Football Hooligan Who Became an Underworld Enforcer

And literally overnight we've gone from these violent crazy fucking football oolans in these rage scenes hugging and kissing every fucker. >> What made you take heroin for the first time? >> Fucking lack of sleep from all these ecstasy tablets. And I just said, "Yeah, I'll try it." And mate, from that first time, that was it. That was like eight years of me life. More prison. Um, the taxing got more fucking serious cuz when you're craving off that shit, James, you you'd do anything to get it. People on fucking life support machines, fucking intensive care. I had me fucking nose ripped off on the end there. That's fucking scar. I had me eyes gouged out. >> How many times you been in prison? >> Six. I went on hunger strike once in prison. That's two people dead that is in my company. And I don't want people thinking I'm fucking Harold Shitman or something. is >> this week's episode [music] is sponsored by change. 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And don't forget to click the subscribe button and the notifications bell so you're notified for when my next podcast goes live. and boomer on and today's guest we got Mikey Dawson. Mikey, how are we? >> I'm good, thanks mate. Oh, but uh good journey up here. >> Yes, roasting in London. 38 degrees. >> 38 today. >> You've got some color anyway. Yeah, I just went over Morbay about a month ago and then come back at at the first heatwave and uh just been like sexy base Ray Winston out the back like I cover catching more R. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Football hooligan heroin addict >> off it on it off it on it. Mad story mad life. This is why you're here today brother. But first and foremost thanks for coming on the show. Before I get into everything though, always like to go back to the start of my guests, get more a bit of understanding about you Mikey, where you grew up and how it all began. >> It's uh I I grew up in Plymouth. Uh me dad glaze young come down here and met me mom had me grew up in Plymouth and um probably a lot of people ain't even going to know where Plymouth is, James. You know, it's like people think it's like a little village down in Cornwall, but in it's in Devil and it's a city and it's a fucking odd city as well. It's like um many a football firm, many an odd man has come down into Plymouth and been sent packing all over the years. It's like we had the world famous Union Street. It was a mile long just pubs, clubs next door to one another. Kick out 2:00 a.m. in the morning. 30,000 people in Union Street, but we also had we had uh Dampport Dockyard one side, we had the Marines based at Beckley on another side, and we had the Commandos up on Plymouth. So when they used to all all the men like older than me and all that back in the day, they're obviously having a fight for their fucking women down there cuz you got all these like service person and mate it was fucking like the Wild West down there like in the Union Street days like and I I started like venturing down there. I I weren't from that area but I was always fighting getting into trouble from the area that I came to. And then me and me mate like I was I was I was boxing as a kid and uh always battled me weight and um we ventured down into Union Street 17 years old. I put the weight that I lost back on, but I could still fucking it like a sledgehammer. And uh so we ventured down there obviously on the pest and I start fucking knocking out doorman at 17 and like fighting these or men down there and other people's like, "Well, who the fuck's this?" And um that's when I guess like the football lads that lived in in the city must thought we need to get this fucker along to the football with us. And um me upbringing me my dad was glad we young and he he was an old colleague. He he's he he he used to keep it under but mate it's like the times he smashed my mom up smash the house up for some reason he smash me up even even as a kid and um so when I met this football firm like that belonging that that feeling of like a proper close-knit family it's like it pulled me in straight away. So it's um and these these people they have the same me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me me ment mentality and um yeah just loved it loved it from the start mate really. How many is in Non Plymouth at that time? >> Back back then we we probably had a good 100 150 on like a good day. But it's different than today. It's like cuz I've obviously gone back into it in the year in the 2000s from about 2010. And uh this was the late ' 80s, early 90s. And and back then you ever ran or left one of your pals to get out, you would be battered and you would never step foot inside the ground ever again. And like when I went back like this was happening all the time and I was like scratching me. But I was up there having what what midlife crisis probably about 40 fucking years old. And I people like, "Oh, you're so and so. You're fucking my I've heard stories about you." And straight away, this is in recovery as well. This is this is when I've like got off of everything, but it's tickling me ego. So, oh, come with us next week. So, that's an addiction in itself. I remember like I was addicted to the football back again. Then I've gone into recovery and as soon as I've gone along to that first game and got involved, fuck me, I was right back in it. And it's like, oh, fucking short these jers how it's done. It's like and uh but then I I found out re very quickly it wasn't like it was back in the late 80s early 90s whether it is like all the body cam all the CCTV but I think it was just also a lot of the lads weren't made like the lads from back then it's like you you know it's like you can't give somebody what they're boring without and that's that fucking gameness the balls So when I went back after this midlife crisis, it's like I I would tell him, "See if you ever fucking did that back in my day, you would be battered. You'd never ever come football again." I said, "You're lucky I'm up here because of fucking midlife crisis and I'm up here feeding me fucking bullshit." I And um so I let it be known, but like I can't blame him cuz I knew that we we ain't all wired up the same. But don't fucking pretend to be something you're in. You know what I mean? >> Who you fighting against in the 80s? What sort of tons? >> Fuck me. West Ham, Pompei, uh, Man City, Lee, Stoke City, all of them really. It's like me and me pal back back then. Look, say we was all fucking nuts. We was all like 20 years old. Um, and like I said to you before, probably a good 80 90% of us, we all ended up heroin addicts. So you're not wired up from the start, you know. So, so we was nuts at that age and like West Ham come down and um me and me mate got accused that we was driving around in a car on on the day that we had West Ham and um this car was spotted in the daytime. They said the police said um stopping four four or five of us jumping out battering groups of like five five of them or whatever. But then after the after the gang, they said that me and this uh me me pal, we got accused of driving outside Plymouth train station, somebody putting on a cockney accum and all like the West arm lads running over to this car and somebody's pulled out a bottle filled with I think they said ammonia or something like that and fucking sprayed a lot of them. And um few days later we we we get our fucking doors is gone through four of uses got like pulled into the police station back then like if you if you was a a YP you won't get life but you get HMP when the queen like when you you got out when the queen said yeah. So, so this fucking thing that happened that we got accused of, it was it was on every news station from Plymouth, like right up north. And um two people in in the car made a statement. I went no comment. My mate went no comment and uh it was fucking uproar. Um nobody got charged. But say a month after that, I'll be going downtown. I'll be fucking down there getting up the nook coming home. I hear me mom in the morning speaking of PE. I thought the fuck's that go down there fucking C's there trying to put pressure on me mom to get me to make a statement against me and then they they basically said fucking if we can prove you two is together you'll be done on a joint like GBH malicious wounding cuz mate he temporary got blinded and um glad that he's all right but like I say that was West Ham we have fucking Ponty >> who was the best firm you came up against >> the time. Me and me mate talked about it quite a bit. Out of all all them, it wasn't like massive numbers, but we were so used to like turning over firms with equal numbers even at a young age still doing like older men. We got fucking turned over by Lester Baby Squad and uh we smashed up a mini bus. They they was in this pub. We've we've smashed the all the mini buser windows and all that and uh they've come running out. These are fucking grown men. 30 35 years old. We're all like 19, 20 and all that. And fuck me. Yeah, we got smashed up that day. Probably the only time I can remember coming away thinking, "Yeah, we had a result. We had a result cuz we stood, but we didn't have a result in like winning the war. It's like he fucking turned us over. One of my mates got smashed across the air with a bar, fucking blood everywhere. Another one's got glass and uh yeah. >> Why do you think people want to become footballans? What do you think it is that people want to fight? I I I think it's that feeling of family, that like brother, that like belonging to something that that a lot of people never may have felt at home like within the family environment. Like I said, like like oh shit scared of of of me me old man. And um it was like always a war zone at home. So it was like I'd be out as much as I could. I just never I never wanted to be around my family. And when I felt found these group group of lads that was pretty much like me, I just felt part of something like I'd be in my family. I won't feel part of my family. I'll be in other situ I won't feel part of that. But at football I felt a part of. And um yeah, it's like I like I've not come on here to like like glorify anything about the past. Um, I'm not I ain't come on here to like fucking fucking I'm the hardest fucking craziest man that's ever walked here. Like I am I've lived a fucked up life. Like that's only one part of it. And um obviously recoveryy's been a big part and looking back and just fucking trying to put things right and and use my story as well like where I can hopefully reach out and help others. So that's because a lot of addicts James as well that like not feeling apart and we join football firms and all that addiction is like a bit bit like the same. You don't feel a part so you take drinking drugs and then all of a sudden you're able to be part of you're able to like socialize but obviously what you think's your best mate normally turns and becomes your fucking worst enemy. You know what I mean? So >> when did the drug start? Well, it's like late 80s, early 90s. We're going around the UK fucking like smashing up cities, smashing up towns, and um the racing coming and literally overnight we've gone from these violent crazy fucking football oolans in these rage scenes hugging and kissing every fucker. It's like fucking >> you don't fucking game me if you don't do switches. >> Yeah, mate. The fucking the novelty of that wore off quite fucking quick. not drinking not drinking beer and all that cuz it ruins the buzz on the fucking kn and and all that and and yeah the fucking novelty wore off especially and I think it affected the whole football firm in the UK where like they've all then when that novelty of hugging and kissing every fucker wore off and you could see there was money to be earned and other people's earning it then you could pull back that violence then to take it into these rave scenes and just more I I'll I love taxing people. I I was 20 20 stone at probably the age of 19. Me to be a burglar, mate. I ain't fitting through fucking little windows fucking trying. It's like it's easy for me to go through the fucking front door and um earn my money that way. You you you know what I mean? So I'll go in these ra things. I'll be down in Plymouth. We had two major fucking clubs people used to come all over the country for. We had the dancer academy in me and and we had Plymouth Warehouse. And I remember I'd be in there. I'd have like 300 pills on me. It was like 20 quid a pop back then. 25 sometimes. I'd be in there not selling any. I'm thinking like what the fuck who the these two 3,000 peoples off the fucking who who they buying them off. And I So I I look around. I think yeah, he's he's I can see he's selling. I can see you sir. So cuz it was a loved up fucking party atmosphere. Mick he would go hello mate. You got any pills mate? Will you do me three for 50? Sound mate puck a wicked. Yeah. All that fucking rave talk. Soon as soon as the bags come out of his hand and he's crack. I'd have the bag in me hand before he's at the deck and I fucking scuttle off. 100 pills 100 pills there. 100 pills there. Fucking I thought this is fucking this is bang off. You know what I mean? And uh but sometimes you can do that to the wrong people and like you like like I say and fucking how I survived that era like it's beyond me cuz uh we we had firms come down from like Brixton putting on raves down there and um like these blacks would come and I thought they were trying to tax me so I just lay come out and fucking not not like knew who they were. I didn't really give a fuck to be honest with you. But I used to pay the dorman in these big clubs that all the football police when the racing come in, they became going into the races undercover drug squad. So they knew that if they busted me inside a club, they would have their hands full. So I would pay the dorman and they would come and tell me when like I was going to get a tug or or whatever. But nights like that where like I fill people in from like other areas. I remember one night I I've laid this uh black lad out and I sat on on the stairs getting it back together and the dorman's come down. What the fuck have you done that? I've looked behind it's like 50 of the biggest. It looked like 50 Mike Tyson and they've whipped me out the back doors and I've legged it all the way through Stonehouse. Like I've got the fuck out of it. I thought if they would have got older me, you know what I mean? Serious, you know what I mean? Serious damage would have been done. But that that started to go on every fucking week and I I wouldn't you wouldn't learn from it. You just try and do it better the next time. You know what I mean? It's fucking >> Because I interviewed Andrew Pritchard. He used to bring all the gear from Jamaica. all the white, but then they ran Genesis and then he brought in Calvin Leech with ICF. They used to do all the PS and gen I think it's Genesis it was called all the raves. They used to do those all undercover raves but you used to have like 5,000 people there. >> Yeah, me. >> And you're buying cuz the PS we used to get back in Glasgow Mitsubishes but they were like treble for the size of what people take now. I've never in years but it used to be mits of bishes. They were fucking massive and used to and you were you were gone for at least 12 hours buzzing out your tits. >> Not like the day it's like back back then like those illegal rays. I was telling Mike this is another close chorus. They done the spiral tribe. >> Mhm. >> Fucking massive like illegal rave outfit and there's films on them, there's documentaries on them. I had a DJ landed in Plymouth, DJ Aztec he was called. He's ended up staying with me before doing this big illegal fucking 30,000 20 30,000 people down there James when we went down into Cormal David still you got to the site and you heard the fucking music pumping and you get in there it was like a fucking different world you'd have all the new age travelers fucking wagons like literally it's like a like Glastenbury and outside the the the wagons five tong tongs for a fiverr. It's like fucking Amsterdam. It's like it was a place where is legal. It's like fucking signs advertising ecstasy fucking these tong things where they put the dope in these tongs in fucking and it was like fucking mento. I was telling my one of the lads that like I ended up taxing in fucking in Plymouth who come from exit. I became friends with them all then. You know what I mean? And uh we was down there. He was a good-look boy dresser and all that. One of these new age travelers has tried dragging his misses into one of their wagons to fucking do whatever. So he's told me about it. Worst thing he he could have done. He knew like I would have acted and and I did. So I starts going from fucking trailer to trailer smashing up these fucking smelly new age travelers and like when they're fucking all like laid there fucked up. They got bags of fucking weed in it. So I'm grabbing that bag. I'm grabbing I'm going to the next trailer then smashing that you fucking try waiting my mates misses I've come home for a day get get a change of clothes I've gone back down there me mates he's like m you best fuck off cuz I did it with this other lad and he said you best fuck off they just literally fucking nearly got all the matey and with that looked around there's about 30 40 of these fucking swamp he's walking down this thing pickaxes fucking armors and all that start fucking car again. That was another situation where I think if they would have caught me, it don't matter who you are. These people ain't got identities. These new age travelers, they'll bury you, mate. And nobody nobody knows who they are. So that was another close call at one of the these illegal raves. Fucking Yeah. Another just another I've got them stories by the dozen. >> See, when you were taxing people, was it drug dealers? Was it people who held debt? Who were you taxing? >> Drug dealers. Just all drug dealers >> mainly. Yeah. >> Were you just taking a graft off them? So, you weren't even taxing them. >> Yeah. I I I wouldn't take a money. I wouldn't take a jewelry. Uh cuz like my business plan and me business plan was how the fucking they go to the old bell and say he's just next door me ecstasy tablets. So, I would not touch a jewelry or or the money and um just solely the drugs. But even even back then like like you say the ease back then was fucking strong as fuck. And this was before I was like what a core a proper add it on like heroin and that but I was doing like 10 15 fucking E a night. I started waking up in the morning taking ease for fucking breakfast to like try and keep that feeling fucking all day every day. But I didn't think it was a problem there. Like obviously the darker times come in when uh the the heroin arrived and that that was fucking dark. >> What made you take heroin for the first time? >> Fucking lack of sleep from all these ecstasy tablets of James. It was they [clears throat] like me me mates and they get all like the tamasis and that that was big up in Glasgow at the time. The jellies of where people banging them. >> It was like >> the jellies. People used to inject them in Glasgow. People lose their fucking arms and legs and that with the jellies. >> Well, my mate was in Glasgow and he that's where he got the idea from drawing out the liquid out of the jellies and come back. But I I I wasn't injecting that that then. But he was getting all like the jellies of Valium for after the race uh to deal with the comedown off all the gear heads. And listen, I fucking I watched fucking Gra Jill James when I was growing up and I saw Zaml and I thought, "Nah, fuck that." And and being a football lad, I used to spit at the smackheads in in the city, s dirty fucking smackhead and and all that. And um one week after a rave, me mates come back. Oh, they never had no volume or tamasis. And uh but they got this like what's that? Oh, heroin. Just small kit. And even though I had all these like like powerful all the powerful like reasons not to do this drug and how I felt about this drug the Zamo the seeing the smackheads dirty smackheads that's what is known when it was offered it was like they they were gone and I just said yeah I'll try it and mate from that first time that was it that was like eight years of me life more prison Um the taxing got more fucking serious cuz when you're craving off that shit change you you'll do anything to get it. People on fucking life support machines, fucking intensive care just to get this fucking brown powder fucking dollar tons and and like I was dealing and like fucking um fucking scousers in it. They get everywhere. It's like >> they're everywhere. Anywhere you want a bit of gear, there's a scouser standing with a man bag somewhere ready to give you. They fucking everywhere. Grafton Thailand, >> fucking Dubai, everywhere. >> Fucking little villages in Cornwall, fucking Isa white. Fucking no matter where they're like, >> I've always a scouseer stand and there is. I fucking love the scouers, but they get in everywhere. Wherever they are, you'll hear a scouers accent. >> They're like fucking Chinese and Indian takeaways. They pop up fucking everywhere. Everywhere you go, there's a fucking one there. >> They they come down. It must been one of the first firms in Plymouth and like I started knocking it out for them. But um I I would follow them and uh see where they're stashing stuff and fucking shit like that and um get out there fucking have their parcels away. It's like fucking I'd have death threats. But I think like when you're in the grips of addiction, you don't give a fuck where you live or die anyway. And um like the taxing like went on. I was dealing. What was it like injecting heroin for the first time? >> Uh, it was just like all that shit that you that you've lived with, the trauma as a kid, all the beatings like I took from me dad. Um, I was an overweight kid as well, James. I had operation when I was younger. I had a pair of fucking tets and like the lads down the part would fucking grab them, make me jump up and down, squeal like a peg, whip me with these fucking bamboos and sticks. I really used to cough but I couldn't go on with like so I keep it all. I think it was like all things that scarred me and that I live with. Like as soon as I injected that heroin, [clears throat] it was like who gives a fuck. It's like it take it took all that away which was a dangerous thing cuz uh cuz to have that all all that when it wore off it'll come back so you'd have to keep doing it and uh like I say what what you think your your best mate at the time eventually becomes your fucking worst enemy. It's mad that because when you I when we used to go to parties when I just used to just sniff couple of joints few volume brand new again but some of the guys that used to come out the jail >> they would smoke they would smoke the brown or else they put it with the coke and smoke it but now as years have on you realize when somebody's on the brown you don't realize you just think fucking waster you look down at them because you want to make yourself feel okay even though every cunt's on the same sort of level but >> you don't realize is everybody who's took it are really struggling. It's like assigning your death wish. It's like giving up completely cuz you don't understand the levels of trauma they've been through to then go into that stuff and like you said numbs the pain it took away everything that you had felt with what your dad put you through. >> Yeah, mate. It's it's it's like obviously the ironic part was like I ended up being being like the people that I despised and um but also at the at the same time getting to know that normal people don't just fucking try heroin. It's like you don't take heroin as a social fucking ludicrum. It's uh you take heroin if if you're fuck fucked up. And uh a lot of the pe all of the people that like I knew like from heroin addiction made some they made my life and upbringing look like fucking Mary Poppins. You know what I mean? Like I had a fucking Disney up to a lot of them and I thought mine was bad and it is. It's like fucking don't judge a book by a cover. And um I'd be fucking dealing in the darkness of it. I'll be I'll be dealing this. People be in me house fucking they're overdosing fucking dying next to you. I'm dragging the fuckers out out out me house, putting them in the back lane on fucking bin liners and then phoning the ambulance fucking I've just gone to put my rubbish out s uh sir and um there's somebody unc you know what I mean cuz you can't have them fucking dying in your house where you're doing that from and you just got no regard for like human life. All that matters is that powder and you'll do anything and everything to keep it safe and to get it as well. It's fucking dangerous obviously. Uh yeah. >> How much were you taking per day >> mate? This is the one thing that you think when when you my constitution around drugs, whether it was the ecstasy, taking 10, 15 pills a night, fucking putting them in bongs, fucking smoking them in bongs, sticking them up your ass, fucking dropping them, fucking Anyway, what's like my tolerance around drugs has always been fucking crazy. And um I was probably doing back then like in the '9s probably 3 400 quid worth a day. The amounts I'm not sure of. Um but it was huge. I I I remember I'd been on injecting heroin for probably about 6 months and if you smackheads like in me place you've been on heroin for 10 15 years. I'm putting my powder in the spoon and they're going, "Nice one, Dors. Is that for all of us, is it?" And I'm like, "Fuck no, that's fucking mine, mate." And no, you can't be doing that. You can't be doing that. You You go over, you go over and like, "Nah, mate." And fucking boss it up and >> [clears throat] >> uh fucking still be all right. You know what I mean? It's like I never all did once back then, James. We used to rob the chemists as well, like foam up their fucking alarm boxes, fucking go through the chemist, neck all the DDA boxes, dangerous drug boxes, all the value. And um you you'd be take I remember taking tablets out of a chemist once. I went fucking blind in death for three days. I fucking don't know what the fuck they were to this day. I went fucking blind and death for three fucking days. And my mates did. We were fucking blind and death bumping into each other and fucking like that that wore off. Uh yeah. >> So you are breaking into chemist and just taking tablets and just taking them. >> Yeah. If don't these may make you feel drowsy. Fucking ideal. You just take anything. I remember um done a chemist. I think they were for epilepsy. took these handful of t I was going thieving over um Europe the next day and um took these tablets. This is the only time I saw my dad cry and um took these tablets in the night out of smoke and and all that and and felt like chill chilled out. I don't know what they did to you when you was asleep but I woke up in the morning and like collapsed. my legs won't work and my head knew what was happening but my body didn't and I fell down a flight of stairs and I'm like like it's like I was having a fit at the bottom but I knew I won because I I can remember it and my dad was a big glassweian trucker and uh he seen me he must have thought I was dying and um that was a first and only time I se seen him cry and uh yeah fucking >> he know that he was part of the problem. Did you ever have that conversation with him? >> No. >> Were you scared of your dad? >> Up till like when I started boxing, it's like um up to when I started boxing, he he he had become like I knew he was proud of me like when I was that was before Arrowin and all that. He was he was but I I had them them scars like from him and um when I when I got I started boxing always had them like old school morals James like like even if it was at football you won't take a liberty on somebody and like when I got to that age and he tried it then like I've stood up to him and said I'll fucking rip your jaw off or I've never hit him. I would never hit him because I wouldn't have been able to live with myself filling in me old man and maybe he he could have done with it or or whatever. But up to about 14 years old, [clears throat] that's when the tables turned. And uh >> how bad were they beaten? >> Kicks and punches and fucking like dragged along. um bruises like not not cuts but as a kid like fucking 7 8 9 10 they they felt fucking horrendous you know what I mean and uh and then like you come home from like trucking and you know he's going to get on it with me mom drinking [clears throat] and being in your bedroom literally fucking shaking cuz you know it'll get to a certain point and then the voices will get louder Then the fucking the smashing starts and for some reason now me and me sister I would always cop the brunt of it whether he was jealous over the love my mom had for me or what I don't know what the but he would come in and fucking I would cop it every time. So it was fucking it was a a nightmare. But like I say, like since I've been in recovery, I've been in recovery 29 years and um mate, it ain't that bad compared to stories that that I've I've heard in people's upbringings. It's been fucking He was a grafted James. He fucking worked. He liked his drink. Um he was tight as fuck. And uh um but yeah, my upbringing to compared to a lot, mate, it was fucking it weren't too bad really, but it just fucking felt bad at the time. >> Do you think that's easier to think that way that people had it worse because whether you're drowning 2 m of water or 100 m of water, you're still drowning. Trauma and pain is still trauma and pain no matter the levels of it. It's just how you handle it. But do you think that's a good deflection to try and make out you never had it that bad because you've seen other people sort of had it worse so you think yeah it wasn't as bad. Try and play it down a bit. >> Yeah. No, like like I said at the fucking time it it felt like horrendous. Like ask me fucking dad like I'll loves him even if he don't love me. It fucking hurt. And um I I guess like hearing other people's stories it's it's it's just got it into a bit of perspective and people would say listen fucking they had it hard back in their days and like when I go back to Glasgow and they showed me where they've brought up in ten months in the down the bars and and there would be like six of them in a fucking little thing. They'd have to share the tour and and they get whipped by the grandad my granddad, you know what I mean? If they talked and all that. It was like it it it it brought a bit of fucking clarity around like why he was like it was. But I'll tell you one thing, James, like we never talked for years and I used to see him walking around Plymouth. This is when I was in recovery. And like I like when I'm good, I got a soft fucking heart and when I'm bad, I got a fucking bad eye. And I used to see him walking around Plymouth and I think that's my fucking old man. And uh no matter what's happened, if he died tomorrow, I won't be able to live with myself. So I say, "Next time I see it," I say to the wife, I said, "Next time I see him, I never had the balls. I I was even as a grown man, I never had the balls to say, dad." And I say to the wife, I've seen him again today, but I can't fucking reach out. I don't know what next time I'm definitely going to do it. And then this one time I seen him in this garage and uh I've gone, "Father," he's fucking looked around. He's gone, "Son, he's gone. I need your help." And uh he started coming to the like the groups that I go to. he started coming to the groups and um he seemed like he he'd recovered and then the last 10 years of his life and this was like one of the best things like that that come from recovery me and him had never been so close and he for the first time he'd say I love your son I'm proud of your son and um yeah fucking I was there at his fucking like bedside when he when he was dying in. He moved to Birmingham with his wife and went up to the funeral. I paid for a fucking lone bag piper for his funeral and uh done a fucking hilarious speech eulogy as well. And uh so yeah, no matter what happened, it it was put to bed and like come the last 10 years of his life, like we we had never that's what I wanted from the start, but at least I got it at the end. Some people don't even get that, James. You know what I'm saying? So, >> can you then forgive him then when you were going through that process at the end? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Did you understand his backstory? What he went through and the shit he saying? What was his stuff he was on when he was an addict? What did he take? >> He he weren't an addict. He he he was more an alcoholic. It's uh >> Yeah. >> He just Yeah. He just fucking >> on the booze every day. >> Every drink. But yeah, >> so he wasn't But you see an addict, he's still an addict. On the heroin, you see that as bad. >> Not drugs or or anything like that. Probably never had a joint in his life or or anything like that, but drink was his drug and and alcohol is a drug in it. It's it's like But he loved it. It's like me uncles that's up Glasgow, they love it. And I thought, well, I'm fucking half Scottish, half English. Maybe I'm just half an old. Maybe I'm not a full-blown alcoholic and uh I ain't as bad as them, but like it it turned out that that I was and worse because like the stuff I was doing was like a lot worse than drink. >> Were you still taxing even though you were on the smack? Were you still able to function? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Was people not going cuz you know you got that look that when you're on the people who take the smack, they have that look where the jaws clamp. They turn a little yellow. You can kind of tell you back in the day you're calling people junkies and all that shit. I don't even like that word now. But you know what you're saying? You they become a target because they vulnerable. So you still be able to attack people. Did you still have a bit of power about you? Could you hide it? Well, >> yeah. Yeah. But funny you say that cuz uh like that me I had been fucking nose ripped off on the end there. That's fucking scar. I had me eyes gouged out and >> who >> like I I would attack like groups of lads and um I just got out of prison in 95 swore off heroin. Soon as I got out of prison I'm back on the gear. I'm drinking down Union Street and like I've attacked this group of lads from a rough area in Plymouth by myself. after biting his throat out. I'm clamped onto his throat, they've managed to get me on like on the floor, still on his throat. So, one of them's put their fingers in me eyes. It's like and I noticed even be before that it's like people would start taking liberties down like town. It's and uh normally people that like that want to have been a problem became a problem because I was so fucked up, so dopey. It's um yeah, you lose that power, you lose that respect and uh but the people I was taxing was exactly the same as me. So that's what probably made me more powerful than them. >> But the baiting those off, was that a blade? A bottle? Now they I'm I'm sure they fucking stuck F. I I don't know cuz I saw off me nut. It's um cuz I saw off me nut. I didn't really know how it happened. But somebody said someone had their fingers in me eyes and they was trying to get me to release me bite off of mate's throat and somebody stuck their fucking two fingers up up me fucking nose and like ripped me nose back and and that bit there it was hanging down onto me top lip and they super glued that back on but I couldn't see for a week cuz I had to take one eye out and fucking and repair the damage and and put it back in. So I I couldn't see. So that that there weren't really the problem. The nose where fucking that got ripped off. It was more in me eyes. I fucking I thought I was on them fucking tablets again. [laughter] Fucking this time [clears throat] I was hearing I could hear what was going on but I just couldn't fucking see. That was the first day out of prison. James, my my mom, they say all all football lads is mummies boys. And I was like a m a mummy's boy. And uh sending letters home from prison promising I'll never do it again. I've sincerely meant them promises. First fucking day out of prison to go home like that to my mom and her see that. Do you know what I said to her? Because we believe our own bullshit. You love this one. I said, "No, M. Nobody's attacked me. Nobody's attacked me. Where are you? And uh I said I've gone into a fucking nightclub in the cloak room. I've took me jacket off, tripped on the carpet. The little pegs that you hang your thing. It's caught me on the on the nose and two of them stuck in me fucking eyes. It's ripped me nose out. She's gone, "No way." But I found out years later, she didn't fucking believe it. It's like a bit of a fucking, you know, like the little round ones and then you got the other ones that you put your coats on in your bags is the only thing that I could think of. But yeah, >> it's the shit you talk when you're battling addiction and you think everybody's dumb pressure. How did you end up in prison for the first time? >> Uh the first time I was about >> I must have been about 18 years old. uh perverting the course of justice, threatening uh witnesses and um they they reminded me straight away and uh even then I thought yes, I'm the fucking first person from my area to get prison. Fucking what a badge of honor. Like that ain't right, is it? fucking and um when I was in it was funny cuz when I it was DC and that back then and it was at a point where it was just turning into young offenders institution. So I'm at exit on remand boss gov like calling them out when I got sentenced for it they took me to Eastwood Park and uh two coppers has drove me up to Gloucester in a car they've took me in and uh I didn't really know much about it but I remember walking in and uh I've gone hello boss you all right he's gone wall up smashed me full p like punched me right in the face my nose was bleeding split my lips And I'm looking at these two copters thinking, what are you fucking going to do? What the fuck's that all about? I never first time in prison. I never experienced that at exit. Gone to Eastwood Park. That was just turning over from a DC into a YI and that happened. Um, yeah, it was fucking wakeup call, but obviously it didn't stop me from going back time and time again. >> We taking gear and the Jew. >> Not not then. That was um just coming out of the football days in the late 80s, early 90s like when when I go go in the prison when I was on the air. That would be fucking brutal. the being in the police cells on the gear. You start turkeying and then you go to the magistrates and they remand in custody and you think fuck like I'm going to have to cuz they never used to give you >> your script in that like back in them days. So you knew you had to do just do your rattle and and just having that to look forward to was enough. But I remember being in in the prisons soon as you're in there it's like I'm scouting. I I remember one time my my mate Ad God god bless him he's died good friend of mine we was ted up and the scout has landed on the land and we we he was a heroin dealer and blah blah blah so I said right watch this when these fucking doors is open and I'm going in there he's getting it unless he fucking starts sorting us out so doors is open the slop out and all that back in them days I've gone into his fucking cell jumped on his bed start slapping you fucking want to you your gear up here, you fucking sort of sad. So the next day we're getting little parcels of gear under the door. Me and me mate Adam's like, "Fucking yes, get on fucking this is all right, isn't it? He must it must have went dry or something or something happened with his visits." Me and Adder starts turkeying. I'm sat there thinking this fucker's got us an Abbit on purpose ads. Now he's pulled the gear away to teach us a lesson when this fucking door is all and he's getting it double what he had before because I thought he stitched us up. So I went again what fucking they they'd whether he sorted his visits out or what he started coming back under the door. But mate in in prison back then when you're an addict I used to take everybody's visits. I'll cut the pocket out me trackies, grease me ass up, go out. I'll be fucking bringing logs like fucking like a baby's arm back through, but I'll be taxing half of it and then wrapping it back up after I've shit it out and then uh taking it back back to like whoever it whoever it was. So, a lot of the times when I was in prison, I probably had more fucking drugs in there for free than I'd ever got on the on the outside. So, >> how many times you been in prison? Six. Only six. And they weren't massive. 14 months and and like 9 months. They want massive sentences. >> Yeah. But you see only six. Six is a lot. >> Yes. Yeah. >> Six is a lot. >> Six months. >> You add up those 14 months and 18 months and two years that comes combines to a lot, you know. >> Yeah. And at at the fucking time it's like it seems a lot longer than than than what those sentences were. So, but was that >> What's the worst thing you've seen in prison? >> Um, I've seen people get stabbed, jugged with the boiling water. Um, yeah, just them them things. No, not not like I watches your podcast all the time in in like fucking I watches them on like the ones that's been to the high security prisons and they see people getting butchered and all that. I've never seen nothing like that down like our way in the prisons I've been in. But you [laughter] it's it's stabbing getting jibed up with fucking uh the boiling water with the sugar in and and all that. I think the worst thing apart from like chinninging people to get drugs in prison, the worst thing I I did was I used to look forward to one meal a week, James. Right. Macaroni cheese. But I like the crispy bits on top of the macaroni cheese. So it was this immigrant um Somalian Bobby I think is called said, "Bobby macaroni cheese. Make sure you give me the fucking crispy bits. all them crispy picss. He's just gone like that slot with all the fucking runny shit. I said, "He's got no." So, I've just smashed him in the face. He's fucking covered in macaroni cheese. He had a yellow face and he had these big fucking bits of macaroni running down his face. I got ced off. That was only one one of two times that I I went down the block. So, like I say, it's like I'm not on that level of like fucking 10 years, 15 years high security prisons. It was it was looking back we had some fucking good laughs in there. Really funny. >> You seem you were getting the jail and coming back out. You still doing the hooligan stuff or did that kind of go to the side when you were on the brown? >> That went to the side when I was when I was on the brown. It's like everything goes when when you're on that. Like you said, like you may have like thought you was an odd man at one time and then like when when you get on that it's like you're far from the person you was. And um >> but your mindset still tells you that you are that person. >> Yeah. Yeah. But keep it to the place where you're at today. So, >> did anybody ever tell you, "Listen, you're a fucking messy now. Get your head out your ass." Or were you just so far gone that you wouldn't have listened anyway? >> No. A lot of people did. I used to do like uh like bits of before I ended up on the gear. I used to do like bits of enforcing like this was at like 20 21 years old going stopping people from dealing like the ease, the speed and all that. It was back then, not so much a sniff. And um like I had some like good pals and from the football and all that and I bump into them and they would always say fuck you know look at you like sort yourself out and and um obviously people close to me family would plead with me but it was uh yeah just you can't you can't sort your addiction out until you want to sort it out. It's like you could have the whole world telling you you start stop start sort your shit out. It ain't going to work until like you hit that place where you want to do it. So it's fucking it was an horrendous eight years on on the gear and um we all used to say to each other listen we tried the doctors. I I was seeing psychiatrist from a kid to adulthood counselors and all that. Me and me mates used to say, "If you ever go into a treatment center, a rehab, make sure it's the last thing you try, cuz if you fail in there, there's fuck all else out there that can help you." And um 97. Um they said, "Uh, can you get in here November the 17th?" I said, "No, I can't get in there that day. That's me fucking birthday." I said, "I'm out on the piss that day." I said, "But I promise I'll get in November the 18th, the next morning." And I was at a point in me life where I just didn't want to live that life of heroin addiction anymore. And I went in there the next day and I meant business and um I'm in this fucking rehab full of fucking junkies and people that I want to mix with. And they said you you need you've got to write your life story and read it out to like the rest of the people in in that room. And I thought I fucking telling these my life story. They'd be all fucking relapsing and telling everyone when they get out. So I made up this fucking story that I was in the Flands war and I seen me fucking comrades blown up to me in the trenches in goose green. I think I remember bearing in mind when the Folkland's war kicked off I was 10 years old in 1981 and I've read that they've given me a medal for doing it and I said nice one I said I'll put that with me Victoria Cross and uh a couple days after that I'm not sleeping I've gone to the nurs's station try to get some more like sleepers she won't do it so I thought fuck it I threw myself on the floor be pretended to have a fit she's ran out of the nurses the station, but the whole fucking cabinet she's left open. So I've waited for her to run out, jumped up, swooped all the fucking pales in, gone by. They they obviously knew it was me. I for you can't prove it. Well, I was the only fucker in there. And the next day, they've had to kick me out. And uh that's when I was crying like a baby to the counselor, but he he told me to go somewhere and that's all he could do for me. Phone this man, go to this place where this man's going. And that's what I did. And then I never looked back for 22 years. Then >> did you ever relapse? >> Not in them 22 years. No. No. Not in them 22 years. And then like at the end of them 22 years um I had a problem with a crush nerve in me spine. And uh it was fucking painful. Like pro like like I mean like chronic sciatica. And um it's left me with a paralyzed fuck permanently. And um when they sent me home with like these tablets of trauma dog gablin and and all they went out 22 years before so I never knew what they were. So I starts taking them and after like taking after about 3 4 weeks I thought I'm fucked here. Like I knew I was over medicating and I knew like I wouldn't even I couldn't stop at that time. They had me then and then like that was probably 10 years ago just keeping it to that and then at the end at the end the last five years I've been battling again because of prescription pain meds to literally it led to everything the sniff um the smoking the >> again after 22 years. >> Not heroin like the the sniff like obviously rocking it up and and uh >> pneumonia. >> Yeah. >> So >> I'm fucked here Jay cuz my like me some of me family don't know about that but but they know what I'm doing today. So it don't matter what's happened like what I've done back then. >> So you're off it for 22 years. >> 22 years solid. >> And then you fucked it. >> Fucked it. Like I can blame the doctors and all that for giving me. >> So you ended up addicted to the tramies. >> Tramies. >> They're fucking hardcore on itself. >> I know people that take them 10 a day, 15 a day and they still function. But it can't be good for your liver and your kidneys and that >> man. I don't know how the fuck I'm still here. I say to you, you used to go my bayer and most people do fag runs. I I had a whole list of pharmacas along the cost of del. So and when they said what strength do you want? I thought it was only one strength 50 50 mil capsules and they went up to 200. So I was getting fucking boxes of these 200 mgram. So that's like four 50 mil capsules. I was on 10 200 mil tablets a day. So 10 times four that's the equivalent of 40 fucking Trangodol capsules a day. And I was doing that for years cuz I I'd lost it then. I wasn't on the sniff. I weren't doing any class A's or illegal drugs, but I was doing copious amounts of like prescription pancers and then pleaded with me doctor get me off these put me on. So he's took me off them and put me on to fucking pregabling which was even worse than that. And then I started doing the same with them as I did with the tramodol. >> The doctors don't give a fuck. >> They're just filling you up with they're just filling their bank account by giving you every prescription under the radar. See, when you started making the changes at the start, how difficult was it to start looking at yourself in the mirror and realized how the fuck did I end up on the ground? Yeah. I think it's I think recovery is easy if you start fighting against it and and you reach a point in your life where you're willing to do whatever it takes, whatever people's telling you to do. Don't question it, just do it. I think it's easier. Obviously looking at myself um through like work I've had to do going through a program like all the resentments of like growing up and whatever and also like I was having to make lists like of people that I've done harm to serious harm or thieved off or battered like the pain that I put my family my loved ones through looking at that that was odd that was odd bringing up like how did I ever like be be like that? It was like what the fuck happened? You know what I mean? And um but it's like I try to think like it's not about what's happened then. It's like what am I going to do about not allowing that to happen moving forward? And um >> what was your daily routine like when you were on it? >> I wake up sick. I wake up five six o'lock in the morning withdrawing because I was taking so much withdrawing puking up um fucking sometimes it'd be fucking severe diarrhea other times you couldn't shit for a year and um and then I'd have to soon as I had that powder that would be taken away the sickness would go the belly the all your aching bones bones where it gets in your bones and you're just like climbing the walls that that it'd be like that every single morning on wake up. But you know that's why it's so dangerous that that drug cuz when you you're craving like that and you're going through pain like that, you know, just that little bit of powder takes all that away. >> Were you ever suicidal? >> No. I I not to the point where I thought about it. I I never had the balls. I would never I went on hunger strike once in prison. >> Why? >> Just because of the length of bang up that he was giving us. But at at the end of the month of being on hunger strike, I think I put on half a stone. So that fucking never worked, did it? It's like so I thought it's like I I would uh I I never had the balls to end it like forever, but I just thought if I've been dealt this card in life, addiction, I'll just keep doing stupid amounts of drugs until I die. And like you don't want to live anyway, but you don't want to die. And you just hope something happens that pulls you out of it. And um I shouldn't be here today, James. It's like from from back then all like the different subcultures I've been through to the problems I've had in recovery with the prescription pain meds. Then I got drawn into some crazy shit at tw like 15 years in recovery and I ended up getting fucking petrol bombs attack with armors fucking and it was like fucking giving Osma warnings and fucking it's like I'm trying to live a spiritual fucking path and like that that was probably a big part of like my downfall and probably why I was taking even more prescription meds to cope with what was going on in me head. It's fucked up time coming at the last bit of my recovery. Yeah. >> Fuck you. >> And you ended up back becoming a hooligan >> after how many years? >> Um probably 15 20 years. My honor, >> was that when you were back on the tramies? >> Yeah. Yeah. But I won't drinking. I won't do sniff. I'll go along. Yeah. I'll be fucking thirsty. I'd fucking love it again. I had that buzz back and then all the lads would be on the gear uh drinking. Imagine this fucker if he drank and took drugs. And uh he fucking nuts. Sber. And um I enjoyed it. It was good because I knew what cuz I was sober. I knew what I could do and get away with and I knew what I couldn't do and not get away with. But they ended up because I knew that Deon and Cornwall police ended up building up a fucking file fighting at Mansfield in fucking um all over the place and they brought a civil case against me in in the courts and then they I ended up getting banned for five years. Then the ban was over. Then there was a game against Wigun where something went off at another part of the stand. all the old bells gone over. I'm like, is this fucking no old bell over there? Let's go. Ran over into wigging away and I ended up with another threeyear ban for that. So that was eight years out of probably 10, 15 years I had banning orders and um yeah, decent, but it's like you can't get away with nothing up there like now all over the country. all the cameras, but you either don't give a fuck and you're willing to do the prison or you won't do nothing because of this. And if it if you ain't going to do nothing because of all that, there's no point going pretending you're a footballer if you're never going to have a fight. And um but I got more to lose today. I got married in recovery. I had two fucking lovely, beautiful girls in recovery. Built up businesses. Um, fucking earned a fortune in in the dog breeding world that started off 20 years ago. Breeding >> what dogs? >> Like rare color DNA French bulldogs. >> Frenches. >> Yeah. >> What do they sell for about six grand? >> I was getting 50 60 grand a pot. >> 50 60. >> Yeah. But today >> selling them to America. >> America. People in this country. There's other people selling them 100 now. >> Yeah. People might think I feel as shit, but my friend used to do that. He he had a dog, what was it name? Like gorilla or something. But because it was so rare in the color and it's it build it was a lot stockier. He was selling them for 40 50 bags as well. I thought it was full of shit. I thought no chance. >> Yeah. >> Cuz you see like boxers and a rottweilers but you get them for a couple of grand. So when you see people saying that you sell dogs for 50 grand, 100 grand because the one in America, the breed that it was, I think it was worth like 200 grand, but they his pups were going for like 75 grand as well. Unbelievable. >> Yeah, mate. It started that off 20 years ago breeding the first like black and tan French bulldogs and it was blue and tan. It just like it's gone on and like when I got into this, this is in recovery. Like I set up a breeding company paying tax in and all that cuz I had people coming down James like from like Manchester, London, Birmingham, literally all over. They're coming into my house to buy a pop. They've literally got fucking carrier bags full of coin. And like I've ended up having to get a fucking money counting machine. And and I remember saying to a little boy, I said, "These fuckers don't work in a fucking factory 9 to5. You fucking you know, you know what's going on. Escalate, they'll end up bringing this fucking game right on top." And that was like probably 10, 15 years ago. And um but mate today like I pulled away from it cuz I got fucked by the authorities under a proceeds of crime fucking thing for breeding dogs without a license that they admitted losing the license but the fucking corrupt asses they come for come for me who'd applied for it filled it all out made follow-up phone calls chasing up an inspector um had a breeding business paying taxes. You've got probably 90% of all dog breeders, a lot of them are on benefits breeding out of fucking council houses, not even attempting to. They get away with it because what's the authorities going to take off them? Fucking a gyro and fucking half ounce of back or something. They ain't going after them, but they targeted me who's literally jumped through fucking everything to do it right because they know I have five houses at the time and fucking and uh all breeding dogs without a license that they admitted lose proper fuck stitched me right up and um going through that uh that fucking that that was like a a dark time cuz like the message had a fucking breakdown over it and uh then they brought this fucking confiscation order under pro even the crown court judge said proceeds of crime were brought out for a man breeding a fucking dog. He didn't swear it was brought out for top level fucking drug dealers and gangsters. What has he really done? Cuz that judge read my probation report James off heroin for 20 odd years at that time. How I've gone back into prisons to help prisoners. I've gone back out there, saved like fucking shitloads of my friends lives. You're still in recovery today. He told me that he never heard a story like it. Nothing short of it. Seemed like he was on my side. Said, "What has he done wrong? You admitted that you lost his license. Proceeds of crime were brought out for a man breeding a dog. It's brought out for drug dealers, blah blah blah." He's gone, "Actually, my neighbors just had a letter of red setters. Does this mean they're liable for proceeds of crime?" He I thought, "Oh, fuck me. I'm going to do all right here." But they they ended up hitting me wanted like quarter of a million quid on money that I've already paid tax on. He's thought he was doing me a favor, giving me the biggest discount he could. I thought it's your court, mate. You fucking you've already said they basically let it be known that this isn't right. Fucking chuck it out. He's g me a discount where it got it down to 110 grand. But under the proceeds of crime, you got to pay that within 3 months or I would have went to prison for two years where it had gained 8% interest a year. In that time, they would have come in, auctioned all my fucking houses off to get that 110 for peanuts. And then I'd have lost everything. So I've ended up paying it by the skin of me. I thought, "Fuck you." I went out and bought a G Wagon under investigation from proceeds of crime only for that reason to go fuck you. Bought this fucking new G Wagon and um I paid all the money up to the last day and there was 10 p remaining. I thought you fucking wait for that. Paid the 10 p on the last day. They've then gone into my bank. Oh the fuck. He paid this money back. They've gone through they they saw everything tallied up and like fucking where the money was from. But then the bank has thought, "Fuck, we've got a fucking top level criminal." Not a fucking dog breeder. Top. They've closed all my bank accounts down without even telling me. My fucking credit limit was through the roof. After all this, fucking ruin me. Ruin me. Ruin my family. I was looking at two years in prison and still have to for what? Fucking breeding a dog. a lot of top fucking level drug dealers, Jay. You got Mexican cartels involved in this game now. You got Colombian cartels. You've got fucking gang bangers down in LA. Fucking gang bangers, mafia people in fucking into into this game involved in this game now. And um yeah, it's fucking crazy what what what what what they did to this little Mikey down in fucking Plymouth who's tried doing it all right. It fucking mad. Fuck. >> Did you end up going f for England as well? >> Yeah, we went went to a few games. Went to a few >> when that was more that was more like when I come come back into it in the 2000s and again by then it's so much fucking CCTV. They didn't seem to be much happening these days to be honest with you. >> It's all changed on it. >> Yeah, we definitely had the best days. >> Fucking bang off back then. No cameras. Fucking >> Everybody's a grass now. But even it's the fucking normal people who have their phones out as well. Everybody's got Ring doorbells. Everybody's a fucking snitch. >> Yeah. And people get filled in for in fucking fucking serious damage done when when just being accused of that. And they're forgetting that there's fucking cameras on every fucking lamp post. It does. >> It don't take much to get figured out today. If you're up to something wrong, you're going to get caught by a fucking doorbell. You're going to get caught by a fucking lamp post. And but then like they'll start blaming fucking other people that probably ain't even fucking said nothing. You know what I mean? >> Where do how do where do you think you'd be in life if you never took gear? Um, >> but then again, see, when I think about it, see, cuz I used to do all the gambling. >> See if I never fucking took drugs and that as well, like gambling. It's all kind of saved my life as well because if I wasn't doing that shit and I had the mindset that I've got now, I would have gradually went through the ranks of doing gear. And where that just takes you is just a fucking disaster. you know, I couldn't level up because when I was getting grafted, >> I would just fucking punt at to get the money to go and put a punt on in the bookies. >> You know what I'm saying? So, everybody was getting bummed. But eventually, if you build up that clientele, if you build up that trust, you'd have fucking I would have fucking smashed the ass out it. But like I said, I've got to think, thank all the shit that I done because it never made us get to those levels until I started sorting my own head out and then I can move through through the gears. Obviously, something more productive. But how far do you think you would have went if you never ended up on all the gear? >> It's like um it's it's it's hard to say. I probably became a fucking gambler. You probably become an addict and you know we were probably it's like I would have probably still had to find something that fixed the way I was feeling and like I can't see that coming by fucking getting a job. Um but my experience is it's like people like with any addiction are fucking clever people always trying like thinking 10 steps ahead of finding ways and means to like get the next bet on uh get the next drug um fucking hiding it lying devious blah blah blah like when when all that went and obviously what I was just saying all that like business acum and with with the with the French Bulldogs I at one point I I think they were saying that I had 114 Frenchies. Obviously, they're not in my fucking house. I'll come up with a thing that they all use today breeding terms. So, I thought, who wants a free dog? Everybody wanted one of these designer dogs, have it for free, but I want two letters from it. They would have to do all the work. So, I thought it's a bit like the drugs you lay people on and they earn you money. Fuck, I'll do it with the dogs. So I started laying people on dogs and before I knew it I have fucking 30 40 people all over the city that's got my dogs having six seven litters of fucking mat sometimes. So that business like when you deal with all that shit of experience of like when I'm thinking straight how well I can do and like like you said when you come off and now you're doing fucking amazing doing this doing like constructive stuff. I've had it. I've lived like a millionaire. our family is. And like although we're gutted, I says to the wife today, "Hey, listen fucking at least we've experienced that fucking life maybe for 5 10 years." A lot of people don't even experience it. So, all right. Yeah, I fucked up. You know what I mean? I've had to fight to stay alive for the last probably 5 years, but now I'm 13 months back. What I did then, if God willing, I can do again. moving on with a clear head once again. So, and that's why I've writt I've I've written that book from chaos to clarity. Fuck me, I even plugged that on here, James, have you? No. >> I fucking writ the book from chaos to clarity. Um, I've start The whole point of the book in my social media was to fucking help people. I'm getting three, four messages a day from addicts, fucking moms of addicts, kids of addicts, fucking screaming for me to help them. And and I'm getting all of everyone. I'm fucking getting out there. It says careful what you wish because it can fucking drive you nuts at times. But I'm getting out there. I'm meeting people. I'm taking them to my groups. I'm fucking um like mentoring them. And um that was the whole purpose of of my book. That was the whole purpose of me continuously posting on social media. It's fucking working. You know what I mean? And like with recovery, I only keep what I've got today by fucking giving it away and helping others. Like that keeps me proper on the straight and narrow. So, it's it's been good. Like the response I've been getting. >> How was it fucking it again? >> Oh, fucking horrendous, mate. I used to I in in the fucking Greece >> like I was I I was fucking international speaker mate at 15 years I was getting fucking taken to um Denmark. I'm share sharing at the fucking international Danish convention in Cop and Aen just before lockdown I gets invited to be flown out to Australia. Um, I would have had to pay for the wife seven nights in the Illand Hotel in Adelaide. Um, that was just before I fucking I relapsed proper. So, I fucked that up. But I had all this knowledge and all this wisdom and all this time. I used to hear people in the groups out of GI whatever you do don't lose [snorts] a lot of clean time or sobriety time 5 years 10 years cuz it's fucking so hard to get it back once you've got all that like that time and I don't know why it is but I thought yeah yeah I lost fucking 22 years it's unheard of probably in this country a lot most people don't even get to 22 years James let alone fucking get there and then fuck it right up. So trying to pull that back, it was fucking Ium. Yeah, whatever you do, don't lose a lot of clean time or sobriety time. And I trying to get that fucking back, mate. I thought I was going to die. Two people in the space of a year that was with me on a mad one, a year apart, both of them. Phone calls in my M Matt died last night. Mike Mike died last night. two people and I thought I was going to be the next on that list. One one person or it happens two people. That's two people dead that is in my company and I don't want people thinking I'm fucking Ar shitman or something. It's [laughter] it's like but I fucking re I realize the third person >> Dr. Reaper. >> Yeah. Fuck you know. Don't come on a mad one with mighty fucking you'll end up dead. >> I still fucking know. I fucking miss it. I say this all the time. I don't know what that is because of the shit that I'm going through now and stuff. Like I feel like you miss it. You miss the escape from it. I don't do it. I don't act on it. But I do think fuck me, man. I could go a mad one because there's no better feeling. It's a fucking weird feeling if there's fucking six your friends in a gaff sniffing booze, tunes on, waffling shit, you know, because when you're in that moment, that's the only moment you're in. You don't go >> past the present. You're there. You're just in that fucking moment. Then listen, when the music goes down, the lights come on, you think, what the fuck have I done? You know, what have I done? And I think >> I do I miss when I say I don't want people to go, oh, fuck it. end up on a mad one. But I don't know what you mean. >> I just miss the >> the fuck it. I miss the not having the worries. >> Yeah. Different sense of reality. >> Yeah. It takes you to a different place where you think it's okay. Life's only okay. Obviously, it's not when you fucking shit hits the fan and then you kind of continue the misery chasing the buzz. But >> I think fuck me, I miss it. >> Yeah. You know, but that's the thing. It's like me and you. It's like most of Well, obviously not at the end, but you would fucking have a room full of people here and you'd be all on it. They'll go home, wake up Monday morning, go do their jobs, fucking not affect them. Me and you are still fucking there a week, two weeks fucking later, kicking the ass out of it. Can't stop ruining everything. fucking pushing the people that we love the most away from us. But all our P they're fucking getting on with fucking but people like when you got this illness we can't and like that's what I remind myself of. Yeah. Fucking miss it. I had some great fucking times. The rave days fucking um on the sniff uh later on like the second part in recovery. still had some good times even. But fuck me, those bad times that that waking up, that mental fucking turmoil, that like how the fuck did I get here again? How can I stop? And um the consequences. Um yeah, I got to remind myself of that. And um like fuck, I I work hard at my recovery today. I'm fucking working with other people all the time that I've got a program out of works in my life. I've got to fucking stay on guard with this. Fair play for getting back on it cuz I always say this. I don't think I haven't got another recovery in me. Now, my story is just the same as every other every other fucking kid who has a few beers at the weekend and is on the sniff, you know? Like it's not thankfully I was never on the heroin or that but when you're on that sniff and then when it's the volumes kick in and then the weed kind of during the weak process and you're going through that cycle it is tiresome but if I was to hit the booze man >> then I don't I would think fuck it is done now I just stay on it. I don't think I would get back because I just think I've came so far and it becomes tiresome as well. See having a norm a normal life it's fucking hard. See, when you've got nothing, you've nothing to worry about. Obviously, when I say that, I had my kids and I tried to do I became a better dad for them. But when you're on it and you've not got anything, sometimes you think sometimes you're oblivious to the real world and what because it takes a lot for people to just go up and work, >> you know, and take the pressures and pay their bills on time and make sure everybody's okay. That's a lot for people. That's a lot of stress. So, see, you're sitting with fuck all >> is easy, >> you know you've got fucking nothing to worry about. You're selfish as fuck anyway and you just don't care. But so you've changed your life. You've met your misses. You've had kids and you fucked it. [laughter] >> Yeah, fuck it. >> I'm laughing because it's what happens. I know people who went to G meetings 42 years and they fucking started again. >> 42 years. Never had a bet since the fucking 80s. >> Fucking >> lost it all. Changed his life. Had like five kids. He's got grandkids. 42 years and fucked it. Fuck it. He was on it for like three years. Lost everything again. >> Fuck sake. >> 42 years. You're never You're never >> You're never immune to it. You're never >> It's always It's It's one >> It's follow It's following up in one negative thought towards it can change your whole fucking life. >> Yeah. And And like fuck that's that's why every day I try and keep him fit spiritual condition cuz you hear that thing. It's like when I'm a fucking sleep, my addiction is at the bottom of the fucking bed, fucking bench pressing fucking weights, doing push-ups and story jumps, waiting for me to wake up to fucking jump right on me. If I don't start my day off right and and end it right, it's like fucking get me any any any time. It's like this is an illness that will fucking it it convinces you that we ain't got it. It's the only illness that you can have that will tell you you ain't fucking got this illness. And um it's a fucking illness that unlike cancer, you somebody's got cancer, everybody's sorry from, everybody's running around from. Rightly so, everybody's fucking absolutely horrible and can't do enough to help them. When you got this fucking illness, James, every fucker hates you. Every fucking despises you. They resent you. And you're left alone like fucking in bewilderment in despair thinking like like fucking how the fuck is this? Like and and you're trying to rationalize it thinking I don't want to be like this. I I'm not doing this on purpose. I'm not doing this cuz like I've got a choice. I've got I'm doing this because I got a fucking illness that convinces me no matter how bad it gets. The next one's going to be different. I'll control it this time. That prison center I'll learn from that. Yeah, good idea. And then you try it again and fucking boom. It may go well for a while. Maybe they'll keep it, but sooner or later we'll always fucking overstep that line where we're like, fucking how the fuck is this happened again? And then we start another battle. Like I say, I fucking had start after 22 years. I didn't think I was going to get back. Literally, it was 10 times harder than when I come into recovery in 97. >> Why? >> I don't know. Because I've got more to lose today, James. I've got the wife. I've got a couple elsees. I' I've I've got more to lose today than I had when I come in 97. And yet I couldn't stop. I'd never had to stop for nobody but me in 97. This time you'd think it'd be easier because I'm on the verge of losing me fucking beautiful wife, my beautiful girls, everything that I and yet I couldn't. And like I don't know why the fuck that is. It was probably what's the fucking point anyway? I'm 54 years old. Uh, you had a good run and oh mate, I fucking found it so hard to fucking grab that and and pull that back and I was and then fight. >> It's the self sabotage though when life is going good and you just rip the whole fucking sand down. Fuck it. I've already done it so fuck it. That those two words alone have destroyed fucking half the world. that fuck it. >> Like people want to go home. I've got work in the morning. Fuck it. >> Oh yeah, you're right. You know the amount of people I've had the sack and relationships broken down cuz I've tried to get them to stay out that extra day or two. People could sleep gouch. I'm fucking buzzing. I need to control the music, the gear, the fuck. I'm fucking like an orchestrator. I feel as if I'm fucking taking hostages. >> I'm just Yeah, just fuck what? Fuck this. And people Yeah. Are we getting the fucking heads? What are you worried about? You live fucking once and there's people in the jail doing 30 years. There's people dying in the hospital and you're worried about a hangover. Fucking lo guy. Yeah, fuck it. And they go, "Yeah, you're right. You know what? They're buzzing around for another two days. Lost our job. Lost our misses." >> But yeah, we had good laughs. >> Yeah, mate. I fucking I literally exactly the same. I'll be at a pub, somebody will come in that I fucking knew at school, got a good job, never been in trouble in their life. Fuck me, Mike. He's gone. fucking stories I've heard about you since leaving school. You're fucking mental. Yeah, well, sit down. Tell me another story about me. Yeah, I'll get a drink. Come the end of the night, I've got him in Union Street getting filled in getting arrested by the fucking police because I've took an hostage and literally No, you're coming with me. Yeah. No, just one more. come down this fucking puck and take and then I'll always end up st and then the poor fucker's necked and the poor fucker like you say the misses is then left him the kids look at him in disgust all because he's fucking bumped into me or you it's like fuck you what's the worst it's that Dr. Peppers in it. Come out with it. What's the worst that could happen? Fucking probably be be on a mur murder charge or fuck. You know what I mean? It's like that could have happened a few times. You know what I mean? Whacking people and how they've gone down. >> Why do you think you're still alive, >> mate? Like I think about that that often. [snorts] Like I believe that there's something out there. I broke me fucking neck. I went down there the other night. I broke my neck two summers ago. Thought it's a good idea to jump off a 15 dive head first off a 15t pier into 3 foot of water. Didn't think it was free. I thought it was fucking six foot. But when I caved all the top of me head in broke brought me. >> I was watching the Olympics at the time and Tom Daly was fucking I thought I'll have a bit of that. Three people said, "Mate, don't go off there. That's fucking way too shallow." Thought fuck off, mate. Watch this. You know what I mean? Big man. Watch this, mate. I'll fucking show you. Fuck me. Gone in. Smash caved all me head in, jumped up out the water, looked down. The water was up to me knees. And um when I went to the hospital, they've done we've had people fall off a chair in a fucking quadriplegic from their neck down. You've dove dived head first into a fucking puddle, bro. And like you fucking walked back to the car, you drove to fucking like do you and I thought, "Fuck me. I should have been dead." That was a month after getting out of hospital. We went Bristol City away. This fucking dickhead from Plymouth come bouncing down the road, pin me in the fucking nose, split me nose all one. So I've ended up cracking a mat and I've detached two tendons off me shoulder. I was fucking fuming. He's fucking gone to sleep. I've g fuck. A few days later, mate, I was in agony. Absolute agony. Ends up I ends up getting sepsis. I'm in hospital for 3 weeks linked up to um introvenous things. And um a lot of people when they get that sepsis, they don't come out of fucking hospital where they lose limbs and all that. That was in the space of 12 months. So, I've had fucking sepsis. No, it's a couple of months after I got out from that. I've then dived head first into a puddle and fucking broke my neck and cave my head in and um that's in one fucking month. But these things have happened throughout my fucking life in close situations where I thought, how the fuck are you still still here? How have you got away with all that? Whether it's belief in a like this like a fucking something looking over me. It's like I I shouldn't be here today. And I think the only reason why I'm here today is something's looking after me because like I've I've helped a lot of people in them 22 years and I guess fuck me. Two people died with me in in that 12 months. Like it weren't me though. It's like why have I been saved? It's like I so like that's what's reinforcing what I'm doing more today because I know all right I relapse after 22 years. If I relapse again now, James, that's going to be even harder again because like fuck me. I don't I think I would die like you said. I know I've got another relapse in me 100%. But I know also that I probably ain't got a fucking another recovery in me. You know what I mean? I'm lucky to have this one 13 months down the line. And it's it's fucking frightening to live with that as well, James. every day. People don't realize when we wake up, we're fucking battling to stay alive every fucking single day of the the week. You know what I mean? Normal people ain't got that battle. And like I know how quick this fucking addiction can take you, destroy you, and kill you. And um I know what I need to be doing like every fucking day now. Whatever I've done yesterday works. So, if I do what I've done yesterday today, I just try and keep it as simple as that. I don't try to morbidly fucking worry and stress out about it. Like, I take it a day at a time. I'm working with others to make me like fucking grateful for where I'm at today by helping these people. And I don't want my fucking book to be called from fucking chaos to calamity. I want it to stay as from chaos to clarity. You know what I mean? Cuz imagine that. I don't want another chapter to that fucking book. It's like I fucking I can't put the end >> at the end of the book. I can't put the end. I don't fucking know if it will be the end with my track record. But I'm hoping it is the fucking end and I can just like fucking stay on this cuz this is a fucking serious illness. You know what I mean? a serious fucking ill amount of coffins I've carried at funerals, the amount of funerals I've been to. This is in Little Plymouth, you know what I mean? Which you It's like I've lost count. >> Yeah. >> It's like fucking it kills people. >> It's scary, man. Living with that every day. It's scary. Like Charlotte, good girl. I fucking had on few months ago, crack addict. She used to call them snowballs. Thankfully, I was never around. Snowballs, crack, heroin. >> She was in Thailand just a few weeks ago and she was struggling. She was saying, "Listen, I'm fucking close to a relapse." But a phone does say, "Listen, get your fucking head out your ass. You've came that far." Sometimes, sometimes it's the phone calls when people are just giving you it straight. Sometimes we can people can tiptoe around you and try and be nice. But sometimes people say, "Listen, fucking head out your ass. Listen, stop feeling sorry for yourself. It's game time." And >> such an a great woman and fucking she's what she's overcome. And yeah, she was struggling. And yeah, I gave her a phone call. I think she's in Cyprus now. Other few kids who have changed her life. And it's great to see sometimes we just get that in our minds. And I was never fucking heroin all the other mad stuff. I was just a gambling and the >> Charlie, >> but I just know life is better without it. But >> it doesn't make it easier. But bro, I tell you what, I've got uh one of my best oldest mates, Erin had it fucking psychopath that I got nicked with on that West Ham thing with uh um he's a gambler as well. And he said the one addiction he's got that fucks him up more than heroin, more than crack, more than anything is the gambling. I can't relate because I I'm not a gambling addict, but I've seen Paul Merson talk about it and then I heard my mate talk about it. So, it's like and when my mate this fucking nutcase is telling me the addiction that fucks him up the most more than all that is gambling. That made me open in me eyes and thought I could imagine I can imagine how it feels cuz like if I spend all my money on drugs and I and like I'd never all the bill money, all the family's money and all that. I can imagine how it would feel. But fucking gambling is a bastard, mate. >> It's a hidden addiction. Yeah. >> So gambling, you can hide. You can still do your shit. You take heroin, people know you're on it. You're drinking, people know. Like people would still you probably still take fucking heroin if people didn't know. You can you just can't hide that gambling. You can hide to a certain extent before the anger kicks in, the frustration. >> Obviously the money runs dry, but people are battling at all different levels all different sort of addictions and fucking it's the way of the world now. Like it's hard for people not to be doing something, you know? Even coffee, I know people fucking rattling seven and eight coffees a day. I see. I class that as an addiction. I class that as a problem. I'm fucked then. >> When did you take? >> I never had a hot drink in my life up until the age of 50. And then I thought I'll try a coffee. [laughter] >> I fucking wakes up. >> I put four heap teaspoons of coffee in this big fucking mug when I wake up. And then like I I'll do whatever I got. And then in the afternoon round about tea time, if I'm flagging a bit, I'll have another coffee with another four heat teaspoons of coffee in. So that's like the equivalent of eight fucking coffees a day. But I'm telling myself, I'm only having two coffees a day. One in the morning, one in the evening. But it was only when you just said that I know people that has fucking eight coffees a day. >> Yeah, I fucking do in two in two cups. >> Yeah, that's another form of addiction. I was doing the Alaska in Costa Rica. I was off it. People were saying, "Listen, you shouldn't be doing that. It's a drug." But I've got the documentary idea. So, I'm thinking three pass. I'm thinking, "I don't give a fuck what anybody says." So, I went and done that. There was people drinking a little cup a quarter, half >> just to get into the feel. Half took one. >> 20 minutes later, I think this is fucking shit. This is just pure shit. Took another one. And then another one. So, I had three cups. Bear in mind, people's only had half the full night. I've get free. They had to carry my mattress outside. I was sitting out in a fucking garden. Like I woke up the morning with two dogs. So bear in mind there's 50 60 people in this room all dressed in white shamans fucking the lot. I woke up in the morning with two dogs next to me. Everybody just fuck they must have lifted my mattress up, put me outside cuz I kept laughing and uh they said it was >> like it was destroying not destroying but taking away everybody else's process of their journey. and they caught me the laughing Scotsman. So I kept laughing but it was infectious cuz other cunts would laugh. I'm laughing cuz I'm nervous and I'm tripping balls. So I woke up outside but again that was that mindset fucking greedy. Three cups three cups more. It work better. >> Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I want to feel the feel something and yeah I couldn't even do that right m can get like it on Red Bull. There's one time if they're on offer over the shop. Eight pack for I'll buy two packs because you got to get them while they're on offer. Eight pack two eight packs 16. The next day I've got six cans left. I've had 10 fucking Red Bulls in a day and it's like I've had to like wait a minute. >> Yeah, that's bad me. >> Yeah, that's fucking a lot of Red Bull. And but I don't I don't think I don't know if it affects me. I can have fucking I can have Red Bull >> literally I'll have a can of Red Bull >> 10 minutes before I go to bed. Fucking sleep like a baby. >> Nah. >> And and uh coffee is different if I have a coffee too close. That's why I'll have it at tea time. There's four fucking heaps teaspoons in there. But I don't even know if thatffect affects me or whether it's a placebo effect of thinking it's got to do something. >> Yeah, it do definitely do something to your internal. But you've obviously been through that much with all the shit that you've took. The body will be solid to a lot of stuff that you take. So because you've been taking that much drugs, caffeine and that it's not going to hit you the same. You know what I mean? Because of the fucking brain and all the receptors that you fucking damaged. So I don't know. Do you vape or do you smoke? Fuck me, mate. I sleeps with it. [laughter] I I fucking I go running with it. I go running with it. I won't I >> I won't vape when I'm running, but my head say, "What if you feel like a vape when you're running? Take it in your pocket like a comfort blanket." So, I'll never vape, but I've got to have it on me. I'll go bed, mate. I'll put that in between my misses in me. I'll be cuddling that more than I cuddle my misses, right? I'll wake up 3:00 in the morning for a piss. I'm fucking like that. I'm fucking searching madly in the dark for where's me vape? Where's me vape? I've done a post the other day. My healthy but unhealthy relationship with my vape. Fucked up. And I stopped smoking 14 years ago. I brought a friend into recovery. He's still with us today. 10, 13 years. and um he turned up at a meeting with a vape. I ain't had a fag for like 10 14 years when when my youngest daughter was born. Oh, what them vapes like? Jock from um Kodi lives down our way. One of me best mates. What them vapes like, Mark? Yeah, yeah, they're all right, pal. I said, yeah, let's have a go on it. Oh yeah, fuck me. It tastes nice, doesn't it? From that day onwards, I'm fucking here now with a fatter vape. And like I'll get addicted to fucking anything. Like my message is like if aspirin paracetamo it's like I don't know why I won't get addicted. You can't get a buzz off it. But anything that fucking slightly changes you I've got a problem with. It's fucking odd because another one was food. >> Like fucking fat kid fucking fixed me feelings from like what was happening at home with fucking food. Battled my weight all my life. I've lost seven stone in the last 12 months. Fuck. >> Not on the are you? >> I at the start when I was coming off the um pregabs and all that. I was 21 stone fucking no energy. I heard about them and I I thought I'll I'll start having a few of them to get me in good habits early, >> but it was still injecting. >> Yeah. And it would say take 2.5 0.25. Fuck. You ain't got a fucking clue. It's like my tolerance. So I'll start fucking injecting uh.5 double the amount because I can't fucking take anything as prescribed. But that that gave me a kickstart into like getting a healthy like getting into like better habits and good habits and and and lose a bit of weight and then like I started thinking fuck me I'm feeling a bit lighter on me feet. I got a paralyzed foot. Never thought I always box play football. Never thought I'd run again after that. And I I tried a little jog and then like I start getting out. That's where I do all my posts like when I get out >> and um in the 12 months that the mangjaro and that got me in a good habit. It's enabled me to lose enough weight to be able to go do that. And then 12 months later, I've lost seven stone and I fucking I'm like a fucking marathon man now. James, I'm fucking out there fucking you saying bone m far. I got fucking nothing on you, mate. >> But that's the the even because of the Red Bull and the fucking Maro and the the the vaping, there's no there's no stopping you. But then again, it's not as bad as heroin. So, we've got that Cass. I'm okay. I'm still functioning. But everything is a form of an addiction anyway. Whether that's overthinking, overeating. I struggle with my eating. Like I eat my emotions or if I'm going through shit cuz I don't want to drink. If I drink, >> but people are in trouble if I drink. I will fucking go nuts. I bottled up so much shit over the last 10 years. I will go fucking nuts. And that's not the act of I just know I would fucking blow. You know what I'm saying? I would be on fucking Instagram lives. I'll be going to cunts doors. fucking causing that because I'm already holding it together by not doing it. >> Once you do it, it's fucking game. Just going nuts, man. But the eating comfort food, I'm eating it fucking 10, 11 at night. I'm not even hungry. I just It's the the ward to brain on it. It's to feel good. But I'm the same as you. I can't I wouldn't take steroids or all the other shit, the manaro, because I wouldn't do what the doses are. I would go tfold, >> you know? I would think fuck this. That's why Monty Maggaret was an alcoholic. God rest her soul. But she quit booze, but she ended up fucking on Diet Coke, drinking 20, 30 cans a day. >> Mate, that was another one with me. Diet Coke and Red Bull. Like, I'll get a crate of Diet Coke and they're probably gone within 24 within two days. It's like I don't I don't know if it's the fizz or or or if it's the caffeine in that, but even Diet Coke fucking that was way before like Red Bull. Obviously, you can't drink Red Bull all all day and all all night. So, but Diet Coke, you can I'll finish one that's in the bin. I've got to have another one open. And I'll finish that one. I got to have another one open. Even with Diet Coke and all these fucking peptidises out now, I'm fucking getting the clo. I'm getting the fucking melanitan. I'm getting the fucking uh ra. I'm getting the fucking traptoid. I'm getting the mel um the tessamoralan. And I like like thinking what the fuck are you doing? You're banging fucking 10 different fucking peptides into you. I like fucking slow it the fuck down. So, like fucking literally got to watch everything. Whether it's fucking Diet Coke, whether it's coffee, whether it's Reb, whether it's fucking tanning jabs, whe whether it's fucking um slimming jabs or fucking anti-aging fucking peptides or or whatever it is, cuz I can't fucking stop. And like fucking it's that like that buzz. Fuck me. Yeah, I'm looking good. Yeah, but you could look even better if you take more. So you're banging more into here because you're thinking fucking you want to look even better than and it's like fuck sake. >> That's tiresome in itself. >> Yeah. >> You know the things that you think aren't as bad as heroin trying to control it. >> But with you it seems as if nothing's in control. >> Oh man. >> It seems as if you're you're you're all you're just fucking all. It's not all or nothing. You're just all out, man. >> Yeah. >> But you feel you feeling good now? Oh mate, I'm top of the world. And even the running, the last heatwave, if I miss a day, I'll do my own heading. Oh, you fucked it now, mate. Yeah, this always happens. You get you start off well, but then yeah, you start missing one, you miss. So I thought, well, I've got to get out. This fucking my head's like ruining me. I've got out. I does this ill named Bastard Hill. And um in the middle of the eatwave, in the middle of the afternoon, because my head's telling me if I don't do it, you fucked it up. Like like fucking I need to do get out every day to feel better. I fucking held on to a wall at the top literally like I was going to pass out. Some lovely woman across the roads had to send her daughter out worried that I was going to die and um bring me a 2 liter bottle of water. I'm trying to get that down me puking it up. I don't know if it was fucking heat exhaustion or just fucking plain stupidity of going out in fucking 100 degree heat, but um again, it's like I've got no no sensible thinking when it comes around like getting a balance around things like just fucking like take it easy a bit like fucking don't drink as much fucking coke or have too many coffees or Red Bull, you don't have to go running in the fucking when it's like a desert. It's like you do, but my head will tell me all different stuff to normally make me do things that are fucking bad for me. But sometimes it will tell me not to do stuff like going out for the run in the heatwave. But where I'm so used to my head tricking me, I don't know what's fucking telling the truth and what ain't telling the truth. It's like, wait, don't go out. Yeah, you should go out because if you don't, this is how it all starts. You'll miss the next day, you miss the next day. You put all your weight on, you'll get fat as fuck. You went back on there and you'd be dead. What size should you? So, I don't know what's fucking telling me the right. And I guess we just fucking learn the more like pain's a good fucking persuader in it normally. >> That's tiresome though. And and you're not. I thought man up was fucking bad. >> Yeah. >> You know. >> Yeah. Mine's fucked, you know, with the the coffee and the Red Bull. Like that ain't good, bro. >> No. >> But then again, from where your life and what you've done, is it as bad as what you used to do? Of course not. You know, and if it's keeping everything sort of tamed, then it's obviously working for you, you know. But that's how I'll fucking justify it. It takes fucking >> ain't that bad. You know what I'm saying? A few coffees, a few Red Bull, few diet co, couple of peptides, bit of jarro, bit of fucking fake tan. Fucking easy. >> Running in fucking 100 degree heat. Fuck it. >> Fucking machine. You're invincible. Nothing's going to kill you. Fuck it. >> What's your biggest regret? Uh, biggest regret? Heroin. Heroin fucking took me to places that um, yeah, taking heroin for the first time. Got to be my biggest regret. took me to places that like you see films and shit like on it and documentary but in that fuck it's the darkest place I've ever been and unless you've been there and like being around them people and people dying and fucking battling every day. It's fucking terrible. >> Were you sharing needles? >> Yeah. Yeah. Sharing needles. When I went into recovery 97, I heard that 70% of uh heroin addicts that inject got hepatitis epsi. So I thought, fuck it. My mate I just met in in in recovery. He's come to the hospital with me to have the blood test and um they've done it and then like you got to wait like a week or two for the results. And uh when I heard like 70% I thought fuck me I've got that I've got at least heepsi and fucking hopefully I ain't got HIV and um I've gone back to get the results and nurse that took the thing I've said you dear she's gone like that and walked off I thought for fuck's sake I got AIDS fuck she can't look at me she can't fucking look at me goes into the room said you're clear fucking didn't have nothing and uh so okay you use needles share needles yeah not not in prison I never not in prison I never fuck that bits of fucking rope tied to the plunges and fucking the end of the fucking needle look like a hammer it's like fucking he knows what fucking but people do in them prison that that needle. They fucking they they they they charge to use that needle in like fucking never in prison. But out here I have. What's the difference really? Is it? >> Would you ever take crack? >> Yeah, I have done. Yeah, I have done. And that became the same problem as I got with Red Bull. Fucking can't stop or coffee or any other drug >> drug that you any other. But it's funny that you say that. Anything that gives you a slight slight sort of buzz or takes you away or gives you a high, you're just automatically go on autopilot and just fucking smash it. >> Fucking slightest little better feeling. I'm fucking gone and fucking it is hard work like thinking what you what you are safe. But I I just try like anything from a chemist now as long as it's like over the counter stuff. But you got to be careful with that because like you can get painkillers over the counter that's got 12 milligrams of coding in 30 box of 36. I'll come off everything and then the overounter stuff I'm taking 36 fucking urofm plus a day. So I can't even have over the counter stuff in the chemist now because I'll kick the ass out of that. So, and it's like the Red Bull like fucking that's all right. The coffee that's all right. Diet Coke that's all right. But like above that like over the counter stuff in and in and them things ain't all right. >> Yeah. Yeah, I think for you, I think like coffee and that, yes, it's it's a bit over the top, but for your tolerance, I think it's okay because it keeps you away from the other stuff. I think pharmaceutical drugs, they're just as it's just as fucking bad as heroin and coke, you know? They just put labels on it. >> Yeah. >> Um, did you ever take foil? >> Oh, mate. Fuck. We went to Turkey. We fucking t for me daughter. my back went and uh the I'd never odeed on any >> I'm starting to think you jump off these cliffs and fall off ladders and and fuck your back so you can get those pharmaceutical drugs. I'm starting to think that's one of your wicked plans. >> It was pretty shallow waters, but you thought, "Fuck it. I'm going to get a dose of morphine in here." >> Yeah. Yeah. Probably right. That probably was the case in Turkey. My back went and uh had to get a doctor in. Went to the chemist. didn't know what the prescription was. It was all in Turkish. Turned out it was fentinyl patches. So my message is staying with me daughter up the hospital. I'm in the old terror room. Thought, "Fuck me, I've heard of these fentinel. If I put two fentinel patch, not one, two, but two fentinyl patches in a cup of soup, that will release all the fentinel in one go. I should get a nice buzz off that. Fuck me. I've drank this cup of soup with two fentinyl patches in for 10 minutes. I started feeling fucking nice and then bang, fucking lights out. They found me. This was at 8:00 at night. They found me 1:00 the next afternoon, unconscious on the in my hotel room on the floor. I must have tried getting help. I must have flew across the room in the corner of a fucking cabinet, stuck right in the cheek of my ass, ripped all the muscle. I couldn't stand because of that. They've had to rush me to hospital where they give me a noraman fucking jab to try and bring me around. And I look back and I think my Mrs.'s fucking birthday it was as well. She still don't let me fucking get away with that. Yeah. And but how the fuck did I survive that? To be lights out after 10 minutes and still like that the next afternoon. It's like how the fuck didn't my art stop in that hotel room? Fucking that that was frightening. >> What made you fucking put it in hot water? Is it Is it jail that's in it? >> No, we used to do it with like the drugs back in the day. You've like put things like patches and it it the boiling water will instead of being >> your skin >> time released >> it releases it all. So I don't know how fucking much fentanel I had but it fucking wiped me right out. Nearly killed me. Fucking destroyed me ass cheek. Nearly ruined me fucking marriage. Do you know what I said though? I said I jumped in the shower. I only had one patch on on me ass cheek. I jumped in the shower. It must have been the water from the shower that like seeped through and released it into me and then like fucking I don't know whether they believed it but like I ended up telling it slipped out talking to her mates. Yeah, I put two of them in in a fucking cup of suit and she's I thought she's gone. You said it was from the shower. I thought fuck. And I just got honest with her. But again, why didn't I put one in and or cut one in half and put half of one in just to test the water? Why didn't I walk out in the sea to see how deep it was when like I had that great idea of fucking diving off that pier? Like why don't I fucking think like what's going to be good for me and what's going to be bad for me? It's like they say if you can learn to laugh at yourself, you'll be amused for the fucking rest of your life. And like I'm fucking certainly laughing today anyway. And I probably will laugh for the rest of me life. It's like fucking it's been fucking madness. But sometimes that's all you can do is laugh. Fucking yeah. Obviously with your story and obviously what you've overcome and what you went through with your dad and just chasing that constant buzz trying to ever be clean of everything or do you think you just came that far you kind of got to have a balance somewhere with taking something? >> I I've got to be clean from all mood and mind altering drugs whether it's alcohol prescription or or illegal. It's like I' I've got to be clean clean from from all that. Um, but the other stuff it's like I'll try and like keep it moderate on on the Red Bull and um all that sort of stuff. But I I ain't going to beat myself up for that. But it's like anything that like like I say, anything like that. Like when I was on the heroin, you end up getting a needle fixation. I'm injecting vodka. I'm injecting fucking horse tranquilizers, dog tranquilizers, anything that you you you think like can change the way you feel. And like obviously what we've talked about today all the way through fentinel patches, putting two in a fucking cup of soup fucking nearly killed me. Uh heroin, fucking ecstasy, any fucking drug that is put in front of me, if I take it, I'm going to be in serious trouble. So, as long as I can just stay away from that, then like I'm in with fucking half a chance. Soon as I pick up anything like that, I'm fucking gone. I don't think I'll get back the next time. >> That's scary though, isn't it? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> To what you've already overcome, man. Years and years and then back and then like you say, the coffee in the red bowl that's fuck all. Do you know what I'm saying? Eight coffees. It's bad for people who don't drink. That's why I don't drink coffee cuz I would be 10 coffees, eight coffees. I'd be chasing something that fucking buzz creatine all I can't take fuck all >> I can't take fuck all sugars the biggest that's the only one I can't master that's the only one I can't take control of and it annoys me because I've mastered everything else I've took control of everything else the food was fucking eating it even come down the train last night it was food food the guy's like you want anymore yeah give me that cuz first class now we're big time not the pasta and the kid must have known That bastardly says we've got cheese plates and that left. As he's giving me two fucking eating crackers, eating cheese and I'm not even hungry. I don't know if it's boredom or what it is. It just it makes me feel good for those two three minutes >> and I eat fast, >> you know. People can be still on their starter, man. I could I can rattle free courses, you know? People eat a starter. I think fucking hurry up eat your soup, man. So I can get my main >> people the little spoon. I I picked the bowl up the rest fucking drinking it. You know what I mean? I have like a walking full bits of bread eat another portion of bread. I just don't know what it is. I I believe I will master it. But I struggle with it. I fucking enjoy it. And people say, "Stop being so hard on yourself." But I'm always hard on myself. Always feel as if I can be doing more, can be doing better, can be a better person because we're all fucking liars. I don't give a fuck how much we try and be honest. That's a form of manipulation. Us talking about addiction and that and change is all bollocks as well. Yeah. But >> yeah, it's the one thing I fucking struggle with >> and like you I'm the same as you where like I'll give that fucking like you give a girl um the fucking brutal honest truth. You know what I mean? It's like people like us. I don't want fucking people like there there there. Don't be too hard on yourself. It's all right. Fucking sympathy kills people like me. It's like I need to be fucking told the truth. you know, whether it's going to hurt my feelings or not, you know what I mean? I I need somebody strong behind me. It's like normally if I know it's a problem, it is a fucking problem. And I don't really want people whether I'm looking for justification and to keep doing what I'm doing. But it's fucking no good for me. It's like I think a lot of it is like getting honest with yourself and like if something isn't feeling right within then it probably is a fucking problem that we've got to think right I know I've got to be wanting to slow down moderate or stop but when we get to that point that we want to 100% and we want to like put it right before anything else that's the only time we can start to fucking gain a victory over it. >> Yeah. >> So, >> so what's happening with the book then? >> I've been waiting on these publishers and um uh fucking been offered free contracts of these. I didn't know there was different types of publishing. I've been offered free contracts on these hybrid ones where you got to donate to contribute to the making and marketing other book. I thought fuck yeah. I fucking donated enough in fucking blood, sweat, fucking nearly death into writing writing this story. So then I've sent it to these traditional and wait I've been waiting 6 months. I don't even know if they they may have just chucked it in the bin or something. I I don't know. >> Takes 10, but you can self-publish as well. >> And that's what >> because the publishers only give you like 10% 15%. You don't really make fuck. >> That's what he was talking about. >> Take the cunt. You can get publishers that are maybe um got their own like not as big as the biggest publishers out there, but you've got people who can maybe give you 30% a little earner up front, you get a percentage of the book. But a lot of these publishers >> take the rights of the book and give you 10 15% and then if you turn the the book into a movie or a documentary, they also get to keep that. There's so much small print or so much fuckery with these big publishers. But just to have a book out and telling your story, I think it could benefit a lot as well. >> Yeah. >> And um but you can self-publish AI, put your stuff through AI, get everything spot on, and yeah, you can put it in Amazon yourself. I'm sure people have spoke about it before, but um I'm not 100% but I think you can. >> I've got all the files. The book's been done through uh chat uh GPT and all that. And uh over the last couple of months, people that's had stories published um self-published um somebody at my group who's a professor in AI and all that. He has he's had poetry published and they four people in the last month self-published self-published. So I think that's a sign I'm maybe the professor's away on holiday. soon as he gets back, I'm fucking jumping on it, getting it done on the Amazon or what whatever. It's I'm getting hundreds and hundreds of people constantly messaging me like, "When's your book? When's your book?" And um so it's been frustrating as fuck waiting. Really? >> Yeah. But you get Look how far you've already overcome. So you just got to keep fucking keep saying in this mental world. But sometimes I question, are we the fucking problem, brother? You know. >> Oh, definitely. We are the problem. Yeah. [laughter] The problem ain't the drink, the drugs, the fucking gambling, the sex or the food or whatever. >> The problem fucking centers up here. I'll know that for sure today. It's like I've done something to change this thinking, my attitude, outlook upon life again after fucking 22 years, it worked. So, I've not changed it. I've just thrown myself in because I know it can work for another 22 years or or more. And um all the dealers, all the fucking offesies, all all the betting shots is out there today, but I don't go to them because that's changed, James. It's like I had to change that because the drink and the drugs ain't the problem. And the problem centers in my mind that will fucking constantly fucking trick me and like I'll get up in the morning, I'll pray, I'll read my books, I'll do all me prayers, I'll write gratitude list. Normal people don't have to do they're it's naturally ingrained in normal people. They've got all these things anyway. I've got to work fucking hard. I for people up. I work with newcomers. I go to groups. I fucking to stay alive. To fucking stay alive. That's that's why I do these things. I ain't doing like podcast. I ain't read this book. I ain't doing all the posting that I'm doing on like the Facebook, Tik Tok, and all that because I'm some fucking Gandandy or something. I may have the tan and the bald head, but that's as far as it goes. It's like I'm doing this to fucking keep my self alive, you know what I mean? And like hopefully work with others and uh it's spiraled a a bit in a good way and it's done done me well and like I'll continue doing it and uh hopefully people can think fuck me if he's done it cuz that's how I've done it like in the first 22 years. They all know me in Plymouth. And uh that's how I got so many people in and out saved their fucking lives. I know I can do that again. But you can't transmit something that you ain't got yourself. And today I know I've got it back. I'll keep working at it. I'll keep trying. I'll keep trying to help others and like the rest of it out of [clears throat] my hand. So >> yeah, that's it. And the thing about being an addict, it doesn't just have to be a bad day. It doesn't have to be something's happened where we create that excuse. You could be feeling fucking amazing. >> Yeah. >> And you'll tend to go, you know what? Fuck it. I'm going to do it. Because the brain will trick you. You can do it now. You're feeling good. You're in control. Before you know, a year passes by, two years passes by, three year passes by, and you're back to square one where you just can't get out. The brain is such a fucking weird little instrument, organ, muscle, whatever the fuck it is, it plays tricks. And like you say, you wake up every morning and you're battled for a full hour to try and keep sane, to try and just go on with one day. >> Yeah. Fucking yeah. And like like like you're saying just now it's uh you can be fucking doing well. You can be feeling on top of the world, not a cloud on the horizon. And then Yeah. But you know what will make you feel fucking even better and 10 times better? put a drug on top of how well you've done today and you'll be fucking transported into fucking heaven automatically. You think, "Yeah, fuck me. Good idea. Do it." And then fucking like you say, a year later or whatever, quicker than that, you've lost a fucking lot. You're on death and like you're thinking, "How the fuck did that happen again? I was doing so well." It was like, and now I fucked it up again. My dad used to say I was like Frank Spencer. Like fucking everything that I done or he called me King Mid said everything that I touch turned to shit and not gold. And he I still hear his voice today. God bless you. Michael, you're nothing but a schmack. Heed. And I remember going Florida once with a detox right down off the method to like half a mill like literally nothing. Soon as I got to America, fuck me. And I was off that methodone. The craving was fucking horrendous. And I'm in this parking lot with my family, fucking from UK. So like no signs. I want drunk. I I want off me head. I was fucking craving. I like it was the cleanest I've been for a long time. And this person's walking uh around the car park collecting. Me dad's gone, "What? What are you collecting for there, son? He's gone uh addicts like your son." I thought the fuck you fucking cheeky yank bastard you fucking me dad's going he's fucking right Michael ain't he says you're nothing but a fucking schmacky I thought how the fuck like you say we think like we can avoid it and nobody else knows like like what we're going through or like what what problems like we got with substances gambling and all that. Fuck this prick on the other side of the world that didn't even know me knew me and could look at me and to have the confidence to say addicts like your son like I thought fuck me. So >> what's your plans for the future brother? Um like now like I've come out the other side of the mental health, the addiction like all the like come the disabilities that I've got I like I train to be like a plumber and and gas engineer and all that in in recovery of first time. So I've still got that I'll I'll try build on that. Also I'd like to like build on like the social media side. um follow me page from chaos to clarity cuz I'm maxed out on the the personal one Mikey Dawson. Um I'd like to concentrate on that cuz if I if I can do that and not have to work and spend my time like trying to help people, that would be a dream job for me. Um I've got other things planned. I'm I'm like really good friends with her. My my wife's lifelong friend from child. Married a lord. She's a lady. Got this fuck off great estate down in um St. Germans. Port Elliot. They do mental festivals down there. Got Faithless Jesse J. Um uh Razor Light and all that in the bottom of the sort. She's got like a huge estate down there. 360. I'd like to maybe like try and work out do something down there with her. Like even if it's retreats or something like that, there's opportunities there. But I I don't know. I'll take things as it comes. They say if you want to give God a laugh, tell him your plans for the next 12 months. And um that has been my experience. It's like the dog thing come out of nowhere and like then all of a sudden I'm fucking earning like millions of pounds is going through me ass. It's like I don't know um what's going to like for like happen but all I know is like if I keep doing what I'm doing it's only going to be good James. So take it as it comes in it. >> That's it brother. For anybody watching that's in a life of struggle that can't get out doesn't have any answers. What advice would you have for them? >> Um, listen, re reach out and try and reach out to an addict, a gambler, um, an alcoholic who has found a solution to these problems. People with mental health, reach out to them. My experience is only an addict can help an addict. An addict that's recovered can help an addict that is bang in in addiction. It's like I can't open up to doctors. Yeah, it may work for some people, but not for a fucking addict. A mob description. It's like reach out. Um, reach out to me. It don't matter. James, this is a fucking universal illness. like no matter where you are in the world, I could speak to somebody in America and I have been recently and tell them what I've done because these recovery groups for for whatever it is is all over the world and like I can only tell people like what's worked for me. 22 years I'm still 29 years off heroin, 29 years in recovery. All right, the last like five is being fucking horrendous, but like I'm back today to the thing that worked all them years ago. So reach out, talk to people, find out like fucking where you can go. And um doctors for me, they couldn't give me pills or medication to change how I thought up there. Like I had to fucking start believing in something bigger than me. It don't have to be a religious thing. It can be anything that I want it to be as long as it ain't fucking me because my best thinking will kill me. It's like my best plans, ideas fucking destroy me and anybody that's close to me as well. So let's fucking just take it as it comes. >> How you feeling today, brother? >> Fucking on top of the world. [laughter] Fucking on top of the world, brother. >> You fucking hell. Let's get a big bag of fucking coffee. >> Fuck off down solo. >> Fucking show how it's done. Hey mate, you don't want to be using with me. You know what happened to fucking the last with me, brother? Fucking Scottish king go. [clears throat] >> Listen, obviously I'm kidding on people. Fuck sake. Or are we? But >> listen, I'm glad you're back on it, brother. You've clearly got a lot to give with your stories and what you've overcome. Everybody has their battles and struggles. You've went dark to dark places to try and get find that light. You been back in those dark places, found a light. All we can do is keep trying. And if we get back into darkness, then listen. All we can we can do is try and find that light. And I'm sure there's plenty of people out there struggling who want to find some sort of answers or some sort of guidance. You've lived a life firsthand >> and you're still here to tell the tale, which is a beautiful thing. But I wish you nothing but the best for the future. make your boy and if you ever need me, I'm only a phone call away, brother. >> Yeah, I appreciate that. And same like wise, mate. Keep doing the great work that you're doing. Getting all these like transformational, inspirational people on here, stories to let people know there's a way out and keep doing it yourself cuz obviously I know like you've had your struggles and and um yeah, let's fucking all we can do. That's the thing as well. like I've not got a laptop here or reading motivational quotes cuz I repeat myself a lot and it's not because of the listener who's maybe watched a few and think he says that before. I'm only connecting with the guest because we're sharing stories. It's not about the audience watching that and says he says that 100 times. I'm only interviewing. I'm only speaking with the person in front of me to understand and to make everything a more relaxed environment when you actually share your little war stories together. So, I know a lot of people might say, "Oh, he's fucking saying it But I can only talk my story, you know, and it I connect more with the person when you just kind of share something. Do you know what I'm saying? So it's not for the audience has maybe listened 100 times. It's just for the person I've only met for the first time. >> Yeah. It mate. And in these groups, I'll repeat what I say three times a fucking week. Cuz it ain't for people that's in the group. >> It's for that new man or woman that is probably just walked in there that first night. It's for them. And for them motherfuckers, it's it's so it's important that I keep repeating myself. Believe it or not, it's like whether they've heard it hundred times, a thousand times before. Yeah. For you. It's for that new man or woman that's walked in off the street that's fucking dying from addiction. It's for them and them only. So >> Mikey boy, thanks for coming on today. I wish you nothing but the best for future. Good luck and God bless, brother. >> Yeah. Thank you, James.