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The Public Nuisance Podcast
Host Sean McComb interviews various guests
The Public Nuisance Podcast
The Public Nuisance Podcast #051 "One Year Sober" with Liam McComb
Welcome to a new episode of The Public Nuisance Podcast with me, Sean McComb.
This week we welcome Liam McComb to the podcast.
We cover building site drinking culture, coke and chaos, psychosis and paranoia, the first honest phone call, AA meetings and routines, showing up for the kids, West Belfast support, stigma and sobriety, compassion with boundaries, zero-alcohol nights out, ebuilding life one honest day at a time and much more.
New episodes every Tuesday.
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Sean McComb
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Killen Studios
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That Prize Guy
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Website: https://thatprizeguy.co.uk/
Welcome to this episode of the Public Nations podcast brought to you by Killen Studios right here where you can get all your content done. Photo shoots any content podcasts set off you you name it, it's all here. Let's not forget that praise guy. If it wasn't for that praise guy, he's gonna be entertained with such a good podcast. So big shot of the that praise guy. Don't forget to check out what praise are at stake from his social medias. What if it's a day, the big bro? Not not the big bro that everyone's been asking for. They're all mad stories. The other moder bro, lame.
SPEAKER_00:No, well, I was the mad one, but not anymore. Quatting down.
SPEAKER_01:Just over a year sober now. I am. Um been a long road, been a crazy air life. It's been a crazy time to get back. Crazy air life, as I say, as a start off, obviously. Many people won't know us.
SPEAKER_02:Well here, many mate no it, because you told everyone you were the first Irish champion in the Irish.
SPEAKER_00:I was, I'm never, yeah, sure I have to. Sure, I'm the fucking that's my my claim to fame. First Irish champion. First Irish champion. All M years ago. I can still remember 1999, and then Mickey phoned me in 2020 and told me that I held a record in there from 1989 to 2020. It was the first person in Holy Trinity in 20 years to win Boy One. All Ireland Table.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I don't even know who this is.
SPEAKER_00:Dued or something, it was due to someone that broke it. So there you go. RDL be raging. A record holder.
SPEAKER_01:Twenty-one years as well. That's some going. That's twenty-one years of offense.
SPEAKER_00:I know, it's fun that Mickie actually says that.
SPEAKER_01:It's a lot, it's a lot different in Ireland from when whenever we were kids, and I used well, there's wrong about legs.
SPEAKER_00:The old old club? No, we were too young. That was ruthless, the old club, like yeah, the new club opened in 2000. So it was 2000, no.
SPEAKER_01:Have you never in it? Nah, I was in the old one. I still just didn't it's a little bit of a little bit of weight.
SPEAKER_00:I remember we used to be able to get into the the youth club through the play the old football and Mickey's running about locking you or through the wee door and then right. Way running about going mad on it. Oh wow. So uh years ago.
SPEAKER_01:Obviously, like back in the day, everyone as we I was actually when I had Arn Smith one, we're talking about it, even the old McCracken's bus used to fly about and they'd pick people up.
SPEAKER_00:Well horn is one of the reasons why I Sig Tap, obviously through Schmicker. He went after he went on a two-week vendor and then after he came back, he was like he'd had enough and then he caps into me and I was like, I'm alright, I'm alright. But deep down it wasn't alright. It was continuing drinking every night and just letting your life go by. Just sitting in a bungalow, just drinking and waking up and fucking doing the same routine every single day. And then some microcaps ending me. And then as I said, you did Iceland come in and told me that you mucked into the house and there was drink lying all over it and fireballs and all that crack. So after I had her, it was sort of um that's when I rang you and rang me down.
SPEAKER_01:Remember, like it was it's small because it's so common. Loads of people don't realise how common it is that people have fallen out of Texas and don't even know. I never thought I like you forgot your support network and you broke your family, obviously, but you you just turned a half away. You didn't realise you needed it, you're going, I don't need help. That's probably what a lot of people are doing now, like in West Belfast. Of course. In particular, where people are going, I don't need help, I don't need help. But when they're on their own and they're st they they may be so broke, they're probably going, what the fuck?
SPEAKER_00:That's what I done when I was when I was drinking. I'm mad with drinking, you know what I mean? Obviously, a lot of people do know it, I know that myself, but when I was drinking, I was sort of doing mad stuff. And then when I was sleeping and getting up the next day, I couldn't deal with reality. So my solution to that was running and getting another drink, and then doing the same thing again and doing it and just stuck in a rot reality that didn't even exist. And then comes along, we're taking drugs. Yeah, taking trouble, right? Taking drugs, and and what comes around is trouble and lies and I got drug psychosis. So I did, and I sat in that house and there was times where I was telling the story about the chase.
SPEAKER_02:What's his name?
SPEAKER_00:Oh Bradley Walz. Bradley Walz. I was sitting in the house taking cocaine and I swore for three days in a row that Bradley Walz was backstabbing me.
SPEAKER_02:On the cheese, though.
SPEAKER_00:So it was Ben Chabrik at it too, on tip of my elevated lit. I didn't know what I was at. I was fighting for everyone, going, what is going on here? But that was in 2020, just when COVID hit. I I just always thought to be honest with you, I thought it like I was more with seeing what other people were doing instead of focusing on what I was doing, and then a chelsea and came with me, how's he able to do it? How's he able to do it? Well, I might not doing this, but it was all down to me doing the wrong things for money and blaming other people and and blaming you, blaming Dee, blaming my dad, blaming my mummy, blaming my family, blaming Iceland, blaming everybody but myself. And it took me long enough to realise that. And it's it's been a long road home, but I've made it back and I'm just grateful that I have because I know people that haven't.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, anyone I bump into, like I was just saying, like even Mickey Hotlands, people who haven't seen it and like it's mad because you don't realise how much people, how much support's out there. No, like for someone who's in the Brazil a year ago, they're like not even to realise how much support you have. Now that your year sober, everyone's buzzing. Like everyone I bumped up into like fuck me, your name's looking brilliant, he's amazing, it's like it's class, and I'm going, oh like I'm proud of him. And I always have a sweet sense where I'm like I'm proud of him. Like, and I am a kind of thing. I always say that to people, I go f I know. And it's like for years and years and years, people I bumped in there, like, here it's bumping your head, he's a rocket, he's not folks. Everyone on the order. And everyone else thought was brilliant, but I was going, fuck no, like even Marty O'Reilly, Marty's fuck on my best, maybe oh fuck you're in the game. Like I go, I thought I feel but say if it was your brother, you wouldn't know. Even my when we were all we were doing the night before my bad mother at the funeral, pulling out the fireballs, it was going to be like flicking the fireballs, I know your badness. No one knows. Like I can see it's just one flip never switch and never hang your own. But they don't say it like other people don't see it all hanging, but they can just go on home and don't have to listen to it again in the morning. Yeah, fuck loads of messages, it's like no, what is it? And I fuck I feel like it's mad to say like I never thought of saying it's a good thing. I didn't think I'd say all no chance, no chance.
SPEAKER_00:I didn't believe it so hard. Well, you meant to believe it, or anybody else was meant to believe it. I didn't think I would have done it, but it was like obviously maybe lad, like and I like we spoke about this coming over. I knew knew that I was doing wrong.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But I I'm stuck in that door and trying to get yourself out of that alone from being gonna that mental institute to the being to go into that flat in North Belfast to have an to go and right, you give up, or you m you you may pull your socks up here and and do something about this. And I did make a plan all those years ago that I knew then it was gonna take me four or five years to fix this. So I made a plan and everything that I'd planned out and I'm grateful for it that it all worked out. All worked out. Nah, it's all worked out, and I'm grateful for it that I've made it back. We're a good mindset, uh still a good family around me, everything sitting in front of me, and I just to take Ripold fans and move forward fast and rapidly.
SPEAKER_01:So you couldn't imagine that I couldn't imagine it. I couldn't imagine it. I was like RD was like RD would all even when you were fucking fit me and D was you weren't even talking all day, you would all say to me, fuck body and fucking some skits out there, just all prayer. He gets his act there, and I was going, you know. I just had no hope. I know, I didn't know what you were like. But Daniel, I was like, Why don't you not be like your songs? RD's couldn't sleep. I know, I know.
SPEAKER_00:It's causing me and D too at close needs. Like when we grew up, we there's only 10 months between us. No men we're already twins, but we don't ever hang. If you sing they've seen me and the box, and he won't have one. Don't ever hang shirt the same trunk, same back, the bats of the okay. Go selling too and never speak again. So he did, but aye, as to say, like a wee smacker and all too, like he's no one thought it were him too.
SPEAKER_01:No, it's good, you just have each other at the right time of life. It's mad about the guy. Like you wouldn't have put you two in the same room in those days, like, and then now you're such close mates and you're with each other every day, and you're you're both supporting each other, and it's like it's just it's mad that you both came together, but you've been in the same trade your whole life. You're like what a year or two apart in school. A yeah, but you're you'd have done the same trade your whole life, when you were sick both, probably sixteen, yep, as apprentices, and you've never really, really worked together.
SPEAKER_00:Nah, never, never on the same side.
SPEAKER_01:Never ever on the same side, all them years until you were both sober at the sack same time. Two of us got sober at the same time. That's the way it was at it.
SPEAKER_00:No one would have never put me and smaker together.
SPEAKER_01:And say if you had to put you both together two years ago when you were both partying, you probably would have fought. No, no, no. One of the two things, right?
SPEAKER_00:And that's not even debatable. That's because the two of us were no, we see to be honest, we two see Belton sites. Ninety per cent of people on built in sites are a bar of Dixon. No, they do.
SPEAKER_01:It's that's what's it like so like 'cause you I remember you telling me, like, go until like if you like f it's it's once you start a building city when you're sixteen, what they do is like even bu builders would bring you to their bar in the bar. You get your wage in the bar that they own, and then you spend your money that you're just paid by in the bar that they own, so they get the money back on you.
SPEAKER_00:People used to pay people like Sobbies to bring the wages till the bar.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:You know what I mean? I'll give you a couple of quid if you get them as to come till the bar.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:No meaning say right, say trendy lodge, meet up in the trendy lodge, twenty builders who love a drink. Exactly. You're getting paid in the bar. So what happened then? But what happened then is you finish at one o'clock, you'd be in the bar for half on, but the wages aren't coming to four. So you're out from half on to four, and by that time you're half liquored, you get your wages. Happy days, I might as well stay on here. And that's but uh built and say it's art, it's all drinking drugs. Yeah. So it is, it's it's riddled right through that. All bricklayers, see, it's an it's an old tale. All bricklayers were drinkers. You know what I mean? That's what they've done, especially getting rained off. You know what I mean? You could rein off if you're going right hard to film the tame in here. It's like me going to Scotland and Mark, that's where basically the drinking started for me.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I went away to Scotland for 20 people. When the recession hit me, you might go over here, Mark, and then you're there's twenty, there's twenty men in one room. So how do you sleep? No people farting and snoring, and then you're up when the next minute everyone was getting carriage, and then the next minute you're you're drinking four tins of beer to get yourself asleep, and then all of a sudden you see yourself like me, ten years later, drinking fucking twelve tins of beer and and six fireballs and bouncing about the house like a lunatic, phoning people and slabbering and squealing and like a psycho.
SPEAKER_01:It's it's If I ain't like if I go on the drink for say if I drink no week and I wake up nagged next day and then I've been nagging for two or three days after, and I always told myself, why the fuck did I drink for? And I never used to free gap when I was a kid. Before I had my own kid and before I had my own responsibilities. See now, I'm like fucking.
SPEAKER_00:But I never end up with no hangover either. Cap drinking. I just I don't even know how I'd done it. Like I was going to Dublin last year, I was getting up at half four in the morning, getting home at six o'clock at night, and the first thing I was doing was straight the off lines. That's an hour story, it was getting stolen. But we'll say hello rebs. Do you know who you are? So that's the way it was. I was just getting up and going and drinking, and and then see when I went to Dublin, like it took me all these years to come back, and then obviously I came back to my mummy and daddy's. And you know my like I went off a drink because my dad wouldn't let me drink. Obviously, he knows the way I am. I was like, right, right, right, I'm not drinking. Do you know what I mean? And then I obviously got that at We Bungalow around the corner and just back in the back of the street. As soon as soon as I got that bit of freedom again, then I went I went back on a drink. So but I wasn't happy up and then I couldn't I was like seeing I was laughing like I I went to the when I first fell on that and I came out at Mental Institute and all this I got I seen a number on Facebook and phoned it. It was a fella called Darren from Lauren and he was looking at Brick there and I went, right, that's me. Hopefully in a week's ways and I'll be back on my feet and all here. And my head was I didn't even know what I was thinking. I was so paranoid, I was walking around my hood up, but then man, oh he's gonna talk about me, hanging people on cars and all were watching me. And then when I went to Emmons, then it was a fella, it was an older fella, Davy, he knew you from I don't even you didn't even have your own podcast then from boxing and stuff, and he asked me, was I related to him to be rawer, and then they'd sort of discovered there's something that ready to hear about him. And then they slowly but surely I was telling Emmons and then they were a big help in hand of explaining to me about life and what was wrong and how you get yourself back out of it. Obviously they can't fix you, but they were they were good to me. But I wasn't happy and when you're laughing, you were just like and you were just gonna home. It was like I'd offered you go home and take your face off and set it down, you're just sitting there, and then next minute they were drinking and then going to work and drinking. Then but when I went to Dublin last year with Smicker and We see me and all, and boy say I found myself when I was coming home, I was laughing. I was going, I mean that though, like I I found my happiness coming slowly but surely back to me. And then when I went to down to stay in Dublin, I ended up falling into addiction of taking coke again. So I did, and that was I was like my heart and all was going and I felt psychosis coming back at me. I used to was looking at people like they're talking about me and paranoid. So Leanne just I just lift up my stuff and went and I got man, I never drinking again. That was me, just cut that now, or you're just you can't you're two young kids are.
SPEAKER_01:I know it's fucking mad. Like they think it's so normal and people just there's a lot of people out there that's so much fucking help like that we grew up with. It's madness, it's sitting there, but madness is her frauds, I go nah, fuck me.
SPEAKER_00:Your prey means nothing to you when you're you're dead, you know what I mean? Go on and seek the help because if I can go and seek help and get sober, and you know, Sean, I love to drink better than anybody, and I listen, I was the best drinker in her three years, you know what I mean? But reborn that's an hour story too, so it was to go and go anywhere. I had to go to Alaska for a pet, so then see, but there is helper if you ask for it, like I know, sure.
SPEAKER_01:Like when we went, when you first went to AA, it was like I was going, I remember what like I I would have my V, I remember the guy and their mom's like, Fucking as a guy, I'm an alcoholic, uh and they're lame, lame, that's my brother was one of the fucking red, so we'll have to talk to them. But I remember going fucking like a wee fucking like a child walking in there like so make sure you really shame really go up and tell us from it. And they're walk completely when I went myself, he's completely out of his comfort zone here. And myself, like I I was out of my comfort zone too, but I didn't just let them know. I was just like, I t I'm not a highlight, I told him I'm not a hog it. He brother just wanna get the fucking problem. And um I just knew completely you're an enemy, he's completely out of his comfort, but he needs it, he needs to do this, he needs to do it, and like I said, you don't need to talk to them, and you were like, oh but then I was when we were hearing stories of other people my dad been through. And I you wrong and be like and then we left after. And I remember you saying me, fuck, I thought I was getting attacked on minor people or over fucking.
SPEAKER_00:See the night before, I knew that I was stopping drinking. I knew that. So what I done was I went home and got myself six tins of beer and two fireballs. That's what I got.
SPEAKER_02:So that's it was coming.
SPEAKER_00:So I drunk them, and then I went, it's my last night I made as well. So what I'd done then was run over back over the off license and got myself an hour, six tins of beer, and two and two fireballs. So I went over and got them. So I went back, I drank two fireballs and drank two tins of beer and got somebody at my bed. So I knew then the next morning when I woke up, I had to go to these classes and I was so nervous and what am I gonna do with my time? What how am I gonna so when you came, before you came, I came home from work, so it was four tins of beer sitting in the fridge, and I was going, I wonder if I should have one easier. And I was like, no, he'll smell you out gargle at me and hit me on a hell swift one. Here's me, I'll brush my teeth, no making up all these excuses. So I went and seeing when I was riding over with you in the car, all I could think about was having four tins of beer. Seeing you were talking to me, I was oblivious to how I was going to be I am four tens of. That's the way they were. I've flooded about I've been floating the beer for five years.
SPEAKER_02:That's the way it was tough, man.
SPEAKER_00:So when I went over and I thought, oh I got damn four tens, then after that's me done. But see, when I come out, after hearing what they were talking about in there, I was like, I'm never drinking again. Like how selfish am I to think. See, in my head, I I I thought I was the only person it's happened to. And I was that's why I was cursing you and Dana for because I was going, why did this not happen to them? Why'd this have to happen to me? Why blaming our people again? But it was my own fault.
SPEAKER_02:I know what I didn't know.
SPEAKER_01:When you listen to them stories and then you go, homie get your eyes up and you go, fuck, I say, you leave the place me totally, you ain't you have a T T and concert or listen, and you do alright. And they're sad me or sober now, and I'm going like they can do it after what all I've been through sleeping the street in jail for I know like at our mine's is an easy role compared to it.
SPEAKER_00:But that was me thinking that and then seeming you brought me here when I come out of it, I was like, Oh selfish of me. No mean I felt like slapping myself, going like you serious or what? Like you've a good family, you have a job, or you've a roof over your head. And now from I've got sober, like all the stuff that I've achieved in the last year, it's it's like see if you rewind the clock back to me 13, 14 months ago and tell me see in 13, 14 months' time.
SPEAKER_01:It's all heady.
SPEAKER_00:This is all heady. Like, I had a just laugh and you're telling absolute lies here to me, like, and it's just been an amazing journey back and how happy my kids are. Like I know, that's it.
SPEAKER_01:Like 'cause like I got to make the time you spent the guy, like growing like growing up with short rooms, no, ah me and you, the great old TV, we gotta be TV.
SPEAKER_00:The video with the VCRs bigger than the TV. You only see half of your screen. The VCR and uh hooked in our place, didn't they beat the eddy, sir? Well, you could never beat me in FIFA.
SPEAKER_01:Never every Saturn Fefa's.
SPEAKER_00:But that's the way it was. It was good background growing up in the house, and no mean my dad was strictly on us, obviously, but that's over the norm back end, so what I mean. It was like you just whatever he said, you'd had to do it, and that was it. But with a good upbringing. Sounds bad, and I think it's a big part of why I have recovered. Mickey's another part and parcel of going to that box.
SPEAKER_01:We all have it in his that way, like in the world. It's mad to think like parenting eye is completely different.
SPEAKER_00:But yeah, my two kids here's Macy or me, his Macy, the the Tika reasons. It'd be the Andy.
SPEAKER_02:We used to remember.
SPEAKER_01:Oh god, remember we were uh Matt Mohan story, right? We were um we were around his maid's house, around Henny's round our maid's house and smoke he was smoking a few joints and uh fucking we came back and he was stoning all how he was around the R house makes cups of tea and toast and we get a wee sneakers and all chocolate. So he went around, made cups of tea, stuck a toaster on there was no chocolate in the house, and he went, fuck shake, I didn't want a cup of tea no more. He threw his uh he threw tea there and I think, ah fucking want a cup of tea, there was no chocolate, and I grabbed the uh cornfix pack and then make a bowl of cornflex instead.
SPEAKER_02:I looked at the tent that was happy as fuck. And I went like the bowl of cornflex and the way four four boxes of snuggers filled it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the snuggers mark box to go after the earth for the crazy man five.
SPEAKER_00:So he was put a n me and you end up sure under him. So with that crack watching was growing up, meaning he watched and the old memory used to get the knock off TV days.
SPEAKER_02:That's it, I'm on the crack on the crack.
SPEAKER_00:They were back in the day, like kids don't even understand about stuff like that. Like my kids asked me the other day, what did you used to do for entertainment growing up? And he says, You went out the street and played. You couldn't get the inn. I mean, you'd and there was no phones to ring you or say here what I or whatever. You'd you don't need a whistle. I'd whistle.
SPEAKER_01:I whistled all over turf, and then you know, when your mates were something on about your seat page or something like that.
SPEAKER_00:That was our our entertainment. No, you went home and you had channel one to five, and then where you go with no. I had to buy the brackets with TV, left with a big back on the tattoos.
SPEAKER_02:But it's got a big hole in the wall, there's a slender.
SPEAKER_00:Remember, I bought RT's wonder when Monday turned and he lived down in Ross's mill me and him were fake and I had an old tag and window, but I didn't know. And I can undertake no taxi, I jumped on their taxi, he was like a party terminator chasing me up a Springfield Road and I can end the master and put it once about the ML. You don't know where.
SPEAKER_01:Because I was not sleeping, you can sneak on and I wasn't uh just you were blogging and jumped in the bed and about each handlers there, we're a fox where I lamb. And he was in the all-room next door, and then I heard you going on here. I left at the week. He left at the TV. I don't know.
SPEAKER_02:Fuck the TV out of the plug was stuck on that side. Fuck the call water.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it still worked out, but it was basically no TV. It was only about that thing that you had for years, whatever. It was at it for Christmas in about 1992, and I still had it about two years ago.
SPEAKER_02:It was an ontake, that thing.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I was good. But the feds were always good.
SPEAKER_01:Like I said, it's like I I I it's smart, like I've only got the one I would want to have more because yet you know what I mean, because it's like I feel guilty on Carbra that he's not gonna have that experience that we had for with siblings and some people some people will never know what it's like to live for other siblings 'cause they're all always a being a single. Always been like a a a s like an an only son. But we never know what it would be like to live as to be an only son, but you wouldn't want to be because look at the experience. I want to do that in carver, so I may get to move on. We may get to move on.
SPEAKER_00:We'll have Liam and Chloe now, and them two are good. Liam's Liam's more mallow, Chloe's more like me. You know what I mean? Chloe doesn't care, like he's be straight in for the kill legs, he's see it attacking too. Liam's a wee bit more laid back and uh more icing. I see more icing in him, but more easy for Chloe. See if you had to call Chloe Margaret on. You wouldn't equate them. People go, call her Margaret on for it. But see if you called her Margaret and she went, aye. Just like her granny. So she just got up and slap a hetty. Slap a hetty.
SPEAKER_01:So carber's the same. Maybe he's put my head away.
SPEAKER_00:Maybe that's what it is. Maybe it needs a it needs to be broader, sister. I know. But you two are busy in their schedule too. I know it's a good thing. That's what it is. It's the change. So it is, but you you better go and win here, I ain't do you.
SPEAKER_01:Get the early retirement.
SPEAKER_00:You will get it. Oh well, I will get it. We'll go out and get it done and then get get an early retirement. Well, me and Smecker did make a thing there's Elton says if we got the 70. Cause he's 40 coming in January, and I'm I'm 40 next January, but he says he'd be 70 first. We'll go on the drink over Spain. It's 70. So well.
SPEAKER_01:Just go on. Just probably your house, just probably house.
SPEAKER_00:He says that we'll buy an apartment out in Spain. Spain somewhere and we'll just do a runner and never come back. But but don't hang me into my girl say he's 70.
SPEAKER_01:Like what about life now, is it sober? Like, obviously sober. I know you touch on the same thing as life, but like just what you can't achieve in such a short period of time and just a year, because anyone I speak to who's went sober can't believe it. Like Arn Smith, as I said before, you keep using Arn's example, because he's burnt, he's free.
SPEAKER_00:That's why I get sober.
SPEAKER_01:He's two years clean, you see. Two years sober today. Cleaning sober. So like it's unbelievable the same day, you know, 'cause uh Arn was another one who was just and and people wouldn't have thought Arn see, people have this thing, a stigma around like addiction and think that you near enough have to be down out, but you don't. No. People have a thing when you be down out of being a uh they're having addiction. Nope. People wouldn't look at Arn Smith and go, ah he's he's a he's a fucking alcoholic or a a drug abuser. There's athletes and all that. That's what I'm saying. So because he worked and he dressed well and he didn't look like it, maybe from the outside. Inside he's the third. So it's like me, you wouldn't you wouldn't put put you wouldn't put him in that bracket of being like a like a definitely not. I know what I mean, an article.
SPEAKER_00:But 'cause someone, some people look it up there. Do you know what I mean? He's a football player and who he was as a person. People looked up there and and what goes on in the background. Like yourself, people don't see what goes on in the background. People just go look at him, he's money or whatever, but that doesn't mean anything you're not happy. But people look like that. Look at Ricky Hatton. He's my example, because then I seen like the videos of him of relapsing, and and I know if I ever relapse, that'd be the end of me. There's no going back.
SPEAKER_01:That's just down to shame. I told you, sir, it's a shame. Like I was actually felt in the middle last night about Mick Lotton saying so much people have helped help Ricky Hatton for so long and he's relapsed. Yep. Probably you three know no fault of his own. He's struggling, he's fighting against him, and he's broke. No one would ever fell out with him if he came to him and says, Look, I've fucking relapsed. No one will ever fall out with you ever if you if you relapse, but that guilt and shame of letting people down is like I'm fucking ashamed of myself. I can't live against it. And it's I must just take over you completely. And you go say, fuck, I'm sorry, they're like fucking I'm sorry. No, like the people you do like you're slaughtering the people, you fucking happy to me every week. But you never got the chance to sober up.
SPEAKER_00:Slabbering and slobbering and slobbering. Every one of you has had to black my number, and like now when I look back, I used to be like, See, I'm constantly all fucking turning their back and all this. But now that I'm sober and I look back, I'm going, they had to do that. See if they give in, I'm just gonna be found dead. Because I'll just keep repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating and repeating. But then I I did, I called it all the constant day. Like I was like, I'm all right, I ain't gonna go up and kill and do this and do that because I was in psychosis and didn't know what I was doing, didn't know what I was thinking, didn't know what I was talking about. Just felt like everything that I had worked and done just bumped, turned the light switch off and turn it back on. I was like, hard I end up here. But now that I'm sober and I look back now, I go, I shot a dust on him. But no, I'll I'm grateful now looking back and see when I got a year sober. My man called up and D called up with a cake and um Arsenia took a put a photo and see the Caesar on her face. I haven't seen that in her in years. And now that it says this, I spoke this spoke about this coming in that you don't know how much you're affecting your mummy. Your mummy's your mummy. It's good to see that smell back on her face again. It's just happy.
SPEAKER_01:It's along our road, is it? If you look back, see if you look back our life going up, you never really know the direction's going on. But see now when you're able to look back, even like us going to golf every day. My dad going to work, I said. My dad going to work, we going to golf every single morning where I feel going to golf first pop seven in the morning. I'll do a golf course and not even paying off.
SPEAKER_00:That was my call.
SPEAKER_01:And then hanging out the weekend, and then even your time and delta printing as you're on the weekend on the river and it's just slowly but surely all these things just start to happen. You know what I mean? You don't really see until you until you get it's see us, we're our own worst enemy. Because we have an attitude where you go f no like we're just like fucking we'll do what we want. And we we don't care about me, usually we just don't care. And and our carpet's starting to say a lot now, and I'm starting to understand what every means when she says it to me like I don't care. And I have a bad, bad habit of constantly saying I care. I genuinely a lot of times don't. What do you want me to do? I don't care. Now our carpet says it constantly like to me.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, you can't fucking do that.
SPEAKER_01:I don't care. I don't know. And I'm going so now I'm going, that's what she means by me saying that.
SPEAKER_00:No, but I can do about that, but um I got one drink and to me, I just didn't care about anything. The whole world I just done whatever I want.
SPEAKER_01:You do what you want anyway, so it's like uh when we done that it was like just snowballs and the people coming like what I was gonna say is you near enough need a bird or something, someone to keep you accountable. We had them, we all had them. But we still done it because we just do what we want. Yep, that's the way we've got it.
SPEAKER_00:And it's a bad way to be.
SPEAKER_01:It is it's a very bad thing to have them, and I ha we have it, and it's my dad that still does it. Dad does whatever he wants, whatever he wants, and even though the man has a tiny machine, but he just goes out and crying all the way.
SPEAKER_00:But that's the way we dad was obviously maybe his dad was like at Argonda, but everyone's just come down to generations, and that's the way we were. But I like me and RD, it was ten months between us, we don't have ring together. But D was smart enough to know when to stop. I wasn't. I just talked everything, everything happy bit further, everything, all the time. I just went that bit further, and then D warned me. He knows me better than anybody, we were so close. And he kept warning me, and I was like, fuck you, who do you think you're talking to? So what do you know? So I know as much as you and all this, but he was looking in the outside, looking in at me, going, he's gonna fuck up you.
SPEAKER_01:I know.
SPEAKER_00:And him and the fancy it all blew up my face. It was like, me and Dee didn't speak to each other for five years. And now we're sitting there thing, looking back, going, Now he's walking into my house for a a one-year sober kick. Uh-huh. And then the contacts he took it and added all the time. You know, I walked up the other day, I was away.
SPEAKER_01:I was saying I'll start T for me. He's like, Yeah, we're all gonna go to the M's house, we'll get him walking my kick. He said, Look, I'll bam the kick, I don't remember I ain't not behind him and I'll stand like you're away. Should I go up anyway? He loves that me, I go up, get him my kick after I'll be up as he's pruding on I was carry on then. I mean the old day I got back from the scene and pretty well kicked him out. I mean, fuck I've got a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00:D took a whole lot, because Iceland bought me one, you see, the sacks eat a cake. So D Iceling says he was down the cake shop and seen obviously the ormont didn't say my name on it. She was like, someone else must be here so it wasn't they had bought the same cake so when he came up to me. So they cake and cake also was eating them cakes like match. I had to stop, so I was putting on all sorts of weight. I went to Danny Got about kids and looked at a photo of myself. Here's me, I'd never had a ballet in my life. Coffees and cakes, and it was I think he had steak and potatoes for about six months and put the weight back on. Then see when I look back at photos from a year ago, or two years ago, three years ago, I'd be like, scurry. It's mad. You look like a skeleton like but you don't look at yourself like that then, you just think you're alright. I mean you're going to have me wrong with me.
SPEAKER_01:But I wouldn't even recognise it because I'd have seen you all the time.
SPEAKER_00:When you look at photos, now I look at myself and then I look back and go, geez, it's hard that I let myself fall so far down like that though. But it's even as you said, like we grew up with her flaws, it's it's her flaws, it's not the place.
SPEAKER_01:Nah, not the same thing. It's like we've lost a whole lot, there's a whole lot of like it's still a great community, as I say, there's loads of like still loads of good people in it and loads of good course. Loads of help if you ever need. Like at the time like I know it's it's sad to say like when Marty lost we own the whole community rally together, h had helped funeral course and like I put shorts and stuff and all that for my fate, and I was only looking at like a score number, it was fifteen numbers I would have got them a thousand pounds. You know what I mean? Just from people on the community.
SPEAKER_00:If you need help, see now like with drugs and all, see when they're in M zones. It's not like you'll do anything for money. So if you go and help someone, I wasn't like it's because obviously I I worked on whatever item and I got my own money, but when people don't work the fall into the end and you give them that wee bit of trust, they'll take your eye for it. And that's the way it goes. They need to get the money for that head, so they'll be whipping away until you and say, right, I'll go to a shop or do you feel blah blah blah. Next minute your purse or wallet or whatever thing. And that's what that's what like crack cocaine's ri riddle right through communities like a welfare now. That's that's the new norm now. It's it's it's crazy. It's mad the many people you see and falling down together.
SPEAKER_01:It's man as we watch films years ago, like in a man. That's all you see. Fuck me, isn't it like that? You know, that's happening. That's all you've seen and it's everywhere. Before it's on it's on right on your doorstep, man.
SPEAKER_00:I've been in that town a couple of weeks ago and I walked through it, and it's absolutely you're like, what happened? Like you've been in that town you can't just seen the old alcohol probably because an old fake town.
SPEAKER_01:A couple of quick bow bottle.
SPEAKER_00:It's scurry. You wouldn't even like I remember like us growing up and I got the boxing day. No meaning you probably got an old back end, say 96 or whatever, an old smell dog, now fiver, you know what I mean? And then you would have gone, Mummy, I'll go into your town here, and and back in a fiver was probably like about 50 quid an eye. You wouldn't your man dad would have let you go into it. Never let my kids go near that too. It's scurrying or so this amount of needles and everything going about. And it's it's on your doorstep, and it's we have kids to grow up, so that's why like I wouldn't judge a drug addict because you never know what can land at your own doorstep.
SPEAKER_01:You don't know what happened to it.
SPEAKER_00:But I learned that the texting myself don't don't look down, don't look down people because you don't know what their background is. And I learned that by going into St. Paul's and see some of the stories you heard on their show and they were like, Holy good god, like that's crazy. Yeah, like hard and there's people in there that that smoke crack talk heroin, done all that stuff, and they're five years clean and sober. Yeah, and you're going like that's that's it's unheard of, really. Like it's like there's Maxie, Maxi box alongside us too. Look where he's came from. I don't know, I know. He I remember when I moved and seen him, he like he was proper, gone.
SPEAKER_01:That's him saying that's it.
SPEAKER_00:And look where he is now, now he's giving back. Maxie's giving back to the community and and and happen because he knows what it feels like. But to the ordinary person, you're looking at that guy like look at the state of him or and prime example. I was at the garage the other day, and it was a wee lad, no, no older than twenty-five, with battle of cedar, and he knew he was down and out, and he was picking feg butts up off the ground and smoking them. But a girl bus walked past him and locked him up and down like he was a bit of dirt in the street. So I get out of the car and I give him four fegs and see the pre-season in that wee lad's face and how thankful and grateful he was for it. Yeah. And the person before him just looked at him like he was dirt. That's it. That's what's strong as I said.
SPEAKER_01:I know it's not his fault he's in that position. You don't you don't taste when that was a good one? Nah. Something happens. Well, I just look at me.
SPEAKER_00:I never thought you never thought that I would have went together. I was always mad, but I never thought that I went together. I loved my kids, I loved Dyson, I loved you, I loved D, I loved you all, and and all of a sudden, next minute you're you're fighting a losing battle every day, going doing one thing good, ten things happening, and karma's real. Karma come back and got me and bit me right in that straight ahead. And look at that. That's my theory's not after 200 years. I know. Love life, refers to my car is not showing at the window with RT. That's fine. That's what I can do. And I was taking hang as well, like antidepressants as well, like, and sleeping tablets and smoking dope and taking coke drinking. There's five part of that. See my I was up turned, ran back the front, over her run around the corner, maybe over her probably well. Never hang my head with a pier turned here and phone the RD slavern. I'll do that, so I'll do that. And I was at we have the jump. Like broke in the yup. Me and RD, like we mean RD each 42 or more days and me actually fought in the boxing ring.
SPEAKER_01:I know we've had some like the scraps like that.
SPEAKER_00:But I think it was ego thing for us too. Like I'm better than you better knee.
SPEAKER_01:It's mad to say that though, because he's a partly he's a partly never having an art fight ever again. He's only afraid ever again.
SPEAKER_00:It's seeming me drunk like I had time in Birmingham but went away. Every time I had a wagon back with broke a nose, black eyes, charge shades, clothes ripped right off, and I'd put our mutton dummies on you, head racked, had a bath full ball of clava every time, and and it was always drinking flicked. See now the way me and him are getting on, and no meaning you never really like at my meat. No, you knew like that's an Arleam's fucking name. No mean I'm not gonna judge him or not, but he like you said or he was so worried and so like Arleam and all that or butn't tell me what's best, and I'm the fuck off. But me drank, then McLeist because the same personalities. So me Clys, if he said something I didn't like, or vice versa, that well, it was always gonna cause a fate straight away. It was just and that's just like I'll never be in that position, and if he's drinking, the guy went to a mad sick date and he was drinking and he says one thing, and then I just went, That's how you weren't dying, you were away, and I just went I just went, I have to go here. And I was so like uncomfortable, and then seeing I was watching what everybody else was doing because that's the first time I've actually been at a party sober my whole life. See, watching, and I was going, There's me sitting hanging the whole time. I was in there the end bugs like fuck, sniffing and sniffing and sniffing the eyes like that door and thinking my man all never knew and seeing that and you were sitting past it, you were going, That's crazy, obviously to know you know what I mean, but you're just oblivion to it all because that's that's just the way it gets it. So it is, but it's it's good to feel and like nah. Who ever thought I'd sitting here talking to you? Where is he? I told you before I remember walking past you a couple of times with my hood up, and you didn't even know it was me. Because I was so paranoid and like schizophrenic and walking straight by with my hood up, a big red curly coat I had to go and had knocked that knacked down. That's all for a thing. Headlett happens in the middle of summer and everything. And when I got packed around, it's like I seen the orbit hop when I got sober, she believed me. I she just went, I believe you as time. Because many times that I said it.
SPEAKER_01:That's because she knows you so well and she knows you're gonna be able to do it. She believed me.
SPEAKER_00:She's a big hop and hand where I am now. She supported me from the very start because I lived I was lonely living on my own. Yeah. You know what I mean? And sitting on your own and being lonely is what else are you gonna do? So she has supported me by listening, easing the kids back in, and I'm not ashamed to say it. I did lose my kids. I'm not ashamed to say it whatsoever because it was the right thing to do. It was the right thing to do in the moments. Absolutely. Because if I show my kid if she shows my kids the way I am, they're gonna think that's alright to do that, sure. My dad on that. So she he's the kids back in, and now she's telling me how much more confident the kids are coming on at their footballs, how much they're excellent in school from me being back in their days. So if you have kids and you're in addiction, your kids are missing out on it.
SPEAKER_01:We're very lucky, we never experienced anything going up like with our parents. I think one of the most one of the biggest things and like with trauma and like kids falling to addiction is like separation, parents' separation, and else like not being one of their parents not being in their lives and they can act it on the other parent. It's like fuck but probably had that at I seem probably had that at once. Some days the kids probably were penalty school, probably weren't themselves in, and then they've got the guy, then you can start to see like whoa. Hey, like every parent's a big part in their kids' days. I know, but when I was in a Texas, you shouldn't be making decisions for yourself, and once you'll be making decisions for yourself, you start making decisions for your kids that's gonna benefit your kids.
SPEAKER_00:And like see like all the stuff that I have done in the past and not showing up for them, not going to the footballs, promising to bring them till Andytown Niger Centre. And when I was gone, I was still intoxicated on drinking drugs and and hating it. Do you know what I mean? And I only came clean about this till I seen and stuff whenever and that's our good uh and uh someone in dr uh addicted to drugs can't hate stuff. She can be so shrewd and sleek about it. Do you know what I mean? And that's what I was doing, and I obviously got sober cons. He was like, I didn't even know. I was like, that's how good of a liar I became. Because that's what you are, a compulsive liar. Everything you're saying, it's not true. Yeah. And the bubble you're living in, that's what you're living in. I was making all that stuff up in my head, I ain't gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Never done one thing about it. Sat in the house and get snapped. That's the way it was. Hard bouncing the walls, no, had next week. I was waking up on the floor and everything going hard, did I even get here? What am I doing here? And as I say, I when the day mocked on the ad room app was it, I'd when I seen the phone me and told me, listen, he's I guess it'sn't right, but you're doing and I think it's time to stop, and that's when the phone's in and here we are today. Everything I've done of I've uh met the Danny Gall, have been more interactive and shown up every single week till their footballs, bringing them to school, clacking them from school, doing everything that I can. And everything's forgiven. I never thought they'd forgive me. I was thinking they'll never forgive me, they'll never forgive me.
SPEAKER_01:But anybody that isn't an addiction and Ree, I used to tell you that I was like, all you need to be is like you're kind of slapping me on the phone, he keeps hanging out for me, and maybe every helpful. But you couldn't hear it, you're like, no, he doesn't want to be part of my life because he he he just blame all people again. And I was like, Lam, you just need a beer for him in terms of like physically, be like physically beer.
SPEAKER_00:Didn't care. I just thought we're money, I'll buy him this. But that wasn't what the money was like I showed up till his match, I was going to his matches for last year. I went till the match a day, the one on the one three, two, just standing back watching the buzz on his face. I actually says that the fellow day says the referee was now they were slower and it but I wasn't and then I say as me see if I had had a few icons of beer on me or had her well run on that heck, so what a couple of things to say to him. Stay back up the tea over with a monk monk. So a monk monk.
SPEAKER_01:What's what's so like isn't it? But obviously it's we're as I said before, every every we're all fucking pretty, but what's a what's a now that you're a year sober, what's what's what's in the future? What do you have planned? Obviously you're doing training test now, so I want to start up my own business. Your own business and just ambitions.
SPEAKER_00:I do, like as I said, see like a fella taxed me, Tony Crowe taxed me or uh last week when I got a year sober and he was just like Um for you to do this on your own, basically. I came from that and just worked my way back up without saying and people were listening, people make stories and shit up about the it was apparently he was doing crack and heroin, that was all lies. You know what I mean? There's people throwing their spanner networks or you know what I mean? Because no one knew what he was doing because I went down and it was rebuilt and every day and rebuilt and rebuilt and Tony says for you to do this, because he seen me at the start in the hospital when I went into the hospital, he was like, I can't believe this here. It's like how'd this happen to you? You know what I mean? And he understood me and then he knows what I was like from till now. So and now in the future, he but he told me was the moral of the story is you're capable of doing anything if you can do that, but you've done on your own. You've the words you're oyster now, away you go. So the next step is uh would I would love to to do with unity and and use your prime examples of go and set up your own business and and and give the kids a good life.
SPEAKER_01:I know that's it, it's just you as I said, I told you it's a good idea. I know, but I never do it. It's just you're well capable, you know. And not even like Bobby, for Bobby, we're all saying burger, you know, like they were all saying burger like so like it's the world obviously it's something you want to do, you just you just have to educate it. Nah, he never done it, because like obviously a few as me just on a page and it was like working for Phoenix, you could just be working for yourself. And I said, you know, and just kept saying he ended up doing it, and I fucking imagine himself like he almost feels like he done too late. He's like, he should have listened to the start. I just where I had the attitude where I was never gonna work for anyone like that. I know, so you were like a mechanic had it in my head. I mean never working for no kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00:I was probably looking at me and him too growing up.
SPEAKER_01:I just went out and needed just I always had it in my head, I was always gonna money, man. I was coming up. You were you were always a shrewd operator, so you were you were you were still you're a shrewd operator. I know you like a back of my hand, so I do. I just had it in my head, yeah. No chance my dad was like, you want to go to the university now? You weren't just had it in my head, mate. Fucking my dad was slapping me, I was on more money than him.
SPEAKER_00:I can remember even back, you were even I think you were only about fourteen, you were trying to set up a car wise at the city of Trendy and also you were anything for a few quid be. And that's the way you were, and listen, that's where you are now. And listen, your boy ain't fighting the sick for the same. No, I'm sick for the same, that's it. And then go out there and eat when that and you the opportunities are sitting in front of you, so you just make sure you don't forget about me. That's what I used to think too, sure. About when I used to trolley up a street that my ma got shutters installed in the house, and he used to look out and say, Where's Arlene? Come on over here, do you like our job? It was like dead smacker actually saying, What would you do? If you want a prize guide, and then he says, I'd have to give it to my ma or something. Fucking I couldn't take admires and all that. And then I was going to Smacker and then if I give it to my ma, I'd probably call up to get a couple of quid off for about two days later and be a new family. Okay, move the bags it goes to the dead don't we get them a number?
SPEAKER_01:It's good like you've told her story and uh it's good for our people as I hope it does have more people. I'll have those old people it's because the way Arn Arn Smith come on and the amount of people stop me and say, fucking see, but I could relate that to so much people's gonna relate to what you've done. It is because it's it's real. As I say, you're like you're you're such a well-known person around West Belfast, and you're it's like as I say, it's not don't be ashamed of what way you've been, you know what I mean. Like it's listen, it's it you don't do it on purpose, you don't deliberately fall on the addiction falling the bad accent, but there's so much help out there, and it's and listen like I'm always open to helping anybody, uh anybody, no matter what it makes me fucking proud to see even if I've just directed someone the right direction, they've they've helped themselves and you see them later on down the lane and you go, what that was good, I'm glad he like you'd be happy for people. Yeah. And it's like it near see being sober now, it's like they knew fucking cool, no like that's where they've got them zero zeros and all that.
SPEAKER_00:That's what they're for.
SPEAKER_01:Like it's me, like seeing I trust myself to do society.
SPEAKER_00:See, see, I'll have a zero zero because I trust myself. But see, we're alcohol. I know that like RDC is me, I but then I put you back. And it was like, no, I don't want to drink. See the drink done on me the way it makes me feel, I don't want to feel like that ever again.
SPEAKER_01:A zero zero makes you feel like a part of a society. See when you're at the communion party.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Chloe.
SPEAKER_01:Like you can still you don't feel like no, like it'sn't there's no acting after you like you're just sitting there and people all drink, oh we drinking on, you know what's right now, you're just sitting there and you're on your phone, you don't know what to do with your hands and all. Oh, you feel like you're in England?
SPEAKER_00:Well that's what I got, but it took me like nine months to do that. That's the first I done that whenever I was in Chloe when we went to Chloe's uh communion. I felt that there, like I was like after it, I was like, I actually enjoyed that.
SPEAKER_01:I know.
SPEAKER_00:I went home, didn't spend no money, no anxiety. Happy, looking at the kids, making them breakfast, going, This is what this is real life, this is real life. I thought my life that I had to do all these odd things and impress people and and and all all that runs out in the end, so it does you end up renaissant and then when you have nothing, no one man's annoying. And seeing that I've got sober. And that day in the way, so that's but no, it's that's it. It's good to be back and this day, it's way forever.
SPEAKER_01:I always say I would love to have you on after a year and you've done it so I'm proud to say it and I'm glad you come on and told your story. So we'll wrap it up here and we'll make details now.
SPEAKER_00:No, but I appreciate you bringing me on so too. So thank you very much, brother. I love you to death. Appreciate that. Appreciate it.