The Cocaine Anonymous World Convention in Birmingham, UK

My name is Darren. I'm an addict.

What a fantastic, what a beautiful turn out. What a lovely introduction. Thank you Paul. My ego says he should have said a little bit more. My second, my self esteem says he didn't mean it anyway.

What a fantastic turn out. God's been good. We've had sun since Thursday. He's been pissing down all months before that. Amazing, amazing. I think it's important, you know, before I say another word to me, to just give thanks to the gracious, loving, merciful hand of God to the air that I breathe.

I also think it's important for me to just throw it out there now and let you all know that I am not speaking on behalf of Cocaine Anonymous. I'm not an expert. I'm recovery. I'm not a fountain of knowledge or wisdom or anything like that. I'm not, I'm not a circuit speaking superstar, nothing like that, you know? So if you're expecting to hear anything profound, you might as well go and get a coffee next door because you ain't going to hear that from me.

You know what I mean? What I have got is I've got my own personal experience, the truth as I see it, you know, and I've learned that the darkness, the depression, the despair of the past is an asset for the life I live now because in that is the key to happiness and freedom for other men that are receptive to doing something different, you know. So that's what I've got.

There's so many people to thank. I don't want to go into a big, long, drawn out spill

of crisscross. Lovely. Thank you, Richie. I'll the rest of the speaker, guys, all of you. What an honor. What a privilege. Do you know what I mean? And I'm aware we hear many people wouldn't. No, no. What a privilege. But I mean that from the bottom of my heart. Do you know what I mean? You know, I come out of the bin shed in North London sticking needles in my arm. How on earth did I get here? It's nothing to do with me. You know, that's the sort of

what we'll say is this for anyone who's new, you know, the 12 step granddaddy of all recovery programs is in the book.

I never know that. All I knew was about the meeting. And we'll discuss that as we move. You know, and if you happen to be, if you aim to be foreign, welcome to the UK department of Cocaine Anonymous.

I

and, and just to add to that, if you ain't already gathered, I speak with an inner city London accent, so you might want to sit next to someone from the UK because you might need this talk translated.

Yeah,

you can drink in this water, alcoholic.

I've got a couple of litres. We might need some more.

Well, it's a piece in the book. In the doctor's opinion. It says there are types. Normal in every respect. Certainly affect the alcohol and the drugs that's upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people. Well, I ain't one of them.

From minute one, I was in very easily LED, painfully self-conscious, deeply insecure, frightened dude before drugs and alcohol ever came into my arena,

you know, and I grew up in in a home environment at times. The truth is, it weren't very nice. My father was very unpredictable, man.

He ruled the rules. We live by his will. You know, when he clicked his fingers and said jump, son, you didn't say how I, dad, you just started jumping and you didn't fucking stop until he said something, right? And that's the way it was. He was an alcoholic in a drug addict. God bless him. He's been dead for some years now. And if he came, if he came home out of his head on heroin, yeah, it was OK because there was peace in the ass because he'd just be like this.

Yeah. If he came home with some heavy heating, high strength lagering system, he was in trouble. It was like the Wild West Indians. Yeah. So everyone was in fit, you know, And it was about walking on legshell, was it? Right. And that's the way it was. And. And the fear was sickening. And it was a fear that I carried with me wherever I went. And I just couldn't seem to shake it on my own resources.

Now I won't. This is just looking back in hindsight. I wasn't awake till then. So I went. Drugs and alcohol went into my body. They give me power. The alcohol and the drugs allowed me to feel comfortable being me. So I could just move through the day with you.

You know,

I'm aware there's many different types of men and women in the room. One guy might be a builder, this guy's an architect, this lady's a housewife, you know, and whatever it may be.

So you know, I'm going to say what I'm going to say, and I don't say anything to separate myself from you. All I've got is my own experience, and that's what you're going to get. You know, for me, I weren't a party animal. No, I weren't someone that went out on a Thursday, took too much cocaine, woke over hangover, didn't do it for a few days, then done it again.

You know, for me, drug addiction was a way of life and it was the only way of life that I ever knew until I came in and you showed me different,

you know, and it went like this. It went from the binge head sniffing glue out into the cancer estate, smoking joints and drinking bottles of Cyber

from that to the acid house acid when they eat London

and, you know, dancing on ecstasy and warehouse is all night deeply self-conscious, even on drugs, you know, and they went from there to, you know, cocaine sniff. It was not really my thing, but I took it. I've done a lot of it. I'll give you a little bit of it.

It went like this.

We'll all meet up on a Friday.

Nice Ralph Lauren shirt like I've got on there,

Peraguchi loafers, nice Armani lock, knife in your pocket, big wad of money, bag of cocaine. None of which was mine. There was always someone elses.

So we we we'd meet up, go into the local boozer

bar, whatever you want to call it,

and I'd walk in there like this.

Strange

of all cuts in Embark,

Say to the bar mate, what's happening?

Get yourself a large gin and tonic.

Give her one.

I'll have a large vodka

with money,

I'll do things like that and as as well as this disease I suffer with something called IGS and that stands for imaginary gangster syndrome.

My perception of myself, the world around me and the people in it was twisted from minute one. As I look out my head at the world, it's just wrong.

So I'd snort cocaine savagely. And the truth is this, I didn't even like it.

I didn't even like it. I'll just stand against the wall all night doing everyone in the pubs thinking,

you know, I mean with a, with a jaw swinging like a camel,

trying to hold it together like, 'cause I don't wanna look like an idiot in front of you,

'cause I'm absolutely devastated with life wrecking levels of pride.

Things like this are that I'm talking to someone here at the corner of my eye. I just catch someone talking to his pal but he's our eyes happen to me my mind and say he's talking about you

so I'll say something to the chap on with get him to go over there start a big tear up. The pub gets smashed to pieces based on my mind. It weren't even real.

It weren't even about me. I just thought it was

well if I got out there alive with one piece. We go to the Cuban bounce on the corner,

ordinary kebab, trying to eat that rubber cocaine Jel.

They're not probably getting a bit too lippy with someone,

get a good beating, then wake up at the police station in north London knocking on the cell door saying, governor, how did I get it? What am I here for, you know? And that for me is when it was good

then it weren't so good, then it was absolutely pitiful with a capital P, you know, And I can do the alcohol and the drugs thing to a degree

and survive in that world to a degree to get what I need to get. What I could never do is to brighten you take the alcohol and the drugs offer me, you might as well strip me bare and I'll get it. Real uncomfortable feeling. It's called fear that you can see that. And I'll do anything I can to cover that up because I feel absolutely raw.

And he experiences that I've had in the past of the sobriety were unhealthy and they weren't very nice, you know, and that's putting it, that's being polite about it.

Like so a lot of the times I'd end up in trouble and I'd end up in some kind of nut house for vulnerable adults with drug and alcohol problems

and strange in it. And I go in there with the catalogue of destruction left behind me, right. But within about detox is done, got about six weeks under my belt. The ego is rebuilt. I look back on my life and say, you know what, it's just a phase you went through.

No pair of Reebok Classic on

Don't Know What

and it was stuff like this

like the chairs would normally go around

professional comes in. Hello. How you all doing this morning?

I just feel deeply anxious and tense.

So we'll go around the group. We can do feelings check this morning. OK

ask me how I feel. Just feels like a personal attack.

So we come to to Mary.

Hello Mary, how you doing this morning?

Mary's just on top of the world.

Hello John, how are you doing this morning? John conduced articulate extremely well how he feels.

It's getting to near me. This is my mind. What am I going to say? What am I going to say? What I'm going to say,

one more Guinness son.

Now it's on me. Hello Darren, the young man

feeling this morning.

I'm optimistic and grateful. Thank you very much.

As I open up my mouth, I'm going to lie to you to just get you away from me.

Then we get to the back end of it. They say you've done extremely well, you've completed the programme. Now here's a little plaque or a badge or whatever they give you,

but I looked at it. You were a drug addict and an alcoholic.

We suggest that you go to meetings now. The thing is this I knew

it was evident that I was a drug addict and an alcoholic, but I never understood what it meant to be that. It's a difference. Book showed me that,

so I'll be just like a nodding dog

and I'll come out of there and I'd go to the meetings. That was available in my community and it wasn't Cocaine Anonymous, you know, So I went into Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous because that's what was there

and strange and it I'm always caught up in the material and the external,

so I gotta make sure I look all right before I go to the meeting. So it's like been on the sunbed. Bit of gel in your hair, glowing orange from the sunbit.

Yeah, freak. All every Timberland trench mech. Nice brand new Timberland boots. I walk into the meeting when I walk again,

so I'd sit in there.

This is what kind of environment it was,

Johnny. He's gonna do a tope tonight.

Hello, Johnny.

He can talk about what he used, what he didn't use.

De Lempsey went to to get the money to use what he needed, to use who he knew, who he didn't know.

And then

the guards are going to share back to him. And it's like a big giant identification pit. And then some of the females, no disrespect to any of these females, They're crying

everyone's Nick deeply in issues, including myself. I'll never tell you that.

So I'm sitting there,

I don't know if any of you can get this, but this is what happens to me at first. I'm happy to be sober, clean,

I've got an element of relief, but since found that it was never about relief, it was always about release. It was about being set free. Is it different?

So after a little while the shine just wears off It

the depression. Who gets that sober?

I just can't shake it.

The resentment is just it's like at cancerous level,

like it's causing me visit. I'm getting a headache.

The fear is like not I'm a little bit fear is

and I'm not saying too much

and I'm sitting there and I'm listening. But when I did speak, it would be utter resentment born at my own fear. And I'm not even awake to what there is. I'm just naturally in that state, clean and sober. And I was like, look out in my head at the world. It's your fault how I feel.

So after a little while of debt, the bee starts talking to me and says

go and get a little bit Greg,

get just one bag of heroin

and two or three cans of high strength lager. You're going to feel better

Now. The thing is this, I'm in there with you, 'cause I'm looking for a different life. I really don't want to go back and do what I always go and do,

but I can't live like that. So. So in the end, I surrender to that voice in my mind. It tells me to go and do that and I'll go and get one. How can I not surrender today? I ain't got the power to not. I wouldn't do that,

so I'll come out at it. And the last time I've done it, honestly, it weren't, we hear things didn't mean in California, like about believing the light

in the mind.

The last experience weren't there. It was this as I was walking to get it, I knew like the likelihood is this is gonna happen. You're gonna spend every penny you've accumulated in this eleven months or whatever it was right then you're gonna sell everything materialated, everything material you've accumulated in this eleven months. Then you're gonna borrow what you can or whoever's mad enough to give you. You'll never give it back, right?

Then you're probably gonna go out robbing and stealing and you

might get put in Pentonville prison. But I've just done it anyway,

like and come what may, and I'll deal with it when it comes or I won't, whatever the case may be.

So I remember getting it and I got it in my hand. So I jumped on a bus.

There's a little bit of sanity there, and it's saying to me you could throw it out the window.

Ewing took it, yeah,

but the beast is just screaming. Just go and have it. You know? It's going to make you feel better,

so I decided I'll go and have it. Now The thing is this, I weren't actually involved in that decision. I just thought I was.

For the real drug addicts and the real Alcoholics, there is no choice. I'll just do it anyway,

then blame you for why I've done it. And that's been his story in my life. I think we'll leave it in. I'm a job,

so. So I'll put it in me, I'll put it in me, and it done this,

Yeah,

book calls it ease and comfort. Ease and comfort. Strange language getting it true.

So then I felt better for a little while, until I didn't feel better, you see, cause drugs and alcohol had a tendency to just turn on me and just cut me to ribbons like a boomerang

every time. But the compulsion to keep going was merciless. And I was a resourceful drug addict.

And I did some places that were low, but I just kept on going. Then I did another place that was lower than that, and I just kept on going. And I did another place that was lower than that, and I just kept on going. You know, I didn't know nothing about nothing. All I knew

was about drugs and about alcohol and about how to get money to get more. You know, there was nothing of any substance in my life. There was nothing. There was nothing even worth talking about. All we talked about was we've got what and where can we get it? That was it. A little community of rats

and I end up, I'm not one of these cats that like, well, I used last night, but I'll see you at 7:00 tomorrow night. I'll be getting a white key ring.

Excuse me,

I think we're anywhere near you for, we'll call it three years. Another three years

and in the end it was absolutely pitiful. I mean pitiful. Recapital P You know, it was about I was running around with a shoelace in as a belt.

With enough Gaza train ISM

playing cat and man's with security guards in boots to chemist

so I can get £30 worth of shower gel in a bit go down to augmented the corner shop here. But yeah, they give me that then ring up Biggie G have you go a bit Cracking a bit. Very. That was it. And my life consisted of that. It was like Ground Dog Day every day, doing that five times a day,

you know? And in the end I didn't even have anywhere to live. But I just never tell you that

it's a knock at geezers out at night. He was called 20P Joel

and we'd all snag him off, you know, begging him. But I'm in his flat waiting for him to come back to the rock. He just bed but I'm better than him

so I would knock at his door at night with a little a little pretty. I mean 10 or £20 worth of area in 10 or 20 lbs worth the crack.

Joe is me. He'd quickly hide it before he let me in because that's what we're like.

I'll give him a little bit of mine. Mines gone. I'll just wait all night till he gets dessert. All night

after the one you can see he's getting restless. Oh Oh yeah, little bit from earlier

and then we take that talk absolute shit to each other all night

and if I slipped I'd wake up in the morning absolutely destroyed if anxiety, depression and fear my mind and my body screaming, aching from the pain in my arm reality and I just need alcohol, heroin and crack immediately now. Now I thought I was using to escape my reality but I found that now I wasn't. I was using to try and overcome a craving book causing that was beyond my mental control. So I'm going to do it anyway, am I not?

So I remember I come out of his ass one morning.

No money we've drawn from heroin. Need a drink of alcohol, Nothing going on. I gotta go out and get money. I I'd like to tell you I was a grandiose house burger. Yeah, £92,000 in my last rock. You know, I mean, it was pitiful. Was running in that shops

anyway I've gone into this shop took a big you know, I don't know if anyone seen it big gigantics like that Guinness Book of record. No M1

I

so I walk out the shop with one of them and just it's bigger than me. The woman just looked at me.

She just found the place. God, God bless her.

Anyone didn't know that, So I went up the road. We need to get

like to grab 5 shirts like I'm doing an arm robbery. Not a young girl's. The young girls that worked in there, I see him. Just let him know him

like, anyway, so I'm walking past the first shot, Bang, the police come out, you're under arrest. I'm one of these. Oh no,

I'll get arrested. I'm just going to start crying.

I'd never turn any chaps that back in the day, of course,

so I ended up at the police station. This is it. Look, get the doctor now.

Get the Doctor.

There's nothing going on but the Doctor.

Give me some DF 118 and as many values I can get immediately I'm sick.

Irish doctor come round. Hello, Mr. Hilliard.

Is it you again? I'm like this.

Just give me the tablet

in the cell. You know the policeman. I used to wait them. I can play,

God bless him. I can see now that we're just trying to help. They used to open up the little flat. You know when they're when they sit looking.

You don't look well, son.

Do you want us to make you a couple of calls and get you a bit of help? I'll be like this

spin poison spitting venom. No, that I'm one of these guys. I just want something like just give me anything. I'll be like just give me your Mulberry light anything. But I just need something, even if I don't need it.

Oh God.

Anyway, this is what happened last time, he said. He's over the feet. He said You don't look well. Do you want a bit of help now? I said yes I'm cooked.

So anyway someone come round, done a little assessment, long short visa, end up another prison sale. Been in some before. I think it's irrelevant how many, but this is what happened.

Was 32 at the time.

Got into this prison cell

and I can see clearly my life, what it would become

and unknown. This ain't never going to change is always going to be the same.

And I could see it clearly in on Noodle and the book calls it Anil. It's on page 18. And it hadn't stripped me of anything external like houses, money, cars, businesses, anything to that effect because it never allowed me personally and I don't say it can separate myself from you, but it never allowed me to gain them. But what it did robbed me of was my pride. You know what I mean my my self esteem,

you know what I mean. It little maybe snippet of dignity that amongst a white Ant. Once of my head was gone and I knew it

and my hands was up in the air and it's called surrender. And that surrender got me here.

Amanda. Amanda, no illusion. The next surrender will keep me here. I'll surrender this morning. Bang hands and knees

X amount of days down the street

and looking back on it, what I actually needed was a prescription for a miracle and I found that in the form of cocaine.

And thank God for the gunslingers, the book workers, to be doing the one-on-one work with maniacs like me when I arrived here,

because where would I be had it not been for them?

So this is what happened. I end up from that prison cell in another facility

for vulnerable adults with drug and alcohol problems. Next minute I'm in the group sitting next to this woman who I thought I loved.

CA come in every second Thursday with the books.

So I'm sitting next to her discussing our plans for the future,

two maniacs and inside

Anyway, she's got, she's, I don't know, she, she's got some issues with alcohol. She's got the book,

so the guy said to her. Oh, I'm all right, my love. Do you want a book?

So she took it anyway, even though she had one, because she's like us. A month, never enough. Now she's got two books. She sent me a book,

I said yeah. Anyway, I took the book off her, had a look at doctor's opinion in this and it explained some stuff to me that it could never advise me. You can as well explain shit to me, like, right,

you know, you gotta go to court on Monday morning. It's now Sunday afternoon. If you don't go, it's gonna be a warrant out for your arrest and you're gonna get put in prison.

Why I'm gonna go

or need to be there,

wake up Monday morning. What I'll do is I'll just go and get one first and then I'll go call the important appointment. You couldn't be met. Explain shit like that to me.

So anyway,

I left that environment,

walked into a meeting on the South Coast,

homeless, jobless and penniless. Smashed through this book quick. I've never looked back since

What? Because the steps are designed to be worked fast and furious. Like for me, this was the last house on the block and I knew it. So I wound up in this meeting. Someone helped me

if you know it's called a sponsor. I don't really like the world. My sponsor. My sponsor is like the egor gets attached to it.

Someone helped me he was a nice man

embark orders at me. You know what I mean and give me command me to do whatever he give me the truth but he spoon fed me with love and that's what I needed 'cause you bark all is it me? I'm just going to attack you. I was a maniac. No, I'm not receptive to that. What I was receptive to was love and that's what you give me and it was a very simple thing. We opened up the book. He went this is the problem is that you. I said yes I could see I was going to do it again. Well, I wanted to do it again, or not.

Where you went, we've got. I didn't have an issue with that. I was born into an Irish Catholic family. I went back to that. That I always knew anyway.

Then we don't set specific prayer. Then he went right. Do a bit, Ryan. Everything you're angry at, what you're scared of and your conduct around women,

give that to him. Moved a bit up the street, He went right. Get off your ass. You're gonna have to go and make restitution with some people, probably as well some people you'd rather not see. But I went back to the community that I come from when God put me in in that position and paid the money back. And some of the people that I was going back to, they didn't want to give you. They didn't give a shit about non spiritual programme of action.

You know, I mean these are the kind of cats that just want their money. Like there's an old saying where I'll come from talks cheap money buys asses. You better come with something. Do you know what I mean? So that's what he was about. So now I can walk back into that community free

because I don't want to be in bondage. Everything in bondage, all my life.

So then we got to the end of the process. He went, right, see what we've done with you. I said yeah. He said. Now you need to turn around and go and do that as someone else.

Whoa,

because I've got mine. It says I'll come.

You see

I've got on mine that says I can't do that,

but my experience as I can. But I didn't have any, so I had to go and get some.

And that's why it again that you see, because the true thing in my mind, the truth is in our experience in all things. And so I had to go and get that in that area. And then that kid went and worked with someone else. And then that kid went and worked with someone else. And then that kid went to work with someone else and banged us. We grow

and they're all still clean inside. But I'm just kidding.

Fact is this, I don't know where Arthur Manor, but I'm still in.

I remember ringing up the guy who took me through. I said, you know what, I don't feel a very good sponsor. Maybe two years. Clearly at this point he said why is that? I said they're all using these fellas, I'm taking them,

he said. But he used to do it. I said yeah. He said well then goodbye.

The fact is this, look, it's my job

to carry this message at the book the best way I know how to do it and present that in a healthy way to them right now. If they catch the spark and move up the street with us and go and help someone else, lovely, let's go.

If they don't, they move up the street and go and sell drugs and sleep with every female that comes into their arena, then I'm not responsible for that. You know, if they go and travel the world and have sick babies and start three businesses, I'm not responsible for that either. I've got a mind like this. Look, Johnny over here is travelling the world. He's just coming back from Egypt. He's going to Thailand next month. I'll be like, see my job.

Johnny's doing good.

Then we got Billy over it. He's not doing good.

He's causing some problems. Yeah. You know I'm not sponsoring him no more, don't you?

No, I think it's about me. Take it to me. It's not about me.

You know what? As a result

of doing this work, my life's been resurrected, reassembled. And I mean that now. I want someone that came here and got their life back. I was someone who came here without one and got one. You know what I mean? Yeah. And I know where my bread's buttered. So I stay here with you. I don't feel the need to go anywhere else, you know? And I dig my ears in deep and do what needs to be done.

You know, that's what I do.

Because it would be very easy for me, wouldn't it, to just done this work, get all the fruits of sobriety. Bye, bye.

Where's Eagle?

Well, he doesn't do this anymore.

I know where my bread's bad. I do this regardless whether you're doing it or not.

My experience has been this as well.

I don't say this to scare anyone.

The further I've moved away from the alcohol and the drugs, the worst this disease has gone,

the worst this disease has got, and I need more. I need help. More so on that than I ever did when I got here.

No, I mean awake to them.

This is what as a tendency to happen. Like book says, when you wake up, ask God to direct you thinking,

get up, have a cup of tea, have a cup of tea, have a cup of tea.

Don't do that. Every cup of coffee. Every cup of coffee Ever

Have another cigarette? Have another cigarette. Have another cigarette,

3 cups of tea, 4 cigarettes.

I think I'll ring up work sick

150,000 excuses cycling around my mind, what I should say to work, why I can't come in.

They're a little bit of sanity comes. You better pray something because by the looks of things, you're freaking life depends on it.

So I'll bow down to this power and say please enter and take charge of my life because without you I'm nothing. I'm done

and it comes and I feel better. And I found that this through my own personal experience. If you pray long enough and hard enough and in your own way, you find the way to be still. Alongside that, it is possible to find out who you are. It is possible to feel the presence of the Almighty, the unknown, that power which is God. Oh, no, because it's a process of continually engaging.

And you know what? I've had fantastic experiences in recovery. I've had some experiences that are not fantastic.

There's been challenges along the way. There's been health problems, money issues, job losses, this that the other. But you know what? In the midst of it all, God's all powerful and never present.

The compulsion to use alcohol and drugs was removed from me immediately when I've done this work and it's never come back. So it's never about alcohol and drugs. It's just about with God's it when you're up getting past. But I may need to get past and that may benefit someone else a little bit up the street. You know, I've had fantastic experiences alongside it. We've had a daughter, my partner's down there. Stand up, Sarah, we stand up.

She's nearly 12 years old, but we've had a beautiful little daughter. Her name's Matilda. She's now three. She's already in prayer. Lovely, Healthy. Have you done your prayers, Matilda?

You know, fantastic. We went to India. I traveled around India. We're off to the West Indies later on this year. I've got an educated in recovery. God give me power, man. You know what I mean? Not just sitting in Unity servicing.

Goddamnit, power to go out into life and live it and have experiences. And that's what it's about for me.

That's what it's about.

God's been good.

And you know what? I don't know what's around the corner in my arrogant mindset. Sometimes I think I do. I know what it looks like. I got it all met and this is going to happen. I don't know,

I don't know. But you know what?

My life's healthy, my life's good.

Even when this mind says you're not doing too good, this is bad, it's still bad as everything. Still better than Zebra, you know? I know

I'm going to end it with a little reading in the book and I always end talks with this

and he's by he's by a guy called Doctor Bob. And I believe God used him and others as vehicles to start the AA thing. And without that, none of us would be in.

And this is what he says. If you think you're an atheist, an agnostic, is skeptic, or have any other form of intellectual pride which keeps you from accepting what's in the book, I feel sorry for you. If you still think you are strong enough to beat the game alone, that is your affair. But if you really and truly want to quit drinking and using for one and all, and sincerely feel you must have some help, we know that we have an answer for you. And it never fails if you go about 1/2 the zeal you was in the habit of showing

when you get another drink or drunk, your Heavenly Father will never let you down. And there is but one Heavenly Father alike who presides over us all. That one is God. May you find him that. Thanks a lot.