The Central District 3rd annual Convention in Hertfordshire, England

Drinking water. It just don't seem to be quenching me. First,

I think I need something a bit stronger.

We call, my name is Darren. I'm an elect,

right? Before we move any further, I want to say that I'm not an expert on recovery. I'm not speaking on behalf of Cocaine Anonymous, and I'm certainly not a fountain of knowledge or wisdom or anything like it.

I, I think one of the most, if not the most valuable piece of information I could ever give anybody who's new in this fellowship is this, the granddaddy of all recovery programs is in the book. I never know that and I think that's very important information.

That is a piece in the book. I do believe it's in Wee Agnostics and it says if,

when, if. Hold on, I'm going to have to read it.

Why? It says in the preceding chapters you've learned something of alcoholism. We hope we've made clear the distinction between the alcoholic and the non alcoholic. And then it says if when you honestly want to, you find you cannot quit entirely, or if when drinking and using you have little control over the amount you take, you're probably an alcoholic. And then it says if that be the case, you may be suffering from an illness which only is spiritual experience will conquer.

Right now are drunk and used for 20 plus years

and tried a couple of different interventions along the way and none of them worked, right for me. The intervention had to be divine. Yeah. And that divine reality happened to be God, right? And I'll give thanks to that power from my sobriety because to me, sobriety equals life, right? Without everything else is lost. Without it, everything ceases to matter one more time, because that's always been my experience,

right? And the hand of Almighty God expelled the life of my mind at this time is going to be different.

I was exposed to the truth on my arrival here. And the truth is what sets us free, is it not? And I love Cole can anonymous to me it is the way the truth and the life.

Now there's a piece in the book. It's in the doctor's opinion, right? And it says there are types normal in every respect is set to the effect the alcohol and the drugs as upon them. They are often able, intelligent, friendly people, right? Well, I'm not one of them. No, I don't know too much. But what I do know is this,

right? I was emotionally retarded before I ever put a substance into my body. And I'll explain what I mean by that. I grew up in a home environment that wasn't very nice, and that's why I used,

or so I was led to believe for many years.

But it was kind of like this. I'm naturally restless, irritable and discontent. Naturally not. I think I might be. I am that

as far back as I can remember, I was very, very like overwhelmed,

real uncomfortable feeling of self consciousness from day dog. And my perception of my mind was twisted.

My dad who's now dead, he was a drug addict and alcoholic. He ruled the roost, right? And what he said went and you never ever questioned that when he clicked his fingers and said jump, you didn't hang around and ask how high you just started jumping and you did not dare stop until he said so, right? And that's the way it was

alongside that, I just didn't, I just couldn't hear properly. Like you could say something to me very simple, like

they're a nice pair of trainers you got on Sunday. No,

but my mind said that you meant the last ones was hanging off your feet. You needed a no pair. That's not what you said

I so as a result of what was going on indoors, I just felt destroyed with just devastated with like a soul sickening fear that I just couldn't seem to shake on my own resources. And I carry that with me wherever I went.

And I never kind of walked out into the flat and thought you riddled with self consciousness. You're naturally

restless, irritable and discontent. You're afflicted with more than one form of fear. You better gain yours. I was never awake to any of that. This is just looking back in hindsight. So as you can imagine being in that state, when alcohol and drugs went into my body, I felt better. The alcohol and drugs give me power, right? And allowed me to feel comfortable being me. And as a result of that, I felt all right round you

and I and I drunk and used for 22 years, just storming through life, just doing what I wanted to do

when I wanted to do it. Never ever stop in despair of thought for you. Only ever stop in despair of thought for you. If there was something in it for me. It's called selfishness. Book says that's the root of the trouble. And you might hear me say books says and quote stuff out of book. And I'm certainly not going to apologize for that because the program of action is in the book.

Um, so the first substances I ever used was was glue and lighter fuel and stuff like that. And even with that, I'm one of these. It's like, let's break down the craving and find out what you, I just need anything you give me glue. I need more light if you want need more alcohol, heroin, cocaine, prescription drugs, anything I need more. The only thing I don't need more of is amphetamine. I absolutely hate it,

right? And it's the only, it's the only drug that I ever sold and earned money out of because it's the only thing I absolutely hated.

But

so from a young kid, I used light fuel and it ended up for the last 10 stroke 12 years, a heavy hitting narcotics mixed together, used intravenously cracking heroin like the other lady touched on that was a speedball junkie. And and I'll just do anything I can to get another one

and do anything I've got to do to make that possible. And in the middle of that for about 10 years it was OK. It was nice. And sometimes it looked like in fantastic and I've done the cocaine thing and stuff like that.

And it was a little bit like this. Like, you know, looking back on it,

I kind of would walk up to the Abbey Tavern or the Nag Z or something like that, like on a Friday night with

a nice, you know, nice clothes on me back, nice trainers on me feet, plenty of cocaine in my pocket, a big wad of money. None of it was mine

and I'll kind of walk into the pub like acting like something I'm not because as well as this disease I suffer a thing called IGS and that stands for imaginary gangster syndrome. I think I'm something I'm not, mate.

Right. So I'll be at the bar going. Yeah. Alright, darling. Yeah. Get her a gin and Sonic, will you? Yeah. What's happening, son? Get him a vodka. Yeah. And all that. Like we've mundied. It weren't mine

get with cocaine, like giving lines of it out to females and then wake up in the morning and think Oh no,

oh y'all wear about £500 now I'm not going to pay you back you know what I mean? I was one of them.

And even when he Cole Cane thing, it was kind of like

I'd sniff it absolutely savagely, right?

And I didn't even like it.

I didn't even like it. I only came to like cocaine later on when I found out you could mix it with heroin and use it intravenously. I'm lucky and loved it then,

but I kind of be in the pub just trying to hold me jaw together so it ain't swinging like a camel in front of you. Because I just don't want to look like a mug

because I just suffer with a devastating levels of pride.

So I'll just sniff cocaine savagely, just get absolutely drunk as a Lord

right, then go to up meds on the corner to get icky bad and probably get beat up,

then wake up in Arms Rd. police station and say why am I here? You know? And that's when it was good,

yeah. And then it weren't so good. And then it was fucking pitiful,

you know, and would he use a drug thing and all that? I can kind of survive in that world and I can do what I need to do to get what I need to get.

But what I can't do is sobriety. If you take the take the alcohol and the drugs off of me, right, you might as well strip me bare, right? And I'll get a real uncomfortable feeling. It's called fear that you can see that right? And I'll do absolutely anything I can to cover that up. And

so this is what used to happen. My life would be falling apart externally.

Stuff like I might have a warrant out for my arrest or I'm a little bit in debt or her indoors has got the hump and said don't come back, you know what I mean? And stuff like that. And it'd be getting a bit messy. And I'm one of these as well. Like I kind of just as messy as it gets. I just do not stop. You've got to stop me. I need to be separated from the substance in order for me to stop,

so this is what used to happen. Or sometimes once or twice I got arrested.

It's not a requirement, by the way, you know,

but I'll get arrested and and then I'll tell you help me, please help me. And they'd help and I'd end up in

a

nut. Houses for vulnerable adults with drug and alcohol problems. They call them treatments in it. So this is what happens to me. I'll go in there. I sit in a group therapy environment and I'm just really, really uncomfortable.

So, and it's stuff like we're gonna do a feelings check this morning.

Now, where I lived, you never discussed how you felt, yet you just got on with life, done what you was doing. If you fell over, you got up, dusted yourself down and then just moved up the street. And that's the way it was. And then I go into these environments and they want me to discuss how I think I feel. And I just do not know,

like, and the only introduction I ever had to recovery was to talk about how you think you feel. And I thought that's how you recovered, right. And I thought, right, this is what you do. You you shovel it all out. Yeah, all this stuff inside, right? You put it all on the table. They pick through it all, pick out an issue and go. That's it. That's why you've done it. And then you don't do it no more. And it was a kin liar,

right? So

it'd go round. It'd go round the creep. Randy Groom, how do you feel? How'd you feel? How'd you feel? How'd you feel? I I don't know. He's coming round. He's getting to near me. I just feel anxious. I feel a little more intense here. I'm destroyed with fear because I know he's coming.

This is a simple question. How do you feel

like I'm Peggy World ended, so

I'm not in touch with how I feel. So I'll say something like I'm optimistic and grateful.

It was a lie. I didn't know if I was gas or electric. That's the truth.

So

if I went back in there now

I'd say listen, how do I feel

or struggle when every personal relationship I'm in are suffer with deep seated feelings of uselessness?

I'm afflicted with basement level self esteem,

I'm destroyed with alcoholic fear, sober and I don't know why. Can you help me please?

They probably, they probably look at me and go get the fucking psychiatrist for this one. Please.

I don't know. If they know I don't know. It's another story. So

I'll give him this.

They're good places to get physically separated from the narcotics and the alcohol. You get a good detox under your belt. You start eating well, start sleeping well and they say go to meetings.

So I go to meetings

and I went to a lot of meetings

on more than one occasion, and I never ever managed to stay here

because this is what used to happen to me.

I walk into the meeting. I've never heard of Cocaine Anonymous. I'm going back some time.

It was like Cockney anonymous. All right? Yeah. In Camden Town. All right, so

I walk in there, been on a sunbed.

They they jail with me. Yeah,

no clobber on

sitting in the meeting

really worried about how I look.

I know it'd kind of be like be

a little bit unhealthy. They say that and it was kind of like this. Someone would talk A

and it would be very much based around what substances they used, the limps they went to to get it, how they now thought they felt,

you know, the issues they used on do you know what I mean? And stuff like that.

And I'll be just looking at them and my mind's screaming with alcoholic madness

and I just lost and I just think, what the fuck is going on here? I don't feel too good because this is what happens to me. At first I'm kind of happy to be clean.

I'll get some relief,

but what I've since come to find that since doing what some of us do here, it isn't about relief, it's about release. I never knew that. It's about being set free. So I'll be in there clean, but just cocooned and incarcerated in the bondage of myself.

And with each passing day, the depression gets thicker. Yeah,

the resentment is absolutely tearing me up from the inside out. I can't shake it on my own resources. I feel really, really hard done by it. I think the world I was me if I can live in, right? And it's your fault how I feel

like. Or I'll go to the other extreme, if you had stuff going on, I'd think it was my fault how you felt.

Absolutely nuts.

A lot of the girls in there are just crying,

right? Everyone's neck deep in issues including myself, but I'll just never tell you that

and I would be doing my 1990.

And I'll just get worse and worse and worse with each passing day. And the voices in my mind, you know, the voices, we've all got them in. We get louder and louder and louder, and I just can't shut them off. So I need heroin and alcohol and cocaine yet and Valium to do that.

So my mind says to me,

Golden Camdenton, see if bigger G is outside this station.

Get yourself she's a little bit of crank and a couple of bags of gear by the way. Pop in and get yourself a cup of soup that's going on the way just to get in the mood.

So

so I walked down to Camden Town. Now you see, get in touch with this, right?

The last time I'd done it, I was 11 months dry. I was going to say sober dry.

So I didn't actually have a drug problem, did I? I wasn't addicted to drugs. I ain't at a drug or a drink for 11 months.

So on the way down there I've got about

20 plus years experience,

right to tell me actually Sunday's ain't a good idea, right? And the likelihood is this is going to happen.

You can spend every penny you've accumulated in these eleven months,

then you're going to sell everything materially you've accumulated in these eleven months, Then

you're going to borrow what you can off whoever's mad enough to give you it, because I never give it back. All right,

then you're going to go out thieving, and there's a very good chance that you might get arrested and put in Pentonville prison. But I just do it anyway because the needed power for me did not do that. Just ain't there.

So I go to Biggie GI, get what I get. I've got it in my hand. All of a sudden I feel better. I ain't even took it yet.

So I've got it.

I'll get on the bus because I've never had a driving licence. So I'm on the, I'm on the bus and the voices in the mind, Yeah, there's a little bit of sanity saying to me, you could throw it out of the window, you ain't took it yet.

Yeah. And then the other ones are saying just go and have it. It's going to make you feel better, right. So I decided I'll go and have it. Now The thing is, I weren't involved in that decision. I just thought I was

right because I've been taught

that the real drug addicts and the real Alcoholics have no choice. I just do it anyway

when I'm using. I'm just powerless. We know that, don't we? I'm talking about Stone Cold

soba, well dry 11 months away from a drink or a drunk knowing.

The likelihood is this is going to get messy and you're going to be behind bars.

Powerlessness in action.

So I'll put it in me

and it done this.

The book calls it ease and comfort.

That's what the book calls it right now. You see, I love, I absolutely love the effect produced by alcohol and drugs. That's why I use them. I was just led to believe it was where I came from and it was my dad's fault. It was all a liar.

So the book calls it ease and comfort. Yeah. It shuts down the voices in my mind.

Yeah. And allows me to be comfortable being me.

And if I'm comfortable with me, you're OK.

If I ain't comfortable with me, you're in trouble. You're getting it.

So I'll do that.

And then I can't stop because when I put one in me, I break out in a craving beyond my mind's control,

and I can't make up my mind to just not have another one.

You know I ain't one of the ones. That

book talks about giving us efficient reason some of us can stop.

Yeah, like, I'll Mex out my credit card. My wife threatens to leave. I'll come here and I'll stay.

Look, no one in their right mind would have married me, right? And the nearest that I ever had to have an credit card was yours.

That's the truth for me.

So I only use and then that's it is game over, right? And I run around the streets for about another three years.

They were in absolutely anything I had to do to get out among that every single day until I came here, Right. There was nothing of any substance in my life yet. There was nothing that was healthy. Everything was insane and toxic. Yeah. My whole life was just poisonous. Yeah. From the inside. That

and I was absolutely lost, right? And it was absolutely soul destroying. I ain't even going to go into the details.

And in the end, for me, right, it was pitiful. Yeah. The days of Gucci loafers and locked knives in my pocket and bags of cocaine, Yeah. And money and all that was long gone. Yeah. And I mean that it was running about right, doing anything I had to do to go and get 30 or 40 LB right, to just get some Kansas super skull, a few bags of heroin and a couple of rocks if I was lucky. Why did you get through the day

right? And, and my life just consisted of that. There was nothing else in it, right? My family have always been there, but there is nothing they could do because no human power can relieve us of the addiction.

So in the end I kind of I was didn't even have anywhere to live right. I was staying at staying at geezers ass. I used to knock it he's gaffe at night. He was called 20P Joe. He was like a professional beggar, this geezer, all right. And,

you know, saying his name. I just thought of it like we, we we was outside an event recently in Camden. Myself. Jimmy was there, my brother Glenn, And and he come walking past this kid, he's still at it. And I mean, his legs, right, was double the size of what they're meant to be. Yeah. He had a a hole. Yeah, bigger than my eye in his leg with all poison coming out of it. Right. He looked like he hadn't eaten

for a long time and he just looked like a dead man walking.

And he asked us for a bit of change.

I'll give him it said I'll go and get yourself a bigger gear. And but it's a knockety gaffe at night, John, because I just didn't have anywhere to live myself. But I just never let anyone know that because of my pride.

And I'd knock and I'd have a couple of rocks in my hand and a cut of a muggy little like 10 LB bags of gear if that. And so I'd knock and he'd let me in, right?

Even if he yet he's on, he'd let me in anyway because I had what he what he wanted and he selfish the same as me.

So we go in there, talk absolute rubbish to each other all night. Yeah, just light to each other,

right? Yeah, I'm a petty shoplifter and I'll be sitting there talking about, you know, burglaries I've done years ago. Do you remember that? Yeah. That kind of talk. Yeah. It was just an illusion in my mind. I was just lost. And so we have a bit of gear and everybody cracking, have a couple of cans of soup attendants and our Ponce, a couple of Zoppy clowns,

nickel sleeping tablets.

And then if I slept, I'd just wake up in the morning. This is the truth absolutely destroyed with your capital D, with anxiety, depression and fear. Like my mind and my body aching, screaming from the pain of my own reality. And I just need a bit of gear and I need something to drink and I need it now. Right now. I thought I was using to escape my reality, but I wasn't

right because I've since found that I was using to try and overcome a craving that was beyond my mind's control and I never was awake to that fact.

So I left his ass one morning and

went up the Hempstead, Hampstead Ontario St. It's like a posh part of North London

running a Gap and she's done a kamikaze

quick. Did you get free shirts? And you just look at me like I can't just let him go,

all right? Like, I've just done an armed robbery and.

And what had happened was before I went to Gap, I went into a bookshop, right, and stole a couple of Guineas. Book of Records. Yeah, Trisha in the pub will have that. Two and one, two and one, two and one. Everything was just drug tokens. It weren't even money. All right, 21213 cans of super school. That's it. There's nothing else in the game. So. So. And what had happened was the woman had seen me take them in the first shop and

I don't know. I mean, I would, I would imagine like I didn't look too healthy,

a little bit frightening. So she just didn't approach me. But what she did do was call the police. Fucking bitch.

So she called the place and then by the time I done a kamikaze in Gap and come back down, David's coming out of the shop. They went come here, you nicked.

Oh, no.

And then I'll spend all day in the police station with my mind saying to me, if you just Kim would have went across Hampstead Leaf, you would have been sweetener 'cause I normally are just scurry across the park like a little rat. Like, yeah, did you get off the street? I know, but I didn't because I was just cocooned in like 2 and one. Yeah. And I got that and did it and then I just got grabbed,

that's how. And then I end up in the police station. And

again,

this is what happened.

If you put me in the police station,

get me the doctor. Now there's nothing else in the game. Just get the doctor here quickly because I just need some DFS and as many Valium as I can get. Thank you very much.

My whole life just consists of getting the doctor out.

I know. So the doctor would come.

An Irish doctor in Kentish Town police station.

Hello, Mr. Hilliard. Is it you again?

Give me the fucking tablets. You know what? Me and all that. And

the policeman looked through the Hatch. Don't know if any of you ever been in his seal, but it's a little fit. And they all went up and looking and they used to say things like, all right, son.

Want help Now? My response would normally be back off,

close the door, shut the flat. You know what, man, hold on.

But this time my mouth opened up and I went, yes, I want help. And that weren't my doing because I just do not ask for help because I think I'm the man of the blueprint and the fucking master plan. Yeah, I've got the key to this thing. I'll crack it. I'll know what I'm doing. Why didn't it nearly killed me? Because it was a lie.

So I went from there

and got put in prison

and this is what happened.

I walked into that prison saying, well, I've been in a couple before. Kindly relevant to her many

and I was 32 years old at the time

and this is what happened. I kind of could see clearly my life for what it had become. All right now this illness book calls it an illness on page 18.

Bit of knowledge for you. Order

hadn't stripped me of asses, money, cars, businesses or anything like that because it had never allowed me personally to gain that right. But it robbed me of all that was good in my life. Yeah. Of all that could have been good. It was gone. Yeah, and I knew it.

And that's when my hands was up in the air. Yeah, it's called surrender.

Nah, I'm not a man, as you've probably already heard. The ones that have got the power to listen,

that surrenders easily.

I had to be beaten into a state of reasonableness, beaten into a state of surrender

before I was receptive to listening to any of you.

So I went from that prison Zill.

To another nut out for vulnerable adults,

knowing that I needed a prescription for a miracle. And I found that in the form of Cocaine Anonymous,

right? And thank God for the foot soldiers and the gunslingers in here, the ones with the books doing the work, because where would I be had it not been for them?

So I went to these nutters.

Now you've just heard what I said, but I'm in there with a mindless now saying actually, you're right.

With no pair of Reebok classic on bit like these ones, not that much has changed, right? The mind is saying actually, you're sweet. It wasn't that bad actually, son, right? Sitting in a group therapy environment next to this woman who I thought I loved

and

OK now,

oh God Blimey.

Anyway, I'm sitting next to her

thinking about our plans for the future

and Cocaine Anonymous come in. I think it was every sick and two Thursdays a month. And

so he used to come in the H and I man, he'd have a bag with with books in it. So she's got some,

she got a drink. Problem with this female?

So he said, my love, do you want a book? She already had the book, but even though she had one, she took it anyway because she's like us and one's never enough. So now she's got two books.

So she looked at me and said, do you want men in my books?

I looked at her with real love in me eyes. Probably scared her looking back on it like I said, yeah. So anyway, now I've got the book so. And I read the doctor's opinion in this book, right? And it explains some stuff to me that could never otherwise be accounted for. It explained to me stuff like, right,

you've got to go to Highbury, magistrates call this morning, if you don't go, there's going to be a warrant out for your arrest and you're going to get put in prison.

So I know that, don't I?

But my mind says well, just go and score 1st and then go thereafter and then I don't get there. The important appointment just couldn't be met

because when I put one in me, that's it, all bets are off.

So I've got one one man here,

a lunatic.

It's called a sponsor.

Because if you know, they're mad as well.

Anyway,

we've done the work at the book and we've done it quick, right? Because the steps, if only you've got a book and you look at it, are designed to be worked fast and furiously. This is not a thinking process. It was never about right, son, go away. Analyze that, break that piece of work down. Come back to me and I'll tell you what that means.

Sorry,

it was never about the knowledge. I took the action. I had the experience with the power and then I went and worked with someone else.

And you don't have to be years clean either to work with someone else.

It's a lie. I was five months clean. As mad as a mad March here running about with smoke coming out of my arse and a big book.

Yeah, we got a prescription for the way out, mate. Do you want a bit of this? Yeah. With some conviction and some passion and some fucking energy, yeah. For that, yeah. We got the keys to the Kingdom, mate. Yeah, we got the way out. Which we can absolutely agree on,

have we not?

Yeah. And a big part of my spare time is spent doing that because me personally, I can't speak for any of you. I am engaged on a life or death errand. Me. Yeah. I ain't one of the little. I didn't just go on too many, like benders and end up here because her indoors had the jump. Yeah. I'm one of the ones whose life depends upon God.

Yeah, that's the truth mate.

And my experience is this.

The the further I'll move away from this substance, the worse I feel. That's what you gotta look forward to. If you know,

I'll explain what I mean by that. I don't want to frighten you. Look, they're all leaving the room.

I'll give you an example of my mind that nearly five years claim.

I wake up in the morning,

the alarm's going off. Put it on snooze. Put it on snows. Put it on snows.

Get up. Get up, get up. Don't put it on snows. Don't put it on snow. Get up.

So I'll get up,

walk around the flat,

Shall I have a cup of tea? She'll have a cup of tea. She'll have a cup of tea.

Have another cigarette. Have another cigarette, Have another cigarette. Don't do that. Have a cup of tea.

So I have a cup of tea. Have another cigarette.

Then I start thinking about

my partner.

What does she mean by that?

Did she even keep me laughing? She meant

it was nothing. It was a flippantly comment you made over a week ago. It's called resentment. Yeah, I thought God removed that. Did he fuck

ring up, work sick? Ring up work seek, ring up work sick

and then a little bit of sanity comes after. Three cups of tea and four roll UPS.

You'd better price Hun,

because your life depends on it by the looks of things.

So then I'll bow down to this power and I'll say please come into my life and help me because without you I'm nothing. I'm lost

and he comes and then I'll feel better and then I'll stand up and say thank you, God Almighty, for my life and walk out my door with the energy and power here to get done what I need to get done. Because as a result of doing what we do here, I've now got a life worth turning up for.

I work in the drug and alcohol game. Nothing to do with what we do here. It's just a job, right? And I'm not one of the ones that, well, you know, I'm a counsellor now. I help a lot of others in work.

Excuse me?

You get 400 lbs a week for that.

I'll never get it mixed up with what we do here. It's just a job. It pays my bills and it's something I'm passionate about and something I'm good at.

And I'll give you the reason why I say that. Is this. A good friend of mine recently got put in a wooden box. He's now dead, right? Because he made that mistake,

Yeah. And he'd done some work here with us, Yeah. And God's good. And God give him a life. And he forgot how and where he got there.

And he was helping others in work.

It can't treat alcoholism or drug addiction. It's just a job. Same as a bricklayer. Yeah. Same as a man who throws rubbish bags in the back of the truck. Same as the architect, you know, whatever you may be.

And he's now dead as a result of them. So I'll never get that twisted with what we do here. Never

right, because it's the selfishness, yet it kills us.

Is this selfishness just the root of the trouble? Book's quite clear, so I'll get a few years clean.

Here's the selfishness in action.

My mind says

don't go to the meeting. Actually, yeah, you went at one last week. Just get a pizza, go home and watch EastEnders.

My phone rings, is someone new?

Look at it.

Definitely not taking that call back in. Yeah, I'll switch it on silent.

Comes to about 11:00 at night. Should do a little bit of prayer. You're all right. You clean. Just jump with your Uncle Ned. Sweet. Have a good kit. Do it in the morning,

get out in the morning.

Actually, you're a little bit late for work. Do it on the bus,

a couple little half hours in me, head on the bus,

get into work, help others in work all day, then go home and do the same thing.

And before I know it

I'm so suffering I just can't claw my way back on my own power.

And then I use

because this disease for me gets worse, as I've already described.

Yeah, and meetings can't fix it. Working in needle exchange can't fix it yet. None of that. I'll need these steps and God can for me

and as a result

of living this way, your life, my whole life just gone bang and opened up like a flower. That's the truth

and as well as having fun in recovery. I'll take this thing seriously mate, because it kills men and women week in week out, week in week out

and I don't want to be one of the ones just passing through.

For a drug addict like me, there's nowhere else left to go.

This was the last house on the block

and there's been times, and this is the truth, when I've had to fucking dig my ears in deep yet to stay here,

right? And if that happens again, then so be it. I'll do it again.

I've had problems in recovery. I've had health problems.

I've lost jobs,

all that stuff. I was riddled with appetite as when I got here

it affected me. It was attacking my liver. I was talking to Dave from Brighton about it earlier. I was having to go home and sleep two or three times a day. I was destroyed of it.

I like to go on a load of medication for that.

Not mind altering, but he might as well have been. I was crying at watching Coronation Street. Yeah,

my emotional nature is already twisted.

Yeah, it weren't nice.

Yeah, I've got a new. I've got a daughter, a little daughter. She's my partner's about nine months pregnant. Bang, I lose my job,

I'll go into extreme fear. Oh no. What you're gonna do,

Well, I'll do what you lot have taught me to done. I take action to get another one. Yeah, and that's what I'll do here. I take action yet And God takes care of the results.

I've been through all that and got through it because in the midst of it all, God's all powerful and ever present. Yet even when I'm not in touch with that fact because I know that then I intellectually in my mind. I mean, when I don't feel that he just is.

He just is.

Lovely piece. In the book it says either God is everything or God's nothing. If it is or he isn't,

yeah. What was my choice to be?

Well, he better be Elsommat yet. So experience tells me he is. Because I'm still here, right? And I've seen legions yet of men and women come in the short space of time that I've been here. Where are they now?

Where? I know, He said. We see the same old faces at the event

where they know

many, many, many men and women come. But in my experience, as far as I can see, only the minority stay. So this is never about keep coming back. You're here now, how are you going to stay?

Yet the arrogance of people to think, Oh, well, I'll just go back to the meetings.

Yeah, well, I'll just go back and take the steps. We'll add, you know, you're going to get back.

Yeah. And he's delighted. It kills men and women.

Yet because this is what happens. Look, man comes in,

I'm in a mess. We Yelp him. Come here, son. Let's go. We got the way out. You want that? Yeah, I want it. Can you conform to this? Yeah. Look, You think you can do that? Yeah. You think that's a tall order? Yeah. Bye. Bye,

Ryan. So he says, yeah, I can conform to that. Lovely. I'll do that. We get him,

we do some work with him. Yeah, God's good God turns up, he gets his job, a car, and no misses.

Six months later, he's not here.

Why am New England

selfishness? That's what happened to him,