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Welcome to The Crucible, Conversations for the Curious.

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I am Hamish, your host.

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This podcast is for anyone going through awakenings, trying to make sense of life.

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Whether dark nights are the soul, needing to make life -changing decisions, struggling
with addiction or critical illness, or simply realizing that their life as they know it is

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not aligned to values and purpose.

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You are not alone.

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You can get through this, promise you.

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Life is far more beautiful on the other side.

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Getting sober was not easy.

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Is it worth it?

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It absolutely is.

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My life is not chaotic.

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I've reconnected with family.

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I've got a purpose.

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I'm doing stuff that is important to me.

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Some of my friends stayed with their partners.

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I sadly didn't.

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I had to move continents.

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I had to leave all my clients behind, all my business, everything.

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Regrets?

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No, because I got supported, because I was very

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very fortunate.

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everyone deserves another chance.

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Everyone deserves another chance like I did to start

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Today I'm going to share some of my story.

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The story of how I became an addict and what happened and where it came out the other
side.

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I grew up as the eldest of four kids in the countryside in a beautiful little village.

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In the middle of nowhere my dad worked hard to bring an income, was hardworking and
studious and he had this whole concept that you really had to work hard to achieve

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anything in life and part of that meant he was always busy, he was always at work, he
didn't come home on time, he made promises to be back at a certain time and then he

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wasn't.

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So there was a conflict there between what...

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He told us to do, you know, don't break promises, don't lie and things like that.

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And yet he was breaking promises and not keeping commitments that he made.

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And these kinds of things stuck with me and it just put a conflict in between what was the
reality of life, adult life, and what I was told to do, how I was told to be.

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And this theme kept on coming up all the way through life.

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there was that constant discontinuity between what I was told to do, what my parents told
me to do, what society told me to do, and what I was understanding as a child and who I

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was growing up to be.

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And that brought in a great deal of disappointment that people would say one thing and
expect another.

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And I'm not quite sure I understood how to deal with that.

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but that was just part of growing up and that was that.

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A great deal of my growing up was absolutely wonderful.

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I lived in the country, we was kids in the 80s, we could just run around, there's some
food, off you go, come back for tea.

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Again, the biggest problem was what time do I need to be back?

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Back at six o 'clock.

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How do I get back?

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What time do I know?

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What time do I need to leave by?

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Well, obviously that depends where you are.

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But as a child, that concept was really complicated because sometimes I'd be five miles
away, sometimes I'd be two miles away.

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So I was always getting told off for being late.

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Again, that makes sense, doesn't it?

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As an adult, that makes sense.

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So many things that happen as a child don't make sense and you just make ways of
understanding, ways of coping.

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And that's what I did.

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I coped with all sorts of things.

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I found it necessary to make my own decisions because when I was told stuff, it wouldn't
work.

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I wouldn't get the results I wanted.

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I wouldn't get the answers that I wanted.

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So I became highly resilient and I made up my own journey and that caused conflict.

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My dad wanted me to do things a certain way and I didn't.

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He had a rail track mentality.

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I didn't.

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I was curious.

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I was expansive.

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We fought, as a child I fought, growing up I fought.

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And until recently we fought and that just was what it was.

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He expected me to do things his way.

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There was no other alternative.

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This is how we're doing it.

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And that was it.

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End of story.

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I never had a chance to voice my opinion.

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What was right for me, what I wanted.

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So it was, well, just get on with what they said and ignore it and do my own stuff.

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And that is the case of what it was.

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I would listen to other people and I would do what I wanted.

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And that caused more...

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discontinuity because there was what I was being told to do on one hand, do this, do this.

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And it did not align with who I was and what I wanted to do and what I wanted to be.

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So there was this disconnect.

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So it was easier not to communicate.

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It was easier not to share how I was thinking, what I was thinking.

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And so I didn't, you know, I didn't connect in that way with my parents.

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My dad was not a role model.

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I loved him to bits.

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He wasn't present.

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I must have done something wrong.

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I one of the biggest turning points that I have worked through was sitting next to him one
Sunday morning

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and he was reading his newspaper and I wanted to play and he told me to go away because
Sunday morning was his time to read his newspaper and I just didn't compute.

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I wanted to be with my dad, he was my hero, he didn't want me around.

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So what had I done wrong?

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What had I done wrong that he didn't want me?

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And I remember shutting down and I remember just going, well, I didn't understand so that
was it.

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And these little things,

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as a child are traumatic.

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make me wonder what I've done wrong.

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They make me wonder what I was thinking, was right and things like that.

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But I worked out very quickly the way to manage parents was to do what they want and to
anticipate what they want.

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And

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to be loved, I had to do things.

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So it became transactional.

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And again, this is something I realized more recently that my relationship with my parents
was transactional.

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I didn't ask them for help.

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They didn't ask me what I wanted.

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And that's what it was.

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And as I've looked back in my life, a lot of my relationships have been transactional.

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clients, obviously, to begin with.

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Some of them became friends.

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More of them were.

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More friendships were transactional.

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Again, not all of them, but some of them were.

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And I would look at people in a fairly one -dimensional perspective.

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Not how can I use them, but what is the transaction?

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So I didn't make friends.

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I kept people at arm's length, and just that was it.

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Later on when I got to university, that was just an absolute riot.

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I found drinking and drugs and the alcohol was brilliant.

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It allowed me to make sense of purpose.

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I was more relaxed, I was more fun, I was more engaging, I was able to communicate with
people and have fun, and obviously we had shared nonsense in common.

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And it was brilliant.

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It just helped me overcome things that were...

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struggling with, that I was troubled with, know, about the relationships, about
connection, about this.

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It took away the edge off things that I didn't understand.

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And I got my degree, I had a good time at university, I spent more time making videos and
films, and I was highly creative and I enjoyed that.

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We're going to wind back a little bit to school though.

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Primary school I remember drawing, I loved drawing steam ships and...

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Somebody would laugh at me and say, why are you drawing steam ships?

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Ships don't look like that anymore.

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They don't work like that.

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That closed down a great aspect of my understanding of creativity.

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I couldn't draw.

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My drawings weren't nice.

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They weren't liked.

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Something similar happened with writing.

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I remember I wanted to write about something in particular, but no, the teacher said you
have to do this.

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There was no fun in writing whatever that was.

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So again, it was just like, well, I'm not creative yet.

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At university I spent most of my time making films and on holidays I was working with a
mate's older brother making commercial corporate videos for clients and I loved that.

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I loved the idea of coming up with an idea and then working out how to do it and creating
a brain brainstorming and doing it and that became my passion and I spent months and

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months moving down to London, coming back again, going down to London, coming back again.

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to get a job in the TV industry.

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And eventually I did.

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A part of that going down to London and back, I actually wrote a poem.

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got published about the IRA bombings in the early 90s.

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And still, I didn't understand that I was creative.

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I went into the TV industry.

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I had an amazing life.

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It was work hard and play harder.

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it was okay to drink, was acceptable to drink, we would sometimes have a drink at
lunchtime.

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I soon realized that wasn't very healthy so I didn't do that.

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So I managed to separate the drinking from my work.

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But as life got on I became a really successful camera assistant, really really good at my
job.

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A lot of the cameramen I worked with went on to different things, their lives changed
and...

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I was left doing stuff that wasn't particularly entertaining.

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It wasn't fun.

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And after a while, the transition is you go from a cameraman, camera assistant to a
cameraman.

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And the camera, as an assistant, I was up here.

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I was good.

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I was doing documentaries.

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I was traveling around the world.

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was going into the pyramids.

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I was going around Ireland on helicopters.

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was driving across America.

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And then you start again as a cameraman down there, not just there, down, down, down,
down, down,

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Hoovering I called it.

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Hovering things like Big Brother.

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Hovering things like reality TV when all you are is a tripod pointing the camera and just
absorbing noise.

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There was no quality.

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There was no creativity.

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It was just that and

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That was tough.

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I didn't like that.

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I got out of that business at the same time my mum got sick.

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So things were like, I had a job, I didn't like it.

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It wasn't fulfilling.

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It wasn't what my dream was.

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It had gotten worse.

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My mum then got sick.

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Being God's number one fan, I thought she would be fine.

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So I didn't see her as much as I should have done.

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And then she got very sick and she died fairly quickly and...

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I lived 400 miles away from her in London, she was up in Yorkshire.

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I didn't go and see her enough and I beat myself up for that and the drinking really
impacted.

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So little things in life had knocked me down and down and same with girlfriends.

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Every girlfriend I went out with I knew it wasn't the right person.

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I still haven't worked out what that pattern was.

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Was I attracting the wrong person?

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Was I looking for the wrong person?

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But that's what it was.

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And it was obviously quite distressing.

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You're going out with somebody, it's fun, but you're not the right person.

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So kind of watch the point.

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So there was a lot of dissatisfaction going on there.

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And again, the alcohol was a great way just to numb that, just to...

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avoid that thinking about what was dissatisfying, what the disconnection was and things
like that and it became more and more a theme.

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So back to my mum dying, you know a good son is always there for his mum.

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I wasn't and I had to realise that all that guilt and shame I piled up on myself which I
numbed with the drinking was self -imposed.

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I wasn't a bad person.

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I had a job, I had a life, I had a career, I had a house, I had commitments.

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And those were important.

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I didn't have the time or resources to go 400 mile trip every week.

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And so I had to wrap my head around the fact that I was beating myself up for something in
the past that I couldn't change.

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I had to make peace with it.

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You can either beat yourself up and drink, beat yourself up and numb.

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But at some stage you have to go, that was actually pointless.

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There's no point doing that.

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There's no point in beating yourself up or making your life miserable because that just
doesn't hurt, doesn't help.

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is, yeah, it's unhelpful at best.

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And to be realistic, you're just shaming yourself, you're beating yourself up, you're not
allowing yourself to understand and realize that life goes on.

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So I wrapped my head around that later on, that beating myself up is not the way ahead.

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But in the meantime I had started to drink a lot more.

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and it was impacting my relationships, was impacting my work and I got sick and I got to a
stage where if I ate more than a small handful of food, I would have absolute stomach

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cramps and so I basically just sort of ate a tiny little bit for, I can't remember, three
to six months, maybe nine months, doctors weren't sure.

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I mean, I drank more Gaviscon than anything else, which kind of helped.

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But the drinking continued and it did become a problem.

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I managed to sort myself out.

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I left the TV industry, still not thinking I was creative.

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And then I started being a photographer and I was very, very good at it.

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I went into Tuscany and I photographed hundreds of homes and basically helped this company
really get their advertising and marketing off.

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And it was spectacular.

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I would drink occasionally on these things, was just sociably, it was just with the people
I was working with and things like that.

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Wind on a few years, I met this incredible person and had the chance to go to South
Africa.

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And I did.

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I sat next to somebody on the aeroplane and I had decided that I am going to...

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chat to whoever I sit next to and see what happens.

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So I got chatting to this guy, he was a wealthy Englishman who had a house out in South
Africa.

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And by the time we got there, I had got a job.

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I said I would find a film crew and we would make him a film, we would advertise his
property.

229
00:13:14,760 --> 00:13:16,411
And that's what I did.

230
00:13:16,411 --> 00:13:25,726
So I found people to make that and from that one conversation, chatting to this gentleman,
I started a career in South Africa.

231
00:13:25,726 --> 00:13:31,249
I met the people he did the market who did his marketing and they said we like your work.

232
00:13:31,249 --> 00:13:31,919
I had a job.

233
00:13:31,919 --> 00:13:37,283
I photographed for four or five years hundreds of luxury apartments and villas and houses.

234
00:13:37,283 --> 00:13:39,534
I met somebody else and she was a photographer.

235
00:13:39,534 --> 00:13:40,885
She loved photographing horses.

236
00:13:40,885 --> 00:13:43,447
I helped her get her career off.

237
00:13:43,447 --> 00:13:47,940
I showed her styles and techniques which she picked up and then she just took them like
that.

238
00:13:47,940 --> 00:13:51,662
But and this is the magic of talking with people she

239
00:13:52,154 --> 00:13:58,386
was offered a job with a company called Protea Hotels, because one of her friends worked
there, and that was too corporate for her.

240
00:13:58,386 --> 00:13:59,937
So she said, Hamish, do you want to chat?

241
00:13:59,937 --> 00:14:03,618
So I went to see them and they said, we love your work.

242
00:14:03,618 --> 00:14:11,661
And that gave me a five, six year contract, photographing hotels, properties, traveling
around Southern Africa, doing this.

243
00:14:11,661 --> 00:14:14,522
And it was an incredible experience.

244
00:14:14,916 --> 00:14:16,347
Again, I would be careful.

245
00:14:16,347 --> 00:14:18,639
I would never drink at these jobs.

246
00:14:18,639 --> 00:14:23,332
If I was going to drink, I would either pay cash or I would go and find a bar and drink
there.

247
00:14:23,332 --> 00:14:25,594
I wouldn't get drunk, but I was drinking.

248
00:14:25,594 --> 00:14:27,175
It was a dependency.

249
00:14:27,175 --> 00:14:28,606
It was just to cope.

250
00:14:28,606 --> 00:14:31,258
It was just to sort of manage.

251
00:14:32,039 --> 00:14:34,130
And that's what happened.

252
00:14:34,130 --> 00:14:36,242
I just, I did that.

253
00:14:36,683 --> 00:14:38,484
Went forward a few more years.

254
00:14:38,484 --> 00:14:39,535
I was living in...

255
00:14:39,535 --> 00:14:42,686
outside of Cape Town, about an hour and a half out of Cape Town.

256
00:14:42,767 --> 00:14:44,197
And I wasn't happy there.

257
00:14:44,197 --> 00:14:45,888
It was far away from my friends.

258
00:14:45,888 --> 00:14:47,849
was far away from my clients.

259
00:14:47,849 --> 00:14:50,561
It was far away from where I wanted to be.

260
00:14:50,561 --> 00:14:52,192
And I felt very unsafe.

261
00:14:52,192 --> 00:14:53,852
I didn't like it.

262
00:14:54,053 --> 00:14:59,495
And I had got to a stage where the drinking was problematic.

263
00:14:59,676 --> 00:15:04,229
I was buying booze and I'd crack open the bottle of booze driving home.

264
00:15:04,229 --> 00:15:05,950
And I would drink that.

265
00:15:06,339 --> 00:15:09,894
and another one and then get home and pretend everything was alright.

266
00:15:09,894 --> 00:15:14,950
I was blacking out, I was lying and it became a mess.

267
00:15:14,950 --> 00:15:17,523
It became more and more and more of a mess.

268
00:15:17,868 --> 00:15:21,502
And as time went on, it did become an awful lot worse.

269
00:15:21,502 --> 00:15:26,166
I would compromise my shoots so I could get to the bottle store before it closed.

270
00:15:26,166 --> 00:15:28,558
I mean, there's no point getting booze at four o 'clock in the afternoon.

271
00:15:28,558 --> 00:15:32,031
It gets warm, especially in South Africa.

272
00:15:32,031 --> 00:15:33,953
So I would compromise my shoots.

273
00:15:33,953 --> 00:15:36,074
I would compromise my editing.

274
00:15:36,074 --> 00:15:38,356
It just became messy.

275
00:15:38,356 --> 00:15:40,178
It became a drama.

276
00:15:40,178 --> 00:15:41,439
It became chaotic.

277
00:15:41,439 --> 00:15:41,910
And...

278
00:15:41,910 --> 00:15:43,470
It was more and more of a problem.

279
00:15:43,470 --> 00:15:46,690
The blacking out became more of a problem.

280
00:15:46,930 --> 00:15:51,120
Waking up at 2, 3 in the morning sweating and thinking, God, I'm hung over again.

281
00:15:51,120 --> 00:15:52,570
I'm going to be.

282
00:15:52,890 --> 00:15:55,770
And it became more of a problem.

283
00:15:55,770 --> 00:15:57,550
I was lying to my partner.

284
00:15:57,550 --> 00:15:59,830
I was lying to my friends.

285
00:16:00,130 --> 00:16:01,570
we need to get some food for supper tonight.

286
00:16:01,570 --> 00:16:10,610
So off I'd go and go and buy two or three beers, neck them driving home, throw the bottles
out of the window so I wouldn't get caught and then carry on cooking and drinking.

287
00:16:10,610 --> 00:16:11,867
And I can

288
00:16:11,867 --> 00:16:14,990
do a mean roast because it's easy.

289
00:16:14,990 --> 00:16:27,231
Bung everything in, check it every however and have a bottle of wine at the same time and
this is just the pattern and this went on and on and it was damaging me, was damaging my

290
00:16:27,231 --> 00:16:31,606
relationship, it was damaging my relationship with my friends but I didn't care.

291
00:16:31,606 --> 00:16:40,798
but I did, but that first drink would stop me caring and it would numb that pain, would
numb that struggle with, I don't know how to have that conversation, I don't know how to

292
00:16:40,798 --> 00:16:44,844
do this, I don't have the emotional intelligence, I don't know how to say I need help.

293
00:16:44,844 --> 00:16:47,218
And it got worse.

294
00:16:47,218 --> 00:16:51,611
the craziness of cracking a bottle open with a small coin.

295
00:16:51,772 --> 00:16:53,143
Couldn't have a bottle opener in the car.

296
00:16:53,143 --> 00:16:54,054
I that'd just be stupid.

297
00:16:54,054 --> 00:16:57,528
So I'd be cracking them open, holding them in my knee, doing this, struggling and
struggling.

298
00:16:57,528 --> 00:17:00,861
Try opening a bottle of beer with a five pp's or a dime.

299
00:17:00,861 --> 00:17:02,704
You know, that's what I was doing.

300
00:17:02,704 --> 00:17:08,880
Initially, I would be at least getting out of Cape Town and over the flyover and then down
to out of town a bit.

301
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:10,292
But latterly, it wasn't even that.

302
00:17:10,292 --> 00:17:11,403
It'd be doing that.

303
00:17:11,403 --> 00:17:17,810
And then once I got to the quieter roads, it would be the bottle of booze, the empty
bottle out of the window.

304
00:17:17,810 --> 00:17:19,843
And it'd be like one, two, three.

305
00:17:19,843 --> 00:17:22,035
If there was a thud, I knew it had got to the grass.

306
00:17:22,035 --> 00:17:23,458
If there was a crash, it hadn't.

307
00:17:23,458 --> 00:17:24,389
That's not okay.

308
00:17:24,389 --> 00:17:26,350
I mean that really, really isn't.

309
00:17:26,351 --> 00:17:33,897
It was, however, less shameful than being caught having booze in the car, empty bottles in
the car.

310
00:17:33,897 --> 00:17:38,962
And the more I think about it, the more I realized that I wanted to be stopped.

311
00:17:38,962 --> 00:17:43,535
I wanted to be stopped by the police where they could say, hey, you've got a problem.

312
00:17:43,535 --> 00:17:44,727
And I wanted help.

313
00:17:44,727 --> 00:17:46,598
And I didn't know how to ask my friends.

314
00:17:46,598 --> 00:17:47,439
So much shame.

315
00:17:47,439 --> 00:17:49,161
I didn't know how to ask anybody.

316
00:17:49,161 --> 00:17:50,642
So this was my way of doing it.

317
00:17:50,642 --> 00:17:54,645
I was deliberately sabotaging my life so I would get help.

318
00:17:54,645 --> 00:17:56,557
I mean, why can't men ask for help?

319
00:17:56,557 --> 00:17:58,288
Why couldn't I ask for help?

320
00:17:58,288 --> 00:17:59,148
I couldn't.

321
00:17:59,148 --> 00:17:59,959
There's no answer.

322
00:17:59,959 --> 00:18:02,710
There is no answer that I couldn't ask for help.

323
00:18:03,051 --> 00:18:06,203
Of course, every morning I'd wake up and say, right, I'm not going to drink today.

324
00:18:06,203 --> 00:18:08,886
And I wouldn't.

325
00:18:08,886 --> 00:18:12,299
Not till lunchtime when the hangover had gone and the feeling sick had gone.

326
00:18:12,299 --> 00:18:14,711
And then four o 'clock or five o 'clock would come and

327
00:18:14,711 --> 00:18:17,674
We need to get some food for supper tonight and it would begin again.

328
00:18:17,674 --> 00:18:19,945
And that was the process.

329
00:18:20,046 --> 00:18:21,286
And repeat.

330
00:18:21,427 --> 00:18:22,488
And repeat.

331
00:18:22,488 --> 00:18:27,031
I did manage to stop drinking for about eight or nine weeks when I had an operation on my
shoulder.

332
00:18:27,452 --> 00:18:29,564
One of those reasons was I couldn't drive for six weeks.

333
00:18:29,564 --> 00:18:31,407
So of course I couldn't get to the bottle store.

334
00:18:31,407 --> 00:18:39,561
But as soon as I was able to, I started again because that time of not drinking, I had to
confront all sorts of things and that was really scary.

335
00:18:39,561 --> 00:18:40,681
That was really frightening.

336
00:18:40,681 --> 00:18:41,761
That was really unhelpful.

337
00:18:41,761 --> 00:18:44,313
And I just struggled with it.

338
00:18:44,313 --> 00:18:47,084
And I realized that I know how to deal with this.

339
00:18:47,084 --> 00:18:48,154
I know how to deal with it.

340
00:18:48,154 --> 00:18:48,845
I can drink.

341
00:18:48,845 --> 00:18:51,665
I can hide my fear.

342
00:18:51,706 --> 00:18:56,428
I can drink it away and I cannot look at what I actually needed to deal with.

343
00:18:56,428 --> 00:18:57,499
So that's what I did.

344
00:18:57,499 --> 00:18:57,970
And...

345
00:18:57,970 --> 00:19:00,000
I wondered whether I had a problem, but I didn't.

346
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:00,711
was coping.

347
00:19:00,711 --> 00:19:01,561
I was coping.

348
00:19:01,561 --> 00:19:04,542
I was able to deal with my clients and serve them and provide them.

349
00:19:04,542 --> 00:19:06,322
Yes, I messed up.

350
00:19:06,322 --> 00:19:08,563
bit of bullshit here and there and apologies.

351
00:19:08,563 --> 00:19:12,263
the weather wasn't very good and things like that.

352
00:19:12,464 --> 00:19:14,984
And when I went away on shoots, I wouldn't drink.

353
00:19:14,984 --> 00:19:17,395
I was really, I managed to do that.

354
00:19:17,395 --> 00:19:18,465
I certainly wouldn't get drunk.

355
00:19:18,465 --> 00:19:19,285
I might have a couple.

356
00:19:19,285 --> 00:19:23,586
Again, as I said, I would pay cash and that was my way of doing it.

357
00:19:23,806 --> 00:19:26,558
But come late.

358
00:19:26,558 --> 00:19:30,038
2018, things were really getting bad.

359
00:19:30,038 --> 00:19:33,898
I was popping the beers, driving over the flyover out of Cape Town.

360
00:19:33,898 --> 00:19:35,248
So there's cars in every direction.

361
00:19:35,248 --> 00:19:39,029
Sometimes we were doing 15, 20 kilometers an hour.

362
00:19:39,029 --> 00:19:41,389
And the bottles weren't in bags.

363
00:19:41,389 --> 00:19:42,439
They were just like that.

364
00:19:42,439 --> 00:19:44,609
It'd be look at, no cars coming, dum.

365
00:19:44,609 --> 00:19:48,660
And it was utterly self -destructive.

366
00:19:48,660 --> 00:19:50,951
The relationship was a mess.

367
00:19:50,951 --> 00:19:53,293
and I didn't know how to sort that out.

368
00:19:53,293 --> 00:19:54,314
didn't know how to do anything.

369
00:19:54,314 --> 00:19:56,366
All I knew is once I'm numb, it's fine.

370
00:19:56,366 --> 00:19:57,557
Once I'm drunk, I'm fine.

371
00:19:57,557 --> 00:20:00,149
Once I can take that edge off, it's fine.

372
00:20:00,149 --> 00:20:03,031
And it didn't matter how appalling I felt the following morning.

373
00:20:03,031 --> 00:20:12,379
It didn't matter about the hangovers because I had managed to hide away from what was
fighting me, what was scaring me, what was overwhelming me.

374
00:20:12,379 --> 00:20:14,572
And I just didn't know how to deal with it.

375
00:20:14,572 --> 00:20:15,852
So it was...

376
00:20:16,214 --> 00:20:25,264
November 2018 I spoke to a photographer friend of mine, an amazing human being, and I said
to him, hey, I think I've got a problem.

377
00:20:25,264 --> 00:20:27,374
I think I'm drinking too much.

378
00:20:27,614 --> 00:20:30,874
And I picked him for one specific reason.

379
00:20:30,874 --> 00:20:32,854
He didn't know my friends.

380
00:20:33,174 --> 00:20:34,734
We weren't really good friends.

381
00:20:34,734 --> 00:20:36,294
He didn't know all my backstory.

382
00:20:36,294 --> 00:20:40,374
And, you know, he was a different section of my...

383
00:20:40,374 --> 00:20:41,894
of my life.

384
00:20:42,114 --> 00:20:44,544
And he lived in Cape Town and I lived away out of Cape Town.

385
00:20:44,544 --> 00:20:46,974
So it was, you know, it was just that.

386
00:20:47,254 --> 00:20:50,545
And he said, okay, let's have a look.

387
00:20:50,545 --> 00:20:52,645
So I told him and he said, yeah, it sounds like it.

388
00:20:52,645 --> 00:20:53,745
He said, don't worry.

389
00:20:53,745 --> 00:20:55,796
I went to rehab 18 years ago.

390
00:20:55,796 --> 00:20:58,067
And of course my jaw just dropped.

391
00:20:58,067 --> 00:21:05,158
Of all the people I could have asked, dared, braved my soul to say, hey, I think I've got
a problem.

392
00:21:05,158 --> 00:21:09,478
I asked someone who had been to rehab, he had no judgement, he just said so.

393
00:21:09,478 --> 00:21:14,558
I went to rehab 18 years ago, I was drinking a bottle of whiskey every night and doing
this and that and the other.

394
00:21:14,938 --> 00:21:19,178
And there was no shame, there was no shaming, there was no judgement.

395
00:21:19,538 --> 00:21:28,718
And I had been so brave, I had finally plucked up the courage to say, hey, I think I need
help.

396
00:21:28,758 --> 00:21:33,638
And as said, the person I asked for, he just didn't judge me, he just said, what?

397
00:21:33,977 --> 00:21:35,838
You know, it's a coping strategy.

398
00:21:35,998 --> 00:21:38,339
Let's see what we can do.

399
00:21:39,100 --> 00:21:41,351
And that changed everything.

400
00:21:41,351 --> 00:21:44,493
That fact I was judging myself.

401
00:21:44,513 --> 00:21:46,785
I was judge, jury and executioner.

402
00:21:46,785 --> 00:21:49,116
And every morning I would beat myself up.

403
00:21:49,156 --> 00:21:51,557
Every afternoon and evening I would poison myself.

404
00:21:51,557 --> 00:21:52,548
And round it would go.

405
00:21:52,548 --> 00:21:53,939
I would chastise myself.

406
00:21:53,939 --> 00:21:55,620
I would try not to drink.

407
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:57,221
I hadn't got these coping skills.

408
00:21:57,221 --> 00:21:58,842
I didn't know what to do.

409
00:21:59,155 --> 00:22:01,547
And I was like, so, you know, try doing this.

410
00:22:01,547 --> 00:22:02,917
Let's see what we can do.

411
00:22:05,280 --> 00:22:06,651
That changed everything.

412
00:22:06,651 --> 00:22:10,213
So then I started looking for rehabs and I went to visit a couple.

413
00:22:10,213 --> 00:22:11,124
One was terrible.

414
00:22:11,124 --> 00:22:12,444
One was all right.

415
00:22:12,665 --> 00:22:16,599
And then I found one in a little town called Comakee just outside of Cape Town.

416
00:22:16,599 --> 00:22:17,710
It was by the sea.

417
00:22:17,710 --> 00:22:22,423
had mountains nearby and that is my dream to live by the sea with mountains nearby.

418
00:22:22,423 --> 00:22:23,654
And that was it.

419
00:22:23,654 --> 00:22:24,395
So I said, cool.

420
00:22:24,395 --> 00:22:31,921
So I went to see them and booked myself in and carried on drinking because I knew there
was a finishing point.

421
00:22:31,921 --> 00:22:43,199
But the relief knowing that I was going to be somewhere I had going to incarcerate myself
for three weeks to sober up to

422
00:22:43,524 --> 00:22:47,504
get away from everything and just see what was going to happen.

423
00:22:47,824 --> 00:22:49,244
So I did.

424
00:22:49,244 --> 00:22:50,995
December 21.

425
00:22:50,995 --> 00:22:57,475
2018 I checked into rehab and everything changed.

426
00:22:57,475 --> 00:22:59,765
I had to confront my fears.

427
00:22:59,765 --> 00:23:06,595
I had to write down my addiction history, what I'd done, how it had happened and they said
there's one rule do not blame anyone.

428
00:23:06,595 --> 00:23:09,775
Nobody had got a gun and said drink Hamish.

429
00:23:09,995 --> 00:23:13,835
Nobody had put that can in my hand and made me drink it.

430
00:23:15,798 --> 00:23:21,263
So yes, so I wrote down this, that, clients, partner, family, this, everything.

431
00:23:21,263 --> 00:23:22,444
I blamed everybody.

432
00:23:22,444 --> 00:23:25,726
And it read like a poor me pity party.

433
00:23:25,726 --> 00:23:29,149
It was absolutely flipping embarrassing.

434
00:23:29,149 --> 00:23:32,683
So I rewrote it and the third time it was just about tolerable.

435
00:23:32,683 --> 00:23:34,724
And also what happened is I started crying.

436
00:23:34,724 --> 00:23:35,855
Hi Hamish, how you doing?

437
00:23:35,855 --> 00:23:36,466
Tears.

438
00:23:36,466 --> 00:23:38,066
I cried for three weeks.

439
00:23:38,354 --> 00:23:39,194
quite remarkable.

440
00:23:39,194 --> 00:23:40,405
I hadn't cried for years.

441
00:23:40,405 --> 00:23:41,516
I'd bottled everything up.

442
00:23:41,516 --> 00:23:42,806
I didn't know what emotions were.

443
00:23:42,806 --> 00:23:43,176
Well, I did.

444
00:23:43,176 --> 00:23:44,087
were four.

445
00:23:44,087 --> 00:23:47,148
Love, hate, anger, rage.

446
00:23:47,549 --> 00:23:49,640
Those are the four emotions I knew.

447
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:53,332
Yeah, and that was it.

448
00:23:53,332 --> 00:23:53,822
Four of those.

449
00:23:53,822 --> 00:23:54,692
So, any more than that.

450
00:23:54,692 --> 00:23:56,593
And apparently there are hundreds of thousands.

451
00:23:56,593 --> 00:23:57,554
I mean, go figure.

452
00:23:57,554 --> 00:24:01,075
Love, hate, rage, anger.

453
00:24:02,656 --> 00:24:07,519
So yeah, so I cried and I cried and I cried and I cried some more.

454
00:24:08,003 --> 00:24:10,767
And we were taught adaptive strategies.

455
00:24:10,767 --> 00:24:12,569
were taught look at things.

456
00:24:12,569 --> 00:24:14,672
We were taught that you've always got a choice.

457
00:24:14,672 --> 00:24:17,284
You're going to react.

458
00:24:17,284 --> 00:24:22,108
Your nervous system, your system, growing up.

459
00:24:22,149 --> 00:24:25,072
Things will happen and you'll react like that.

460
00:24:25,072 --> 00:24:28,975
But between that reaction and doing something there is a tiny

461
00:24:29,089 --> 00:24:34,370
tiny little gap and that little gap is where there are infinite opportunities.

462
00:24:34,450 --> 00:24:41,863
That is where you can choose to react, lash out, bite, be violent, be aggressive, hide,
numb, run, whatever.

463
00:24:41,863 --> 00:24:44,174
Or you can go, what can I learn from this?

464
00:24:44,174 --> 00:24:45,274
What do I want?

465
00:24:45,274 --> 00:24:46,695
I don't want to hit that person.

466
00:24:46,695 --> 00:24:47,815
I don't want to do this.

467
00:24:47,815 --> 00:24:54,087
So we were taught that and to look at that little space and say, what outcome do I want?

468
00:24:54,087 --> 00:24:55,138
And with that,

469
00:24:55,138 --> 00:24:56,019
tiny breath.

470
00:24:56,019 --> 00:24:58,542
It is almost like when you breathe in and breathe out.

471
00:24:58,542 --> 00:25:01,745
There's that tiny little point where you're not doing either and it's this small.

472
00:25:01,745 --> 00:25:06,649
And that is where I learnt to make a decision.

473
00:25:06,649 --> 00:25:07,780
I don't do it all the time.

474
00:25:07,780 --> 00:25:08,360
I'm human.

475
00:25:08,360 --> 00:25:09,611
You know, I still lash out.

476
00:25:09,611 --> 00:25:12,064
I still get angry, but that is when I learnt to...

477
00:25:12,064 --> 00:25:23,436
look at what outcome I wanted and that outcome might be peace, might be not to hurt
somebody, it might be to well actually this is my opinion and my opinion to me matters.

478
00:25:23,857 --> 00:25:25,158
Boundaries.

479
00:25:25,319 --> 00:25:28,203
So it allowed me to look at things.

480
00:25:28,203 --> 00:25:32,119
We had lots of sessions with a counsellor, I mean I think I got through all of her
tissues.

481
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:39,060
It was very hard but talking about stuff and then realising that all my fears weren't
going to kill me, they didn't.

482
00:25:39,060 --> 00:25:42,323
The fact that I couldn't talk about something, that's fine.

483
00:25:42,323 --> 00:25:49,849
I learnt to, I learnt that all my demons were actually encouraging me to look at my fears.

484
00:25:49,849 --> 00:25:52,181
They weren't trying to eat me, they were trying to help me.

485
00:25:52,181 --> 00:25:57,345
And how I reacted to things, those triggers were, what can I learn from them?

486
00:25:57,345 --> 00:26:02,029
So I had to re -parent myself and I had to re -program myself and it was remarkable.

487
00:26:02,029 --> 00:26:03,169
It was hard.

488
00:26:03,582 --> 00:26:04,563
It was very hard.

489
00:26:04,563 --> 00:26:06,464
put me on antidepressants.

490
00:26:06,464 --> 00:26:07,396
They put me...

491
00:26:07,396 --> 00:26:12,860
We had a big program of DBT, which is dialectical behavior therapy.

492
00:26:12,860 --> 00:26:16,442
So again, this is looking at how to respond.

493
00:26:16,622 --> 00:26:26,700
If you're hungry or angry or lonely or tired, you have to check into what you're going to
do because those are trigger points where you lash out, where you are not at your best.

494
00:26:26,700 --> 00:26:29,056
You're not functioning because you are hungry.

495
00:26:29,056 --> 00:26:30,876
angry, lonely or tired.

496
00:26:30,876 --> 00:26:33,676
So you know you're not going to be at 80 % or 70%.

497
00:26:33,676 --> 00:26:36,336
You might be at 30 or 40.

498
00:26:36,999 --> 00:26:39,360
But it was a remarkable time.

499
00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:43,362
I met some incredible people, know, everybody's story is different.

500
00:26:43,442 --> 00:26:51,346
I also found out that there are other people who are addicts, other people who are
alcoholics, other people who couldn't cope, other people who found ways to do what I'd

501
00:26:51,346 --> 00:26:54,507
done and done stuff that made me look pale in comparison.

502
00:26:54,527 --> 00:26:57,229
And I'd done stuff that made other people look pale in comparison.

503
00:26:57,229 --> 00:26:59,870
But it's not about that comparing.

504
00:26:59,870 --> 00:27:02,291
We all had one thing in common.

505
00:27:02,451 --> 00:27:05,893
We had found a way to make sense of life.

506
00:27:05,893 --> 00:27:06,587
had found a

507
00:27:06,587 --> 00:27:08,918
way to stop ourselves dying.

508
00:27:08,918 --> 00:27:10,939
You know, I didn't commit suicide.

509
00:27:10,939 --> 00:27:12,150
I didn't crash my car.

510
00:27:12,150 --> 00:27:13,680
I didn't go mad.

511
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:19,683
I had a capacity for survival and the alcohol was that.

512
00:27:19,683 --> 00:27:21,934
It stopped me from dying.

513
00:27:21,934 --> 00:27:24,315
It stopped me from killing myself.

514
00:27:24,575 --> 00:27:26,196
It was a crutch, absolutely.

515
00:27:26,196 --> 00:27:29,557
And unfortunately with any crutch, they get old.

516
00:27:30,638 --> 00:27:42,546
and mine was breaking and it was going to kill me because I was driving drunk because I
wanted to get help and I didn't know how because I was compromising my relationships

517
00:27:42,546 --> 00:27:55,896
because I was compromising my work my clients were unimpressed so it was a brilliant way
to manage my fears but it was making my world smaller I couldn't

518
00:27:55,896 --> 00:28:00,369
stretch myself, I couldn't expand, I couldn't reach out, I couldn't do all sorts of
things.

519
00:28:00,369 --> 00:28:06,793
My world was getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and limited.

520
00:28:07,154 --> 00:28:12,419
And rehab showed me these things and gave me some tools to help and make sense of that.

521
00:28:12,419 --> 00:28:14,040
And it was remarkable.

522
00:28:14,040 --> 00:28:15,981
But all too quickly it was over.

523
00:28:15,981 --> 00:28:20,755
And so February the 5th, I left rehab and had to rejoin the world.

524
00:28:20,755 --> 00:28:22,996
and I liken it to buying a house.

525
00:28:22,996 --> 00:28:27,219
know, once you made that decision to buy a house and you put the money down, it's yours,
you bought it.

526
00:28:27,219 --> 00:28:28,299
Brilliant.

527
00:28:28,620 --> 00:28:29,310
That's the easy bit.

528
00:28:29,310 --> 00:28:30,661
You've got to pay the bills.

529
00:28:30,661 --> 00:28:31,852
You've got to pay the upkeep.

530
00:28:31,852 --> 00:28:32,922
You've got to pay the rent.

531
00:28:32,922 --> 00:28:35,724
You've got to pay the everything else.

532
00:28:35,724 --> 00:28:37,815
You know, you've got to make sure it stays going.

533
00:28:37,815 --> 00:28:39,346
You can't just let it go derelict.

534
00:28:39,346 --> 00:28:40,397
Same with rehab.

535
00:28:40,397 --> 00:28:44,569
Rehab's the easy bit because it's constrained.

536
00:28:44,569 --> 00:28:47,291
But after that, then you have to go and live.

537
00:28:47,511 --> 00:28:48,832
You've got to face the real world.

538
00:28:48,832 --> 00:28:51,523
You've got to be out with people who you used to drink with, do drugs with.

539
00:28:51,523 --> 00:28:53,344
You've got to go out with people and places.

540
00:28:53,344 --> 00:28:56,226
So bars, shops where you bought the alcohol.

541
00:28:56,226 --> 00:28:58,608
You know, can't really not go to the supermarket.

542
00:28:58,608 --> 00:29:01,229
And you're still going to get triggered by things.

543
00:29:01,229 --> 00:29:06,312
know, people happen, people let you down, people get angry at you, people expect from you.

544
00:29:06,312 --> 00:29:09,275
All those things, those reasons I drank because I did.

545
00:29:09,275 --> 00:29:12,217
So out in the real world, it was tough.

546
00:29:12,497 --> 00:29:19,543
I'd moved out of my family home and I stayed with a friend who was really, really kind and
that was spectacular.

547
00:29:19,884 --> 00:29:22,367
And I felt raw.

548
00:29:22,367 --> 00:29:27,051
I felt that all my skin had been sanded off, all my masks had been sanded off.

549
00:29:27,412 --> 00:29:35,709
And it was quite utterly the most beautiful feeling to feel raw, to feel baby skin soft.

550
00:29:35,782 --> 00:29:37,203
to feel I had no masks.

551
00:29:37,203 --> 00:29:38,964
I also felt secure.

552
00:29:38,964 --> 00:29:43,326
felt I had never ever felt so safe.

553
00:29:43,627 --> 00:29:49,782
It's like all these masks were squeezing me and not allowing me to be Hamish.

554
00:29:49,782 --> 00:30:02,740
And yet when I took them all off, when I stopped drinking, when I had to confront every
single fear and doubt and have those conversations and say to people, hey, sorry, I let

555
00:30:02,740 --> 00:30:03,090
you down.

556
00:30:03,090 --> 00:30:03,951
I've been drinking.

557
00:30:03,951 --> 00:30:04,869
I'm now.

558
00:30:04,869 --> 00:30:05,813
getting sober.

559
00:30:05,813 --> 00:30:11,035
and stopping judging myself and stopping beating myself up and being curious.

560
00:30:11,035 --> 00:30:15,966
And then, you know, I'd say to a client, hey, I'm really sorry I haven't been doing really
well.

561
00:30:15,966 --> 00:30:24,801
You know, I've been drinking, I've been doing drugs, I've been compromising my work with
you, but I'm clean and sober now and I'm on that journey.

562
00:30:24,801 --> 00:30:27,023
And the respect, the...

563
00:30:27,023 --> 00:30:38,082
Kindness and the understanding and the second chance, you know, I was given another chance
and being given another chance is incredibly beautiful I had to make peace with people.

564
00:30:38,082 --> 00:30:39,453
I had to apologize.

565
00:30:39,453 --> 00:30:49,759
I had to mend some relationships other relationships fell apart There are consequences
there are consequences some people were very unimpressed and that's fair enough, you know,

566
00:30:49,759 --> 00:30:51,141
you can't go through life

567
00:30:51,141 --> 00:30:57,033
blundering along, drinking, letting people down, hurting people and not expecting some
people to not forgive you.

568
00:30:57,033 --> 00:30:57,853
And that's fine.

569
00:30:57,853 --> 00:30:59,673
That's absolutely fine.

570
00:30:59,813 --> 00:31:05,075
And you also can't expect those people you went going out drinking with to still say
you're friends.

571
00:31:05,075 --> 00:31:07,206
No, because a lot of them just wanted me to go out drinking.

572
00:31:07,206 --> 00:31:16,109
A lot of them wanted me to be a drinking buddy or a bullshit buddy or someone to be there
so they can feel whatever.

573
00:31:16,109 --> 00:31:17,590
So I lost friends.

574
00:31:17,590 --> 00:31:18,670
I lost...

575
00:31:19,050 --> 00:31:21,986
All sorts of things, but I found myself.

576
00:31:21,986 --> 00:31:27,837
I went to AA meetings, I went to NA meetings, I didn't like the way, Hi, I'm Hamish, I'm
an addict.

577
00:31:27,837 --> 00:31:28,599
I'm not.

578
00:31:28,599 --> 00:31:29,270
I was.

579
00:31:29,270 --> 00:31:34,853
And I firmly believe, well it's not a case of firmly believing, I know that words have
power.

580
00:31:34,853 --> 00:31:37,634
If I'm going to call myself an addict, I'm beating myself up.

581
00:31:37,634 --> 00:31:38,695
I'm not.

582
00:31:38,695 --> 00:31:40,696
I'm not even a grateful in recovery addict.

583
00:31:40,696 --> 00:31:41,476
I'm Hamish.

584
00:31:41,476 --> 00:31:43,977
You know, I'm sober, I'm not drinking.

585
00:31:44,338 --> 00:31:45,619
I don't want to.

586
00:31:45,619 --> 00:31:47,530
And I found ways to...

587
00:31:47,530 --> 00:31:50,233
make that more important to me.

588
00:31:50,233 --> 00:31:58,511
Obviously I don't want to be hungover, I don't feel like that, I don't like that, I don't
like waking up covered in sweat at three in the morning thinking what happened.

589
00:31:58,511 --> 00:32:07,078
But more importantly through the books I've read and the conversations I had I really
began to realize that even a glass of wine

590
00:32:07,503 --> 00:32:08,964
impairs my cognition.

591
00:32:08,964 --> 00:32:09,964
I don't think so well.

592
00:32:09,964 --> 00:32:10,795
I think differently.

593
00:32:10,795 --> 00:32:11,415
I know I do.

594
00:32:11,415 --> 00:32:12,556
It's the same with marijuana.

595
00:32:12,556 --> 00:32:15,297
It doesn't take an awful lot to start thinking differently.

596
00:32:15,297 --> 00:32:17,408
Well, not thinking at all.

597
00:32:17,508 --> 00:32:22,011
So the alcohol changes my chemical balance in my head.

598
00:32:22,387 --> 00:32:24,017
and I didn't like that.

599
00:32:24,017 --> 00:32:28,847
I didn't like not being quite so dextrous, know, not being able to do things like that.

600
00:32:28,847 --> 00:32:31,737
I didn't like not thinking as well.

601
00:32:31,737 --> 00:32:35,167
I didn't like running at 80 % rather than 90%.

602
00:32:35,167 --> 00:32:39,118
I didn't like how it actually made me feel.

603
00:32:39,118 --> 00:32:40,818
So that was it.

604
00:32:40,818 --> 00:32:44,613
That was another reason to not drinking, as was...

605
00:32:44,613 --> 00:32:48,386
I don't know to this day, I don't know whether I could have one and no more.

606
00:32:48,386 --> 00:32:54,680
I mean the AA saying one is too many and thousand never enough is so true because that's
what it was.

607
00:32:54,680 --> 00:33:00,665
I was absolutely fine until I had that first mouthful that it was like, that's what it
was.

608
00:33:00,665 --> 00:33:09,476
And the chaos and the drama and the nonsense and the bullshit and going to find it at two
in the morning You know going to places where I know it is available on a Monday or

609
00:33:09,476 --> 00:33:14,903
Tuesday or Wednesday evening Going to different off licenses bottle stores, so they don't
recognize me.

610
00:33:14,903 --> 00:33:18,086
I mean, that's just bonkers bonkers bonkers

611
00:33:18,089 --> 00:33:20,100
go to that bottle store on a Monday.

612
00:33:20,100 --> 00:33:23,621
They don't give a shit and the chances are they might recognise me anyway and so what?

613
00:33:23,621 --> 00:33:25,252
You know, they're too busy around the world.

614
00:33:25,252 --> 00:33:29,574
But, gotta go to different one, I don't want to get seen, I don't want to miss.

615
00:33:29,574 --> 00:33:31,024
Don't have a bottle opener in the car?

616
00:33:31,024 --> 00:33:31,805
Use a coin.

617
00:33:31,805 --> 00:33:32,516
You know, it's...

618
00:33:32,516 --> 00:33:33,297
It's crazy.

619
00:33:33,297 --> 00:33:35,498
And it really was really crazy.

620
00:33:35,498 --> 00:33:44,233
And it was madness and dramatic and unhealthy and you know, the list goes on, I don't need
to list it.

621
00:33:44,233 --> 00:33:49,067
But the joy of waking up without a hangover was spectacular.

622
00:33:49,328 --> 00:33:53,610
The joy of being able to run more easily.

623
00:33:53,711 --> 00:33:58,834
The joy of communication and connecting to people because of course I've had to look at
all these things.

624
00:33:59,275 --> 00:34:04,538
Look at how I deal with people, how I manage people, expectations.

625
00:34:04,799 --> 00:34:09,533
Look at how I keep people at arm's length and I still do that.

626
00:34:09,533 --> 00:34:10,483
I'm working on that.

627
00:34:10,483 --> 00:34:11,293
Hey, I'm still alive.

628
00:34:11,293 --> 00:34:12,555
It's work in progress.

629
00:34:12,555 --> 00:34:14,556
I can go to bottle stores and buy booze for people.

630
00:34:14,556 --> 00:34:15,676
I don't have a problem with that.

631
00:34:15,676 --> 00:34:18,497
I don't have people have a problem with drinking around me.

632
00:34:18,497 --> 00:34:24,318
If they're to get drunk and act like stupid, I have given myself permission to leave
countless times.

633
00:34:24,318 --> 00:34:25,128
I'm going home.

634
00:34:25,128 --> 00:34:25,978
You're drunk.

635
00:34:25,978 --> 00:34:27,539
You're acting like a knob.

636
00:34:27,539 --> 00:34:28,370
Whatever.

637
00:34:28,370 --> 00:34:28,880
Who knew?

638
00:34:28,880 --> 00:34:32,010
Who knew you could give yourself permission to do things?

639
00:34:32,391 --> 00:34:33,782
Who knew you had to...

640
00:34:33,782 --> 00:34:38,564
Who knew you didn't have to take your family's beliefs on board or societies?

641
00:34:38,684 --> 00:34:39,424
I didn't.

642
00:34:39,424 --> 00:34:42,015
I never gave myself permission for the simple reason.

643
00:34:42,015 --> 00:34:45,487
Actually, that's not fair to say the simple reason.

644
00:34:45,487 --> 00:34:49,769
I had had ingrained to me that there is one way of doing it and that's my dad's way.

645
00:34:49,769 --> 00:34:50,649
Full stop.

646
00:34:50,649 --> 00:34:51,529
No answer.

647
00:34:51,529 --> 00:34:52,950
So there's no blame.

648
00:34:53,434 --> 00:35:06,594
But as a child I joined these dots and this because, this because and so I didn't look at
my stories, I didn't look at my patterns, I didn't look at my beliefs because they were in

649
00:35:06,594 --> 00:35:08,456
contradiction to what I wanted.

650
00:35:08,456 --> 00:35:12,358
I wanted this, I wanted to be creative, I wanted to be this.

651
00:35:12,459 --> 00:35:13,970
You're not creative, you can't draw.

652
00:35:13,970 --> 00:35:16,422
You're not creative, you're not allowed to write what you want.

653
00:35:16,422 --> 00:35:18,954
I got published, I got a poem published.

654
00:35:18,954 --> 00:35:21,905
I was taking photographs of beautiful homes and helping market them.

655
00:35:21,905 --> 00:35:23,206
I was photographing people.

656
00:35:23,206 --> 00:35:28,939
I would get a client turn up like this and I would get them to soften and interact.

657
00:35:28,939 --> 00:35:38,774
I was brilliantly creative but there was that disconnect between what my vision of
creativity was from how I had been told.

658
00:35:38,774 --> 00:35:41,635
I could beat myself up and think why the hell did I not change?

659
00:35:41,635 --> 00:35:42,947
Why the hell did I not?

660
00:35:42,947 --> 00:35:44,527
get curious, I didn't.

661
00:35:44,828 --> 00:35:45,598
It's that simple.

662
00:35:45,598 --> 00:35:46,838
I didn't get curious.

663
00:35:46,838 --> 00:35:54,881
I didn't have that bandwidth to actually look at my life and go, why should that rule be
true?

664
00:35:55,081 --> 00:35:56,382
I would just disconnect from it.

665
00:35:56,382 --> 00:36:04,324
If I didn't want something or didn't believe in it or didn't accept it, I would just park
it over there under not interested.

666
00:36:04,324 --> 00:36:06,556
But because I hadn't dealt with it,

667
00:36:06,556 --> 00:36:20,555
It was always conflict, was always chipping at me and that is how and why I found drugs
and alcohol because they were able to put a blanket over it or tarpaulin or wrap it in

668
00:36:20,555 --> 00:36:24,138
black plastic bag and tape it up but I was always carrying it.

669
00:36:24,138 --> 00:36:26,179
I don't need my parents' beliefs.

670
00:36:26,179 --> 00:36:28,000
I've taken on an awful lot of the good stuff.

671
00:36:28,000 --> 00:36:30,241
I don't take along the stuff I don't want.

672
00:36:30,419 --> 00:36:32,029
might change tomorrow.

673
00:36:32,411 --> 00:36:37,836
All sorts of things have happened in that journey of recovery, that journey of finding who
I am.

674
00:36:37,836 --> 00:36:39,017
I am spiritual.

675
00:36:39,017 --> 00:36:46,785
I have a deep understanding of what is important to me, connection with nature, with
shamanism, with connectivity with other people.

676
00:36:46,785 --> 00:36:48,746
I'm highly intuitive.

677
00:36:49,107 --> 00:36:50,779
Whether that comes from

678
00:36:50,779 --> 00:36:55,161
Being very aware of what's going on and hypervigilant.

679
00:36:55,161 --> 00:36:56,061
It's more than that.

680
00:36:56,061 --> 00:36:57,812
That's an aspect of it.

681
00:36:57,812 --> 00:36:59,713
I'm also really good at reading people.

682
00:36:59,713 --> 00:37:01,443
Really, really good as a photographer.

683
00:37:01,443 --> 00:37:06,076
could get people to relax and settle down and become comfortable.

684
00:37:06,076 --> 00:37:08,668
And other clients, Hamish, I need some photographs.

685
00:37:08,668 --> 00:37:13,876
I was able to get inside of their head in minutes and find out what they wanted, a style
and this, that and the other.

686
00:37:13,877 --> 00:37:17,653
And I've since begun to feel this in that this is intuition.

687
00:37:17,653 --> 00:37:18,946
I am very intuitive.

688
00:37:18,946 --> 00:37:20,178
I'm also very creative.

689
00:37:20,178 --> 00:37:21,300
I've accepted that.

690
00:37:21,300 --> 00:37:25,883
and I've had to look at how I deal with things.

691
00:37:25,883 --> 00:37:27,063
have to look at my stories.

692
00:37:27,063 --> 00:37:29,604
I realized that my dad did love me.

693
00:37:29,705 --> 00:37:36,088
I realized that he was simply doing his routine, which was reading his paper.

694
00:37:36,209 --> 00:37:42,452
And I have rewritten that story as Hamish sitting next to him wanting to have a chat with
him and him same go away.

695
00:37:42,452 --> 00:37:43,483
I've now got a beano.

696
00:37:43,483 --> 00:37:47,435
So he's sitting next to me and I'm reading the beano, happy as Larry.

697
00:37:47,435 --> 00:37:48,687
Is that story true?

698
00:37:48,687 --> 00:37:57,075
It's not true, however, it is where I go to when my brain goes, this doesn't happen, this
doesn't love me.

699
00:37:57,075 --> 00:38:00,957
It's just like, no, I can rewrite that narrative.

700
00:38:01,198 --> 00:38:08,305
And I've done that on all sorts of things because as an adult, I'm able to look at these
things and realize the child was running the show.

701
00:38:08,305 --> 00:38:12,359
I've had to grow up, I've had to reparent and I liken it to...

702
00:38:12,359 --> 00:38:24,239
being in my childish archetype and having to grow up, awaken, ride of passage, whatever
you want to call it, to become an adult to live with that responsibility.

703
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,619
The coping strategies are now adaptive strategies.

704
00:38:28,619 --> 00:38:38,979
Hamish the adult can use his experience of 53 years rather than the child's zero to seven
experience.

705
00:38:38,979 --> 00:38:40,540
So I have got...

706
00:38:40,898 --> 00:38:53,584
seven times more experience to run the show rather than just that little bit of making
sense from that perspective when the child I was had no way of comprehending the subtlety

707
00:38:53,584 --> 00:38:55,436
or lack of of adult.

708
00:38:55,436 --> 00:38:59,858
know, dad wasn't there, dad let me down, dad this, dad that, mum this, mum this, mum that.

709
00:38:59,858 --> 00:39:01,499
They were doing the best they could.

710
00:39:01,499 --> 00:39:03,400
They were bringing up four kids.

711
00:39:03,764 --> 00:39:05,304
They were having to bring money.

712
00:39:05,304 --> 00:39:08,124
Interest rates in the 70s and 80s were 18%.

713
00:39:08,124 --> 00:39:09,964
Now they're three or 4%.

714
00:39:09,964 --> 00:39:12,444
They had huge pressures.

715
00:39:12,444 --> 00:39:15,564
They had so much less than what I had now.

716
00:39:15,564 --> 00:39:18,454
And they had chosen a lifestyle.

717
00:39:18,454 --> 00:39:19,504
And that's what we did.

718
00:39:19,504 --> 00:39:20,524
That's what they did.

719
00:39:20,524 --> 00:39:22,134
know, mommy's not there.

720
00:39:22,134 --> 00:39:23,264
Daddy's not there.

721
00:39:23,264 --> 00:39:24,294
What have I done wrong?

722
00:39:24,294 --> 00:39:27,964
That's the narrative that most children have.

723
00:39:27,964 --> 00:39:31,964
And until, as an adult, until you carry that and look at it,

724
00:39:32,094 --> 00:39:36,837
and realize that as an adult you can understand why they were doing things.

725
00:39:37,037 --> 00:39:44,942
And so that child, you've just got to share that responsibility with them and say, look,
I'm not going to react.

726
00:39:44,942 --> 00:39:47,415
I'm not going to have a coping strategy.

727
00:39:47,415 --> 00:39:52,457
I'm going to have a adaptive strategy of looking at how I can do things differently.

728
00:39:52,878 --> 00:39:55,659
But I have had to go through hell.

729
00:39:55,940 --> 00:39:57,581
I had to go through a binary choice.

730
00:39:57,581 --> 00:39:59,002
Do I want to live?

731
00:39:59,002 --> 00:40:00,623
Do I want to die?

732
00:40:01,085 --> 00:40:15,734
to do that and alcohol kept me above that hell until it evened up until I realized that if
I don't change, if I don't ask for help, if I don't stop, I am going to wrap myself around

733
00:40:15,734 --> 00:40:18,955
a tree, I'm gonna kill somebody, I'm gonna kill myself.

734
00:40:19,015 --> 00:40:21,907
That's what it got to, it came down to two choices, live or die.

735
00:40:21,907 --> 00:40:26,521
As I got to that point, it was not about people pleasing, know, what will he think, what
will they think, what will they think.

736
00:40:26,521 --> 00:40:29,303
It was just like bugger them all, fuck them all.

737
00:40:29,484 --> 00:40:30,705
It's actually my life.

738
00:40:30,705 --> 00:40:32,927
You know, I have to choose.

739
00:40:32,927 --> 00:40:39,453
It's not about will they be upset if I stop being friends with them, if I stop being nice,
if I stop this.

740
00:40:39,453 --> 00:40:41,914
No, I actually wanted to live.

741
00:40:42,355 --> 00:40:43,667
I wanted to live.

742
00:40:43,667 --> 00:40:46,660
And the throwing the bottles out of the window, the...

743
00:40:46,660 --> 00:40:54,586
driving drunk was Hamish trying to ask for help because he didn't have that capacity to do
it.

744
00:40:54,847 --> 00:40:56,208
And that's the tragedy.

745
00:40:56,208 --> 00:40:58,569
That is the tragedy that I nearly killed myself.

746
00:40:58,569 --> 00:41:02,174
I could have killed somebody because I wasn't able to ask for help, but I didn't.

747
00:41:02,174 --> 00:41:03,804
And I don't know how.

748
00:41:05,317 --> 00:41:09,909
any message can get out to somebody and say, ask for help because men don't do it.

749
00:41:09,909 --> 00:41:11,590
And it's very easy not to.

750
00:41:11,590 --> 00:41:13,141
And it's incredibly sad.

751
00:41:13,141 --> 00:41:18,695
And yet when we do ask for help, when we do say, hey, I've got a problem.

752
00:41:18,695 --> 00:41:20,086
I don't know how to cope.

753
00:41:20,086 --> 00:41:23,587
I can promise you there's people around who are going to say, how can I help?

754
00:41:23,587 --> 00:41:24,399
What to do?

755
00:41:24,399 --> 00:41:27,081
like this friend of mine, the photographer, we're still great friends now.

756
00:41:27,081 --> 00:41:31,364
In fact, I lived with him after, I lived with him for a year, I think.

757
00:41:31,364 --> 00:41:33,345
Yeah.

758
00:41:33,886 --> 00:41:42,003
And it was incredible, know, no shame, no shaming me, no embarrassment, no judging me,
just like, yeah, been there, done that.

759
00:41:42,003 --> 00:41:46,966
And so the whole journey of recovery has been about looking at...

760
00:41:47,198 --> 00:41:53,161
how I did things, why I did things, how can I do them differently, what are my patterns?

761
00:41:53,161 --> 00:41:55,763
I love my dad, we've reconnected, which is brilliant.

762
00:41:55,763 --> 00:41:58,595
Since being back in the UK, are friends?

763
00:41:58,595 --> 00:42:00,226
No, we're father and son.

764
00:42:00,226 --> 00:42:03,858
We communicate, he's grateful what I do, I'm grateful for him.

765
00:42:04,299 --> 00:42:06,531
And I can't ask for more than that.

766
00:42:06,531 --> 00:42:07,702
He's not going to change.

767
00:42:07,702 --> 00:42:09,763
He's absolutely not going to change.

768
00:42:09,763 --> 00:42:11,243
There's still one way of doing things.

769
00:42:11,243 --> 00:42:12,195
That's his way.

770
00:42:12,195 --> 00:42:18,077
And I'm still not going to get that validation that I would love from him that I craved,
but that's fine.

771
00:42:18,258 --> 00:42:20,269
He's appreciative of me when I'm helping him.

772
00:42:20,269 --> 00:42:21,289
I'm appreciative of him.

773
00:42:21,289 --> 00:42:29,396
I realized that his education to me was, I'm going to be consistent and I want you to be
and he's going to push my buttons and

774
00:42:29,396 --> 00:42:30,587
I'm gonna stand up to him.

775
00:42:30,587 --> 00:42:33,310
I'm not gonna bend over and say, whatever.

776
00:42:33,370 --> 00:42:35,191
And that's what it is.

777
00:42:35,191 --> 00:42:36,952
And we, you I love him.

778
00:42:36,952 --> 00:42:37,933
I love my family.

779
00:42:37,933 --> 00:42:38,864
I have reconnected.

780
00:42:38,864 --> 00:42:42,127
I have realized that those old stories were not true.

781
00:42:42,127 --> 00:42:45,441
And being sober is fabulous.

782
00:42:45,441 --> 00:42:46,962
Am I in recovery?

783
00:42:47,268 --> 00:42:51,532
I'm Hamish, you I've made sense of what I want to do with my life.

784
00:42:51,532 --> 00:42:53,483
I've made sense of what I don't want to do with my life.

785
00:42:53,483 --> 00:42:55,095
I don't want drugs or alcohol.

786
00:42:55,095 --> 00:42:57,388
I don't want that craziness.

787
00:42:57,388 --> 00:42:58,729
Was it worth it?

788
00:42:58,729 --> 00:43:00,751
I'm alive, so it was worth it.

789
00:43:00,751 --> 00:43:02,052
What have I learned from it?

790
00:43:02,052 --> 00:43:04,124
Compassion, grace.

791
00:43:04,124 --> 00:43:05,144
I'm aware.

792
00:43:05,144 --> 00:43:06,555
I'm so much more aware.

793
00:43:06,555 --> 00:43:08,037
I'm so much more intentional.

794
00:43:08,037 --> 00:43:10,829
You know, I will look at things and...

795
00:43:10,963 --> 00:43:12,153
Is that helpful for me?

796
00:43:12,153 --> 00:43:13,204
Is it going to serve me?

797
00:43:13,204 --> 00:43:18,507
Is it going to help me to help other people rather than just going off unconsciously,
which is what it was.

798
00:43:18,507 --> 00:43:19,668
It's not easy.

799
00:43:19,668 --> 00:43:24,009
It's still chop wood, carry water, but the intention is different.

800
00:43:24,029 --> 00:43:29,201
I'm not doing it from needing to be wanted, needing to be loved, needing to be validated.

801
00:43:29,201 --> 00:43:31,352
I'm not doing...

802
00:43:31,598 --> 00:43:33,569
I'm not living from that.

803
00:43:33,569 --> 00:43:35,120
I'm living from authenticity.

804
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:36,150
You know, this is Hamish.

805
00:43:36,150 --> 00:43:37,130
Like me, don't like me.

806
00:43:37,130 --> 00:43:39,562
You know, I'm not going to waste my time or cry if you don't.

807
00:43:39,562 --> 00:43:40,873
And I'm going to help you and support you.

808
00:43:40,873 --> 00:43:42,434
And if you don't want it, that's fine.

809
00:43:42,434 --> 00:43:44,075
But I'm doing Hamish.

810
00:43:44,075 --> 00:43:46,047
I'm doing life from that level of...

811
00:43:46,047 --> 00:43:51,401
intention and from authenticity that allows me to be me and I love who I am.

812
00:43:51,401 --> 00:43:52,752
You know, I'm doing a podcast.

813
00:43:52,752 --> 00:43:55,124
It's the best fun you can have your clothes on.

814
00:43:55,165 --> 00:44:03,141
I'm talking to people who have had amazing stories, who've made sense of all sorts of
stuff and have gone, I'm not being authentic.

815
00:44:03,141 --> 00:44:06,023
I'm not doing what actually I want to do.

816
00:44:06,023 --> 00:44:07,084
And that's what I'm doing.

817
00:44:07,084 --> 00:44:13,429
I'm able to have that authenticity because I am not hiding drink.

818
00:44:13,650 --> 00:44:14,281
I'm not

819
00:44:14,281 --> 00:44:16,092
doing cocaine on the toilet seats.

820
00:44:16,092 --> 00:44:19,173
I'm pretending.

821
00:44:19,173 --> 00:44:20,073
I'm not hiding.

822
00:44:20,073 --> 00:44:22,454
I'm not using something as a crutch.

823
00:44:22,454 --> 00:44:25,926
I probably am other things, but I'm not using those destructive ones.

824
00:44:25,926 --> 00:44:28,006
And I'm being able to be more intentional.

825
00:44:28,006 --> 00:44:31,719
And the outcome of sobriety is...

826
00:44:31,719 --> 00:44:33,190
is truly joyous.

827
00:44:33,190 --> 00:44:35,331
You know, I've made better decisions.

828
00:44:35,331 --> 00:44:37,641
I'm always making better decisions.

829
00:44:37,942 --> 00:44:43,744
And, which is really good, if, when I mess up, I can go, hey, I'm really sorry.

830
00:44:43,744 --> 00:44:44,394
I'm human.

831
00:44:44,394 --> 00:44:45,015
I'm trying.

832
00:44:45,015 --> 00:44:46,945
You know, I'm going to learn from that.

833
00:44:47,126 --> 00:44:53,348
I'm learning from, I'm learning to appreciate that when I get triggered, I can go, why did
I get triggered?

834
00:44:53,348 --> 00:44:58,590
What about that phrase, story thing is unhealthy?

835
00:44:58,590 --> 00:45:00,371
What can I learn from that?

836
00:45:00,683 --> 00:45:05,843
Same with failures, failures I can learn from and I can do things slightly differently.

837
00:45:05,843 --> 00:45:09,322
Setting up a business, what works, what doesn't.

838
00:45:09,323 --> 00:45:11,383
And then I'm able to be curious.

839
00:45:11,383 --> 00:45:14,543
I have now spent 50 minutes talking with you guys here.

840
00:45:14,543 --> 00:45:21,423
It took me an hour to get this set up and in the end I was where I was an hour beforehand
because I couldn't get things to do.

841
00:45:21,423 --> 00:45:23,794
So I just do it.

842
00:45:23,794 --> 00:45:27,494
And it's just remarkable.

843
00:45:27,494 --> 00:45:28,345
It is.

844
00:45:28,345 --> 00:45:30,917
fun, you know, I'm having fun.

845
00:45:30,958 --> 00:45:34,191
I'm able to think about what I want to say, what I want to do.

846
00:45:34,191 --> 00:45:36,774
I'm able to be curious.

847
00:45:37,215 --> 00:45:43,911
And the most important things that I have learned in this journey is the seven of them.

848
00:45:44,092 --> 00:45:45,714
The first one is be curious.

849
00:45:45,714 --> 00:45:47,796
You know, I had to become curious.

850
00:45:47,796 --> 00:45:49,857
I had to listen.

851
00:45:50,295 --> 00:45:53,146
I had to understand that Hamish's way is not the only way.

852
00:45:53,146 --> 00:45:59,937
know, there's his and hers and hers and his and theirs and ours and other people's.

853
00:45:59,937 --> 00:46:01,848
Everyone's seen the world differently from me.

854
00:46:01,848 --> 00:46:03,489
So why is my way right?

855
00:46:03,489 --> 00:46:07,520
And by being curious, I've been able to open my mind and think that didn't work.

856
00:46:07,520 --> 00:46:08,121
Why not?

857
00:46:08,121 --> 00:46:08,851
That didn't work.

858
00:46:08,851 --> 00:46:09,411
Why not?

859
00:46:09,411 --> 00:46:10,691
That works.

860
00:46:10,691 --> 00:46:13,722
You know, have a conversation with someone and say, I really like that idea.

861
00:46:13,722 --> 00:46:17,984
I'm going to embrace that into who I am and I'm going to live with that.

862
00:46:17,984 --> 00:46:19,414
I'm going to do things that way.

863
00:46:19,414 --> 00:46:20,585
I mean, this is what kids do.

864
00:46:20,585 --> 00:46:21,385
They learn to walk.

865
00:46:21,385 --> 00:46:22,845
They learn to do this.

866
00:46:23,005 --> 00:46:24,066
I'm learning new things.

867
00:46:24,066 --> 00:46:25,296
So I'm open -minded.

868
00:46:25,296 --> 00:46:27,018
So that's really, really important.

869
00:46:27,018 --> 00:46:33,980
Everyone is doing the best they can with the tools, with the skills, with the situations
they are in.

870
00:46:33,980 --> 00:46:43,534
Throwing those bottles of beer out of the window, that was the best I could because that
was less shameful than getting home and having to put empty bottles into the bin.

871
00:46:43,962 --> 00:46:51,361
for recycling or whatever, throwing them out was far less stressful than going home.

872
00:46:51,361 --> 00:46:52,412
That was the best I could.

873
00:46:52,412 --> 00:46:53,083
It's not okay.

874
00:46:53,083 --> 00:46:54,334
We're not talking about behaviors.

875
00:46:54,334 --> 00:46:55,536
We're talking about doing.

876
00:46:55,536 --> 00:46:58,109
With that, everyone's doing the best they can.

877
00:46:58,109 --> 00:47:01,211
If everyone's doing the best they can, they can't do any better.

878
00:47:01,336 --> 00:47:02,946
So there's no point judging them.

879
00:47:02,946 --> 00:47:05,376
So that's the third one, zero judgment.

880
00:47:05,376 --> 00:47:08,056
I cannot judge myself for doing 100%.

881
00:47:08,056 --> 00:47:10,796
If I'm tired, I'm doing 40%.

882
00:47:10,796 --> 00:47:11,966
I couldn't do 41.

883
00:47:11,966 --> 00:47:13,666
If I could do 41, I would.

884
00:47:13,666 --> 00:47:15,656
So I'm doing my best.

885
00:47:15,676 --> 00:47:21,366
With that belief, everyone is doing their best they can, it stops me beating myself up.

886
00:47:21,366 --> 00:47:23,226
It stops me shaming myself.

887
00:47:23,226 --> 00:47:26,627
It stops me feeling guilty because I can't do any better.

888
00:47:26,627 --> 00:47:32,132
And if that is something that is hard to get your head around, that's fine.

889
00:47:32,193 --> 00:47:33,234
Give it a test.

890
00:47:33,234 --> 00:47:34,736
Play with that idea.

891
00:47:34,736 --> 00:47:40,102
Realise that when you shout at somebody, you couldn't do any better because they were
pissing you off so much.

892
00:47:40,102 --> 00:47:42,324
You were tired, you were emotional, whatever.

893
00:47:42,324 --> 00:47:43,886
And that's okay.

894
00:47:43,886 --> 00:47:47,341
All we have to do is learn and go, I'm not going to beat myself up.

895
00:47:47,341 --> 00:47:48,992
I'm going to try and do a bit better tomorrow.

896
00:47:48,992 --> 00:47:51,213
I'm going to try and change that behavior.

897
00:47:51,213 --> 00:47:53,354
So that was the third thing.

898
00:47:53,354 --> 00:47:56,156
Fourth thing was, as I said, zero judgment.

899
00:47:56,516 --> 00:48:04,100
Once I'm doing the best I can, there's no point judging myself for what I did in the past
because it's in the past and I don't have a time machine to hand.

900
00:48:04,281 --> 00:48:05,822
So I have to forgive myself.

901
00:48:05,822 --> 00:48:09,263
I have to not judge myself for it.

902
00:48:09,744 --> 00:48:12,525
Fifth one, I've already mentioned it, is the forgiveness.

903
00:48:12,825 --> 00:48:14,126
Forgive yourself.

904
00:48:14,404 --> 00:48:15,765
Forgive other people.

905
00:48:15,765 --> 00:48:18,095
What's the point of carrying grudges?

906
00:48:18,176 --> 00:48:19,686
Certainly doesn't do any good.

907
00:48:19,686 --> 00:48:21,897
So learn to forgive yourself.

908
00:48:21,897 --> 00:48:24,838
Again, this is something else I learned through my journey.

909
00:48:24,838 --> 00:48:29,511
So by forgiving myself, I can make space for change.

910
00:48:29,511 --> 00:48:31,712
Probably the most important one is triggers.

911
00:48:31,712 --> 00:48:34,024
I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my feelings.

912
00:48:34,024 --> 00:48:36,945
Senses are messages.

913
00:48:37,185 --> 00:48:38,226
Feelings are messages.

914
00:48:38,226 --> 00:48:39,186
Thoughts.

915
00:48:39,274 --> 00:48:40,174
They just come and go.

916
00:48:40,174 --> 00:48:41,415
They are not who I am.

917
00:48:41,415 --> 00:48:42,936
I don't need to identify with them.

918
00:48:42,936 --> 00:48:46,257
I don't need to identify with anger for lashing out.

919
00:48:46,257 --> 00:48:52,841
Anger is a great emotion for, that's not okay, I want to do it this way, for looking at
your boundaries.

920
00:48:52,841 --> 00:48:56,543
So I'm not my thoughts or my emotions or my feelings.

921
00:48:56,543 --> 00:48:59,544
They are messages that help me make sense of stuff.

922
00:48:59,544 --> 00:49:02,697
So that was a really, really important one to learn as well.

923
00:49:02,697 --> 00:49:05,489
And then when I get triggered, what's the backstory?

924
00:49:05,489 --> 00:49:06,449
Why am I getting triggered?

925
00:49:06,449 --> 00:49:08,051
If he calls me stupid, why I thinking?

926
00:49:08,051 --> 00:49:10,483
Why is that upsetting me?

927
00:49:10,483 --> 00:49:12,544
Did somebody used to call me stupid?

928
00:49:12,624 --> 00:49:13,795
You know, things like that.

929
00:49:13,795 --> 00:49:15,337
That was a really, really good one.

930
00:49:15,337 --> 00:49:19,451
What I've also understood is, well, in fact, all my guests.

931
00:49:19,597 --> 00:49:21,597
They have had to make sense of change.

932
00:49:21,597 --> 00:49:23,377
I have had to make sense of change.

933
00:49:23,377 --> 00:49:28,397
I'm no longer making tons of money, making other people wealthy or this, that or the
other.

934
00:49:28,397 --> 00:49:32,857
I'm helping people make sense of their addictions.

935
00:49:32,857 --> 00:49:37,377
This is aligned to my values and my core and what is really, really important.

936
00:49:37,517 --> 00:49:48,868
So when you start doing stuff that you really love from here, from your gut, important to
your values, to what's important and your purpose, you're going to ...

937
00:49:48,868 --> 00:49:50,309
find life easier.

938
00:49:50,309 --> 00:49:50,969
What is happening?

939
00:49:50,969 --> 00:49:52,239
I'm supported.

940
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:59,022
I'm being given so much help by people left, right and centre because I am doing what is
aligned to my purpose.

941
00:49:59,022 --> 00:50:00,883
What I really want to do, what I love.

942
00:50:00,883 --> 00:50:03,144
I get up at six in the morning and do a podcast.

943
00:50:03,144 --> 00:50:03,994
It's great fun.

944
00:50:03,994 --> 00:50:05,114
I'll do one at nine at night.

945
00:50:05,114 --> 00:50:09,106
It does mean I'll get a nap in the afternoon so I'm functioning better.

946
00:50:09,564 --> 00:50:10,334
But I love it.

947
00:50:10,334 --> 00:50:12,035
You I love going for walks in nature.

948
00:50:12,035 --> 00:50:16,027
I'm loving so much of what I'm doing and I'm getting supported.

949
00:50:16,027 --> 00:50:17,217
I've got a business network.

950
00:50:17,217 --> 00:50:18,898
I've got a business mentor.

951
00:50:18,898 --> 00:50:25,461
I've got a spiritual mentor and all these things are there because I'm doing what I'm
aligned to do.

952
00:50:25,461 --> 00:50:27,601
So that was incredibly important.

953
00:50:27,902 --> 00:50:31,874
And then the last one, know, life has said you have to change.

954
00:50:32,074 --> 00:50:33,324
You've got the two choices.

955
00:50:33,324 --> 00:50:35,446
You can change or you can stay and suffer.

956
00:50:35,446 --> 00:50:36,406
Change.

957
00:50:36,747 --> 00:50:37,297
Take it.

958
00:50:37,297 --> 00:50:38,028
Do it.

959
00:50:38,028 --> 00:50:38,859
Make that change.

960
00:50:38,859 --> 00:50:40,030
Dare to do it.

961
00:50:40,030 --> 00:50:41,411
And it's going to be a roller coaster.

962
00:50:41,411 --> 00:50:42,592
It's going to be hard.

963
00:50:42,592 --> 00:50:43,693
It is scary.

964
00:50:43,693 --> 00:50:47,346
There's nothing more scary than going, I have to deal with my drinking.

965
00:50:47,346 --> 00:50:48,897
I have to deal with this.

966
00:50:48,897 --> 00:50:49,808
Why am I doing it?

967
00:50:49,808 --> 00:51:00,596
Because I don't know how to have a chat with somebody because my business partner is doing
nothing and he's driving me mad because my relationship with my wife is no longer working

968
00:51:00,596 --> 00:51:03,148
because of this, because of that.

969
00:51:03,229 --> 00:51:04,889
You have to deal with them.

970
00:51:05,270 --> 00:51:07,431
But as you do, you learn about yourself.

971
00:51:07,431 --> 00:51:09,051
You learn about what's important.

972
00:51:09,051 --> 00:51:12,063
You learn that the journey never stops.

973
00:51:12,063 --> 00:51:13,544
You just get better.

974
00:51:13,744 --> 00:51:14,834
It doesn't get easier.

975
00:51:14,834 --> 00:51:16,155
You're always going to chop wood.

976
00:51:16,155 --> 00:51:17,956
You're always going to carry water.

977
00:51:17,956 --> 00:51:19,347
But you're looking at it differently.

978
00:51:19,347 --> 00:51:20,777
You're looking at it with intention.

979
00:51:20,777 --> 00:51:22,678
You're looking at it with awareness.

980
00:51:22,678 --> 00:51:24,328
So enjoy the journey.

981
00:51:24,328 --> 00:51:25,289
It's going to be hard.

982
00:51:25,289 --> 00:51:26,099
It's going to be fun.

983
00:51:26,099 --> 00:51:27,019
You're going to meet people.

984
00:51:27,019 --> 00:51:28,530
You're going to have different friends.

985
00:51:28,530 --> 00:51:30,201
Yeah, there's more layers to unpeel.

986
00:51:30,201 --> 00:51:31,933
You're not, hallelujah I'm healed.

987
00:51:31,933 --> 00:51:33,773
No, there's another layer.

988
00:51:34,114 --> 00:51:45,983
But there is some magic to it because you're choosing life and those seven steps are all
about choosing life and no longer needing a crutch.

989
00:51:45,984 --> 00:51:50,347
There'll be another one, might be sugar, might be smoking, might be gambling.

990
00:51:50,367 --> 00:51:51,728
But again, you've

991
00:51:52,012 --> 00:51:59,619
started a process of thinking and being more aware and are more able to spot things.

992
00:51:59,619 --> 00:52:03,021
And that's what sobering up has done for me.

993
00:52:03,162 --> 00:52:08,797
It has allowed me to look at how I functioned, not beat myself up for it.

994
00:52:08,797 --> 00:52:11,820
Of course I did to begin with, but then realizing that's not going to work.

995
00:52:11,820 --> 00:52:13,942
So it's, it is that and it is

996
00:52:13,942 --> 00:52:16,793
going, okay, I messed up.

997
00:52:16,793 --> 00:52:18,174
Okay, that didn't work.

998
00:52:18,174 --> 00:52:19,734
Okay, that worked.

999
00:52:19,854 --> 00:52:22,166
But I get out of bed at whatever time in the morning.

1000
00:52:22,166 --> 00:52:23,516
Sometimes I want to get up earlier.

1001
00:52:23,516 --> 00:52:27,968
Sometimes I don't want to go to bed because I have so much going on in my head and my
heart and my mind.

1002
00:52:27,968 --> 00:52:28,949
I have to sleep.

1003
00:52:28,949 --> 00:52:30,199
I have to do the self care.

1004
00:52:30,199 --> 00:52:34,282
That is the bit of me that I'm not doing with because I'm having too much fun.

1005
00:52:34,282 --> 00:52:36,302
I keep my studio tidy.

1006
00:52:36,563 --> 00:52:37,843
Don't look at the floor.

1007
00:52:37,843 --> 00:52:39,104
But that's what it is.

1008
00:52:39,104 --> 00:52:39,575
And...

1009
00:52:39,575 --> 00:52:52,642
sobering up, stopping the drinking, stopping the drugs which I did a while ago, stopping
the unhealthy behavior, looking at the patterns, looking at why I react, choosing to

1010
00:52:52,642 --> 00:52:53,172
respond.

1011
00:52:53,172 --> 00:52:55,353
My life is still out of control, completely.

1012
00:52:55,353 --> 00:52:56,533
I mean what can I control?

1013
00:52:56,533 --> 00:53:01,786
I can control my voice, I control how I show up and I control my choices.

1014
00:53:01,786 --> 00:53:03,998
So my life is utterly out of control.

1015
00:53:03,998 --> 00:53:08,372
This is happening, that's happening, business this, dickheads driving and cut me up.

1016
00:53:08,372 --> 00:53:11,434
All these things, I have no control over them.

1017
00:53:11,434 --> 00:53:13,026
So my life is out of control.

1018
00:53:13,026 --> 00:53:15,399
And I have chosen to respond.

1019
00:53:15,399 --> 00:53:16,510
Not react.

1020
00:53:16,510 --> 00:53:19,992
Obviously we react, but I have chosen to go, I'm not going to do that.

1021
00:53:19,992 --> 00:53:24,575
Look at that space, that tiny little space I talked about where there is infinite
possibility.

1022
00:53:24,575 --> 00:53:25,607
What do I want?

1023
00:53:25,607 --> 00:53:29,570
And I'm getting better at being able to respond to life.

1024
00:53:29,570 --> 00:53:36,665
And that, just that choice of saying, I'm going to respond to everything rather than
react, it changes perception.

1025
00:53:36,665 --> 00:53:44,730
It changes your energy, changes your vibration, it changes your way of looking at things,
it changes your way of understanding things.

1026
00:53:44,730 --> 00:53:48,503
You know, I'm not looking for the negative, I'm not looking for that tiger behind me.

1027
00:53:48,503 --> 00:53:51,416
When it turns up, I will know how to manage.

1028
00:53:51,416 --> 00:53:54,998
And you know, there aren't many tigers in England, well, only in cages.

1029
00:53:54,998 --> 00:53:59,391
So, you know, I don't have to be on high alert.

1030
00:53:59,391 --> 00:54:01,933
and I can trust myself and I like myself.

1031
00:54:01,933 --> 00:54:04,274
In fact, I love myself and that's been hard to say.

1032
00:54:04,274 --> 00:54:08,687
That's been peering in the mirror in the mornings and going, morning dude, looking good.

1033
00:54:08,687 --> 00:54:10,247
Pull the tummy in still.

1034
00:54:11,108 --> 00:54:12,189
But that's okay.

1035
00:54:12,189 --> 00:54:13,741
So it's a process.

1036
00:54:13,741 --> 00:54:15,193
It's not a quick process.

1037
00:54:15,193 --> 00:54:17,194
You can either enjoy it or you can fight it.

1038
00:54:17,194 --> 00:54:18,565
Fighting it doesn't work.

1039
00:54:18,565 --> 00:54:19,726
Fighting doesn't work.

1040
00:54:19,726 --> 00:54:20,277
But...

1041
00:54:20,277 --> 00:54:25,840
I wouldn't change many things because nothing would have got me here if I had done
something differently.

1042
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:32,542
The podcast I've realised I am, I got taught when I was in the TV industry, I got taught
how to interview people.

1043
00:54:32,562 --> 00:54:34,283
I got taught how to hold space.

1044
00:54:34,283 --> 00:54:43,175
I got taught how to listen to somebody and see there's four or five different routes we
can go from what they're talking about.

1045
00:54:43,175 --> 00:54:45,146
This is what I do and to listen.

1046
00:54:45,609 --> 00:54:54,445
I got taught how to listen because when you're interviewing someone for documentary, you
don't want the host to go, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

1047
00:54:54,445 --> 00:54:56,657
blah, quite a lot of podcasts people do.

1048
00:54:56,657 --> 00:54:58,748
You want the guests to engage.

1049
00:54:58,748 --> 00:55:00,909
You want them to talk.

1050
00:55:01,270 --> 00:55:07,133
And one of the gifts I've got from getting sober is I hold safe spaces.

1051
00:55:07,574 --> 00:55:10,426
I allow people to be heard.

1052
00:55:10,426 --> 00:55:13,258
I encourage people to be heard.

1053
00:55:13,458 --> 00:55:17,252
And time and time again, my guests have said, I haven't told myself that.

1054
00:55:17,252 --> 00:55:18,694
I haven't told anyone that.

1055
00:55:18,694 --> 00:55:24,269
You know, I've gone far deeper with what I shared with you than I have with anybody
before, but they feel safe.

1056
00:55:24,510 --> 00:55:30,786
And we get wonderful conversations about vulnerability, about making sense of, because
I've had to do that.

1057
00:55:30,786 --> 00:55:38,100
That is such a gift where I can listen to people, where I can hear what they're saying,
where I can acknowledge I'm hearing them.

1058
00:55:38,100 --> 00:55:43,342
That's why when I'm doing the podcast, I don't wear these things because this is a
barrier.

1059
00:55:43,342 --> 00:55:45,493
It's covering what I hear with.

1060
00:55:45,493 --> 00:55:52,428
For this, I thought I would do because I'm cutting out the noise outside, I'm talking to
me and you guys another day.

1061
00:55:52,428 --> 00:55:52,939
But.

1062
00:55:52,939 --> 00:55:55,807
Getting sober was not easy.

1063
00:55:55,807 --> 00:55:56,597
Is it worth it?

1064
00:55:56,597 --> 00:55:58,188
It absolutely is.

1065
00:55:58,188 --> 00:55:59,689
My life is not chaotic.

1066
00:55:59,689 --> 00:56:01,210
I've reconnected with family.

1067
00:56:01,210 --> 00:56:02,350
I've got a purpose.

1068
00:56:02,350 --> 00:56:04,761
I'm doing stuff that is important to me.

1069
00:56:04,801 --> 00:56:06,922
Some of my friends stayed with their partners.

1070
00:56:06,922 --> 00:56:08,383
I sadly didn't.

1071
00:56:08,383 --> 00:56:10,124
Some of my friends reconnected.

1072
00:56:10,124 --> 00:56:11,294
Some of my friends did this.

1073
00:56:11,294 --> 00:56:14,866
Some of them stayed and their lives are similar.

1074
00:56:14,866 --> 00:56:16,417
Mine's changed completely.

1075
00:56:16,417 --> 00:56:18,067
I had to move continents.

1076
00:56:18,067 --> 00:56:21,969
I had to leave all my clients behind, all my business, everything.

1077
00:56:22,089 --> 00:56:23,010
Regrets?

1078
00:56:23,010 --> 00:56:26,014
No, because I got supported, because I was very

1079
00:56:26,014 --> 00:56:27,565
very fortunate.

1080
00:56:27,985 --> 00:56:34,740
And now I'm helping people to make sense of their own journeys because everyone deserves
another chance.

1081
00:56:34,740 --> 00:56:43,964
Everyone deserves another chance like I did to start again, to make sense of, to get
curious about.

1082
00:56:43,964 --> 00:56:46,256
And for that I'm really grateful.

1083
00:56:46,256 --> 00:56:50,089
I'm grateful for this friend of mine who said, no, doesn't matter.

1084
00:56:50,089 --> 00:56:51,121
I went to rehab.

1085
00:56:51,121 --> 00:56:55,634
Asking that question to that person made such a difference.

1086
00:56:55,634 --> 00:56:56,814
Talk to me.

1087
00:56:56,814 --> 00:56:57,965
I've got no judgment.

1088
00:56:57,965 --> 00:56:58,935
There's no point.

1089
00:56:58,935 --> 00:56:59,866
I have no judgment.

1090
00:56:59,866 --> 00:57:01,166
I've been in the depths.

1091
00:57:01,166 --> 00:57:03,789
I've been down to that binary choice.

1092
00:57:03,789 --> 00:57:04,989
We're all in this together.

1093
00:57:04,989 --> 00:57:06,650
We're all trying to make sense of life.

1094
00:57:06,650 --> 00:57:15,827
And if we can make it easier for ourselves, if we can do it authentically and honestly and
yeah, you know.

1095
00:57:16,275 --> 00:57:23,590
learn from those mistakes and learn not to ourselves up and learn to let go of things that
we can't control.

1096
00:57:23,832 --> 00:57:25,145
Who knows what's going to happen?

1097
00:57:25,145 --> 00:57:26,986
Do I regret being an alcoholic?

1098
00:57:26,986 --> 00:57:29,698
That's not the right answer, not the right question.

1099
00:57:29,698 --> 00:57:32,250
I regret some of the things that happened, absolutely.

1100
00:57:32,250 --> 00:57:44,655
It has however allowed me to live a life that I am loving and enjoying and I'm making
sense of and I'm a nicer, kinder, gentler...

1101
00:57:44,723 --> 00:57:49,687
more full of grace, more compassionate, more intentional and more aware being.

1102
00:57:49,687 --> 00:57:51,769
And you know, that's good enough.

1103
00:57:51,769 --> 00:57:53,690
Who knows what's going to happen tomorrow.

1104
00:57:53,951 --> 00:57:58,124
So yeah, so thank you for listening to this.

1105
00:57:58,124 --> 00:57:59,246
Thank you for.

1106
00:57:59,246 --> 00:58:10,721
giving yourself a chance to listen to my story because, you know, it saved my life and
sharing it here is what it's all about and addiction's not the end of the world.

1107
00:58:10,721 --> 00:58:15,258
It is a process of a way that we manage to cope and make sense of life.

1108
00:58:15,258 --> 00:58:16,739
and it's just out of date.

1109
00:58:16,739 --> 00:58:24,344
So it's a chance to look at change from that perspective where, you know, you can create
something wonderful with your life.

1110
00:58:24,344 --> 00:58:29,868
You've got the rest of your life to live and have fun and love and connect.

1111
00:58:29,868 --> 00:58:31,729
Live by yourself, be by yourself.

1112
00:58:31,729 --> 00:58:42,037
Doesn't matter whatever you want, but it's no longer controlled by something which is
ultimately very, very destructive.

1113
00:58:42,511 --> 00:58:45,063
So again, thank you for listening.

1114
00:58:45,063 --> 00:58:47,435
Thank you for being who you are.

1115
00:58:47,435 --> 00:58:52,616
And I have enjoyed spending an hour talking about myself.

1116
00:58:54,077 --> 00:58:58,009
And yeah, I am very grateful that I'm alive.

1117
00:58:58,009 --> 00:58:59,850
I'm very grateful for my life.

1118
00:58:59,850 --> 00:59:03,542
I'm very grateful for the support and love that I've got.

1119
00:59:03,542 --> 00:59:08,107
because it takes a community and connection is the opposite of addiction.

1120
00:59:08,107 --> 00:59:12,422
And believe me, when I was addicted, I had no connection.

1121
00:59:12,422 --> 00:59:20,170
So reach out, there's everybody, there's always people who are there to help, to listen,
and I certainly am.

1122
00:59:20,170 --> 00:59:22,262
So yeah, thank you very much.

1123
00:59:22,753 --> 00:59:27,113
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Crucible: Conversations for the Curious.

1124
00:59:27,113 --> 00:59:35,753
If these powerful stories of transformation resonated with you, be sure to like, subscribe
and share this show with anyone who you think could do with a dose of inspiration for

1125
00:59:35,753 --> 00:59:36,693
their own journey.

1126
00:59:36,693 --> 00:59:43,273
I would really appreciate it if you could make any comments on your favourite podcast
platform as well, that helps me reach more people.

1127
00:59:43,273 --> 00:59:46,733
All the important links and information are in the show notes below.

1128
00:59:46,733 --> 00:59:49,817
Thank you very much for listening and catch up with you soon.