'Tinnies, Tabs & Boys' - Charlotte's Story Part Two

This is the second instalment from our very first guest, Charlotte. 

Charlotte discussed her life, her journey and how she found recovery. We touch on boarding school, addiction, neurodivergence and mental health issues. A powerful and inspiring listen.

Show notes;
- Gabor Mate talks
- Life and Crime 1984-2020 (HBO Documentary)
- Recovery Capital

As always we would love to here from you - Hello@tobyandrudy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:10

We live in a world that never stops offering more. More to buy, more to scroll, more to numb, and more to escape. Until the wanting becomes normal and stopping feels impossible.

SPEAKER_00 0:20

And somehow, the harder we chase it, the more burnt out, anxious, addicted, and disconnected we become.

SPEAKER_03 0:28

This is More, a podcast hosted by people with lived experience of addiction, mental health issues, trauma, and neurodiversity. Where the pursuit of more led us to rock bottom and has since led us to finding alternative ways to live.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Each week we have raw, honest conversations with each other and our guests, grounded in lived experience, about what the chase takes from us and what's possible when you stop running.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Through these conversations we hear a diverse collection of stories and experiences from those who have found an alternative way to exist in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

These conversations are recorded in a single take with no editing. So what you hear is real and unfiltered. Some names and places may be changed in order to protect those sharing their stories.

SPEAKER_03 1:16

Welcome to more. It was. Yeah, straights and marble reds.

SPEAKER_06 2:04

Cowboys thinks. Oh my god, I smoke two packets a night.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:10

So yeah, these got fibre glass in them, don't you know? Uh yeah, cuts your throat. Hard core. And then you eat the fag butt because you're so cool.

SPEAKER_06 2:19

I didn't do that. That's just stupid.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

That's Rudy's trick. Yeah. Good to ask for. Necking paints and ash trousers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

The glory days. Yeah. Talking of which do you want to use boys? Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 2:37

I think I spent up to uni. Carried on for so much longer. I think I got to an age where I realised that like boys existed and that I could try and find my I think what it comes down to is my need to feel like seen and loved. Which is a terrible thing. It's 16-year-old boys. It just doesn't happen. Just doesn't happen. At all. So that was fun. But I think it was still distraction from everything. So it was drinking and like going to parties, meeting boys, being like, Oh, do you love me? They'd be like, No. I wrote a boy a letter once, a love letter. Can't say his name.

SPEAKER_03 3:32

But yeah. Do you have it with you?

SPEAKER_06 3:34

No, no, he still has it.

SPEAKER_03 3:36

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_06 3:37

Yeah, I sent it to him at school.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Oh, that's sweet.

SPEAKER_06 3:40

But it was like this, because I read so much, it was like I lived in this like romantic novel side of life. And I was just like I paid someone two pounds so I could talk to him, just ask him for a light for a ciggy. I was like, hey, smoking now. And that's how we we fell in love with each other. So that's the where I was.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Nice.

SPEAKER_06 4:12

Yeah, at 17, 18.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

So still still having attachment issues?

SPEAKER_06 4:18

Oh yeah. But I didn't, I just am I alone.

SPEAKER_03 4:22

Not needing people, but needing people.

SPEAKER_06 4:24

But like desperately needing people.

SPEAKER_03 4:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:27

Well needing somebody.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

To want wanting to be seen.

SPEAKER_06 4:30

Yeah. Someone to constantly be able to talk to. So I didn't want to be alone. I didn't want to be alone, like in how I felt, which was I didn't know how I felt. Basically distracting myself, I think.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Yeah. Be not being with self would be sort of call now, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 4:46

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Yeah. Like codeband.

SPEAKER_06 4:49

I'd think so. Yeah. But also having no idea who I was.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 4:54

So whoever I was with, I'd be like, Yeah, no, that's what I I yeah, I love like screaming o music too, man. Cool.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 5:04

And then the next was so confusing. And there were so many different like things that I like if you looked at my YouTube's music history at the time, that's how I defined of like my my taste in music would change depending on who I was with. Yeah. I mean I liked it.

SPEAKER_03 5:23

So that's kind of like chameleon traits.

SPEAKER_06 5:29

Yeah. And literally. Codependency traits. Yeah, massively. I just didn't know who I was.

SPEAKER_03 5:39

Like brain brain brainwashed?

SPEAKER_06 5:42

Are you okay?

SPEAKER_03 5:46

Should have should have done putting disclaimer in beforehand, sorry.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

We're just gonna switch to video and do a live surgery.

SPEAKER_06 5:56

Tell me how you feel. No, just uh yeah, so I've got AD I've diagnosed ADHD.

SPEAKER_03 6:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 6:01

He actually said severe when I was diagnosed, which was nice of him. Yeah. OCD, anxiety and depression. Yeah. And that's it. They think well before what I saw a psychiatrist just as I came into recovery and he diagnosed me with borderline personality disorder.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 6:22

I don't think I have borderline personality disorder.

SPEAKER_03 6:25

Very trendy for that at the moment.

SPEAKER_06 6:27

I think I just and he was it was all about feelings and I was like, but he said, it's your trauma that you went through as a child, it's using at a really young age, so you stop your receptors and all that kind of stuff. But I just don't and then and then not feeling emotions and being like emotionally stunted. I think I'm emotionally stunted because I used and I chose not to feel feelings and emotions, and I didn't know them anyway. So I don't I don't think that makes we have borderline personality disorder.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

It doesn't sound like you had much of a sort of introduction or role model to to look to for emotions and that anyway. But what you've said.

SPEAKER_06 7:07

No, and I think that's an easy way of just saying, Well, you can go and he he said, Do you want therapy? and and I you know, I walk I walked into a 12-step programme and I said, No, I'm gonna stick with this for the moment. Yeah. Because this is making me feel safe, and I can feel like I can talk about feelings and I'm learning them. And that and the last time I spoke to him, I just said, I don't think I've got it. And he was like, Okay. So it's just is it like that?

SPEAKER_03 7:32

Trying to get mine struck off.

SPEAKER_06 7:34

No one's written it down anywhere. Actually, no, it might be on my medical records, which annoys me. Yeah. I don't think it is. I think I think there's other things I would like to explore autism. I think there's there's quite a lot of traits that I have. I've worked with I've worked with them with children for a long time with autism, and I think the research that I do into it now. But the thing is, for me, it would have been more it would have been helpful to have a label. So I got diagnosed at ADHD a year and a half ago.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:08

That would have been helpful when I was 10 years old.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

That was gonna be my next question. Not now. Did you hear our last episode?

SPEAKER_06 8:14

Yes. Yeah, I think I sent you a message, didn't I? I was like, it definitely would have made a difference to me.

SPEAKER_03 8:19

So your team liberated?

SPEAKER_06 8:21

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:22

I think do you know what? I think when I got that diagnosis, it also helped me.

SPEAKER_02 8:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:27

Massively.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:30

But there's a there's a part of me that now recognises that it helped me because my parents saw it as the it was it's not I'm just too much. It was this is a label that you now have. Yeah. And now we can look at it and understand it.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

It can help a lot of people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:48

In a lot of ways. So take us through the the the what we call the madness then.

SPEAKER_06 8:54

I think it I think it really kicked off when I left school. I went and worked in the mountains. I left school and went and worked in the mountains and then went to uni. And I the world became what the world actually is when I went to uni. You know, going to going to boarding school, having this kind of very sheltered life and feeling like I'd never fit into anything. I walked into university and went, oh my fucking god, this is awesome. Because I met actual real people and some of them were mad, but I kind of liked that. I liked the fact that people were able to be individual and themselves. I kind of felt I felt a little bit more like I fitted in because people weren't. I've got to try and not kind of insult where I've come from because I don't want to, because it's not I'm not anti it, but everyone, everyone's quite similar. Growing up, everyone was quite similar. Everyone looked quite similar, everyone dressed quite similar, everyone talked about the same things, you know. Whereas this was like the most eclectic group of people I'd ever met, and it was awesome. And I really liked that. I thought that was really cool. But with that came, and I was even freer because I could drink the whole time, and like that was an acceptable thing to do. My parents would send me some money on a Monday, it would be gone by Monday evening because I was like, Right, let's go to the pub. And then I kind of live off three pound bottles of wine for the rest of the week. But it it opened up a lot of different like there was a lot of different drugs that were introduced to me as well. I've been quite anti some of them, kind of hanging out with those people that were given the two grand by their parents on the weekend, but you know, MCAT was a huge thing. And I remember rolling notes for friends and being like and with them literally sitting in bathtubs but crying because their parents didn't love them at 17. And I was like, oh, don't really know if I want to do that. While being like absolutely off my head, boozing and on codeine and smoking weed, but I was like, oh, that's a you know, when you're like, oh that's a bit too far, I won't be doing that. And then I got to uni, and then I am sitting in a fucking bathtub snorting MCAT. MCAT was huge. Yeah, I remember that. Oh god, horrendous.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Used to just stink of it for dirt. Yeah, it used to just come out.

SPEAKER_06 11:21

Oh, your nostrils are going like that. It's not a nice, yeah. But it but and it was MCAT, it was MDMA, which I fucking loved. Pills. I don't think Ketaman was really around. No, Ketman wasn't around then. But I was, but it was like and coke, and it was all just really, really exciting. And I had some really awful trips on pills, but I didn't really care because then someone would give me something else that would make me feel better again. It was basically just a massive party. I didn't go to a great it it wasn't a great place where I went. I didn't want to go, but I was offered three T's to go there. So and it was freedom from my parents, so yeah. But it got pretty, it got quite bad. And then there was like a there was a boy, obviously, which was an incredibly unhealthy and toxic relationship. It kind of went round and round and round. I think that's kind of when everything started doing that like cycle thing where you feel like you're spinning and you can't stop and you can't see a way out of it, so you just carry on, but there's no way out. So then I thought, oh well, it must be because I'm here, so I dropped out of uni and moved home. So that was the first time I'd been home for a long time and got work in pubs, and that was a nightmare for my parents. I feel so sorry for like for my parents now, really, because I was just so unwell, and all I wanted to do was get fucked. Like I'd walk in, I'd do breakfast shifts, and I'd walk in with other shot of tequila in a line, and then serve people breakfast. And they were in their forties and I was 19, and I was just like, I just I could just go and go and go. It was yeah. And then I'd sit and then I I I was and I was supervising at 19 a pub, but I was doing coke in the toilets to all the locals the whole time and having lock-ins and hospitality is It's so dangerous.

SPEAKER_03 13:28

Yeah, it's a it's a real environment for it, not only just because of the the booze, is it, but the unsociable hours.

SPEAKER_06 13:35

So unsociable. You know, you've and also the regulars that you think they're they've they're all like us. Now that I've now that I've grown up and been a regular in a pub.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 13:47

How yeah. At 19 you've got no idea the fact that you've got a 50-year-old bloke sitting opposite you that's like, come on, babe, let's go into the toilet and have a life.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

And he's in there every single day.

SPEAKER_06 14:00

Yeah, and I'm like, Yeah, let's go, that's fine. Woohoo! Like, this is really fun.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

Like, it's just 20 years later, you're like, Exactly. Oh no, I'm here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 14:13

Is it the teachers? The what is it? The student is the comment. That like I'm still a legend, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

But I think I got that when you're doing that. I used to was like, this is the best. But I don't I couldn't imagine myself being anywhere else and then splat and aboosing constantly.

SPEAKER_06 14:30

Yeah, it was it was great. I loved it. And if I wasn't working, I was still there. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

Yeah. Spend your wages in there.

SPEAKER_06 14:42

Yeah, and then we weren't allowed to then it got to a point when we weren't allowed to drink in there. So but living in London, it was you just roll down to the next pub. It was just and then I decided that I needed to do something better with my life, so I did a ski. I went into the ski season.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Noise.

SPEAKER_06 14:59

Yeah. Booze though. Oh, yeah. Got fired for excessive consumption of alcohol.

SPEAKER_03 15:04

Yeah. How far into your season?

SPEAKER_06 15:06

I was quite far in. The woman actually absolutely hated me. She absolutely hated me. She um she looked up where we all came like where we all lived.

SPEAKER_03 15:17

Oh well.

SPEAKER_06 15:19

And from the instant that she literally got us in the car and she was like, I've seen your house, Charlotte. It's like, yeah. I didn't actually choose to be born. Like, I didn't choose to be born, obviously I wasn't choosing to be born, but you don't choose where you grow up. And she and but from then she had like I was the one that was made to do the really like I work I was work doubly as hard as everybody else.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_06 15:43

And I've always had a massive tip on my shoulder about the fact that I've come from I've like I've had a really privileged life. Yeah. And I think that's what I suppressed a lot of the things that I've been through for a long time because I was like, but I but I am privileged, like I've never had to ask for anything. I've been given everything that I've ever wanted, really. Well although I haven't because I didn't know what an emotion is.

SPEAKER_03 16:09

No, but do you think that led you to excess?

SPEAKER_06 16:13

Yeah, potentially. But also probably initially trying to fit in.

unknown 16:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:19

Yeah, I'm yeah, I'm the posh girl, but like watch me fucking drink.

SPEAKER_03 16:22

Yeah, but but I'm different. Yeah, and I'm also really cool.

SPEAKER_06 16:26

Yeah, massively. But I but I walked around with such a chip because and you know, I changed the way I talked. And then then I had to prove myself that I wasn't one of one of the poshos, basically.

SPEAKER_03 16:39

Running with the foxes and hunting with the hounds. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 16:45

But um yeah, so the ski season was an interesting one.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Where oh do you say where? Yeah, fuck it, yeah. Where were you? France.

SPEAKER_06 16:52

Yeah, it's Lake Careux. Yeah, okay. The Grand Massif Resort.

SPEAKER_03 16:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, it well.

SPEAKER_06 16:58

I couldn't ski, but I learned how to ski. But you know, I spent my Christmas day in hospital. This is the other thing that I forgot to mention. Like I was constantly in hospital. Through Well, I'd be like Well, yeah, in it looking back on it, definitely. But I spent three weeks in hospital when I was 18. I can't remember why. I had an infection. They couldn't work out what's wrong with me. And I remember going and I was in s I was in so much pain. I was in I was in so much pain, like it just randomly came on. I've been in this massive house party, came back, made myself a fried egg, because that's all I could eat, but don't like the white bits, so I just ate the yolk on a piece of toast. Went and had a shower. My dad was there and he wasn't really talking to me. And then I was in like you've ever been in so much pain in your body that you can't be still. Like I didn't know where the pain was, I didn't know what was going on, but I couldn't be still. My dad drove me to hospital and they put me in the triage bit, and this woman looked at me and she went, Could you be pregnant? And I was like, No, my dad just went, Probably. And I was like, You can get the fuck out. Like this is like that's a terrible thing to say. So yeah, like and that was another you really don't like me or rate me as a person moment, I think.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

Um speaks good for the self-worth.

SPEAKER_06 18:18

Yeah, real good one.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

It really built me up. And you weren't?

SPEAKER_06 18:22

I was no, but and I was not, they couldn't work out what was wrong with me for three days, and then I was put in isolation. But that so I left hospital, and that's still spoken about now as God, you were tough, Charlotte. You were you were really tricky when you were in hospital. It's like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

What what what was it?

SPEAKER_06 18:40

I had an infection. I can't I had an infection somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 18:43

Oh, what like a uh like a um blood blood one or a bacterial one?

SPEAKER_06 18:47

Yeah. But they couldn't work out why I had it or I literally can't remember what it was. It was such a traumatic time though. So that's But it took me ages to recognize I had an operation and everything, like it was it was pretty like it was pretty savage, and I was and it's still spoken. So I was 18, I'm now 32. Yeah. And it's still spoken about how hard a patient I was. Yeah. My parents still talked to me about that. Which is like, oh yeah, but do you remember when you were in hospital that time when you were really tricky? It's like, fuck off. I was ill. Like, and they were worried, and it was yeah. Anyway, so then I was on the ski season, ended up in hospital with a codon infection, but the woman didn't believe me. The woman I was working for, she put she she told me, she was like, Well, you're just your belly make, you're making yourself sick when you eat. And I was like, I'm not making myself sick when I eat. And she made her seven-year-old daughter watch me eat, and then she she made her six-year-old daughter monitor me for three hours after every meal that I ate for a week. And then I ended up they ended up having to air like I mean airlift, like there was a weird way they had to get me to hospital, basically. I was on so much more. It was the same day that Michael Schumacher went into hospital. No way. I was on so much morphine that I thought I'd seen Schumacher. I hadn't. We were in different parts of Park.

SPEAKER_03 20:07

Almost stretcher next to you.

SPEAKER_06 20:08

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Poor person. I was doing alright, Schumacher.

SPEAKER_03 20:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:14

The morphine was great. I love I love morphine.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 20:19

It makes me very paranoid though. But yeah, so but I ended up going back up there and and and learnt how to ski and had had an amazing time. But had a boyfriend back in the UK and I was cheating on him with some French bloke and because you know, didn't want to be alone, and then got fired. But I but I I was awake when she was they so they spent four hours trying to get me up, and I was literally paralysed. And I drunk quite a lot the night before, and I don't I must have taken something, and I remember being in my bed and my phone was next to my face, and they were ringing me, and I just couldn't move. Like literally I couldn't open my eyes, I couldn't do anything. Oh. It was mental. And my phone parents told them I'd been fired, and and I, you know, the well-timed thing that I always do, they were coming out the next day to see me.

SPEAKER_03 21:07

So there might have been some kind of correlation there.

SPEAKER_06 21:11

Do you know what Yeah? Never thought about that, but yeah, but they still went.

SPEAKER_03 21:16

Yeah. So they're not. They went there and you came back.

SPEAKER_06 21:19

Yeah, I still had a massive party.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 21:22

And then remember calling someone and being like, I can't be alone, I don't want to be by myself. And then getting back on it. And then I moved to Cornwall. Terrible idea.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Geographical.

SPEAKER_06 21:34

Yeah, did another one of them. Yeah, moved to Cornwall, uh, fell madly in love with somebody, went to Indonesia with them. Or not with them, because we by the time by the time that um I'd I'd booked the tickets to Indonesia, by the time we went, we weren't going out anymore, because you know, moved on.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Well wind road.

SPEAKER_06 21:57

Yeah, yeah. I've had a couple.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

It's like the novels.

SPEAKER_06 22:05

Yeah. We could have written a couple of books, I reckon. But I was but yeah, so I went to Indonesia. That didn't I got ill again. But it was just this it's a really I have endometriosis and I think some of that has paid a huge part of my illnesses, but also I've been binging so hard for so long that I was completely ruining my body.

SPEAKER_03 22:27

Well you can have massive iron deficiencies with endometriosis. Yeah. Huge blood loss, which of all things that are very detrimental to drug taking and drinking.

SPEAKER_06 22:38

Yeah. Yeah, and then drink I mean inflammation.

SPEAKER_03 22:41

Like I was just altitude different, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:43

Yeah. Altitude.

SPEAKER_03 22:45

Yeah, as in like if if you've if you've had a lot of blood loss and you were at altitude during ski season and drinking and yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:54

Yeah, and I've never really done anything in like in a controlled way.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

Just more.

SPEAKER_06 22:58

Yeah. More and more and more of anything and everything. And what I did was I was very good at kind of finding friend groups and then being like, actually now you're all twat and then just moving on. But what I know I did now is I I I would progressively hang out with people that were worse than me. So at the very end of my using, I was still renting a flat and paying my bills, but I wasn't because I didn't have any electricity. And I wasn't like, I was selling to to not have to like use like it was just but all the people that I was using with were worse than me. So one of them was living with his parents, so they'd use at my house.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

You weren't the worst person in the room.

SPEAKER_06 23:42

No. Although I think yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Until you were.

SPEAKER_06 23:45

Until I was, yeah. And then none of no one gave a shit about me. Yeah. Even though I was yeah. But I think what I think the madness and the like the really, really I think it all got a lot worse. I got married as well. Got married to try and fit into I still would I still wasn't feeling like I was fitting in. So when I got diagnosed with everything, I I kind of like rekindled a romance with my best friend who I'd met when I was 14 and just kind of went, Well, I'm just madly in love with you. I just had the ability to say that, and then they and then men would be like, yeah, me too, and then off we'd fucking trot into the sunset. It's a really arrogant thing to say, but if like yeah, that was my ego at the time that I was just like, cool, I pick you, and let's like off we go. Yeah. Which is a terrible thing to do, because essentially I've been you uh it's it's using people, really, is what it is. It's using people to f so that I can feel loved. Towards the end, it was them using me and me using them, definitely. If I look at if I look at the patterns. But yeah, so I got married and it didn't really work, and and I wasn't very happy, and he wasn't very happy. So I left and I lost, you know, we'd been together for si I think we were together for six years. I mean, we used together, we drank together, he was a terrible drunk, and he gambled.

SPEAKER_03 25:08

What a aggressive drunk or just No, no, just drunk and drunk and drunk and drunk and drunk. Yeah, right, okay.

SPEAKER_06 25:14

But we'd always done that together. So it would just like and then he stopped using stuff and I would carry on using drugs, but he was just it was just but yeah, we got married to kind of try and fit into society, I think that's what I was trying to do. This was like 2019, 2020. So that was me going, I'm gonna be an adult now.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

Got married and then by the COVID.

SPEAKER_06 25:35

And I got married in COVID. Did you? Yeah. So it was meant to be 180 people, and there was 18 of us. And I cried the whole day. The whole day. I had a couple of splits before I got married, and then we all had a massive like we all just stayed in a house together afterwards for a week, and we just got on it. I don't think I went to one of us didn't go to bed that first night. Like it wasn't like we weren't like madly in love with each other. We were really fucking good mates, basically. Yeah. Yeah, so then but then it all just went a bit tits up, and I just I was so miserable and I could see that he was miserable, but he didn't really understand that he was. So I left and then lost everyone. People that I thought are my friends, obviously they're not my friends, because they never it was I remember someone calling me and saying, Charlotte, how can you be such a cold-hearted bitch? And I was like, cool, not gonna talk to you anymore, and just hung up because it's yeah, but that was the only person that called me. People pick sides, yeah, and look, I left him. So and he didn't he apparently would I've seen him since, so we're we're fine, me and him, but I mean we don't talk, but we've met up a couple of last time I saw him we got absolutely hammered together. It was quite a long time ago now. But yeah, it was How long were you married? Eleven months.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

Eleven months. That's good.

SPEAKER_06 27:06

I've been in I'm clean for longer than I was married for.

SPEAKER_03 27:09

Well that's even better. Good good stuff.

SPEAKER_06 27:13

On what so one of the steps asked you, like, are you committed? Have you ever like, what is it in step three? It's like, have you um made you or is it two and you made a decision to turn your will in your life over, right? This programme that I do. And I was like, this is the only decision that I've ever made. I've actually fucking stuck to is being clean. I mean, obviously I've tried to be clean quite a lot of times in my life.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 27:38

But and now it's like This is your longest commitment. Yeah, and I and I and I don't see me not being committed to to doing this anymore. Like I didn't I was kind of committed to getting married, but I actually feel more committed in what I'm doing. I think it's because it's for myself, not for anybody else.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

So what was the turning point for you then? What was the straw that broke the camel's back?

SPEAKER_06 28:02

I think it was I think there was quite a after that there was quite a big decline in how I felt about myself. I obviously moved quite quickly into another relationship with a man that it's hard to describe my feelings towards him now. Because I moved very, very quickly. I mean it was a rebound, but then we were living together.

SPEAKER_02 28:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 28:31

And we were using a lot together, but he was a very, very jealous man. Like I couldn't talk to some I couldn't talk to a bloke without him being like, Why are you talking to him? We lived we had a pub at the end of the road, and he'd go home and I'd stay there because I didn't want to go and sit in a house with him and just use with him. He also had the ability to have like six lines of coke and then go to bed and I'd I'd do it like I'd stay up doing it all sitting at the end of the garden and like where the old Lou was smoking splits doing lines and gambling. But he'd he'd go he he'd be texting me going, I can fucking hear you talking to them, like blah blah blah. And I just never left because I didn't know I didn't want to get I didn't want to be abandoned again or be single. And I also I couldn't afford it. I couldn't afford to be like that, and that is how fucking selfish I was. I couldn't afford to be single. There's fear in that, and so much fear. And I hadn't been by myself for a really, really long time, and I didn't like his family, and I didn't really like him, and he was like, he didn't even know how old he was, like he aged, yeah, I'm 37. And I was like, Nope, you are 38. And he got he couldn't count from like anyway, now I'm just being mean. Anyway, so it was it was bad, it was really bad, and we we get we'd go on holiday with his parents, and and I yeah, I'd look after his niece quite a lot, who was lovely, but it got to we went on holiday and me and him on our first night, me and him had a massive argument because I was talking to two men about the football. They were 65 years old around that, and he got really angry at me and like fucked off, so I just did what I was and just carried on drinking. So I was like, well fuck you, you'll come back.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

Fuck it, button.

SPEAKER_06 30:30

Yeah, kind of. And mean me and him did that a lot, you know. When you well, I I'd get into these toxic relationships, but I just kept doing this thing where I couldn't find my way out of this, like I just kept spinning around and round and round, but there wasn't a way out. So everything just kept getting worse. Anyway, I think I Yeah. But he so he left me in this like random place on holiday on our first night there, and he just didn't come back. So the next thing that I remember really well is his parents screaming at me. Like I somehow, it was like it was eight hours later I got back to this villa that we were staying at and had I had no idea what the fuck was going on, and they were all just standing there screaming and shouting at me. And I didn't know what was going on, and I called my parents and I was like, I didn't know what's happening, I don't know what's happening. And then my like so my OCD, I get OCD thwarts of suicide mainly, and I was on a third third floor balcony, and all I wanted to do was throw myself off it. But I was sitting in the corner of a room, like in the shower in the bathroom, and I'd lock myself in there because I didn't want to jump, but my whole brain was telling me that that's what I had to go and do.

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 31:49

And I wasn't like I could tell I wasn't sober, and I could tell something was going on in my brain, but I wasn't in control of it. It wasn't a feeling that I'd had before. Like I liked being out of control in my brain. Anyway, it was so it was, I don't know what time it was, but it was a ridiculous time in the morning, so I ended up staying. And then packing my bag in the morning and leaving, and they'd lined up. So six, six, seven of his family members just lined up to watch me leave. And it might his dad was the last person, and I said, I'm you know, I'm sorry. Even I didn't know what I said, I'm sorry for. And he was like, You need to go and get some fucking professional help. Off you go. And I'd and I just left and I had no fucking idea what had happened. And then I was sitting in the airport to my pet. I mean, I was like in absolute bits. Like I've had I had panic, I've had panic attacks before, and then normally alcohol or drug induced, so in the morning, like you know that like the beer fear when you wake up in the morning and it's shit. But for me, I'd always carry on going until and then with other people because I didn't want to be by myself, just didn't want to be alone with my head. So yeah, managed to get me to the airport and I start having flashbacks. So I th I think that I was raped by three Turkish men, and I think my drink was spiked. I don't know why I'm saying Turkish. I was in Turkey. So Turkish. So my drink was spiked, and I have like a blackout, and I never used to get blackouts, so I have a blackout of eight hours. And I managed to get myself home, like my my parents sorted it all out, and I got in the car and I tried to explain to them these flashbacks that I was having, and they were like, You're fine, Charlotte, just go to bed.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

Yeah, they didn't want to get into it. So how is it you how is it how is it that they knew about that then?

SPEAKER_06 33:48

So I called them when I was sitting in the corner of a shower trying not to jump off a No, but his family. They didn't, they just thought that I'd left him and I went and got drunk.

SPEAKER_03 33:57

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 33:58

So I was a disgusting drunk that needed to sort myself out. And he but he'd fucking left me.

SPEAKER_02 34:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:04

I mean, account like you know, I stayed and had and carried on drinking, so I am accountable for what happened.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:11

I'm accountable for leaving myself in an unsafe situation.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 34:17

I'm not accountable for what happened. Yeah. It's a very yeah. But my I couldn't explain it to my parents and they didn't want to know.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

How did that make you fail?

SPEAKER_06 34:29

It was fucking horrendous. Yeah. I managed to tell the only time they listened to me was when I said it in front of a doctor. Because I felt safe enough to say it. And then it was kind of, oh fucking hell, like, let's do everything we possibly can. But the thing is, is we've still never spoken so my parents were affected by it and my sister was affected by it. And it was, but what about us? What about her? And we've never spoken about my feelings towards it. So I moved home with them. And they did this, like, they did the things that they wanted to do. That no, sorry, not that they wanted. I think they did everything they thought they needed to do. So they went and packed up my house where I lived with him. They didn't let me talk to him, they spoke to his family. They took me to the to the sarc thing, like sexual whatever it is, called the police, did all the things that on paper you do. Yeah. They didn't do the thing, the like the feeling emotion side of it.

SPEAKER_03 35:33

Same as in your childhood. Yeah, yeah. Logistics.

SPEAKER_06 35:36

Yeah, and also they didn't hear me when I first got back. And it got to the point where like I was having to do like my had such bad bruising all over the lower half of my body that I was my mum had to sit there while I showered because I couldn't look at my body without like collapsing because I I felt so I was so fucking scared.

unknown 35:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 35:56

And even then, like she and it was it was horrible you know, when you can tell when an experien like you're you're experiencing something and it's really scaring somebody else.

SPEAKER_02 36:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:06

But I what had happened to me was scaring my mum, which is like a really weird uncomfortable feeling. And then we're having to take photos of like like to document, like it was just but I, but I just basically at that point I just completely I just lost I just lost any care or will for anything.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 36:30

And I also wanted to take I wanted to take control back of my body and I felt pregnant which I couldn't tell them. I couldn't tell them. They thought it was because it was from being raped and it wasn't. It was because obviously I went and slept with somebody that I shouldn't have slept with. And I fell pregnant, and then the pills didn't work. And I've like, I've always wanted to have a family, like always my whole entire life wanted to have a family. And I never because of endometriosis, and I have a breast cancer gene as well, so it's like it's all like a pretty like I'm a ticking time bomb essentially. And I felt yeah, so the pills didn't work, so I had to go to hospital and have an operation, and we couldn't tell my sister, my sister wasn't allowed to know that I was pregnant because it would upset her too much.

unknown 37:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:29

And the operation didn't work, so I was lying in hospital bed screaming in pain, and this nurse was like, Can you be quiet, please? Because I've got other patients and you've had your operation. Love, like you're gonna get better now. And then the next day I had to have the same operation again. I remember seeing this nurse and being like, Oh fuck you.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

It's quite intense, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 37:51

And then you'll you know, my parents are like, Well, she's just been raped, so actually, can we make and everyone was like tiptoeing around me, but no one was do you know, do you know the one person, the the chaplain came to see me from the hospital? Yeah, and she was the one person I could talk to about it. And I've never been that way inclined at all. But from that, you know, then there was guilt and shame.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:16

Because I did something wrong, I lied to my parents, I didn't tell my sister, and I just ev any ounce of like respect I think that I was holding on for myself before that, I just I just like lost all of it. Like every s I just didn't, I did not give a shit about myself or anybody else.

SPEAKER_02 38:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 38:35

And I go, I'm not wallowing. I don't want my parents to be like, Why are you going out? But because I'm not wallowing in self-pity, but I was because I was sitting in a pub using and drinking to distract yourself.

SPEAKER_01 38:46

To distract myself.

SPEAKER_06 38:47

Oh, you didn't h hanging out with a terrible like the these people are like they're fucking nasty people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Putting yourself with the people you think you belong with, like.

SPEAKER_06 38:56

Yeah. And I look back on that and I just think like it's horrible.

SPEAKER_01 39:00

And have with your mum and your your parents and your sister they know any different now I'll do that stuff. No.

SPEAKER_06 39:07

This is probably the third time they've said it out loud. It's a weird one. But it's what I now know is that being able to speak the truth and being honest about things takes the power up the way that it makes you feel inside, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:23

100%.

SPEAKER_06 39:23

And it does every time I say it, it helps.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:26

Massively. Yeah. I mean, let's hope they don't listen to this. But if they do, sorry.

SPEAKER_02 39:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:34

I was really fucked up. Yeah. But like, but that's and it just so that was two years ago, three years ago. Nearly three years ago. And it just I just couldn't I couldn't hold m I couldn't hold anything together. It was it was appalling.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

So presumably you came into recovery quite quickly after this?

SPEAKER_06 40:03

A year and a half after. So it went very, very, very, very downhill.

SPEAKER_02 40:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:10

Like like to the depths of I just didn't want to I didn't want to be alive anymore.

SPEAKER_02 40:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:15

So I came into recovery because I tried I tried I woke up after a big night. I mean, I was using every day, I was drinking every day, it was still going to work somehow, but I was fucked when I was going to work. Like my boss would go out for an hour and I'd be like asleep under the desk. And I was hearing voices, like I it was, but I couldn't hear what they were saying to me. So they were like, I'd be having a shower and it'd be like chatter, and I'd be like, what's that? So I turned the shower off.

unknown 40:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 40:46

And then I wouldn't hear anything. Like it was like I was, I was not okay, I was not well, I wasn't eating, I wasn't sleeping. It was yeah, looking back on it, it was a really it's like it's amazing that I kind of survived through it. My bank card, I got got frozen because I used it twice in a supermarket in a week when I came into recovery because it was that was so unusual.

SPEAKER_03 41:12

Unusual activity. Vegetables twice.

SPEAKER_06 41:17

Yeah. Because all I did ever was take cash out. Like that's I remember laughing like with happiness. But yeah, so I I I woke up and I had a friend staying, and he was he'd been he was my friend. Like there was never anything like intimate with us, and he'd ended up staying, and it was a really uncomfortable feeling. And I woke up with him in my bed, which I was just like, ugh, what the fuck? Nothing had happened, but it was just and I had no electricity in my house, and my alarm hadn't gone off, so I'd missed work for the tenth time in a row, and I was gonna be fired, and I hadn't I had no money, like I literally had nothing. And I kind of said to this friend of mine, I don't know what I'm gonna do, like I don't think it's worth me being here anymore. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna, like, I think my brain's telling me that I don't deserve to be here anymore, so I'm just gonna do it. And he went, Oh, grow up hair, mate, I'm off to work, and just left.

SPEAKER_02 42:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 42:15

So at that point, I was like, Well, it's all fucking like it's done. But I had this weird moment where I was like, if I close my eyes, I didn't have to move, but I had I had really, really sharp, long acrylic nails at the time, so it was easier to take my drugs. Fucking hell. And I dug into I was trying to I was trying to take my life, but being really scared about it at the same time. So if I opened my eyes, I would have got a knife, but I lay there for four hours digging my veins out of my wrists. With your nails, with my nails, yeah. And I think I called the Samaritan. No, yeah, because I called the Samaritans, but they uh they said there wasn't anything they could do for me. But I think I got I think this is Yeah. And they said you need to call the mental health team and something in me, I now recognise that as something that looks after me. I still don't know what it is, but something in me made me call the mental health crisis team. And then about two hours later, they came in. They were shouting, police put your weapons down, and I'm like lying in a fucking bed, like scratching my veins out. And they met they got me to hospital. And I spent the night there, and then I talked myself out of being sectioned and went home. But my uh my sister said to me, the only thing she said, she said, I don't want to talk to you anymore, like I'm done. I'm basic I'm I'm so done with you, I can't do this. But please go to an NA meeting. That's what she said.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

Took her advice.

SPEAKER_06 43:55

Yeah. I was like, I don't know how I was so Stuck and I was like, I'm just gonna go home and do it again. Like that's that's I I d I just don't want to be here. And one friend turned up at the hospital, she heard what I tried to do, and that made a huge difference because I felt so alone. I mean she was off her tits, but she still came into the hospital. I wasn't I was in a m I was in like a padded room with cameras on me. I wasn't allowed anything, they wouldn't let me in, they wouldn't let sorry, they wouldn't let me out, no one could come in. And she got me water. Because they said I was overdosing on cocaine and alcohol as well. I was just like, I was all over the fucking place, but they I wasn't allowed my keys because I was gonna try and kill myself with my keys.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Like it was just no laces or whatever.

SPEAKER_06 44:42

Yeah. I didn't have shoes on.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

So your your sister said Go to an NA meeting. Go to an NA meeting. Did you know what an NA meeting was? No, I had no fucking idea. Did you go?

SPEAKER_06 44:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:54

How was it?

SPEAKER_06 44:54

Yeah, we did. It was cool. You were there.

SPEAKER_03 44:58

I was.

SPEAKER_06 44:59

Were you both there? Were you there?

SPEAKER_03 45:01

Probably. Probably, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 45:04

You were the first person I met.

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Yeah, greeting you at the door.

SPEAKER_06 45:07

Yeah. It was pissing it down with rain, wasn't it? And I knew that like there was something, again, it was still in there's something I was reflecting on it when I hit a year like that weekend, there was something that was helping me do things. Like it was pissing it down with rain. And I wasn't so I wasn't clean, I was stoned.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

If you needed an excuse not to go, yeah. It was there.

SPEAKER_06 45:31

Yeah. And for some reason I was I walked myself. I didn't even drive, like I walked to myself there. And it was the best, it was literally the best thing I've ever done for myself ever. Well, my sister did it for me. She told me about it immediately.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

But that's when it started to shift.

SPEAKER_06 45:47

Like, I've never felt a feeling like that in my life. I've never walked into a room and felt so like seen by people I didn't know. It was absolutely insane. And and since then, like it has like NA has saved my life 100%. But I'm not kind of I mean I'm what I'm nearly 13 months clean now. Two days will be 13 months. And in 13 months I have realised so many things that I need to sort out about myself. And NA's given me a platform to be able to do that, you know? It's really it's quite an incredible thing. I don't like I don't want to die anymore. That's good. I'm genuinely grateful to wake up every single morning, which is quite an achievement because I didn't want to wake up and I have the courage to face days where before I wouldn't like oh you know, I s I said I was unwell last week. When I was unwell, I mean obviously I was always unwell, I would always be on, but like in active addiction, like that would be me. Like I'd be like I'm off for the week. And I'd still be f getting fucked, but I'd still be really unwell. But it was an excuse not to work. And I went to work every day this week because I was like, this isn't if I I look at things like if I was gonna do it, if I was gonna use, would I have used on this? Yes. Or would I have gone and got drugs still feeling like this? Yes. Cool, so I'm gonna go and do what I don't want to go and do. I still did all of my meetings, I still did my service. Because I gen like Yes, I I feel like a different person than I did like lying in that hospital bed.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

But then like how has your relationship with yourself changed since coming into recovery?

SPEAKER_06 47:40

I work on it, so I'm it's still not incredible. I still don't like love, love who I am, but I recognise that I deserve the love that I don't have for myself. So I try and so every I write a gratitude list every day, and I now write that I'm grateful for who I am. I write I'm grateful for who I am right here in this moment. And it takes like to be able to take that pause for myself every morning to actually look at myself without any distractions is quite a big thing for me.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:11

I do I see now that I'm worth being alive and that I'm worth being in people's life because before I didn't. And even though I don't even though I don't always feel it, I see that I there is work that I can do to feel that.

SPEAKER_05 48:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:24

And I recognise why I feel like that.

SPEAKER_05 48:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 48:28

You know, all of this shit that has happened. I know we all have a lot of shit that's happened, but like all of this shit that's happened to me in my life, that's why I feel the way I feel about myself now. But that makes it's like that having to understand things. Now that I understand it, I can actually do something about it, and it's not that scary. I mean, the worst the worst one is just being by myself. Like I'm much better at that now. But like I like we were saying, I don't have very many friends in my life. I much prefer that to the the associates that I had. Yeah. And I choose very carefully and I think that's I mean not that carefully. You're looking at me then. Sometimes I'm wise, sometimes I'm progress not perfectly. Yeah, well quite, quite, quite, quite. No, I I I still struggle to be alone. I have this massive thing at the moment that I'm still I'm really, really scared that I'm not gonna get my like family. I have this huge resentment to myself that I've robbed a lot of my life from myself. But that is like but that's where I'm quite aware that it's I've got all these learned behaviours.

SPEAKER_01 49:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 49:54

It's all learned behaviour, and if and now that I know I can change it, like that's what I'm gonna work on, and even by recognising that and knowing that I want to work on it, that's showing myself a huge amount of love.

SPEAKER_01 50:06

Moving into a place of acceptance, yeah. Yeah, I think it's hard transition, isn't it?

SPEAKER_06 50:12

It's m it's so hard. But it's worth like those days where I do feel a bit shit about myself are so much better than any of my days using.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Yeah, and I think just being kind to yourself, isn't it, while you're in that man, I've not every day is gonna be amazing.

SPEAKER_06 50:28

No, and you're like I've Christmas was a really tricky time for me. But what I learned there was to actually like this the programme teaches you to reach out to people. Although I mean, it's not just a programme. We should be reaching out to people and connecting with people and talking to people more. And I'm terrible at it. Like I'm really bad at saying I'm not okay. I mean, I'm getting better at it, and I do to you sometimes, which is actually a really nice thing, because I know we're it's gonna be honest. And I've got some other a couple of other I mean, it's like I'm counting on one hand here, like really good friends. But I call someone over Christmas where it all went completely to shit. And I because I didn't have anywhere to go at Christmas, and they they brought me into their home, and I spent Christmas with them and their family, and like and they're in the fellowship, and that's like that's for me to say that I'm not okay and ask for help is huge, and then for someone to show that love to me as well, it's like that just like that blew my mind. Yeah, it still makes me want to cry when I talk about it now, which is also emotions.

SPEAKER_03 51:34

That's good. Shut up.

SPEAKER_06 51:39

Uh I don't know, it's an amazing thing, it's absolutely amazing, and I'm really happy that I'm on this journey, and I don't want it to end, like I enjoy learning more about myself. And this whole like I all I wanted to be was like to fit into society, and now I just like no thanks. I've deleted my Netflix and my prime this weekend because I just don't want to be. I didn't want to do that and all the social media, just getting rid of another escape. Yeah. And that's what I do when I don't want to be alone. I'll sit there and find six seasons of something, and then that's me for a month, and then I don't have to think.

SPEAKER_03 52:21

Do you know what's a good thing about you said about asking for help before, and that's something that you know I've also struggled with massively, and one of the big things for me that came up in sort of trying to figure that whole thing out, because I just don't know how to do it. Someone said to me, not do you feel good when you help someone? And I'm like, Yeah, yeah, it's like one of my f if you uh look, if you ask me what I enjoy doing, helping people, and I've always said that in in whatever way I can. And if you're not asking for help from people, you're robbing people of that chance to have that feeling as well. Because I like that. You know, everyone everyone gets that, and yeah, it's true, you know, like it it's just another way of like turning it around in your brain that's helped for me, definitely.

SPEAKER_06 53:12

Yeah. Yeah, thank you.

SPEAKER_03 53:16

Just had to chisel that in there somewhere, it's going around in my brain.

SPEAKER_06 53:20

Sprinkle wood again.

SPEAKER_03 53:22

Yeah, yeah. So it sounded good to the bottom.

SPEAKER_06 53:24

That's but it I think it goes, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 53:28

That's right. We're we'll end it all this. We'll end it the other hour and fifty minutes, mate.

SPEAKER_01 53:35

So we don't up to an episode, man.

SPEAKER_03 53:38

Yeah, it's a great show. It's nothing. So take us through a day. A day in the life for you now. What's your like routine? How do you manage triggers? Do you still have triggers? What's the big things for you?

SPEAKER_06 53:55

Yeah, well, so I wake up and I'm like, cool, I'm clean. I like that. I like that, like that wake up of like, I'm actually my head doesn't hurt, I'm okay, I don't have anything that I regret. That's cool.

SPEAKER_03 54:09

No anxiety.

SPEAKER_06 54:11

No, I did for a little bit. That's if I'm in if if I've been triggered, sometimes it takes me a really long time to calm down.

SPEAKER_02 54:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 54:19

I used to have this thing when when I was a kid where I'd sleep on the side of my bed because I felt so sick when I was at home because I wasn't comfortable with the environment. And I can look back, that gives me anxious like that's that's anxiety, essentially. So if I'm doing that, I know that something's going on in my head.

SPEAKER_04 54:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_06 54:34

But even that, like that's I'm grateful for those feelings because then I'm then I can sit down and look back on that and work out what's going on. But yeah, so I wake up, grateful for that, put the kettle on, and write my oh I see. I write the Serenity Prayer, and then I write the third step prayer, which is like about handing the will over. Not because it's the third step bit of it, I just like that idea that I'm not in control of everything, and that's what I've tried to do. It's really important for me to realise that I can't control anything.

SPEAKER_02 55:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 55:08

Because otherwise I just but like, yeah, it's not yeah, it's just not healthy for me at all. Write a gratitude list and then I crack on with my day. I do four meetings a week at the moment, I think. So a lot of the time it's finished work and go to a meeting. Sometimes give lifts.

SPEAKER_01 55:25

And just to clarify for the users, what is a meeting?

SPEAKER_06 55:28

Uh it's an NA meeting.

SPEAKER_01 55:29

Yeah, narcotics anonymous.

SPEAKER_06 55:30

Narcotics Anonymous. And sometimes alcoholics anonymous as well. Because some people it's it's all that it re it's recovery, isn't it? If you're talking to people about recovery and you're with like-minded people, you're always gonna get something from it. I rarely ever want to go to them and always feel better when I do. I guess the ones I really, really don't want to go to, I always feel so much better once I've gone.

SPEAKER_01 55:54

Yeah, yeah. And I think that's from the recovery coaching that I do, it's called building your recovery capital.

SPEAKER_06 56:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

It's like, you know, those meetings of building your recovery capital.

SPEAKER_06 56:04

Yeah. They're so important though. And you learn like I learned so much from them, so much from people. And it's a proper commun, you know, I don't have many friends, it's quite nice to see people sometimes. But it's a nice community, and it's nice to see people that are that are getting better, and people, you know, it's just nice to check in with people as well.

SPEAKER_01 56:25

Yeah, who've been on that journey with you. Yeah, and people and are on their own journey.

SPEAKER_06 56:30

Yeah. And people that are coming into it's it's it's such a nice thing when when I mean we're all ready, it's still whistle early, but like someone that's a week or two weeks and they keep coming back to those meetings, it's just such a such a nice thing seeing people doing that, I think.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

Yeah, totally.

SPEAKER_06 56:48

And and pe and and but I learn how to get through things that I don't even know I need to learn how to get through, you know. They're all like little nuggets of wisdom a lot of the time.

SPEAKER_03 56:58

What what about therapy? Are you still in therapy? You said you were you doing therapy?

SPEAKER_06 57:04

No, so I I've been referred for some CBT therapy through talking therapy, so the NHS.

SPEAKER_03 57:10

Oh, nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 57:11

Yeah, which was actually a really amazing experience. A lot different to it was how it was 15 years ago. Uh and that's I mean, that's gonna be a long wait, I think. But I will do some therapy. I'd like to do the EMD EMDR EMDR. Yeah. But I just I don't my recovery's coming in front of my finances at the moment, so I don't have I can't afford to do it basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I feel very secure in kind of being able to talk about things with with people.

SPEAKER_03 57:44

Yeah, yeah. It's amazing, isn't it, that uh well, we said it before, aren't we, you know, getting getting that concept of being open and vulnerable and Yeah. You know, being able to tell the truth and whether coming into recovery and then using that to go into therapy is uh infinitely more effective than going into therapy. If I'd gone into therapy before recovery, it would have been possible.

SPEAKER_06 58:11

I just manipulated my way through that. Yeah. I get like di a bit of diazepan, thank you very much. Kind of they'd be talking to my parents, they tell my parents I was alright, because I bullshit my way through it, and then but now I'm looking forward to going into it because I'm gonna be honest. The value you get out of it for yourself. Try and make myself better and understand things more.

SPEAKER_01 58:41

Foundation. I think that's the thing, isn't it? When you it's you only get out what you put in to any event, really. If you're open and vulnerable, then you can feature in if you're still masking and manipulating. Yeah. You're still stuck.

unknown 58:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 58:56

It's amazing how long I did it for though, thinking that that was the way to get by.

SPEAKER_01 59:01

Yeah, 38 years. I was professional, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:07

It's just crazy, though. And it's so much easier to be honest. It's so much easier.

SPEAKER_03 59:12

Yeah, and the knots come out of your stomach. Yeah and Yeah, you've got to remember.

SPEAKER_06 59:17

Oh, the remembering. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 59:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:20

No, I'm very happy. I'm very grateful. In a weird way, grateful to be an addict.

SPEAKER_02 59:26

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:27

Because what we what I can do for myself is quite like I think it would benefit huge parts of society to be able to look at ourselves the way that we can. Yeah. And the honesty that we have with each other is is incredible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 59:39

I just think everyone, every adult should do a 12-step programme. Agree. They go into from that finish go and become an adult is to get it all out at 18. And then have all this self-awareness and spiritual awareness.

SPEAKER_03 59:54

Yeah, you never met people like you've met in recovery. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 59:58

And like, but that whole spiritual side of it as well is absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:02

I love it. Yeah. I'm very anti-religion, very anti-god. I didn't understand how people could believe in something where there was so much evil and like terror in the world. I just didn't get it. But actually, if I look at it in the in the way that I've been I'm being taught to look at it, it kind of helps. And that feeling that I wasn't by myself that weekend where like I basically was brought to my knees.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:27

I wasn't by myself, I can't have been. Something was something was helping me there.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:32

Yeah. And I think I often still think about that, about the world when you like I don't look at the news now. No, neither do I. But that's I think that's what the Serenity Pro teaches you is that you can accept the things you cannot control.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:46

And the courage to change those things you can. I just focus on my days and what do I need to do to look after myself and my son. And that's a I don't care about anything else now.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:58

No, because actually, what is the point?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:01

Just it just fills our brains up. Depression and anxiety.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:06

Doesn't help.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:07

Yeah. We're not living in the past or the future anymore. Yeah. Charlotte, if your life story was a book, what would the title be?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Mallory Tower.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:27

I don't know. Oh, what a question.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:30

I know. You take take a minute. Not obviously we went to see her in silence, but we can we can circle back to that.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:37

How about I really, really fucked up and then I found a way out of it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

Alright. See if we can fit that on the little head in at the top of the Bashia. Illustration. Illustration. Well, look, we've been talking for quite a long time.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:57

Yeah, sorry about that.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

No, no, no, no. Very grateful. Very. I just want to chuck in a bit of gratitude. Thank you for coming along. Definitely.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

Yeah and sharing.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:10

Yes. And thank you for being so honest and vulnerable. It's good to have a bit of femininity on the show.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:19

Some feminine energy.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:25

Yeah, our first guest. It's been alright, is it? Yeah. How are you feeling checking out?

SPEAKER_06 1:02:32

Yeah, not bad. Do you know what? I feel really peaceful.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:35

Yeah. Cathartis.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:36

I do like this honesty thing. It is actually quite good.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:39

Catharsis is sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:43

I think I feel like it fit when you when you do share it, you know, you're growing a little bit every time or something.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:49

Well, and like I've realized some things today as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:52

Yeah. Yeah. Shining light on on stuff takes the power out of it, like you said earlier.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:59

Taking that power out is so important.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:01

Yeah, yeah. And and every time you process something, you realise something else. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's all good. Yeah, but just thank you very much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:10

An important thing that I've learned today is that I think we always need to have like a delicious candle on the gar for every episode. To transform the episodes.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

The ambiance is incredible in here. I wish we did a video. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:25

It's quite kind of a very nice vibe.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

It's got like just a little visual for those at home, like glowing orange lights, we're like just silhouettes in a beautifully dark room.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:35

Bold autism, no bright light. Yeah, that's exactly bowls on the side.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:42

Mega. We got into the into society in a minute, Benny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Amazing. Title of the book. Go. Uh no, like actual title of the book.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:58

I just stopped thinking.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:03

You can let us know and we can just the title of the episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:08

I'm just really enjoying the vibe again.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:10

Yeah, I am as well. We could just keep going. I don't know. Okay. Let us know, we'll put it as the title.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:17

It could also be ghostwritten, so you guys could um do that for me.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:21

Oh yeah. She reads a lot of novels. Alright, brilliant. I'm checking out, feeling really good, really calm.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Yeah, grateful. So I think grateful to hear your story and share that with you. Felt like felt like a very connecting thing to do. I appreciate it. It's great. Hope the listeners feel so.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:47

Yeah, so do I.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:49

Are you checking out, Charlotte?

SPEAKER_06 1:04:52

With gratitude. And also to say, I think you two are doing a good thing doing this podcast. Thank you. I I listen to it every time you release an episode, and I think it's also good and thank you. Probabs won't listen to this.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

I was gonna say, yeah. It's a whole different ball game listening to yourself. Yeah, I'm not sure about that. I've stopped listening to them.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:14

Yeah. After my story. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:18

Alright, guys, let's let's wind it up there. Yeah, thanks very much for listening along. We'll link any stuff in the show notes that we've been talking about. And yeah, hope you hope you enjoyed it and look out for the next episode. Thanks for listening along.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:00

More noise, more thrill. We wanted more. We lost our souls. We pay the cost. The deeper we dove. Always more. Never always until it breaks, or you do until it breaks.