E41: Rising Above Habitual Destruction - Martin Swithenbank's Story of Change

When the world feels like it's spinning out of control, sometimes the most grounding thing we can do is listen to someone who's fought to regain their balance. That's what Martin Swithenbank, an outdoor instructor from Yorkshire, brings to our latest conversation. He gets real about his battle with the bottle, offering a raw, intimate account of his life steeped in alcoholism and the arduous climb towards recovery. Martin's story isn't just one of struggle; it's a beacon of hope, illuminating the power of self-awareness and the courage to embrace change.

Tackling the beast of addiction goes beyond personal will—it's about understanding the intricate dance between genetics, environment, and the insidious nature of habitual destruction. The three of us lay bare our experiences, from the deceptive comfort of alcohol's embrace to the chaotic aftermath of its abuse. Our tales converge at the crossroads of realization, where the pursuit of sobriety becomes a desperate yet hopeful quest, and the role of societal norms and self-recognition come into sharp focus.

Embarking on the path of sobriety often means redefining oneself and one's relationships, and this episode doesn't shy away from the messy, emotional reconstruction that follows. As we peel away the layers of our past selves, we find a space for healing and growth, underscored by the transformative experience of nature therapy. And for those listening who might recognize a friend in the throes of their own battle with alcohol, we share our thoughts on support, understanding, and the gentle nudge towards a mindful lifestyle. It's not just about breaking free; it's about finding oneself in the process and celebrating the triumph of the human spirit.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Well, it's pretty loud, isn't it? Yeah, it's alright, I'll get it out.

Speaker 3: 0:04

Oh, I just like the plain, some proper EV. I had bangin' music there, aren't I?

Speaker 1: 0:09

Yeah, so these mics are very sensitive. Yeah, hey.

Speaker 2: 0:20

Is that recording now? So I'll just do that. Yep, can I just ask you, martin's, with a mug Indeed For the purposes of the podcast, can we use audio video to release this and then also for a little bit of social media, and that'll be it. We won't be using it for any adverts or anything like that. Haha, yeah, no problem.

Speaker 1: 0:42

Yeah, yeah cool Are we good, I'm ready, yeah, cool.

Speaker 2: 0:51

We'll intro afterwards. Yeah, yeah, we'll do that later, so I'll just welcome you in. So good evening, martin Switham Bank. Thank you for coming in. Alright, yeah, alright. We're on, mate, we're on, we're on exactly are we doing it now, launching straight into it? So this just took a little while to get going, but it's one that we thought about right at the start of our journey.

Speaker 2: 1:11

I'm glad we've sort of waited for it a little bit, because we're a little bit better at recording, hopefully, but we've wanted to wait for you as a guest as well.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Right, there, it is Martin.

Speaker 2: 1:22

if you could give us and the listeners a little bit of an introduction about yourself Not too far into it. Don't give them everything but Haha old, something back.

Speaker 3: 1:31

Eh yeah, my name's Martin. I'm 47. I'm a Yorkshire man. I'm a climber, been a climber for 25 years. I am currently in recovery From climbing From climbing. Haha, yeah, I'm a recovering alcoholic, or an alcoholic who is in recovery, whichever way you want to kind of word it and I've been in recovery for about seven years now, something like that, with a couple of blips that we'll go into or whatever. Yeah, that's me, and I still live in Yorkshire and I still climb. I haven't just started drinking anymore.

Speaker 2: 2:01

So I mean, this is one that I was as someone who personally yeah I think we've mentioned it on podcast a lot of how much I drank with PTSD and sometimes I'm in blips, but I don't know if I was an alcoholic. If I was an alcoholic, would I still be an alcoholic if I was still drinking now, because I still drink? You mentioned recovery there, or recovering alcoholic. So once you're an alcoholic, you're an alcoholic for life. That's the way that.

Speaker 3: 2:23

I see it really is that even if you never, ever, drink, ever, ever again, you are always an alcoholic. You're always going to be addicted to that substance, you know, and it never goes away. It gets easier to manage but it never goes away. And I don't think, you know. Medical professionals might say, well, if you drink X amounts of units every day, therefore you're technically an alcoholic. Yeah, and if you're an alcoholic, if that substance dictates how you live your life to the extreme that it did to me, and I think if there's any worry about how much you drink, then you need to kind of address that in some way. But for me definitely, I was never, like, medically diagnosed, if you can, as an alcoholic, but without a doubt I was and still I'm addicted to alcohol. And you know, things got very, very bad at one point in my life.

Speaker 2: 3:16

I would do a lot of. I do know a lot of reading for this podcast and stuff. And when you say someone's got a habit, a habit is probably defined as something that someone does in repetition but it's not particularly causing harm, whereas in addiction somebody is doing in repetition, but it is doing them or somebody close to them harm, but you still keep doing it because of it and despite the consequences. So in that I suppose I think of all of those times where we've drank to excess and we've known it's not doing as great.

Speaker 3: 3:47

And if you're doing that constantly, For me, it was more of a compulsion and a need. It became a need, and that's how I understood it to be alcoholism. Yeah, I was drinking in the shower before I went to work. I was drinking on the way to work. I was drinking at work. I mean, he's all sorts of gory stories I could tell you about how I tried to.

Speaker 2: 4:06

Well, don't go off to work. Keep the listeners hanging on. We don't want to, but yeah, yeah, for me.

Speaker 3: 4:13

For me it was. It was definitely got to the level of I needed it to function. I actually couldn't function physically sometimes, Definitely mentally I couldn't get out of the door without having to drink.

Speaker 2: 4:25

So there's a few things, few ways that I want to go from that and that one is to ask one why do you think you got into that sort of level of drinking? And then two, which I thought for the welcome back to, I tend to go off at tangents. And then two would be was that drinking making up for something? Yeah, let's go, let's go. So what got you into it first?

Speaker 3: 4:47

I've only really understood this, I think, in recent years since I stopped drinking, but I've always had an incredibly busy mind or a busy, a busy head. It's always been in overdrive almost. I've always suffered with quiet at times, crippling anxiety, really really serious anxiety, quite dark moods at times as well, and all of that noise in my head. I was seven when I first got drunk. Oh, really right. And when I got drunk I thought I remember thinking fucking brilliant, it stopped, wow, absolutely awesome. And then I started in earnest at about 14 and it just stopped everything and I never sought just a quiet drink. I saw or even at 14 complete annihilation.

Speaker 3: 5:33

Right, because that was the only way that I could switch everything off right? You know, there are lots of reasons why people drink and I'm totally honestly, my reason was that I just loved getting completely out of my mind and it switched everything off and it made it peaceful, and that's why.

Speaker 2: 5:51

I'm still taking back at seven because you're beating me there. Yeah, there's not many people beat me. With me history of alcohol.

Speaker 3: 5:58

But yeah, I didn't. I didn't go from seven, just start drinking at seven. But yeah yeah. I'm gonna get seven right and I thought it was brilliant.

Speaker 2: 6:06

That's quite. I mean I don't want to be reading into things, but that's quite an early age to then realize that's turned them voices off in it and it's instilling this. Yeah, it's like a an early age for this. This brain function of I can turn that off through alcohol.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Yeah, it's quite early age to have them voices in your head anyway yeah, yeah, to have a recollection of it.

Speaker 2: 6:25

Admittance of it.

Speaker 3: 6:26

I suppose, yeah, the noise in my head definitely as opposed to kind of any sort of verbal stuff going on, but but just a kind of the sort of constant knowing feeling that something kind of wasn't quite right, which I still get. But but I've, you know, I've kind of gone and done CBT now okay, so but yeah, and, and I'm able to manage that and I'm able to manage the noise. You know, I still get moments of really, really crippling, paralyzing anxiety, but I know how to deal with that. Yeah, and I get very, very low mood sometimes, but I know how to deal with that. It's okay. I just don't deal with it through complete annihilation because it doesn't help.

Speaker 2: 7:04

So do you think there's was a never ever an incident or a string of incidents that have led to the anxiety or not that I can think of really.

Speaker 3: 7:12

No, no, no, no. Actually it's an interesting question.

Speaker 1: 7:17

I should know that four times.

Speaker 3: 7:20

I don't think there were any noticeable events and I've just always been a person who over things and and struggles with a lot of things.

Speaker 2: 7:30

Yeah, just sort of think. You know, again, with references to mental health situations, and there's them like things that happen in childhood or an upbringing or, and then big events or sort of an event that's not changing someone's direction, with like, with PTSD and things like that. We get a lot of people with X forces and other people like myself, yeah, and it's that seeking that, seeking that solace at bottom of her glass. Now I suppose we are not roughly the same. Well, we are roughly same age, same generation. Yeah, you're a couple years behind me, but my recollection of growing up in the 80s would be looking forward to going out and getting steaming drunk. Yes, it was a big challenge with your friends and going out and drinking as much as you could and a lot of peer pressures if you could. If you didn't go out, if you didn't drink, you stood out of the crowd and then drinking on street corners. I was 15, 16 year old before him for you that's.

Speaker 3: 8:16

That's that's where I started. I started the dead mining town that I grew up in in East Leeds. There was, you know, really nothing there whatsoever, apart apart from, I mean, I suppose, if there was any, anything that kind of triggered it. You know, my mum was always terrified of the Cold War and the Russians bombing us and stuff like that yeah, so anytime a plane went over when I was very little, she would kind of hide me and so really in case the Russians bombed us and stuff like that.

Speaker 3: 8:42

That might have fed into my anxiety, maybe, but but yeah, I mean I, you know, 14, I started with a pack of silk cutting four cams, a special brewery around the back of the special. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 14. And and I was just really good at it as well. See, I could just neck special bro smart fags and get absolutely fucked out my mind and it was awesome and it was like you say, it was a challenge, it was just like right, you can get steaming, you know who can drink the most, and and still, function I still yeah, yeah, I mean that age.

Speaker 3: 9:12

I mean, you know, I did all sorts of mad stuff as I got older. I won bonfire night when I was about 18. I drunk four bottles of QC and I was still alright. You know I mean and like probably went and had about 10, 12 pints or something like that. Afterwards went back to a party, did whatever you do at parties and it were all good.

Speaker 2: 9:30

You know, throw up, had a thrown up after sharing four balls of QC. That's quite rich, is that in it, qc?

Speaker 3: 9:35

yeah but that was the level. I mean I could drink, you know, a liter and a half of vodka before I went to work, sometimes, and stuff like that really yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I didn't, I didn't fuck about with it, you know, I mean it was like. It was like I've never been a man of middle ground. If I'm gonna do, something.

Speaker 3: 9:51

I'm gonna have it and like excess, excess I mean, and and that's what it. That's what it was like. I mean, you know, my idols were like happy Monday's, stone roses, people like that. A lot of my mates were really into clubbing, you know, going out to kind of like what has the end there and all that up your Ronson stuff like that. So they were all into kind of the drug scene. They're all into like ecstasy and party drugs and all that. I was just a boozer. I mean I double with it because that student at one point as well, I double with it. But I was just a boozer, boozer and I was amazing. I you know. But look where they, look where it's got me well, it's definitely life experience.

Speaker 2: 10:25

Only that's that's why we've sort of here in it, because yeah yeah, life experience and want to pass it on to others so that they can make their own choices really and form choices. You know, that's why we're like it's brilliant the volunteers coming in, coming and talk openly and honestly so in your early days as a teenager, do you ever think you had a problem?

Speaker 3: 10:43

it never occurred to me at all that I had any problem whatsoever, even at kind of 16, when 17. I see, remember when I was an A level student and stuff like that, before I went to our college and I'd kind of save up money that I'd got and just buy loads of booze and stay in the house on like a Tuesday. Everybody was out in my house me when my dad would out at work and my brother went out somewhere and I'm a chooser so I just stay and get pissed in the house on my own. And even at that point I never thought this is, this is a bit weird, like I just thought was quite normal. Everybody's doing this out there you know.

Speaker 1: 11:14

So what did your family say when they returned, you know, on a Tuesday night, when they all went out.

Speaker 3: 11:18

When they come back, I've always been really good at hiding it. You know my current partner always says like you couldn't really ever tell when I drunk a bottle of red wine and I'd occasionally just drink it straight out of the bottle, you know, like just almost a bottle at a time kind of thing she'd. You know I was really good at concealing how much I drunk and I think they just didn't expect to come home and find the 70 year old son having drunk four ladies of white light.

Speaker 2: 11:44

I've got a suggestion. When his son is said white liney, so do you think that's? Was that a tolerance for yourself, because everybody's different?

Speaker 2: 11:51

so first of all, we, you know they do say I don't know what the figures are now. Is it 14 points or whatever? 14 units of alcohol with your regularcy? Or here of someone driving home with four bites down and getting breathalyzed and they're not over at limit, because we've all got different metabolic rates, different bodies and different absorption rates. So do you think your absorption rate, or is it just that you add that you could just get really pissed when I say I was amazing at it.

Speaker 3: 12:18

I think you know these evidence to suggest that alcoholism is hereditary, hereditary disease. You know, my granddad was an alcoholic. Two of my uncles are or were, I don't know. They're so like both my cousins are alcoholics and recovered heroin addicts as well. So it's kind of a thing that runs in our family and I think from the first point I had a drink, I just didn't affect me.

Speaker 2: 12:37

Because what we're thinking then is where you've said that is it. Is it hereditary? Is it because you've been in that environment? You know where, you've seen it going on regular, because I saw my, my dad used to drink. I'm going out on a Friday night and come back a little bit worse than where.

Speaker 2: 12:48

And then sat Sunday afternoons, everyone used to go out in family, you know you go sit in club and it were them days where everyone sat small kids running around, you know fire eater with young people over at the top of little kids and that bit like Phoenix Nights one.

Speaker 3: 13:02

Yeah, me, my mum and dad used to drink. It was a weird thing because me mum had grown up in a family where my granddad, her dad, was. It was a violent alcoholic, you know, quite abusive. So she had a very weird, obviously, viewer of alcohol consumption but she's still drunk and my dad's still drunk, but not really to excess, I don't think so. It was always there and I was always aware that me mum had grown up in a family like that. You know, I think it comes back to the same thing time and time and time again is that I just really liked it and I liked what it did for me.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Right, so this is what I'm going to get into. Do you think you're making up for something? Well, you've said it about possible anxiety, so you just felt better when you, I just felt.

Speaker 3: 13:45

I felt calmer, and that's kind of what it does. A lot of the time it calms you down is about GABA receptors or something like that.

Speaker 2: 13:52

Yeah, it's like it's sedative, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 13:53

It just calmed me down, it made me feel happy and it made me feel nicer.

Speaker 3: 13:57

And the thing about about boozing and heavy drinking is if you could have a pint and you could, or two, and you could get that lovely golden feeling and just stay with that, just keep that, that would be absolutely amazing. But as an alcoholic, you never do that because you're addicted to that substance. So as soon as you have some of that substance and you get that beautiful golden feeling, you just think I want more of it, I want more of it, I want more of it, I need more of that, I need more of that piece I need, I need more of it. So what you do is you just super load. You know it's like fucking get it all in me, get it all in me, make myself feel nice and better and happier. And then it all just hits you at this but once and it goes wrong and you end up like throwing up everywhere and kind of falling over and smashing it open. All that, falling off of a bus or out of a window or something you know yeah.

Speaker 3: 14:53

I've done a lot of things. I once woke up with me and stuck to a pillow with blood because I must have fallen over and then be pillow would just covered in blood and made was stuck to it. You're quite lucky to wake up anyway, I've done loads of stuff to myself Do loads are really crazy stupid stuff when I've been drunk.

Speaker 1: 15:11

Because when you usually drunk you, you seem to forget about things so near, and then you wake up the next morning. You're trying to piece things together. Yeah, and did I do that or did I not do that, or what actually happened? But like, but like on the hangover movies. You're like trying to piece you. Yeah, Last night together yeah is that what you regularly did when you woke up? Well, I mean, I had near two decades of that.

Speaker 3: 15:34

You know I'm 47. Like I cleaned up when I was 40 and easily for 10 years, I have Vague recollections of a lot, a lot of it, chunks of it, you know. Yeah, there were aspects of working up and and maybe not getting quite as annihilated I mean drinking was. It was every night, it was every day for me. You know, there were times we woke up and he thought, oh no, oh God, did that happen? Did I actually say that or do that? Was that person there last night and did I actually call him that name or you know, whatever? I never.

Speaker 3: 16:06

I never got into any trouble with the police, which always staggers me, to be honest with you, but I think kind of most people just took pity on me because it was a complete mess most of the time, you know. So, just years of kind of working up, thinking again, again and like Tell me if I'm, if I'm going off on a tangent here, but when that continues for years and years and years and you feel Absolutely in the grip of it. I remember the feeling one one time specifically, and it was a turning point because I was Towards the end, the like the latter years. I was desperately unhappy with the situation and I wanted it to change, but I couldn't find a way out, and, and and it was terrifying trying to find a way out, when I realized I was in the shower, I was having a shower. Shall I tell you the story of Piphany moment of realization.

Speaker 2: 16:56

Yeah, we need to know this.

Speaker 3: 16:57

I was in the shower try to get ready for work and I was. My head was absolutely in a mess, like psychologically I was. I was in a real state. I'd got really, really drunk over the weekend and I think it was a Monday or Tuesday morning and I got in the shower and I couldn't. I just couldn't do it. I was crying, I was all over the place and I thought there's only one thing I can do. It's gonna make this feel better. And I got myself just sorted and went out to the to the offy. Seven o'clock after the morning. I got two cans of cider Bosch, went on the way back and then got into the shower open. One had had one in the shower and I thought right if I keep that down, because normally you just throw it back up again, I think, and you need to keep it down for long enough so that you get that. You get the alcohol into your blood system. And then he started to feel better.

Speaker 3: 17:45

I got in the shower as soon as the water hit me. I just puked up every everywhere. It went all over the place. So. And then my body it must have had got a bit of alcohol in it and it just just started to shake and I was just shaking uncontrollably in the shower and I suddenly just got this cold rush and I was like sweating Buckets kind of thing, and I was just shaking like this, like like, and I thought, fucking, I've seen this on films, this is what alcoholics do, kind of thing.

Speaker 3: 18:10

And then me I'd started pranging out and I was like, fucking, I just can't handle this. And I was having this kind of panic attack at the same time is almost like a DT, kind of like delirium tremors. I was like my vision was going and I was like, fucking, like that sort of thing. Yeah, I just got out the shower and a Bosch is with the cannon. It stayed, it stayed down and then, gradually, by the time I finished sorting myself out, it was a kind of like white lightning, I was singing a song, I was alright, it was all good, you know, glass of wine down his downstairs in the kitchen, right, go, go, get the bus, kind of thing. And it was that moment, that realization, that that it got me right.

Speaker 3: 18:46

And then it Okay it was like a vice grip. Do you know what I mean? And it was terrifying and I just thought, fucking all. I don't want this for my life. This is awful. Yeah, just that moment, another moment like that, you know, connected to that sort of me body had started to. I've started to become quite ill, physically as well. I remember one of the saddest things that happened was saying to my partner I'm still with, she's an amazing woman Still with her and she really kind of support me all the way through it. I remember saying to her I'm really, really sorry that it's gonna end like this and I really don't want it to end like this at all, but I'm gonna die as an alcoholic and you're gonna have to be with me when I do that. Do you know what I mean? And it still breaks me out that I said that to her, you know. And that was one of those moments where I just thought you've got to change this mind, you've got to get out of this man, you know.

Speaker 2: 19:39

Do you think you can't? Carry on without getting too hippy apparently my hippie-dippy, so I think this I've been called Because I started looking at some spiritual stuff Do you think? That's sort of a spiritual message from inside, because it's a self realization in it, that yeah. Yeah you're moving out of that denial. I'm a slightly different story, was I mean? I know that I used to go to the shop on a morning to get cans, right? Yeah, because I've been settled on that book. I was trying to deflect flashbacks.

Speaker 2: 20:07

Right off a PTSD I've had that for years and then and deflect them and the, the loan that they've been settled on, because to be settled on drinking Sort of brought the flashbacks Shit. I need to go get a drink and I'd get washed and changed and go out of the house Right, go to the shop by a newspaper and like for cans and then walk back down street as though I was all right, you know. I mean, yeah, I'd be, walk like mr Sophocos had been up all night drinking, but I never had that sort of that. I had to drink in the shower. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 20:35

And I never had that sort of realization. But I mean, there again, I'm trying to compare as whether it was a an alcoholic thing or not. But then one time I just says I'm getting too fat, yeah, and I just stopped for six months and without a problem. But yeah, without self realization, that was drinking, because my diet was all right. I mean, it's all story, I'll brush him his teeth one morning and as I will brush him his teeth, I hope my hand will go in the belly. We're going other and I thought that's it. I need to sort myself out and that's what kicked it all off as this. And I just stopped for six months. But there were no issues with it, right, but I'm just thinking, you know so but it was a self realization that I would do myself damage.

Speaker 2: 21:09

And you've got that realization that's not doing your health. What else implications did you have?

Speaker 3: 21:14

Well, well, I mean apart, apart from a lot of mental health problems.

Speaker 2: 21:18

Right, which did you know from the anxiety? Because you're deflected from? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 21:23

I ended up with the doctors I had. I had sort of a quite a well a breakdown really, which I think was probably substance induced, because when I stopped, largely they, they cleared up. Do you know what I mean? Right, I mean I still suffer from some fairly pronounced mental health episodes now, but, like I said earlier, I can manage those now and I don't manage those with a substance anymore. Stuff like not being able to control your. Your babbles sat somewhere and you've just drunk 12 pints of cider the night before and you kind of like you sat somewhere and suddenly like you've shot yourself do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3: 21:58

Stuff like that and it's just acrid cider. Do you know what I mean? Horrible stuff like that. Digestion was fucked up, you know, horrible reflux and stuff like that. I wasn't really eating anything at all, sort of. You know my partner always called mealtimes eating with baby Because I'd have like a tiny, tiny like portion, because I just couldn't eat anything. So I was like I've always been a climber, apart from probably eight or nine years when I just physically couldn't do it. Do you know what I mean? So I've always been quite a broad bloke. I was just being quite a big fella and at one point I wasn't, I was just withered. I was just like I had a big tummy do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3: 22:35

Like it was hanging over my pants and all that sort of thing and like and I was just getting really weedy and like pale and sort of blood pressure was massive as well.

Speaker 1: 22:44

So I'm medicated for blood pressure now.

Speaker 3: 22:47

Blood pressure was absolutely sky high. You know, your body just can't handle that abuse. It just degenerates, it just starts to break down. You've obviously got then kind of your risk of like pancreatic sort of stuff and sort of liver cancer stuff like that.

Speaker 2: 23:02

Yeah, I think we're living a well. We've mentioned this before. I might just be my hippie-dippie, but we live in a society where you can get a pill for everything. So what you do is it's a substance abuse, but then you get a pill to cover the symptoms of that, and then a pill to cover symptoms of that. I mean, rather than going back to stay right back to that sort of hang on, what's causing all this?

Speaker 3: 23:22

Yeah, yeah, and I think I think that's what I, that's what I finally realised in kind of. I think that's what I kind of realised now about, especially about alcohol. Nowadays I'm well, I'm very anti-drugs. Now I don't understand alcohol anymore because of my own relationship with it, but I don't understand the kind of obsession with it somehow as well. Tax, but yeah, definitely like go back, stop doing all of those things and go to the root cause, go to the thing that's making you unhappy and if it's stuck in there somewhere, bring it out and look at it.

Speaker 2: 24:00

Yeah, I would just, if you know what, I would just say that so if you, if you go back to the root cause, is the root cause alcohol is the root cause, the anxiety with yourself, Whereas I knew my root cause was PTSD, rather than I had to face my PTSD before I could then face alcohol and staying up all night and hiding away from that because it was the alcohol, was the medicine, being involved in violence and shit like that because of PTSD.

Speaker 2: 24:24

You know what I mean, so was it which for you, which was the, which was the cause, do you think?

Speaker 3: 24:29

It's hard to know, isn't it? And it's hard to pinpoint anything. I think, looking back on it, definitely I had, you know, existing mental health problems that weren't kind of checked when I was young. I use alcohol to block all of that. Then that became a problem in my life that gave me a lot more mental health problems. So at one point I couldn't leave the house because everybody was going to kill me. You know, really kind of paranoid.

Speaker 3: 24:53

I've suffered with paranoia for quite a lot of years anyway, you know, you know agrophobia at one point as well, and so all of that was feeding back in and the classic kind of cycle of anxiety, depression. You know panic disorder as well at one point, so that that was always awful when I'd got a hangover. The panic disorder, so generalized anxiety disorder, is what I was diagnosed with, and panic disorder and panic disorder was, as you, as you might know, it's where a minor thing can happen within a space of 10 seconds. It's, it's massive and it's cripplingly terrifying. So, like one month I'd spent all my wage on booze and me and my girlfriend couldn't afford well, I couldn't afford my part of the rent for the house that we were living in at the time and within the space of about 10 seconds, I was like losing my shit, crying all sorts of stuff, because she was going to get sold into prostitution and I was going to get murdered on the streets.

Speaker 1: 25:46

Right, but that for me at that point was real.

Speaker 3: 25:49

That was a quick decision, really quick, really quick, like totally barreling, and yeah, yeah, that was absolutely so. What's the solution? When you feel like that and you feel like shit about stuff and you're really anxious, you go get a drink you go get a drink and you get annihilated and then fucking hell, wow, it switched it all off again.

Speaker 3: 26:08

what magical stuff it is. And I feel absolutely amazing again. Oh, it's all good, though, innit you know like you're not going to get sold into prostitution why were I thinking that? And I'm not going to get murdered on the streets until the next morning when it all comes crashing down again.

Speaker 2: 26:23

And then you just end up in this loop.

Speaker 1: 26:24

It's just a cycle isn't it?

Speaker 3: 26:27

It's a deadly, deadly cycle, and that's why I think now, I really do not understand boozing drinking, you know, and it staggers me that it's so freely available. Yeah, it staggers me because it's so destructive in people's lives. But you know, I mean I'm not going to stop people going for a pint. If you can handle it, fine, great stuff. But you know, I think from my perspective it's so destructive that I don't really get it?

Speaker 1: 26:59

Did people along the way, try to help you before you had the realisation that you need to help yourself? Because you always say you can't really help anyone unless they want to help themselves? And two reasons why I'm asking it. My dad had an issue, right okay, an alcohol issue and recently passed away for four years. And a friend of mine also passed away right, and he had a serious issue, right. Did people try to help you along the way or did you just deny the help? Did it literally just take that episode for you to change things?

Speaker 3: 27:32

I think people did. People did try and approach me about it, but I was a very different character back then to the person that I am now. So, by all accounts, people were really scared, people were really worried, but they were quite intimidated by how I would react. I could be quite aggressively reactive Because I didn't want to admit it. I expect you know that there was a problem and it you know.

Speaker 3: 27:57

It took my partner's brother to stage an intervention, basically, and he pointed out to me what I knew. But he gave me an ultimatum and his ultimatum was you're a grown man, you know what you're doing, you know. I mean I had a ding-dongs with everybody I know, you know, and kind of arguments and whatever. And when it was getting really bad, yeah, he kind of took me for a walk one day and he said look, you're a grown man, you know what you're doing and if you carry on doing what you're doing, you are going to kill yourself doing it. But the problem that I've got is that you're doing that with my sister. So if you continue doing that with my sister, we're going to have a serious problem. And I said is it that? Is it that bad? Like is she? You know, I didn't know it was that bad for her. And he said she's really suffering. Martin, can he not see that she's suffering? And I said, no, I couldn't see that at all. She's just been supporting me. He says she's supporting because she loves you, but she can't do that anymore. You've got to stop, or you need to stop being with her.

Speaker 3: 28:58

And that was one of those moments as well, of like, well, let's make that choice then, trying to think but it's true what you say, that you know you could have physically dragged me out of a pub. You could have physically, you could have tied my arms a bit on my back. I wouldn't have stopped me at all. I would have fought tooth and nail, whatever with people to get a drink. You've got to be the person who makes that decision. If you're not the person making that decision, it's never going to happen ever, and you've got to be.

Speaker 3: 29:28

One of the most powerful things I think for somebody in recovery is the admittance as well, and it's you know is to say I'm an addict, I'm an alcoholic or whatever the substance is, and that's what I am. And it's through my own neglect that I am in that situation, and just you know the modern term that I don't like, but you've got to own that yourself. That's really hard. You know that's a really difficult decision to make, but only you can make that decision. Nobody else can make you, make it for you. You know, and I'm very sorry to hear that you've lost two people you know absolutely, but you couldn't have done anything I know Tried.

Speaker 1: 30:10

I mean you talk to people on your own. You try to have these conversations, and especially with my father, just talk to them and you don't know how to approach it. And then they say oh no it's all right. It's all right. You know nothing's wrong.

Speaker 3: 30:23

They always know that something's wrong. Do you know what I mean? And I think secretly I knew that it was wrong.

Speaker 2: 30:28

But did you think you would just do it harming yourself, so it doesn't really matter, yeah, yeah, I mean, if I'm harming myself, I don't care, you know, I mean I'm doing this now and then, well, we'll worry about it tomorrow, but if it's someone else that you love, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 30:40

I think I think the thought of putting her through you know, what I was putting her through and what I was, because it was just getting worse as well, what I was continuing to put her through, you know, was heartbreaking and I just thought I can't, I'm not going to continue doing this, you know. But yeah, people had tried, I'm sure, and people had kind of tried to suggest that it was people worried about me. I remember having conversations and you know, people were kind of like Dave had a conversation with Dave and loads of people over the years, you know, who knew me, who tried to kind of intervene.

Speaker 1: 31:14

But did you lose a lot of friends, carrie, remember to be honest with you Did?

Speaker 2: 31:18

you gain a lot of associates because you were drinking.

Speaker 3: 31:21

I think sorry, I was flippant there, but I don't I honestly don't really know whether I did lose people. I definitely lost partners who just couldn't handle it, you know, and I think people drifted away. Some quite close friends of mine probably drifted away because I was chaotic and hedonistic.

Speaker 2: 31:42

So at that time, when people drifted away, did you accept it or cost the alcohol, or did you just think it was something to do with them?

Speaker 3: 31:49

It was, it was always to do with them? It was never to do with me, because I was, I was. I was alive in Sir Lord the Platyre.

Speaker 1: 31:56

So you felt good.

Speaker 3: 31:58

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:58

That brings me to the other question that I asked. So did you find that you gained a lot of associates through drinking? I say associates, because they're not friends. You know, I mean the people that are out, and I've had that myself. No offence to anyone that I've met out with.

Speaker 3: 32:13

I think I kind of did over the years, but I was always very wary. I was always very aware of that and it was. It was never. Drinking for me was never really a sociable thing. I wasn't a sociable drinker. I was probably at my happiest locked away somewhere in the house with the bottle of vodka or numerous bottles of wine, chat, dress it up or something nice. You know, I went out to the pub and I went out. I had some wild nights. But I've always been very wary of people navigating towards me just because we're in the same pardon me, same, you know boozing arena or whatever kind of thing, because that's an admittance. Yeah, you know, you get these other people who were, who were life drink, you know lifetime drinkers. Why are they navigating towards me? Why do they want to talk to me? I'm not like them, you know well. They're, probably was like them.

Speaker 2: 32:59

So that's why we're going to say, yeah, I think it's a very sort of complex sort of situation because you don't get people going out for that social experience or community. Even though it's dressed up as community, it's not really. It's just boozing partners because the matter of their own issues, loneliness and other issues going on, yeah, can we ask recovery, that pay, I think what? Sometimes you hear some bad tales about people coming off of alcohol. Yeah, and because that can be have its own problems.

Speaker 2: 33:28

And then how do you stay off the alcohol and how do you keep? You know, I had six months off. I don't want, I want, I want all right. And then when I went back, you know, I mean I can go out and regret how many I've drank the next day from, just from knowing about my own health, but you think at the time it's like bollocks, I'm fine, you know. So, some big nights, at least a couple. But what makes it from having big nights to be at a? Just say, right, I don't want to have them big nights. And yeah, let's go back to the. So the recovery, the start of it I was, I was that. And if we'll talk about anything that's going to make you have flashbacks, then let's not talk about it.

Speaker 3: 34:03

No, no no, no, no, it's, it's that that's been probably one of the best adventures of my life as a recovery. Yeah, yeah, it's been amazing. I remember. I remember when, when my partner's brother had this chat with me and said, basically not that shit on the head, or you know, we're going to have a problem. I talked to Mrs about it and and and I said you know like, but what do people do on a night when they aren't getting paced? Yeah? And she said, well, I don't really understand. And I said, but like, that's what everybody does, isn't it Like they just all get drunk on a night? And she said, no, they just like have the tea and watch telly. They don't have like a bottle of whiskey. And that was like news to me. Do you know what I mean? At 38, 39, 40, like that was. That was like oh, wow, shit.

Speaker 3: 34:51

And I remember being really scared of a couple of things when I decided that I was gonna clean up, and one of them was what the fuck am I gonna do with all my time? And there's a really ace quote by Tom Waits you know the musician Tom Waits and it's something that I bore people with loads of time because it's great, because he was an alcoholic and he cleaned up, didn't he? And he said when people decide to clean up, they get terrified of what's gonna be left when they drain the pool. And that stuck with me. I thought, well, what's gonna be left to me when I drain the pool, when it's all gone and I've got nothing to hide behind? What's gonna be there? And it's just giving me goosebumps? There you go. That's how powerful that is. To think about that. That was a massive concern and I just went cold turkey on it because I thought there's only one way to do this.

Speaker 3: 35:47

The ensuing kind of two months were horrible, were like I was a total mess, I was a recluse. And then I gradually I thought I'll try it for a month, I'll give it a go for a month and see what happens. Yeah, the first month, first two months, were pretty horrible, but I actually started to like, oh shit, I feel a bit fitter. Oh, wow, I feel quite healthy. Am I waking up? Thinking I might just get up, I might just get straight up without even having a glass of wine, and like I'll have a shower, I'll go out and like meet the world and I'll do stuff, wow. So then I like thought, oh, I might start climbing a bit more again. I actually started doing a bit more climbing and then I thought this is really good, isn't it? This is really good.

Speaker 3: 36:26

And then I had this like beautiful period of like this, like renaissance, of like I don't even know who I am, I don't know who me is, and like I've got to find out who I am. And then it kind of stopped and it crashed. And then I had then, after this like initial like wow, I had this crash of like this is amazing. Why have you not done this? Where have you been all the rest of your life? What the fuck have you been doing all of this time? You could have been having this like whale of a time and you're not. What a knobhead. Why have you been doing this like on all of this guilt?

Speaker 1: 37:02

Did that kind of drive you into a negative feedback loop again and the anxiety came out and Totally.

Speaker 3: 37:08

I had a really bad time but I stayed on track with it. Do you know what I mean? I had a couple of moments when, a couple of periods when I relapsed, but it was only for a couple of days at a time. It gets increasingly more dangerous when you relapses. An alcoholic you know late term alcoholics if they relapse and then they recover it, you know you can kill you.

Speaker 3: 37:27

Luckily, I was able to get back on track really, really quickly because I knew that this life, that I'd seen other people having these lives and thinking how did they do it? How did they look so happy and they're all sober, what the fuck? And I didn't understand it and like, yeah, so there's that. All of that started happening and I started to get this horrible blame of like it's just through your own negligence, it's just through you just not thinking, just being negligent.

Speaker 3: 37:55

That's why you're in this situation and all of this really kind of embedded sort of, yeah, a negative feedback loop. So you kind of get that anxiety, you get that low mood as well and if there's anything that's going to drive you back to it, it's going to be that. Do you know what I mean? That like crushing feeling, but then I just pulled myself out of it and I just thought you know you've got to do this, because you know how good it can be, you know how nice it can be. And I've spent seven years I honestly mean this I've spent seven years discovering who I am, from 40 onwards.

Speaker 1: 38:24

It's what people do after university, don't they? They take a gap year and they kind of go to find themselves. Yeah, yeah, but you've done it 20 years later.

Speaker 3: 38:32

Look, yeah, that's what I've been doing. I've discovered loads of things about myself that I never knew. It's staggering not that I'm staggering, but like it's staggering to like no, to find out who you are. And yeah, Tom Waits said that when he sobered up and he'd, he was terrified that he'd lose his creativity, you see, and he said, when he drained the pool, he actually discovered that he was more idiosyncratic and more creative. And I just thought, maybe that's going to be the case for me, that actually I'm going to be. I'm going to be better when I'm sober. I'm going to be a rockstar.

Speaker 2: 39:03

I'm going to be, yeah, I love and be old, yeah, and you are. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot going on in there. There's a lot I mean it looks like dropping a smokescreen, but not just from society, but from yourself as well. Yeah, so you've stepped out from behind that, and I suppose that's the fear of going into recovery. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: 39:25

Yeah, I think that's probably the most terrifying thing. I think that you know the terrifying realisation that you're in the grip of an addiction. To be honest with you isn't as scary as thinking I'm going to stop that thing that makes me feel better and I'm going to try and make me feel myself feel better without a substance. That's scarier, but if you can do it, it's just amazing. When you spent all of your life in another land, it's a beautiful thing and it really is a beautiful feeling.

Speaker 3: 39:57

It makes me cry sometimes when I just think and I dropped the guilt after a while and I just thought you can't keep doing this to yourself, mind. You just can't keep beating yourself up about this all the time. What's done is done. You can't change that. So just move on with your life.

Speaker 2: 40:12

You know and I've done a lot of that hippy stuff that you talk- about hippy-dippy stuff, yeah and I've done a lot of thinking a lot of people are doing that now, and it seems to be working, doesn't it?

Speaker 3: 40:21

Well, it is because the thing is, people don't think anymore. Yeah, people just go for good, they just whiz about and they do loads and loads of different things and they don't stop and they don't think. And that's a really important thing. Sitting in a forest, sitting in a woodland and just look at trees for a bit, have a think about yourself, have a think about your place in life.

Speaker 2: 40:41

I'm a big advocate for cuddling trees. I'm not looking in.

Speaker 3: 40:46

I always am. No, no, he's great, he's beautiful.

Speaker 2: 40:49

I love cuddling a Scot's Pine.

Speaker 3: 40:51

It's great just the smell and everything is beautiful.

Speaker 2: 40:55

Well, we've spoke about that on Nature Therapy, which has gone out recently.

Speaker 3: 41:00

I'll have to listen to it.

Speaker 2: 41:02

Let's talk about your hippy-dippy stuff then, to wrap up. So we discussed before we started recording. It's individual, yeah, everyone, you know it's not, but it's guidance, isn't it? If anyone was to listen to this and be inspired, I think that should be. To be fair. It's a great story where you've put it, but then let's have a look at. There's got to be thousands of people out there that are now alcoholics, functioning alcoholics, you know, hiding their alcohol addiction or not even realising they've got an addiction going.

Speaker 2: 41:29

Yeah, yeah so what you know let's say, what would you think are signs that won the drinking too much, coming from yourself yeah, don't just look straight at me, because I know. And then what would you sort of just some ideas to recommend what you would think of for people to help people get through, get through recovery, get through into recovery. They might not even think that they need to recover. You know, it's one of them things, isn't it? Yeah?

Speaker 3: 41:57

yeah, yeah, I think a sign. One alcoholic might drink two bottles of whiskey a day. One alcoholic might drink a bottle of wine a day. I don't know what the like I said the medical professionals would say about volume of booze to make you a technical alcoholic or whatever. But I think if you're a total worried that your drinking is slightly out of control, you need to look at that. You know, if you're having a glass of wine thinking, if you're watching the clock as well and thinking you know it's three o'clock, well, I'll just finish doing this, then I'll promise myself a glass of wine. I don't think that's a good enough reason to whiz through something. Do you know what I mean? If you're smashing something, I don't know. It's a difficult one, but anyway, I'm going off on a bit of a time period.

Speaker 2: 42:39

No, it's good. It's good, isn't it.

Speaker 3: 42:41

I would go back to saying if you're at all worried that your alcohol consumption is out of control or isn't healthy doesn't matter how much that is you need to address that and you need to address it as quick as you possibly can really, and sort it out and go find yourself. And go find yourself, discover who you are.

Speaker 2: 43:02

Find your way back to you.

Speaker 1: 43:03

Yes, we haven't used that in the while haven't we.

Speaker 2: 43:06

That's one of our taglines for the podcast Find your way back to you. It's good, though. That's what started it.

Speaker 3: 43:11

No, look Charlie. No, but it's a cool tagline, isn't it? Because that's the thing I mean. That's exactly what I've just described. I didn't have a clue who I was, and I mean that I didn't know who I was.

Speaker 1: 43:23

Do you feel good about who you are now?

Speaker 3: 43:25

I'm really loving currently my life. It's great, I have a lovely time and I'm really at peace with myself as well, and I'm really proud of myself for stopping and for sorting my life out. Some of the things I've done in recent years I could never ever have done when I was under the influence. You know I now work in an outdoor centre. I work as an instructor. That's a pretty hardcore job. A lot of the time, you know, when you've got kids running about all over the world, Tell me about it. That's.

Speaker 3: 43:53

Charlie knows, you know I could never, ever, ever have done that and the work I've had to do to get that, you know. Position couldn't ever have done it unless I was sober. And yeah, I think I'm a nice bloke now. I never used to do. I used to think I was an asshole, I used to think it was horrible because of what I was doing, but I think I like me now and I'm at peace with me now, you know, and it just continues to get nicer.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Well, when you're sat in the woods staring at trees and flowers, yeah, well, yeah, it's brilliant though, isn't? It. It's great Just being present.

Speaker 3: 44:25

It's a great. It's a great thing, you know, it's a lovely thing and that's an important thing is that presence, that kind of presence of being and presence of mind and knowing where you are and knowing just knowing your position in the world and knowing that you're kind of knowing that you're the only person who can change things for yourself and knowing that you're the only person who can free yourself you know what I mean and letting go. If you want to be free, just let go of everything. Just let it go and forgive yourself and forgive other people. Don't carry that kind of hatred around with you and all of that animosity for things and people or whatever. I'm going off on one now.

Speaker 2: 45:06

No, that's something else I want to talk about.

Speaker 3: 45:09

Let it go and you'll be good. Don't blame yourself. Don't think that you're a bad person, don't beat yourself up about it. Just do something about it. Just act on it. It's really hard to do it and to stay clean, but it gets a lot easier. So now it's like it's not a daily thing for me to worry about, it's not a weekly thing for me to worry about. Months go by and I just live my life and it's nice. Don't be scared of doing it, because you'll discover that the journey that you will go on will be so rewarding and so much better than anything you've experienced in your hedonistic past. It'll be amazing.

Speaker 2: 45:49

Yeah, I think that's been great mate, to be fair.

Speaker 3: 45:51

Did I talk too much.

Speaker 2: 45:53

No, you didn't talk too, much. So have you in and come and talk truthfully, honestly, obviously passionately, about it. And inspiring Lee, that's a word, isn't it? Inspiring Lee, tisnelly, tisnelly, yeah, inspiring Lee. So these are stories that we want, that just If one person listens to it but the word you know and then if other people listen to it and pass it on and say you need to listen to this, then it's all worthwhile. It's been good. Thank you for coming in.

Speaker 3: 46:19

Well, look, you know. I mean, have you ever heard a guy called Carl Rogers? Have you heard of Roy Rogers? I don't know. I don't know Roy Rogers. Carl Rogers was an American psychoanalyst and he wrote an amazing book called Client-Centered Therapy, and one of his most famous quotes and it's a quote that I live my life by is it takes just one person to indicate to somebody else that their life can be different. That just blows me Again. I've got goosebumps just thinking about it. Exactly like you've just said, if one person listens to it and one person changes, then it's worth it, yeah definitely, yeah, isn't it?

Speaker 2: 46:56

But something like this that goes out then I think we don't just appeal to that one person. It's someone's friend that might listen to your story now and think actually this is what they should be doing.

Speaker 3: 47:07

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and point them towards it or whatever. But help people if you can. They might not accept the help.

Speaker 2: 47:15

Yeah, and there's people that are actually watching friends and thinking they're drinking too much, they're getting pissed, and it's not just fun, is it sometimes when people are blathered? I've had it with friends, sometimes it with me, I suppose, Although I think I had that tolerance where I could just walk. I used to walk in leads and have, like, honestly, 10 pints and stuff and walk home. Not a problem, do?

Speaker 1: 47:37

you know what I mean, and then get up without an hangover.

Speaker 2: 47:40

But then you've got that friend that's going out and getting into a fight every night not me and then spewing up every night or doing something and feeling like shit every morning, missing work, and then you're thinking that is an issue. You know what I mean.

Speaker 1: 47:53

Yeah, well.

Speaker 2: 47:54

And have a word with them, basically pointing towards this.

Speaker 3: 47:56

Yeah, definitely, definitely. You know they might not ever listen to you, but if you could, maybe just let them know that you're worried about them. Let them know that maybe what they're doing isn't you know, it's not what everybody does Like. I thought it was Like everybody just gets pissed and watches Coronation Street, don't they Like? They just get ass-old every night and watch like Coddy. No, they don't mate. And it's not what everybody in the world does.

Speaker 2: 48:21

Yeah, I don't watch Coronation Street.

Speaker 3: 48:23

They have egg and chips and sit and stroke the dog or something like that, I don't know they don't get ass-old and fall over and smash their head up and every night you know I'd go cuddling please. Yeah right, I'd go.

Speaker 1: 48:33

Sounds amazing, Chairman.

Speaker 2: 48:35

It's really good. I love being hippy-dippy. It's absolutely the way forward. Martin, thanks for coming in. It's been brilliant Been great. Cheers guys. Very good. I said yeah, fantastic.

Speaker 3: 48:45

Thanks for the conversation, thank you, thank you very much.