved in things where, when I came back, I was on bail for domestic violence, which is something that I'd never say.01:08:01.891 --> 01:08:03.768


One of them, things I'll never do.01:08:03.768 --> 01:08:17.877


That's not who I am due to my insecurities, walking on eggshells because of crime that I've been involved in you know what I mean and stuff that I've been doing, thing to feed my addiction.01:08:17.877 --> 01:08:28.689


Because at this point then I started snowballing, which I'd never done before, and that's where heroin and crack together yeah injecting it and like that took me to an all new level.01:08:29.131 --> 01:08:29.832


Do you know what I mean?01:08:29.832 --> 01:08:31.574


All new level of madness.01:08:31.574 --> 01:08:45.427


And when I look back at it now, because I'd moved areas, I'd got into this relationship that were really codependent.01:08:45.427 --> 01:08:51.698


I were addicted to crime that I was committing, I was addicted to relationship and I was addicted to area.01:08:51.698 --> 01:08:55.466


Do you know it's mad.01:08:55.466 --> 01:09:10.627


It had like a massive hold on me, like a big pull, uh, to a point where I broke it, to a point where I had to move back to on these charges, um, and like I wasn't allowed in that area, I wasn't allowed to speak to that girl, do you know?01:09:10.627 --> 01:09:14.324


Um, and obviously I was removed from crime that I was committing.01:09:14.324 --> 01:09:28.635


So, coming back to leeds and stopping at my mum's where I was bailed, we had some, some heartfelt conversations and like my biggest fear is that I go to prison and my mum dies.01:09:28.635 --> 01:09:32.501


That's the biggest fear that I had still have.01:09:32.501 --> 01:09:42.845


You know, it's like being away from my mum like I would with my dad you don't want to repeat what happened, do you?01:09:42.885 --> 01:09:45.073


yeah, it was just something that I don't bear thinking about.01:09:45.073 --> 01:09:56.796


So it was like the conversations that we had and sort of the encouragement to have another go at recovery, you know, and it was like I had a go.01:09:56.796 --> 01:10:02.020


Then I decided, you know what, I'm going to show some humility and I'm going to go back because it worked.01:10:02.020 --> 01:10:02.604


Do you know what I mean?01:10:02.604 --> 01:10:04.270


I didn't work it properly.01:10:04.270 --> 01:10:06.832


That worked and it continues to work.01:10:07.025 --> 01:10:18.948


I always hear people say the programme works if you work the programme and it has to be, as you said earlier about being a buffer, you have to work all areas of that program.01:10:18.967 --> 01:10:19.690


Yeah, you can't pick and choose.01:10:19.690 --> 01:10:19.770


You.01:10:19.770 --> 01:10:20.935


You've got to be all in on it, haven't you?01:10:20.935 --> 01:10:21.478


This is the thing.01:10:21.478 --> 01:10:22.301


There's four suggested things.01:10:22.301 --> 01:10:22.722


So that's that's.01:10:22.722 --> 01:10:23.123


Meeting attendance.01:10:23.123 --> 01:10:26.788


Yeah, that service within that's that structure.01:10:26.788 --> 01:10:27.369


Do you know?01:10:27.369 --> 01:11:14.298


Um, sponsorship, getting a sponsor and working the steps and in order to do all them things, the adaptation, the understanding and the embracing of spiritual principles I speak about mean that all that's possible means that I can look at myself, means that I can commit to service, means that I can have a relationship with somebody where I can be totally honest about everything that's gone on in my life and have no secrets, you know, not have no shame in any guilt, and then work these steps and develop a relationship with myself and be able to make an amends for how I lived in past, for what, what I did, and become this version of myself which I never knew.01:11:15.646 --> 01:11:17.153


How long have you been abstinent, Nolan?01:11:17.153 --> 01:11:19.011


Six and a half years now Six and a half years.01:11:19.011 --> 01:11:22.393


What has been different this time to the other times?01:11:22.393 --> 01:11:24.097


Then Surrender.01:11:25.725 --> 01:11:30.315


Surrender and the spiritual principles.01:11:30.315 --> 01:11:38.831


I talk about the honesty, the know, the humility massive for me, massive, the humility aspect of it.01:11:38.831 --> 01:11:39.895


Do you know what I mean?01:11:39.895 --> 01:11:59.625


The willingness and the open-mindedness With all that and embracing it and living it not just talking it, but living it has meant that I've found a freedom which I never had before and, like now, I'm happy being me, I'm truly happy.01:11:59.664 --> 01:12:01.192


And you know who you are now as well.01:12:01.444 --> 01:12:02.710


Well, I'm continuing to learn.01:12:02.710 --> 01:12:06.131


This is the thing, nice, I'm continuing to learn who I am.01:12:06.131 --> 01:12:08.212


Yeah, and I have a finished article.01:12:08.212 --> 01:12:16.715


There's lots more work to be done, absolutely Lots more work to be done, absolutely Lots more work to be done, yeah, but it's exciting Getting to know yourself.01:12:16.814 --> 01:12:18.856


I mean, if you don't mind me asking, what age are you at?01:12:18.856 --> 01:12:19.958


How old do you think I am?01:12:20.840 --> 01:12:21.461


As a question.01:12:21.461 --> 01:12:28.295


Oh no, I'm going to put you down for about 40, 43.01:12:28.295 --> 01:12:28.818


Next 44?01:12:28.818 --> 01:12:29.260


43.01:12:29.260 --> 01:12:31.989


Oh really, next, yeah, nice 43, july 20th.01:12:32.351 --> 01:12:32.953


I'm happy with that.01:12:32.953 --> 01:12:34.298


Birthday cards welcome.01:12:34.298 --> 01:12:35.261


Yeah, I'll take that.01:12:35.823 --> 01:12:41.162


Yeah, so July 20th is my birthday, july 20th 1981.01:12:41.162 --> 01:12:44.373


And on July 20th I'll be 43.01:12:44.373 --> 01:12:53.336


And my life now is unrecognizable to what it was and it feels kind of at times like it was somebody else.01:12:53.336 --> 01:12:56.033


You know, like somebody else has lived that, yeah.01:12:56.033 --> 01:13:00.305


But I still get recall, I still get thoughts that come back, of course, yeah, yeah, I still get memories.01:13:00.345 --> 01:13:03.154


It's about knowing what to do with those thoughts, isn't it?01:13:04.905 --> 01:13:12.568


They're just passing thoughts, you know, and I'm not just necessarily talking about using thoughts, you know, I'm just talking about the shame and guilt like using force.01:13:12.568 --> 01:13:15.371


You know, I'm just talking about the shame and guilt, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a massive one.01:13:15.371 --> 01:13:19.796


I bump into somebody and I think you know, like I know, what I've done to them.01:13:19.815 --> 01:13:23.841


They don't know what I've done to them, but it's not necessarily said out loud sort of thing.01:13:23.860 --> 01:13:24.121


No.01:13:24.121 --> 01:13:26.698


Well, the thing is with the amends process.01:13:26.698 --> 01:13:29.811


Is you make the amends if it's not going to cause further harm?01:13:29.811 --> 01:13:30.073


Yeah.01:13:30.073 --> 01:13:30.673


Cause further harm, yeah.01:13:30.673 --> 01:13:33.777


So if it's going to cause further harm, then I'm not going to do it.01:13:33.796 --> 01:13:34.719


I'll make it, just go out.01:13:34.719 --> 01:13:38.809


Make amends just to make yourself feel better, if it's going to make someone else feel worse this is the thing.01:13:38.868 --> 01:13:40.894


And like I got it twisted.01:13:40.894 --> 01:13:41.895


Do you know what I mean?01:13:41.895 --> 01:13:49.287


Because, like when I first came into recovery, I think I was 30 days clean and I was going to say people that committed crimes again.01:13:49.287 --> 01:13:50.488


I'm really sorry I did that.01:13:50.488 --> 01:13:51.652


Do you know what I mean?01:13:51.652 --> 01:14:02.478


And like expecting them to be proud of me because I'm in recovery and look at me and really I've brought, I've dragged something up from five years ago that they were forgotten about yeah, do you know what I mean?01:14:02.497 --> 01:14:09.136


and it's like, and then me looking at them at that point in my life thinking what's wrong with you?01:14:09.966 --> 01:14:25.268


because I didn't understand, uh, and I jumped I'd massively jumped the steps because you've done it to make yourself feel better in a way, haven't you, I think I've seen that so many times of people who are in recovery in that amends process just doing, doing what they're doing because they want to feel better.01:14:25.268 --> 01:14:26.817


It's like, well, hang about, mate, you know.01:14:26.817 --> 01:14:32.632


Think about how that is going to make other people feel they don't understand the full uh context, that situation.01:14:32.632 --> 01:14:35.377


Only make amends if it's going to make a situation better.01:14:35.618 --> 01:14:40.328


Exactly, and if it is amendable and it's not, some things aren't amendable.01:14:40.328 --> 01:14:41.110


That's the reality of it.01:14:41.110 --> 01:14:43.015


Some things aren't amendable, of course they are.01:14:43.076 --> 01:14:43.497


And they're not.01:14:43.497 --> 01:15:01.434


Maybe I mean I'm not putting words in your mouth as such, but your relationship with your daughters, maybe that can't be fully amended just yet but, who knows, 10 years from now, it could be a different, it could be something completely different.01:15:01.453 --> 01:15:03.880


Yeah, all I need to do with that area there is continue working on myself.01:15:03.880 --> 01:15:08.686


Yeah, and in the person that I am today and the person that potentially I'm going to be tomorrow.01:15:08.686 --> 01:15:13.551


Um, I'm sure that things will come good, you know, because I'm available.01:15:13.551 --> 01:15:27.320


I'm available, I'm accountable, but I'm also resourceful as well, and it means that, like, at any point when they need me, I'm there for them, but, like I say, they're on their own journeys.01:15:27.341 --> 01:15:27.681


Journey.01:15:27.681 --> 01:15:29.082


Yeah, and they're their own people.01:15:29.082 --> 01:15:38.136


Speaking about being resourceful, I'm interested in talking about your new CIC cic getting clean, yes, so let's talk about that, yeah, let's talk about that.01:15:38.858 --> 01:15:42.708


So getting clean cic is a lero.01:15:42.708 --> 01:15:48.802


So that's a lived experience recovery organization and I founded that um.01:15:48.802 --> 01:16:05.396


Initially it started as an unconstituted volunteers group, so I was in recovery Now I completed a structured daycare program and after that I completed and I had a period of abstinence of about a year.01:16:05.396 --> 01:16:30.671


I started doing support work, casual shifts for homeless charities in leeds, um, and then so I I was introduced to somebody that had a, a business, a charity, a foundation, um, and they were what seemed to be potentially really attractive.01:16:30.671 --> 01:16:37.011


It were was like you know, they had this approach business building futures.01:16:37.011 --> 01:16:38.730


They were business people.01:16:38.730 --> 01:17:02.511


I was interested in business, I believed I was going to be mentored and I worked for them for a period, but it wasn't a good experience and I felt like I'd been employed as a token sort of tokenistic, just to show just to spiel, to get out and look at what we do01:17:03.729 --> 01:17:07.844


and also let's raise some funds, let's, you know, develop relationships.01:17:07.844 --> 01:17:24.275


But I learnt a lot in that role and then I went back to supporting people in homeless community in Leeds but I realized my lived experience had so much more to offer.01:17:24.275 --> 01:17:35.565


So whilst I was doing that, I went about creating a volunteers group that allowed people that were in recovery to come together to support each other and the community.01:17:35.565 --> 01:17:46.692


An inclusive group so that accepts people from any sort of background, any religion, any culture, um any form of recovery.01:17:46.692 --> 01:18:08.498


So, whether it's 12 step, whether it's smart, whether it's no recovery at all, but interested in in achieving abstinence, um, and tackling environmental issues in community, because I understand and appreciate that I am a product of my environment and I've been throughout my life and it's like in my mind.01:18:08.498 --> 01:18:13.381


I think if we can make better environments, better communities and we make better people.01:18:13.502 --> 01:18:14.425


Yeah absolutely.01:18:14.784 --> 01:18:19.974


And if we can do what we're doing in the way that we are, we can change the perception of addiction.01:18:19.974 --> 01:18:21.810


We can challenge stigma.01:18:21.810 --> 01:18:27.911


So I bring these people together, I organize it and say look, I'm just going to pick a litter on a Saturday morning.01:18:27.911 --> 01:18:37.769


We'll come together as a group there's other people doing it in Leeds as well, you know like we'll do a bit of that.01:18:37.769 --> 01:18:38.671


And it starts to gain momentum.01:18:38.671 --> 01:18:50.582


People start being interested because I understand throughout my recovery um, I lacked purpose um uh, I had a real issue with my identity and who I was.01:18:51.226 --> 01:18:54.115


I was learning how to live, but I was learning from peers.01:18:54.115 --> 01:18:56.634


They had lived experience.01:18:56.634 --> 01:19:02.734


So we started picking litter, and I'm always a bit of a deep thinker.01:19:02.734 --> 01:19:16.212


So we're coming together as a group, we're picking all these bags of litter, mountains of litter, putting them in these purple bags and then putting them outside at road, and then council collects them, but I'm thinking what happens to them?01:19:16.895 --> 01:19:17.457


where do they go?01:19:17.457 --> 01:19:18.261


Where do they go, yeah?01:19:18.261 --> 01:19:19.345


What happens next?01:19:19.345 --> 01:19:19.746


Yeah?01:19:19.765 --> 01:19:21.770


so, like we, we find out.01:19:21.770 --> 01:19:26.519


So I organize a, like a little educational excursion for the group.01:19:26.519 --> 01:19:29.469


Get a minibus full of us and we go up to this.01:19:29.469 --> 01:19:31.671


Uh, plant viola leeds.01:19:31.671 --> 01:19:59.274


It's a big incinerator, yeah, and it burns the waste at a high temperature, which lessens the impact to the ozone layer, and with the energy that's created they heat the hospital st james's hospital and a few warms in that area, yeah, but when all said and done, it's still going into environment of, of course, yeah, yeah, so we learnt what happens there and we realised that there's recycling to look at.01:19:59.786 --> 01:20:16.112


So we have another little trip down to the recycling plant on Garnet Road in Leeds, beeston, and it makes me laugh because I find out that the plastic, yeah, is turned to flake, yeah, and we're talking about flake again.01:20:16.112 --> 01:20:18.911


Now I've come full circle.01:20:18.911 --> 01:20:21.673


You know I'm looking for a flake contact do you know what I mean?01:20:23.387 --> 01:20:31.373


So we decide as a group what we're going to do is, when we pick litter, we're going to process it, we're going to recycle it, we're going to promote what we're doing on social media.01:20:31.373 --> 01:20:38.434


Hopefully that's going to influence people to start recycling, you know, and start looking after the environment.01:20:38.434 --> 01:20:52.158


And as this group starts to grow, I identify that there's lots of skills within this group, lots of people that have come from all walks of life that can do so much more.01:20:52.158 --> 01:21:01.752


So we start, we link him with ed carlisle, big up, ed carlisle, green party councillor, uh, link up with him, uh.01:21:01.752 --> 01:21:15.440


And he has people in his constituency, in his area, in his ward, that um need jobs doing vulnerable people, disabled people, people that can't do things themselves, but we can.01:21:15.440 --> 01:21:29.335


So we set about doing garden renovations, diy decorating, repair jobs, whatever we can to make a difference in our communities and to feel like we're valued members of that community.01:21:29.335 --> 01:21:38.592


To help people look past the antisocial aspects of addiction, the crime, all that stuff, to actually see that recovery is possible and that we're people.01:21:38.592 --> 01:21:41.506


We're addicts, but we're people, people in recovery.01:21:41.506 --> 01:21:45.154


Start creating wildflower meadows, you know.01:21:45.154 --> 01:21:53.797


Do conservation work, do as much as we can to support our communities and our planet and each other while we're doing it.01:21:53.797 --> 01:22:03.712


So you have broken people potentially rebuilding themselves, and communities which were really powerful, really sort of inspirational.01:22:06.025 --> 01:22:10.778


So in 2021, november, we're a volunteers group.01:22:10.778 --> 01:22:20.154


Last year in August, we transitioned to a community interest company Now to fund all our activities.01:22:20.154 --> 01:22:24.895


I understood straight away that we needed an income stream.01:22:24.895 --> 01:22:28.654


Now, as a community interest company, you can't raise.01:22:28.654 --> 01:22:36.229


Well, you can raise funds through fundraising and donations, but they're taxed at 20%, so it's not viable.01:22:36.229 --> 01:22:37.033


It doesn't make sense.01:22:37.033 --> 01:22:42.677


What a community interest company does is it provides services and products.01:22:42.677 --> 01:22:48.474


So I realised straight away we need a product and that's where we come up with the getting clean soap.01:22:48.926 --> 01:22:50.311


So, it's a bit of a play on words.01:22:50.311 --> 01:23:05.073


Now, this soap is made by our people, our volunteers, our members that are all in recovery, that are all tackling addiction, that are all supporting each other in a therapeutic workshop, from natural ingredients.01:23:05.073 --> 01:23:18.591


Everything about it is ethical, right down to its packaging, which is recycled materials papers and tapes and stuff like that and it's made in a therapeutic workshop where people learn how to do something.01:23:18.591 --> 01:23:21.190


It's about empowerment, it's about teaching each other.01:23:21.190 --> 01:23:22.529


It's about that development.01:23:22.770 --> 01:23:29.895


It's a community, and then we take it to market, and then we're public-facing and we talk to people.01:23:29.895 --> 01:23:34.271


We let them know that when they buy a bar of soap, it's not just any bar of soap.01:23:34.271 --> 01:23:36.993


It's not just any bar of soap, it's soap with hope.01:23:36.993 --> 01:23:40.234


That's the product line soap with hope.01:23:41.025 --> 01:23:47.893


We've got moulds made, so when it comes out and it's cut, it says hope in the side and it's a bar that reduces crime.01:23:47.893 --> 01:23:51.956


It's a bar that tackles environmental issues.01:23:51.956 --> 01:24:00.880


It's a bar that when you actually use it on a morning, you're cleaning yourself but you're also cleaning the streets of leeds.01:24:00.880 --> 01:24:01.681


You know.01:24:01.681 --> 01:24:06.154


It's a bar that when you use it you're helping an old lady that can't fix a fence.01:24:06.154 --> 01:24:07.115


Get a fence fixed.01:24:07.817 --> 01:24:27.145


It's a bar that just keeps going yeah, the domino effect to the buyer yeah, and the people that are learning how to make it are teaching new people how to make it and they're becoming empowered and skilled and finding all this confidence and belief in themselves that they can do something and they can change the perception of addiction.01:24:27.145 --> 01:24:33.958


The mad thing is that's one product line bars from the other one yeah, so you've got Soap With Hope.01:24:33.958 --> 01:24:37.576


The mad thing is that's one product line Bars from the other one yeah, so you've got Soap With Hope.01:24:37.576 --> 01:24:42.837


Yeah, the next product line is bars from behind bars.01:24:43.667 --> 01:24:44.912


So people are making them in prison.01:24:45.225 --> 01:24:46.430


So I go into prison now?01:24:46.430 --> 01:25:05.033


Yeah, and like the last prison that I were in Wheelston, hmp Wheelston, because of our activity on social media, the diet team there, the drug and alcohol recovery team, contacted me and said would you be willing to come in and speak to some of the lads?01:25:05.908 --> 01:25:11.645


so I'm like, yeah, I'd love that that we'd go in prison and nobody could get out again this one.01:25:11.765 --> 01:25:15.176


this is the craziest and most emotional experience that I go on in prison and nobody could get out again this one.01:25:15.176 --> 01:25:34.394


This is the craziest and most emotional experience that I probably had in prison, the last time that I were in HMP Wheelston in the visits hall where my mum came to visit me and she came to talk to me about my dad passing and my mum didn't normally come to prison because she couldn't.01:25:34.394 --> 01:25:49.606


She couldn't handle it and, like I've said, that throughout my life and our relationship there's never really been a connection you know that it's always been strained, um, through my early childhood and then through my addiction.01:25:50.708 --> 01:26:13.432


It were like my mum coming to see me and being emotionally available for the first time and wanting to connect with me and and I always remember in that visits all wanting to start crying and wanting to tell me and to walk me and tell me about my dad dying, and I always remember saying stop crying, we'll deal this later.01:26:13.934 --> 01:26:17.859


I can't go back to wing crying like a little baby Do you know what I mean?01:26:17.859 --> 01:26:19.190


Because I've got this jail head on.01:26:19.190 --> 01:26:20.610


I've got this mask on.01:26:20.610 --> 01:26:23.475


I can't deal with that emotion, so I shut her down.01:26:23.475 --> 01:26:27.896


The first time that she were available, I shut her down in that visits hall.01:26:27.896 --> 01:26:31.713


Now fast forward 11 years, however.01:26:31.713 --> 01:26:37.765


11, 12 years I'm in that same visits.01:26:37.765 --> 01:26:38.688


All we're 16 in myths now.01:26:38.688 --> 01:26:45.987


These guys I've either sold drugs to taken drugs with or done time with.01:26:46.609 --> 01:26:50.465


So they know me hmm, and I'm there and I'm talking to him about recovery.01:26:50.465 --> 01:26:53.750


I'm talking to him about social enterprise.01:26:53.750 --> 01:26:56.052


I'm talking to them about recovery.01:26:56.052 --> 01:26:57.614


I'm talking to them about social enterprise.01:26:57.614 --> 01:27:43.533


I'm talking to them about transferring skills you know and finding a way to live, and it went down so well that they invited me back to see the governor and I did a little presentation, shared my journey, my experience, and Diane Lewis, another big up governor at Wheelston, invited me to a regional drug strategy meeting, which I attend now every time as a Lero, as a lived experience recovery organisation and I now go into prisons and I make soap with hope, but bars from behind bars, and that allows these people that are in custody to form an understanding and a relationship that can continue upon release.01:27:43.795 --> 01:27:43.935


Yeah.01:27:43.935 --> 01:27:56.532


With people that have lived experience, you know, that have found a new way to live and that aren't committing crime anymore, you know, and that are trapped in that obsession and addiction.01:27:57.054 --> 01:28:01.207


So Honestly, chris, it's been fantastic.01:28:01.207 --> 01:28:07.164


I think, listening to your journey, I feel like I'm talking to two different people, based on everything that you've gone through.01:28:07.164 --> 01:28:15.671


It's been a pleasure having you on the podcast today to hear about your story and I hope it'll help other people that are listening to it as well, and I think getting clean sounds fantastic.01:28:15.671 --> 01:28:27.025


But before I finished, I have a random set of 10 questions I'd like to ask all my guests quick fire questions, not anything that was spoken about what's your favorite word, what's?01:28:27.126 --> 01:28:28.609


my favorite word?01:28:28.609 --> 01:28:34.305


Ooh, my favorite word Quickfire questions.01:28:35.630 --> 01:28:39.283


Positivity Like it Least favourite word, negativity.01:28:39.283 --> 01:28:43.694


What excites you, either creatively, spiritually or emotionally?01:28:43.694 --> 01:28:44.837


Love.01:28:44.837 --> 01:28:47.192


Tell me something that doesn't excite you.01:28:47.192 --> 01:28:48.475


Hate.01:28:48.475 --> 01:28:50.353


What's your favourite curse word?01:28:51.405 --> 01:28:52.935


Favourite curse word yeah, I can't say that.01:28:52.935 --> 01:28:53.197


Are you sure?01:28:53.216 --> 01:28:54.404


Yeah To be fair't say that Are you sure yeah.01:28:54.404 --> 01:28:58.412


To be fair, it's surprising, but you haven't actually sweared this entire podcast.01:28:58.412 --> 01:29:00.729


What sound or noise do you love?01:29:02.734 --> 01:29:03.417


Cash register.01:29:04.185 --> 01:29:04.930


What sound or noise?01:29:04.949 --> 01:29:09.630


do you hate my phone ringing?01:29:11.287 --> 01:29:12.511


If you wasn't doing what you're doing.01:29:12.511 --> 01:29:13.287


Now we're getting clean.01:29:13.287 --> 01:29:14.088


What would you like to do?01:29:16.796 --> 01:29:17.377


Be on holiday.01:29:19.065 --> 01:29:20.332


Tell me something that you wouldn't like to do.01:29:20.332 --> 01:29:22.051


What's the worst job that you can imagine doing?01:29:23.805 --> 01:29:25.871


Worst job that I can imagine doing.01:29:25.871 --> 01:29:34.336


I'd say I don't want to say it, but no, I'm not going to say it.01:29:34.336 --> 01:29:36.242


But no, I'm not going to say it because it was positive.01:29:36.685 --> 01:29:37.628


Worst job that I've had.01:29:37.628 --> 01:29:38.873


It doesn't have to be to be fair.01:29:38.873 --> 01:29:44.246


It's about you personally, like for me, I can think of jobs that Stood on a conveyor belt in a factory.01:29:44.367 --> 01:29:45.847


Yeah, that's fine A monotonous job.01:29:45.886 --> 01:29:48.668


I get that, yeah, completely.01:29:48.668 --> 01:29:52.192


If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the pearly gates?01:29:52.851 --> 01:29:53.273


Welcome.01:29:53.872 --> 01:29:54.533


Thank you, Chris.01:29:54.533 --> 01:29:55.713


You've been absolutely fantastic.01:29:55.713 --> 01:29:58.756


Thank you so much for coming on the Believe in People podcast and sharing your story.01:29:59.117 --> 01:30:04.279


And if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believe in People podcast, then please check out our other episodes and hit that subscribe button.01:30:04.279 --> 01:30:12.930


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