The Sisterhood Circle Podcast
Welcome to The Sisterhood Circle Podcast!
Join us on a powerful journey into what it really means to be a woman in today’s world - the best bits, the messiest bits, and the moments no one dares to talk about.
We’re here for the deep, honest, 3am-style conversations you usually only have with yourself. The ones that make you laugh, cry, and think, “I thought it was just me.”
From identity shifts and clarity breakthroughs to motherhood, body image, addiction, and social pressure — this is your space to explore, evolve, and embrace the boldest version of YOU.
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The Sisterhood Circle Podcast
From Lifting to Rising : A story of Addiction, Surrender and Rebirth
In this soul-stirring episode, we welcome May Riddle, whose extraordinary journey from devastating childhood trauma to profound healing will leave you breathless, inspired, and filled with hope.
May's story begins in the schemes of Glasgow, where poverty, family alcoholism, and abuse shaped her earliest experiences. With unflinching honesty, she reveals how alcohol became her sanctuary at just nine years old, placing her in "an impenetrable bubble" away from pain. As her path led to teenage motherhood at fifteen and eventually a twelve-year battle with heroin addiction, May faced the darkest corners of human experience.
The turning point came after a suicide attempt when May found herself cycling to a recovery meeting, still intoxicated but desperately seeking change. What followed was nothing short of miraculous – a profound spiritual awakening that became the foundation for sixteen years of sobriety and a complete transformation of her life. "When you ask for help, it will come," May shares, a simple yet powerful truth that runs through her testimony.
Today, May has channeled her experiences into purpose through May Riddle Therapies, where she works as a recovery consultant helping others find their way out of addiction. Her message resonates with raw authenticity: "Nobody's coming to save you. You have to save you." Yet within this truth lies tremendous hope – that even from our darkest moments, rebirth is possible.
Whether addiction has touched your life directly or you're simply seeking inspiration from someone who has transformed profound suffering into light, this episode will move you to tears, laughter, and perhaps, to reaching out for the help you deserve. Share this powerful conversation with someone who needs to hear that change is always possible.
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Hi, I'm Shivzi and I'm Naz, and together we are the Sisterhood Circle Podcast.
Speaker 2:Our vision is to create connections with our community and inspire change in the world, so be sure to subscribe on whatever platform you're listening to.
Speaker 1:to find out more.
Speaker 2:So let's dive into today's episode. Hello and welcome to our next episode of the Sisterhood Circle podcast, and we have an amazing guest here. This is May. Welcome to the podcast, may. Hello everybody. Hello Now, may is an absolutely incredible woman that we have had the pleasure of knowing for maybe over the past what?
Speaker 2:18 months to two years, yeah well, I would want to say and May's story that she's going to be telling us today is nothing short of unbelievable, astonishing and extremely uplifting. We're really, really keen to share this incredible story. We have called this episode From Lifting to Rising, and you will understand what we mean by that as we come into play. But one of the reasons that we wanted to bring May on board other than she's absolutely incredible and we want to share her story is I have a real, real deep connection with the first part of May's story, which is addiction.
Speaker 2:Now, one of the reasons that I wanted to speak about this is I have had a lot of alcohol addiction in my family and I think that there's a lot of alcohol addiction or addiction of any sort, out there and I think that we don't speak about it enough openly in just day-to-day living, and I think it really affects everybody. Doesn it enough openly in just day to day living, and I think it really affects everybody, doesn't it? And it affects families, it affects the person and I really want to honestly do you know what I want to do? I want to break down the stigma that it's I do. I want to break down the stigma because we're all people, we're all human and we're all striving for connection and we have got to be kind to one another and you are like the literal shining example, exactly that. So, yeah, we're really, really excited to be bringing me and we're super, super grateful you're here and we got invited beautifully to your house a couple of weeks ago for you.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I think, wasn't it morning? Morning, like you went so over and above to welcome us in, like see, from the sourdough to homemade, that's right. Like genuinely, we both like around coffee. Oh my god, this is incredible, and I think it does go to show genuinely how much you care about the impact that you can have on people's life and the community and see the things. Eve today, this sparks one person to go I'm not the only person that is doing this then you've done an incredible job in coming on the podcast today.
Speaker 1:Thanks, natalie.
Speaker 2:So thank you. Also. We wanted to share this little bit of vulnerability. When we met you this morning, what did you say to us?
Speaker 4:Oh my God, I'm a wee bit nervous, yeah, but I feel quite vulnerable because I think if you're just about to talk about your life and it's the same for everybody, I mean, I'm not the only person that feels this but when you're going to be talking about your life, you do have this kind of especially.
Speaker 4:If it're going to be talking about your life, you do have this kind of especially if you're going to be speaking so honestly about your past and stuff it makes you feel a wee bit anxious, a wee bit nervous. You know that you're going to get vulnerable, but I think once you start talking and you get into it and I know that this is a really safe space for me and this is something that I think it's different for the fellowship stuff this is different, really safe space for me and this is something that I think it's different for the fellowship stuff. This is different for the fellowship stuff because this is going to be more out there. So I think that's what's making me a wee bit nervous as well, but I'm okay with that because I don't have anything to hide anymore. It's great when you're free for it all, so I'm not so tightly caught up in the bondage of it anymore.
Speaker 1:I mean, we did nearly get out of it. We locked ourselves. I didn't even hear them.
Speaker 4:We got locked out in the corridor and all that's right, that was good. The doors get a latch. That actually helped me, natalie, to feel a wee bit more relaxed to be honest, maybe I don't need to do that.
Speaker 2:The universe says no.
Speaker 4:I know, I agree, though Wendy leave her room. It was just those moments, wasn't it? It was just to get those moments out there. Natalie and I had a good laugh, Wendy.
Speaker 1:Ever leave her room without your phone as well. I know this isn't meant to be Both of us. None of us had our phone. Oh, that's knocking.
Speaker 2:No, and me, me and Stuart are pure gabbing the lugs off each other. We've seen that. I was like that's been 13 minutes, that's a long piece. Maybe May's needing a wee gab out there. And then I come out and you're like, so broke, nice, definitely. So what we would love to do, may, is as much as you can. Could you just start from the beginning. Tell us about your childhood and how life was when you were brought up?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean we were brought up in a scheme, you know, in Glasgow and, like most folk there, we didn't have much. I mean, we really didn't have much, but there was always that kind of I don't know if you know this or not, but sometimes when kids are at school, there's a particular family or that that has got less than everybody else and they're called the tramps. I mean, I'm just going to say this for how it is. I don't mean to offend anybody, I really don't, but this is how it is. That was us. We were the tramps. Do you know what I mean? We didn't have anything.
Speaker 4:Really, my ma used to go to this place where there was a big, massive counter and we would, you know, I always remember looking up and seeing this big brown, massive, big brown parcel tied up with string and stuff like that, and we'd get home and we'd all have something out of that. Whether it was for a woman at 70 or somebody at seven, whatever fitted us is what we got. So we were brought up in a household where it was full of trauma, alcoholism and really I've got to be honest with you, the childhood stuff is really quite dark and I don't really like to get into details about it, but I'm sure you can imagine. But the bottom line was I'm not being a victim here. Do you know what I mean? I don't want to be a victim. I spent years sort of doing that, but my childhood wasn't very nice, if you know what I mean. But I just remember always being scared. I was always covered in scurvy, which is a sort of skin condition, is that?
Speaker 2:malnourishment that you get.
Speaker 4:Well, I don't know, and I think it's no getting out in the sun enough either as well, no, getting outdoors, a lot and stuff like that. But my childhood and you hear, I've heard a lot of folk now if you have been clean and sober and that saying about I don't have much memory. So I know that I'm not the only person. I don't think that I'm the only person like that on earth, but the bottom line is that that's the truth about my childhood. Me and my sister and my two brothers lived in a house with my mum and my dad when he was in the jail.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And you know so it was. My mum had mental health problems, so she wasn't doing very well. Do you know what I mean? And I always looked at her and thought I would never treat children like that.
Speaker 2:No, no, and you were a wee girl at the point, knowing that that was wrong at that point in your life.
Speaker 4:And you said, when you were young, maybe your mum would take you on the buses and you would sing for people, aye we used to go to these things called bus runs then, because you never really go on holidays I mean, we certainly never go on holidays.
Speaker 4:It wasn't something that happened, it was a holiday but we would go bus runs to places like helensborough and salt coats and stuff like that and my mum would get me to stand up and sing these robert burns songs and recite these poems and stuff like that. So what happened then? When I looked back at that as an adult, what I seen was and the nervousness in me and knowing that I was going to have to do that. But there was a it was like a dualistic thing happened, because on the other side there was a kind of pat on the back well done me and everybody would clap. So there was a part of me loved that as a child, because I felt as though I was getting some kind of acknowledgement, some kind of recognition. Did you feel like as a child? Because I felt as though I was getting some kind of acknowledgement, some kind of recognition?
Speaker 1:did you feel like as a kid?
Speaker 4:that was your first experience of like appreciation um, maybe, maybe that I, I don't, I don't really remember. It could be Natalie, actually it could be, um, and then obviously, the children's home. I mean in the children's home, I mean in the children's home. That gave me some of that as well. That backed that up. There was an unconditional love there that wasn't in the house. There wasn't an unconditional love in the house.
Speaker 2:Did you feel like that was something that was lacking from your home life, that love side of things. Or did you feel I felt?
Speaker 4:that as a child, because of the trauma that was happening in the house, my idea of what love was and what recognition and all that was was a wee bit skew, if it was not right, because it was just what I knew. But I was new to find out to later years that that was not right and that was what sort of drove me in different ways in my life because I spent my whole life no feeling good enough. I spent my whole life, if I was a child, no feeling that I was enough. That's how it was for me and I think it was because of those early years of the trauma, and what happened was I had a really strange mixed up, screwed up idea of what love and stuff like that was. But I was to go on. People would show me as I got older exactly what love is. So that's nice to know that.
Speaker 1:Definitely, and I imagine, if it wasn't an emotion you'd experienced, it's just like an emptiness of there's got to be something else, but not knowing what that feels like, yeah, that's absolutely spot on Natalie.
Speaker 4:and so when I picked up the first drink at 9 9 years old, I felt that I experienced that.
Speaker 2:You told me this actually, and your turn of phrase was let me think alcohol saved my life. It did at 9 years old. It did because I didn't even know that then we think alcohol saved my life.
Speaker 4:It did At nine years old it did. It did because it was nice. I didn't even know that then, yeah, I just took it, felt the effect of it. The effect of it was fabulous. It was like in the big book Alcoholics Anonymous there's a bit that says we are placed in a position of neutrality, safe and protected. But when I was a child, at nine no known any of that I felt when I took that drink that I was in a position where I was safe and protected.
Speaker 2:Did it take away the fear?
Speaker 4:It took everything away. It placed me in a bubble that was impenetrable, wow. So it didn't matter what was happening or who was doing what or what was going on. I was in this bubble. I mean, I wasn't walking about under the influence all the time, but every chance I got and there was a lot of drinking that happened in that house every chance I got I would steal something out of glass. Okay, I really loved the effect. The effect was light. It was like I'd found my long lost self. I found my love. I found God. I found God because I found peace. I found peace.
Speaker 4:I didn't experience peace because my whole life was on edge. I mean, I was, it seems, even as a baby. I was crying all the time. My cot and all that was tied up with rope because I'd broke it and I just cried all the time. I mean, I wonder, you know, I think back and I go. Well, there was a disturbance in me, faye, probably in utero, I would say and I know the people watching this and you might think that I'm allowed this opinion oh, yes, because it's me, yes, because it's me, you, it's me, but I believe that there was something fae conception that wasn't right Now. That's just what I believe, whether it's right or not, if somebody comes up with something, a better idea than that.
Speaker 2:But listen, see the thing, this is your life and this is your story and what we've got to remember is see, ancestrally, things get passed down and things that happen to your mum passes through to you and you pass it through to your children. So there's massive weight in that. So I don't think that anybody could ever take that away from you. Of course, and if you're coming out and you are then in a traumatic, in traumatic surroundings, of course you take everything in. We know that from an energetic standpoint, even as a child, you take everything, and we know that from an energetic standpoint, even as a child, you absorb everything. So you can understand you can imagine this.
Speaker 4:So I'm 58 now, so this was maybe 50 odd years ago I'm talking about yeah, so you kind of get the drift of that and how you don't know. Then I mean, you're just a wee child, you're just doing your thing, but what I remember, as with that drink, was the peace that I experienced, and that was what some folk would call God, what some folk would call a higher power, a higher place to be the higher self the universe whatever it is. People use whatever word you want to give it. I experienced it.
Speaker 2:You said that to me, didn't you?
Speaker 4:Aye, isn't it true? It is true, isn't it true, aye.
Speaker 2:Definitely. But yeah, now you also mentioned to me that you guys were sent out to do some shoplifting menus for a week. You were taught how to do thatlifting when you were taught how to do that and you did it well. Can you talk me through that if you feel comfortable?
Speaker 4:enough. Yeah, so I do feel comfortable and I wonder sometimes, when I look at families, how, if this stuff still goes on maybe it's been going on from the beginning of time and maybe it will go on to the end of time, I don't know. But I understand that some folk have these things in their life. But we were encouraged to shoplift, you know very, very clearly, and we really had to get good at it and we'd done that fast. But it was the underneath of that that sticks more with me than the shoplifting. The shoplifting just became a part of my life. Yeah, I was a shoplifter right up till I got clean, okay, you know. That's why my amends to society is such.
Speaker 4:I do lots of different things in different levels to amend my behaviors through my life past life, because this is a new life. But the shoplifting, the underneath it, was that if we got something, especially if we knew that it was something that my mother wanted, it was a great feeling. It was a great feeling because we would know that we were going to be in the good books. We were really going to be in the good books. So we would get some acknowledgement, like on that bus, the same thing, a recognition that you did good and pat on the back and that you done something that was good. If you didn't get anything, there was nothing, there was a, there was a, a void, and if you get caught, you get get battered. Oh God, wow, do you think?
Speaker 1:that, that recognition side of it, and that whole your mum having this glimmer of being happy with you which I imagine at times is probably far between was what drove you to be so good at it, because you craved that feeling of I've done a good job.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's exactly what happened. A mother's love. That's exactly what happened, natalie, because we got to know very quickly this is good if we get stuff, especially if my ma wants it. So we're going to do that and we're going to try and do it as best we can. So you do get good at it, but there's got that driving force, what you said behind you all the time. But it's got that driving force, what you said behind you all the time. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4:But my mother had mental health problems. She was very abusive physically, so there was always that behind it. So there was a fear as well. So we are driven as well by not only wanting to be loved but also the fear of being scared that maybe we're going to get a doon if we don't get stuff. Not even so much if we don't get stuff, or even so much if we don't get stuff, if we get caught and she would have to face the police and she would have to face the shopkeepers and all that. It was Goberts and all that at the time. I mean there's some of the people listening to this who might not even know what Goberts is.
Speaker 4:You know, it was like a shop, wasn't it? It was one of the big shops then. So, aye, okay, I don't know if that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. And then for you then that was kind of your early years. Aye, Would you like to kind of talk us through as you started, kind of moving into, like going to secondary school, what happened there? Aye, Would you and talk us through your experience?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so there was always that kind of I felt there was always that kind of lack of peace. There was always that loneliness about life. For me it was always like I was a lone wolf and it was just the way it was. I never really felt sorry for myself. I never felt this or that. I really didn't. I just kind of got on with it. I was just the sort of person that got on with it.
Speaker 4:But I was very much seeking attention. I craved it, I think, because I knew that there was a payment, there was something at the other side of that. Do you know what I mean? So but coming in, I spent a bit of time in a children's home as well, which was wonderful. It was a place in Glasgow and I just loved it in there. We were shown love in there. There was no bother, there was no hassle, there was no trauma, there was no abuse of any level.
Speaker 4:Was there peace? There was. I don't know. I don't know if there was peace. That doesn't resonate with my heart. When you ask me that, siobhan, I don't think, because it was so busy with all the wains and plus I had that thing as well, because my mum used to come and visit and I used to steal things from the cupboard to put in her bag so she could go home with it. Wow, because then I would do, because I wanted to be in her good books, so her and my brothers would come do you have memory of when you were taken out of your family home and into aye?
Speaker 2:yeah, is that something that you would want to speak about, or?
Speaker 4:I just remember sitting in the living room in the scheme that we lived in then because we moved we actually moved overnight and our names got changed because my dad was done for murdering this woman and we literally done a mooney what you call a mooney. We moved overnight. Then our names got changed and we went to a new school and a new house with all the stuff and that was. I mean, when I look back now I think that was quite traumatic, but I didn't realise then we'd just done it and we'd just got on with it. You do just get through, don't you see when you're wee, you don't think you just do.
Speaker 4:So I think there's a resilience built, but I think that some of us are maybe born Because how can you, how can you say, out of the four of us, that I would have more resilience or I would have less or such. How can you? I don't know how that happens, but it's very interesting that I find that human behaviour is well, very interesting now. But to answer what you were saying, I go into the thing with the home. I would do that just to keep in my mum's good books. But coming out the home, I went to stay with my sister and her man, who are an absolutely lovely couple, and they loved me. I know that they loved me. They still love me and I don't know. There's something just lovely about that. There's just something that makes me feel part of everything because of that. They give me that love and they were very good to me. They were good to me do you know what I mean? And they had chocolate biscuits, always amazing. You were like that love and they were very good to me.
Speaker 2:They were good to me. Do you know what I mean? And they had chocolate biscuits always. Amazing, you were like that.
Speaker 4:Yes, chocolate and love. Sorry, pocket money and all that. They gave me pocket money. I didn't have to steal nothing. That must have felt calm. And then I met the first boyfriend. I'm 13.
Speaker 2:Yes, then I met the first boyfriend I talk us through because he was a wee bit older than you. He was 17,.
Speaker 4:I was 13,. So I'm at secondary school doing really well, really interested in English and literature, because I still love words. He's known that I'm a bit of a storyteller now and different things, but words they're just so lovely words, you know. But yeah, I met him and I don't know, I just fell in love with him. I was 13 and he just was such a lovely guy. You know, I just thought that I was in love with him and what I seen and what he seen was two totally different things. And the time I'm 14, I'm pregnant, Yep.
Speaker 2:And that must Tell us how that felt when you found out you were pregnant.
Speaker 4:At that time I stayed with my sister and her husband, who didn't have children, yeah, but I think that they felt that they had to take me back to my mum's Because of that, because I was pregnant, and they maybe I think now that they felt that they had to take me back to my mum's Because of that, because I was pregnant, and they maybe I think now that they felt a wee bit bad about that, as though they hadn't been doing their job right or something and there was nothing to do with them. No, I know that and I think they know that now, but they might have felt at the time I don't know, and maybe they were blaming themselves for it being, but my mum just like was very cut and dry the burr at neighbourhood.
Speaker 4:We'll get that sorted. You'll be back to school as soon as possible. The doctor was out the next day. I wasn't allowed out of bed. They put me in bed as though there was like I was ill, wow. And my mum put me in a bed. Me and my sister slept in before I had went to stay with my other sister. Yeah, and the doctor come out and he says, yeah, we can get her in on Wednesday and you know, the abortion will happen. And I didn't know what an abortion was. I didn't even know what that was. I mean, how I go from there to no having the abortion.
Speaker 2:I would rather just leave, if that's ok that's absolutely fine, but the decision was made that I would rather just leave. If that's okay, of course, it is definitely. That's absolutely fine.
Speaker 4:But the decision was made that I would have the baby. Yeah, but I'm 14.
Speaker 2:You're a baby yourself.
Speaker 4:I had to get back to school and what really broke my heart was my pals weren't allowed to play with me and nobody was allowed to come near me, so you were isolated again. Uh huh aye, and I was taken away from the school I went to. I was taken away from my sister and her man, who loved me, back to my mother's, who had mental health problems and was abusive.
Speaker 4:And then in that vulnerable state, and I'm pregnant now and I'm 14 and I cannae see the boyfriend and you cannae see any friends and you're not able to learn anymore, because you loved your teachers at school and I absolutely loved them, especially my English teacher, and secondary and primary loved the teachers. But so I'm in this place where I mean it's funny, it's really strange for me even to say this, I know. But I mean this is like my life. It seems quite. I feel quite detached for it still at times Because it was then Aha and plus as well. I've got a whole brand-new life now, which is like another world. Do you know what I mean? It's like a new world, it's like opening your eyes to a new world. So I, my daughter's going to actually my daughter that I had when I was 15, she is going to actually my daughter that I had when I was 15.
Speaker 4:She'll be 43 next week. Okay, I have a wee tea party and all that, because I don't drink her that now. So we need to have a bottle of beer or that or wine if they want, because my daughters are all adults now and you know I've got three girls, but my oldest will be 43 what are your experiences of when you had your first daughter at that?
Speaker 4:age. I've got to be honest about this, right like I have with everything else, because I really want this podcast to help folk out there. I was really sad because, first of all, I didn't feel ready to be a mother. I really didn't. I didn't think that I was going to be good enough and I went on to spend my whole life until I got years into being clean and sober. Actually, I felt that that started to change. But I'm 15 then and I'm feeling that I'm not good enough.
Speaker 4:I cannae do this, but when I was in the hospital, I was angry with the nurses and the doctors because they didnae identify, they didnae. I felt as though it was like, and when I look back, new with the knowledge and understanding I have about folk now, what I can see is they done the best they could, they did, they really did. I mean they must have been. Quite when I look back, I can see incidences, hospital appointments, where you can see their awkwardness yeah, and I picked up on that, but I maybe interpreted it then as pushing me away. But when I had my oldest daughter when I was 15, in the hospital, then you could smoke. You could actually smoke in the maternity wards, not in the ward where the babies were, but so that's mental.
Speaker 4:The hospital, right, it had all these wards all around it, but right in the centre was a big, massive room where all the women sat and had their fags. They had their fag after, but thank God, cos I was a smoker, do you know what I mean? I mean I was dying for a fag, obviously, but I swear. I mean I was dying for a fag obviously. I said we would go in there, but I just felt like it was like I had been dropped for the planet Zorg, if you know what I mean, and I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm going to have to wing this, and I know that people are saying all this stuff to me. I can't actually retain it and inside I just feel like totally fragmented, totally lost and alone, still alone, still alone, did you?
Speaker 1:have a sense of hope that when you went in there with other people there was maybe going to be some support and it was going to be different.
Speaker 4:I think my whole life I felt that Everywhere I went, everything that happened, I kept hoping that somebody would come. And I think that Because I did, I think that I was a wee bit of a victim. When I looked back, see, when I got clean and sober and I looked back, I could see where I had been a bit of a victim and where I had felt that. And I understand why Because I was always looking for what you just said there, nats. I was always looking for what you just said there, nats. I was always looking for that. Support, somebody, just help me, because I don't really know what I'm doing here. I don't know what I'm doing with this. I don't know what I'm doing in this relationship. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Did yous all get something that I never got? Where was it?
Speaker 2:yous got 10 years life experience probably me, you know what I mean. Seeing that situation going into motherhood at that age, like how would you ever know? Like see, now, just see, listening to that story, I want to go back in time and just fucking hold you like and that's that's. Maybe sometimes all you needed was just somebody to just I do do that you hold yourself well.
Speaker 4:I mean, I was about three years clean. I was I done a meditation where I went back and seen myself and it was funny. I was running about the streets of that scheme and I was absolutely bogging and I don't know why, but I seen myself with all that stuff in my face, all that dry skin, that scurvy, and I spoke to myself and I says to myself, come here. And I actually kneeled down in the pavement and I put my arms out and I could actually feel the arms in my wee child, honestly, and I just says to her listen, I love you, I'm always going to be here. I know you're not going to see me, but I'm going to come back and visit you from time to time and I'm going to help you and don't worry about anything, we're going to get there. How healing. And I've done that a few times. I've just advanced on it in different ways now.
Speaker 2:And we can talk about all of these therapies that you're now bringing to light for other people as we kind of go down a wee bit later on, which is pretty god damn incredible, if we do say so ourselves. You're so kind. It's so true.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's the absolute truth. Well, if we circle back then, so you've been in the hospital at 15, got your wee girl. What's your early memories of then leaving the hospital and being in the world as a mum?
Speaker 4:Terror, just terror, absolute terror, just terror, absolute terror, just like. And the boyfriend stayed with his mum and I stayed with my mum and we stayed in different schemes and I had to walk. Well, I didn't have to, but every day I'd go up to my daughter in the pram and I'd walk down to his mum's well and I'd be in his mum's house for him coming in for I was probably allowed to do that most days, but no, every day. And then I had to walk back at night. So you're talking about an hour, an hour and a half walk there and then say back With a wee baby and a pram and I was not allowed to use disposable nappies or that, remember. So we're talking about 43 years ago. But disposable nappies were a thing, but it was the terry nappies that you would sleep in your bucket all night and all that and you have to wash, and then you'd nappy liners and I know some of the new mothers will be watching this going. What's she talking about?
Speaker 2:But also there might be some nice holistic mammies that are going back to that. Now, do you know what I mean? I tell you, it's a lot cheaper.
Speaker 4:It definitely is, but there's a lot of jobbies. There's a lot of jobbies, cleo, shit, I tell you, quite lovely, really Well, aye, so that was just. I just craved all the time because in my mind you know how we've got ideas in life and when you're messed up like I was, your ideas are no right. But you don't realise that at the time All I wanted was to go to the boyfriend and live with him, and then we'll go in our own house and I'll make the dinners and watch the rain, and he'll go to work and we'll be in love and everything will be great. And then I wonder how many women through history have felt that? A lot, a lot, I would say so.
Speaker 2:We, a lot, a lot, I would say so. We're looking for him to save us Sometimes.
Speaker 4:But that never happened. Yeah, I just wanted anybody to save me. I think, aye, you know I just wanted that. I didn't know that then. But when I look back and I can evaluate my life now as a child, as a teenager With that, a teenager with a child, yeah, I mean, I even remember going on a bus. I remember going on a bus and pregnant and been absolutely shamed, full of shame, because I had put in a half. Then you would go on a bus and you would say a half A half, single A half, to Danny Gardancy and the bus driver just done that, aye, looked down at my belly and I remember Overwhelming. I remember just this horrible, horrible, hot feeling come right over my body and the absolute shame that I felt and I went sorry, I mean, how much is it for her? And whatever I'd done, but I paid the full. I was 14 or 15 years old.
Speaker 2:Oh, I love you and years old, yeah, and it's just. It's crazy people's opinions of you when you're that age they last, you know, and they hit you deep. Now you had you had mentioned to us when we um, we chatted, that you moved in with your boyfriend, didn't you? I did, yeah, and then you ended up the day I was 16, I left my mum's. So tell us that and then tell us what went on. Do you want to hear the story?
Speaker 4:Yeah, Yous are going to like this story. It's pretty funny. It's actually quite funny, but it's a bittersweet. It's bittersweet, isn't it? But it's real. You know what I mean. So I put everything that I own for me and my daughter and my sister my sister is 11 months older than me and her pal and me and the baby and they two, so the baby's 5 months. I think I was 16, 9 months. My baby was 5 months that day when I was 16 and it was my birthday and I left that house with everything that I owned and that cot and I was walking the three years.
Speaker 4:We were walking down a hill with this big, massive cot with everything in it and the wee baby bouncing at the top, and the clenny guys stopped. And I know you as girls, when I said the clennies, they didn't know where the clenny guys stopped. And I know you as girls, when I said the clennies, they didn't know where the clenny was. You know. So the clenny is the cleansing Department, department, the bin men, the bin men. The bin men stopped and says you know, you's all right, where are yous gone, girls? And we told them where we were going and they said we'll take that stuff, you put the baby in the pram and you get wherever you're going and we'll tell us the address. And they took that stuff there and it was there when I got there.
Speaker 2:What an act of God for you, because an hour and a half walk never mind how that case went.
Speaker 4:It would have taken us hours with that cot, but they took it for us and that was an act, an absolute act of grace. That was a gift.
Speaker 2:Now that, just even like now that we're speaking this out and I never even thought about it the first time that you told me about that the act in itself of doing that and knowing that you've got that whole journey ahead of you what you will be leaving must have been you needed out of there. Aye, you know to have to go to that extreme, like you've not got any help.
Speaker 4:And that's the thing as well, because if anybody sees or hears this podcast, we must remember that if we are feeling scared anywhere or where we are staying, staying or who we are with, and it's no right, I know it takes a lot of courage, but there's help out there for everybody. There just is. I mean, way back then there was as well. It just took me a while to get there. Plus, you know, I I became a hopeless drug addict. Yeah, that's what happened to me, but it doesn't need to happen to folk. No, it doesn't need to.
Speaker 4:And there's all sorts of help out there for people, for any woman, any man that's in a place where they shouldn't be. And you know, if you're in a place that you shouldn't be because it's harmful to you, your heart's gonna be sore with it. So it was great that I left there. But there was other. It was funny you saying that because you didn't see the journey ahead. I mean it was like so much of it. Yeah, I never realised. I mean that was what. Well, that was 42 years ago, yeah.
Speaker 2:You're talking about 43, 43 years ago. So you moved in, then Moved in with the boyfriend Bastard, excuse my language I didn't know we were allowed to swear I've been so good. It's the first time I've used the B word, but you'll understand why in a minute. Oh, of course. Okay, just take a moment, say yes, get it out. I'm only joking. So he is working. Just take a moment. I'm taking a moment. Say yes, get it out. I'm only joking. I'm only joking so.
Speaker 4:So he is working and in his work he meets another lassie and he starts seeing her. And I don't know anything about this, I know nothing, I just he's there and then you start to sort of think that there's no, you hardly see him, and he's coming in at night. Then he's getting ready and all nice and getting back out smelling nice when he's after shaving and all that. And I'm a bit like, and I'm really quite naive, believe it or not. I mean, I was quite a naive person, do you know what I mean? And the thing was that I never really thought, I just thought I could see a change. But anyway, he told me that he had met somebody else and that I would have to go.
Speaker 4:And so I'm living in his mum's house, his mum and dad's house Me and him are in one room, his brother and sister-in-law are in the other room and his mum and dad are in the other room and his other brother sleeps in the living room and I don't have anywhere to go. I don't know where to go now. There's nowhere I can go. So that was a hard time, because he used to come up with her on a Friday and I had to stay in the room with the baby, that's madness, what kind of torment is that?
Speaker 4:And that was difficult and that was hard, hard. That was hard because I used to be sitting in the room this is that, I'm sorry, I'm laughing at this, because it's just I used to be sitting in the room thinking how much I hated him and her and and I caught glimpses one day she was coming out the toilet and the door just happened to open and it was a big long hall and I can actually still see it now and she looked like a model. She was so beautiful, she just looked like the way you would want to be in your life and so confident. Her clothes were lovely, her hair was beautiful. She was a lovely-looking lassie, you know, and I was so jealous of her, I envied her. I thought she actually took my breath away.
Speaker 1:That must have really hurt.
Speaker 4:Aye, it did that was sore. Aye, that was sore Because I mean I thought but remember, I'm coming from a mind that's no right anyway, but it's still my mind. Oh yeah, I think I love him and we're going to get married and have merweins and he's going to go to work and I'm going to fix the house and make the dinner for him coming in.
Speaker 1:And you must have been chasing that. When you moved there initially, like probably everything you'd ever wanted, you thought you were moving towards this normal life, this lovely 2.4 children.
Speaker 2:Do you remember that from family? Do you know what I mean? Something like that, aye, something like that. And then you moved out, me and God. You moved to the other side of the world. It felt like, didn't it?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you'd say yeah, I actually originally says they'd be able to put me in China. Aye, I just moved to Deniston, but I don't know the other side of the city like that, so I went to a place there for single parents and it was a good place. It was a good place with a room, everybody had a room and there was an outside toilet. You could go to the toilet do you know what I mean and use the toilet and that there was no bath of it and you would go down to the landlady if you wanted. If I wanted to get a shower or give my daughter a shower, which was only a wee baby, then she was still a baby and I, and that was a. That was a, I know, a very good time.
Speaker 4:That was a dark time for me. I didn't have I think. I'm not sure, but I think I got something like I. This might not be right, but I'm just. I don't know why. It sticks in my mind, but I think I got like 23 pound a week for me and the baby.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I'm away out in the mid, what I feel is the middle anywhere. I mean it was only the enniston, but I mean I felt I was just and, um, I've got this amount of money and I cannae make it, damie, yeah, I cannae make this money when I buy the food for me and the child, and I'm trying to get back up and doing as well, because I'm hoping to get back with him. I'm hoping that he'll still love me and that I can get back with him. So I'm up and doing there, doing that, and I cannae make this money do me. And what would happen is because I smoked as well. Plus, I also smoked cannabis as well, and people would give me that. So I just I cannae make ends meet. So there was days that I would pick up doubts for the street and I would have a wee tin. Can we stop a minute? Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1:So we just took a wee minute there to pause. As we said at the very start, may's story is nothing short of unbelievable, and with that comes a rollercoaster of emotions throughout it all, and myself and Siobhan can only imagine what that feels like to be bringing up past trauma and experiences in life.
Speaker 1:So just needed a wee minute there to real Fine. Now I like that thought. Now for the wee greet. I'm fine. A wee greet solves all problems. A wee greet's good aye, definitely. But we're talking at the point in May that you were in Denison struggling to make ends meet every week.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and that was hard because I just I couldn't, I couldn't keep it together. So my mental health is getting worse. I'm getting worse. I couldn't keep it together, so my mental health is getting worse, I'm getting worse. I've got a wee two-year-old who I'm getting really anxious with. I can feel my temper getting shorter as well.
Speaker 4:But I was running out of tobacco or I was running out of fags and then I would have a bit of tobacco, but when that would run out I would have nothing. I wouldn't have anything. But I remember when I was out with the baby in the pram, I would kind of it was like a whole strategy to get some doubts off the street and I would sort of strategically place the pram in particular bits because I didn't want folk to see me picking up doubts from the street. And I would pick up some really big cigarette doubts off the street that you know some folk had, like they took a couple of draws maybe or whatever, and I would take them home and I would keep them in my wee tin. I would take the tip off them and bin that and I would keep that and then I would use that on the days that I had. So I always had something to smoke because I really I really craved tobacco. I really needed it. Do you know what I mean? But the, they were hard days. They were hard days and the stuff with the baby as well. My daughter was probably just about two or something then, but it really got. I had a.
Speaker 4:There was a day that things really got that bad. I mean I just wanted to really shake her because it was too much for me and I couldn't really cope. I couldn't cope and I remember looking at her and thinking and I was shouting at her to shut up. She was crying for something and I knew I don't know what it was. There was something deep doing within me that knew you need to get help.
Speaker 4:If you don't get help, you're gonna hurt your child. I knew I was gonna. I just felt that I just wanted to shake and tell her not to cry and scream and I phoned the. There was a call box and the place the single parent place that I lived in there was a call box down the stair and I went down the stair. I looked at my daughter in the room and I went down the stair and I phoned them and I just says somebody's going to have to help me. I feel like I'm hurting my child and I need help. And they were literally at that door and under 10 minutes the social services come out and help me. They help me.
Speaker 1:Do you think deep down with the trauma that you had early years growing up watching your mum do certain things and go? I would never do that. Do you? Think that was the point for you. That was like, I can't be the one to do that.
Speaker 4:Maybe I didn't want to hurt anybody anyway I was not a violent person and I certainly didn't want to hurt my wee child, who I loved but I felt this inside and I couldn't understand what was happening to me. I didn't know what was going on for me, I just didn't know. So I didn't know how to deal with it when it came up. I mean, I don't know how parents feel now. Young lasses feel now that have got babies and maybe left on their own with them. You know, if that's you out there and you're sitting with a wee child and you feel that you need help, ask for it, because there's plenty of help. I was scared of social work, but social work are there to help us. They're there to help us. They want to keep families together. They don't want to separate families. Yeah, so if you're out there and you've got a wee baby and you're on your own with that baby, whether you're on your own or not, if you're feeling that what I just described, phone somebody, because you will, because I did get help.
Speaker 1:I think that's an incredible message, though, because for so many people, even now, that my struggle in silence. I feel, an element of potentially a suicide, an element of shame for admitting that they're feeling these things as shameful, as you feel that that's absolutely spot on, because you feel ashamed of yourself.
Speaker 4:You feel as though you've done something wrong. You feel as though you're not a good enough person to be a parent. You feel as though you're not a good enough mother. You feel that you shouldn't be that child's mother. That's how I felt, and I don't know what other women are feeling out there, but I can believe that if I felt like that, there'll be other people feeling like that, and I know that and it is a fact, can I, can I circle back to something that, yes, like like sparked my interest there.
Speaker 2:So, when you were a wee girl and like what you had mentioned, there was that like phoning social services, like it's not a bad thing, but what's probably been implanted in a lot of people that have been through a lot of trauma as a child, as their parents wouldn't want social services involved because they'd potentially something to hide.
Speaker 2:And then that then passes down and down where it's actually like oh, that's a negative, the social's getting called, whereas actually these people are coming to protect you and to support you. And I think, see if we can break that stigma, because they're like my friends, they've been in social services and they literally they will do anything to keep a family together. See if there's a possibility that they can keep families together. They will. They're doing incredible work and I think that there's potential. If maybe the parents early on aren't doing the right thing, then that's what's then down to the child, and then they think I cannae phone because I'm not fit, but it's not that they were in my life when I got put into the children's home, so I'd already had a wee bit of experience with them.
Speaker 4:It wasnae good, to be quite honest with you, it wasnae very good. But I still knew the seed was planted that there was somebody there. So that day when I phoned because you used to have to phone the operator to get a number to get through how was?
Speaker 2:the yesterday was it.
Speaker 4:No, 43 years ago. Well, 41 years ago my daughter was two, so I would have remembered that that seed was planted.
Speaker 2:So I hope that I'm planting a seed for somebody else today, for sure, and I think that you will, and I think, do you know what? There's probably so many people that can relate to that feeling but maybe think I can't take it Aye, because you know from an emotional point of view, and I've written that, that it isn't right.
Speaker 4:But you can still feel. This is the thing, siobhan, you're right. This is the thing about being human. We're just human beings. We're no perfect people. Do you know what I mean? Some people just look at their wee babies and they think I just want to shake that baby to stop it greeting.
Speaker 4:Some folk end up in prison because they've done that yeah. And some folk end up getting help because they asked for it yeah. What are we going to be? Aye, because I know what I would rather be. But you need to know, you're right. You need to know that it's all right. It isn't a bad thing because you feel a wee bit anxious with your baby. It it isn't a bad thing because you feel a wee bit anxious with your baby. It's hard when you're not sleeping and you're on your own. Whether you're on your own or not, even if your man's there, even if your partner's there, it's still hard. And it's OK to say I'm a bit out of sorts here, I need a wee bit of help. I mean, I didn't always need the help, but for me things didn't get better. They got worse, but they're better now.
Speaker 2:They are better now and there is definitely there's a lot of frigging light. Let us tell you that Absolutely Now, me later on then, as we progressed, they came in. They were there, they gave you a wee bit more food and all of that.
Speaker 4:Aye, they got me a bus pass as well, so that I could travel every day up to where my other sister stayed, who was a bit of a support for me, and then my boyfriend's family, even though he was still with her. I still held out hope, because I was naive and that's what I wanted. I just wanted this unit where I could just have this thing and it would be mine. I felt as though I never had anything really. You tried to build that, aye. I was still alone. I felt still alone, scared. I was scared in the world. I really was frightened in the world and I constantly put a face on it. I pretended to be something that I was in my whole life. I was like that. I put a mask on and it was so tiring.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad now that I don't need to do it because it's fucking exhausting and I've spoke to somebody in my life I won't speak who it is that says exactly what you've just said. Like you put on this face every day and you come home and you're just like that was not even me the day. I can only imagine that's actually good.
Speaker 4:I wasn't even aware of it for a lifetime. I wasn't even aware of it. I didn't even know that I was doing that until I got into another way of life, into my new life, what I call my new life. I was reborn into this life because I was, but I wasn't even aware of it. I just know that I always felt as though I had to look as though I was coping. I had to look as though I was doing all right keep the weighing right, everything nice and tidy and clean, and get fed and get food and pay your bills and do this and do that and that's all done and everything's in order and we're all right and we'll just put that sit and then you'll be part of the world. Then, if nobody's got anything to say, everybody will look at you as if and I don't even think I consciously thought that way no, but that was what was driving me all the time that just trying to be that thing, that I wasnae, I wasnae, I wasnae that thing.
Speaker 4:I was lost, I was alone, I was sad, I was upset. There was stuff I didn't know. I just was a sort of I lost soul going about the world with a wee child. That's what I was Using drugs, any drugs at all. That made me just take me away from myself and my drugs and alcohol take me away from my circumstances for a wee while. It was a bit of respite.
Speaker 1:It was a bit of respite. It must have been exhausting, without even realising. Yeah, it was you were carrying that every single day. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You mentioned when we chatted this void that you used to have and you spoke when we came to your house about how that filled that void, that the alcohol and the drug and it filled that void. Would you be able to talk us through again, if you feel comfortable, when you first started using quite heavily and then the story of how you then moved through that to the other side? Would that be all right?
Speaker 4:yeah, I mean, I think that I just kind of classed myself. I know there might be a few people out there when they hear this or see this or have a wee giggle at this, but I kind of classed myself like everybody else in the world. You know, I was absolutely not like that at all. Do you know? I was the furthest thing for that, yeah, or for most folk, no, for everybody. But I realise now there's a lot of people out there that are traumatised for birth.
Speaker 4:Do you know what I mean? They're just living a traumatised life. I understand that now, but I just kind of went through the cards with things like speed and acid and alcohol and dope was always there for the whole time, from beginning to end. The first drink was when I was nine, but I would drink regularly as soon as I possibly could. The drink never really attracted me that much. It was not until so I was, I ended up meeting. I ended up having another two children to another two men, so I've actually got three children and three different fathers.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because along the way as well in life I know, I started to see that I felt it was where everybody kind of left. Eventually I couldn't keep anything and the only thing I can keep, believe it or not, and this makes me feel really emotional and really quite, it's quite mind-blowing. The only thing that I did have, that I still have, is my daughters, and you know they're still very much in my life and they love me very much. Do you know what I mean? But I was maybe always looking outside of that for something else, yeah, and I felt as though it was like water going through my hands. I couldn't keep anything. I couldn't keep a relationship, do you know I mean?
Speaker 4:But I ended up at 30, becoming a heroin addict for the first time in my life. I never touched heroin before I was 30. And when I found heroin, it was like the effect that I had when I was nine and I found the alcohol. It was the exact same effect, but it was more powerful. So now nothing matters, everything's totally wiped out. And I'm just in this place where I can just be, and there's peace there, it's quiet there, there's a kind of A break, there's a shelter for the storm there, and it's so peaceful and it's so nice. And just leave me here. Just leave me here.
Speaker 4:I actually remember I don't know if I should speak about this, what it means, but I just remembered there. I've not spoke about it for a long time, but before I had my second daughter I lost. Remembered there, I've not spoke about it for a long time but before I had my second daughter I lost the baby. And I remember being in hospital and I had not got to my therapies yet. I had never touched heroin but there was a big trauma at the hospital with me in the room and stuff happened. But they come and they put a cannula in and they gave me morphine and I will never forget. I will never forget.
Speaker 4:I remember turning round and looking at the window and it was raining and it was sort of early hours of the morning and I remember thinking this is it just take me now? I'm so happy here, I'm so at peace here, please just don't let me leave this hospital, just take me the night, because I'm happy to go the night and I think it. Um, it was that piece I experienced again a few years later when I tried the heroin. And then I suppose, like most drug addicts and alcoholics, I never think that it's going to take over one day and that I have to take it. I just think that I'm Just doing what you want, just taking something that gives me a wee bit of shelter from the storm, that gives me a bit of rest. But it didn't become like that.
Speaker 2:And you were in active addiction for quite a long time, weren't you? Yeah, and you had the kids at the point, didn't you?
Speaker 4:Always had my children out and I became quite sneaky with the truth. Yeah.
Speaker 4:Do you know what I mean? So I know that there's folk out there, I know it, and they're struggling with addiction problems and other problems with children. I know there is, and it's so difficult because it's so scary, because you feel so marginalised in life. You feel as though you're on the outskirts of life and in a way I suppose I have come to see that it was me that put myself there. It wasnae anybody's fault. I always think of Lilia when I think of the blame and shaming and complaining. The blame game's over for me. I'm not blaming anybody. I'm not sitting here going like that. It was nobody's fault. I'm not being silly or stupid here. I can see with a more rational mind today. But the bottom line is that to blame folk and it's like you stay in a, it's like you're stuck in a place and you're not going to get better. I was never going to get better if I didn't move out of it. Do you know what I mean? But the years with the heroin were the worst. It was the worst. That was 12 years.
Speaker 2:Did you want them to be different? Did you wake up in the morning and think I wish this was different, or were you too deep in it?
Speaker 4:Was it Every day for a long time. I tried to stop for six years, Wow, Wow. So if you're a drug addict or an alcoholic out there and you've been trying that and you keep letting yourself down because I'm using the words because that's how I felt I understand that. But I want to tell you that there's a lot of people out there that will understand that more than you realise and there's a way out. There's a way out. Yeah, pure hope. There's a way out. Because you don't think there's a way out, yeah, pure hope. There's a way out. Because you don't think there's a way out. When you're stuck in cocaine addiction, heroin addiction, alcoholism, you don't think, and plus, you think that everybody's against you and everybody's going to hate you. And if they knew the truth. Maybe you don't think like that, but I did and a lot of people do. But there is a way out, there's a way out. It's like it's easier than you think, but you're going to have to roll the sleeves up. Nobody's coming to date for you you have to save you.
Speaker 4:Nobody's coming to save you no way you bring it or it's no happening and that's fact and we all know it tell us.
Speaker 2:Tell us about when you got to the point where it was a bit much well, there was these six years.
Speaker 4:So what I kept track of the day was cut down, and some people out there understand this. I tried to cut down, I tried to regulate it, I tried to change it. I tried to not take so much heroin and I was smoking fentanyl. I tried to take not so much fentanyl and bump up the dihydrocodine. I tried to stop all that and take mervalium and moggies, sleeping tablets, any kind of alcohol at all that just take the edge off my heart. My heart rate used to beat really fast all the time. Every time I was trying to change and substitute one drug for another, but I couldn't stop.
Speaker 4:And as the six years are going on, the mental health's getting worse and worse and worse. My house is becoming more random. I actually get to a stage where it's really really difficult to shoplift because I cannae do it anymore. I've no got the savvy that I used to have. I've no got the strength either. There was nothing to me. I mean, I was a bag of bones hanging together and I don't have the savvy now to go out and actually steal stuff, to buy the stuff. And all the time in my mind is the children and the food that I need to get and the school uniform. So I become resentful of my own children Because it's like they're kind of getting in the way. And anybody out there that knows me knows and my daughters know that I love them. I don't need to say it. I loved them then and I love them now.
Speaker 4:But that was the truth and that's what drug addiction does to you. It takes everything, it rips the heart right out of you and you don't believe for a minute, if you're so low down like that, that you're going to get out of that. You have no belief that you going to get out of that. You have no belief that you'll ever get out of that. So that's when the idea came into my mind that I should just take my own life, because I couldn't see another way out and I couldn't stop. I couldn't regulate it, I couldn't cut it down. I tried and I tried and I tried and I tried, and then I would go back on it for a while and then I would. It would be too much again and the house was so ran down and we were all ran down and the wains were going to school and they weren't so clean anymore and you had said that you felt the cycle of them being.
Speaker 4:Ah, I used to look at them and think leave them. The best thing you could do is just leave these wains. They deserve so much more than you can give them. Wow, let it go. Let it go. You're going to have to go. You have to just take it in life, because, look at them, what are you doing to your children?
Speaker 4:And the idea that I could take my own life and that would help them was really big. It started to take root, it sprouted and grew arms and legs and it got bigger and bigger and bigger, and the voice in my head and I would lie in bed and I didn't sleep much. Eventually um, I've never slept much my whole life. I was a baby, it seems. So it wasn't a big deal, do you know, I mean, but it came into an idea that I should try it. So I did try it and thankfully I'm still here to tell the tale. Yes, but I did try to take my own life and that was a sad day. But that was a sad day and a fabulous day as well, because it was in that.
Speaker 4:It was the beginning of the end. It was the beginning of the end. Everything changed after that. Can you tell?
Speaker 2:us what happened.
Speaker 4:That was difficult. That was difficult, but it was wonderful.
Speaker 2:And what for the help that you were able to get.
Speaker 4:I phoned the helpline.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tell us about this, but tell us about you. Couldn't get through. Remember you said this.
Speaker 4:I phoned the helpline and it was dead strange and all because I didn't have a mobile phone. I never told you this bit. I don't think. When you came to the house I never had a mobile phone, but my youngest daughter's father had went away the night before and left his mobile on the table. What's the bloody chance? I didn't know, I would never have. I mean, I'm not even getting 10 pence for a call box thing, you know, and I'm absolutely polluted with all these substances that I just took Because you were really sick and all that, and I I'm a mess. You know I'm sick, I peed myself.
Speaker 2:I'm a total shambles Because you took an overdose, didn't you? Yeah, overdosed, didn't you? Yep?
Speaker 4:And then you came to yeah but they imagine that, imagine the sense of self that I've got at that point and I'm just lost and I'm so, so sad because I can't even take my own life. I feel as though I've let myself down now and I've let my daughters down because I can't even do this. But anyway, I don't know what, I don't know how I saw it, because the place was a total mess. I lived in an absolute mess Because I couldn't, I didn't have the savvy to tidy up and clean and I tried to keep them happy, but it was just so run down.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I seen the mobile phone in the table and it was like a dead strange thing. You're like what is this doing here? Uh-huh, so you're talking about 16 years ago, but the mobile phones weren't as big thing as they were now. But and I thought he's left his phone and I thought, wonder if there's any money in it. And then I thought, who can I phone? Wow, now my oldest daughter. Her dad had just died. Four months before this he was my first boyfriend and nine years before this day he took me to a meeting and a seed was planted there. But I couldn't wait to get out of the meeting. I thought, oh, my god.
Speaker 2:I couldn't listen to all them.
Speaker 4:No wonder I take drugs. But imagine a hopeless drug addict thinking that. And I thought, oh my God, I couldn't listen to all them. No wonder I take drugs. But imagine a hopeless drug addict thinking that, standing in a place of judgment with another human being. But that's what I did. Think that's the truth. And I remembered, and I remembered the name of the place and I phoned them and I couldn't get through. And then this guy says all our lines are doing, we'll need to phone you back. And I was screaming at him listen, I've tried to take my own life. And he's telling me to phone this. And I'm like no, it's you I need to talk to, I need help. And he get back to me and he says to me there's a meeting on the night and such and such. And I go on my bike, still fully all that, all the substances, and I don't know. I cycled away along that road to the west end of Glasgow and I don't know how I wasnae killed on that road.
Speaker 2:See, you said that you were a bag of bones. You didn't have the energy but something got you there.
Speaker 4:The light that is the good of the world, the god of the world, the God of the world, whatever you want to call it, help me. Bob and Jeannie, whatever you want to say got me there. And that was a turning point because at that meeting a lassie shouted me and she put her hand out to me. It's funny. There's a bit in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous and it says because she shouted me and she done that to me and I thought she was giving me, I thought, oh good, she'll be giving me some money and I can go and get some more drugs.
Speaker 4:Because as much as I wanted to stop and I just tried to kill myself and I hated myself and I couldn't stop, I knew I was still obsessed and compelled to use these substances cos they're in my system and I'm yeah, I don't know a way of life without them. So my first thought jumps to that all the time. Yeah, and it was a bit of paper with a number on it and I thought I was a bit of a letdown. But there's a bit. It says what at first we thought was a flimsy read turned out to be the loving and powerful hand of God and she gave me a number of a place called Second Chance Project, mm-hmm, and they and they. Just I went there. I'd never used a service, I'd never got any help from a drug addiction, alcoholism. I went there and they told me. They looked me in the eye and told me we're going to help you get off with all these substances, me.
Speaker 2:And you didnae believe them, didn't you? No?
Speaker 4:but I didnae believe them, siobhan, but I had a feeling this guy was being honest, he believed it. I could see that he believed it and I thought he believed it. He actually believes that I can stop all that. Yeah, yeah, but that's what. That's exactly what I was thinking. And then, and they told me to come back and start, and this I never shared with yous at the house, but the morning I was to go into second chance project and second chance project was in Poso and I was to go into Second Chance Project. Second Chance Project was in Poso and I want to give them a shout out because they're there. They're a wee charity, they're total abstinence, they're not getting a lot of funding and they're still gone. They're still gone one person at a time and that man still manages it. They spoke to me that day 16 years ago. Big shout out to Billy. Big shout out to Billy. One bullet he that day.
Speaker 4:So I've woke up, they told me under no circumstances come in here under the influence. And I says I don't know how to. And so they told me exactly how to use what I had. You have your heroin at that time. You have your dihydroclodine. They asked me what have you got? And I told them you have your Valium there. You have your vodka then and Monday morning you get up and you get in here.
Speaker 4:So I'm having to get two buses across the city and I've got wains and all that and I've got diarrhoea running out of me, sweating, frozen, sweating, frozen. I had to keep going after. I mean, as the weeks went on, that was something that actually that chimichunka's on Great Western Road I used to have to go in there with clean knickers and wash it on myself and put the clean knickers on. But that day I was lying in the bed in the fetal position like literally curling my hair, going. I cannae do this, I'm not going in there. Looking at the time it's like quarter to four in the morning and I'm having to go in there and I know I cannae get the dealer to at least nine and it's in my mind, the powerful, powerful disease, the addiction's in my mind, because the problem with the alcoholic and the addict centres in our minds, it's in our mind and I don't know this. I'm going like that. I'm lying in bed with this mad conversation going just use, no, don't. You said you would go in there. No, just get a bag of heroin, you'll be fine. Look at the state of you. Don't date me, just go in.
Speaker 4:So it's a back and forward. It's what I call the battle of the two minds and the one brain. That's what it is. It's a battle. And I have no defence. Aye, I have no, any defence. I've not got a programme that I've got the day. I don't have anything. I don't have anybody. It's my own mind that's telling me to use drugs when I know my life's about to be saved. Saved God. And I had this is the strangest thing I had £8.37. I could, I mean I had tapped everybody in the world. Nobody gave me any money anymore because I wasn't getting anybody.
Speaker 2:But I was a drug addict.
Speaker 4:But I would go to the estate to make up a tenner to get a bag of heroin. But I knew, I knew. I thought phone and taxi, how you going to get home, doesn't matter, they'll give you money or something, somebody will give you it. And I got in there that morning. I got in to that second chance project in Postle on Ardock Street. It's gone now, that's totally gone now. And I remember the walk in that door. I actually can see the gates and everything and it was like I felt a sense of peace as I walked through the gates that day in that door.
Speaker 4:I knew, I knew, but I was feeling, as I say, the diarrhoea's coming. I've got sweat and I'm cold. I'm hallucinating. I'm not sure what's what. I cannae differentiate the truth from the false. I cannae and I'm a total crazy woman. My mental health shot down and I went in there. They gave me some dihydrocodine. They gave me a dihydrocodine valium detox with my prasol for my belly coding valium detox with my Prisul for my belly yeah, because you were so Aha, and I'd done that for two weeks.
Speaker 2:You had to go every day, didn't you? I had to go.
Speaker 4:I had to go every day. They told me don't miss a day. Don't miss a day. Thanks for telling me that. Thank you so much. And I never missed a day. Yeah, and I'd done the two week detox and my clean date is the 30th of May 2009 and I've been cleaning sober since oh man, I'm really proud of you honestly, and I know you're proud of you.
Speaker 4:Still emotional, of course, it's still very emotional, the whole thing is, quite honestly and I know you're proud of you Yep, yep, still emotional. Of course it's still very emotional. The whole thing is quite, and you know you don't I wonder if I'll ever be able to deal with it all in this lifetime, but I'm doing well so far.
Speaker 2:You're doing amazing, yeah, Getting there, May. There was a really powerful statement that you told me. When we chatted about when you asked for help, I about when you asked for help. I would love like say you were in the room and you were pulling your hair. Can you talk me through that? I'll talk everybody through it because I think that this is so powerful.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, I certainly will, but there is a statement. Before I tell you about the story of that, there is a statement. My pal Rini says this is better felt than tell, and what that basically means is, when you have a spiritual experience, to repeat what happened to you does it no good whatsoever. But I'll give it my best shot and I'll tell you what I told you and what I only way I can describe it and articulate it. I was lying in my room, in my bed. So I've been in second chance a few weeks. I've had five days clean. I was five days abstinent and I have what they call the racing brain. I cannae stop thinking. My head is a million stories and it's going round so fast it makes me dizzy. I cannae eat. I cannae sleep. I've got to get up and get my kids every day and I'm knackered. I'm absolutely exhausted and I was lying again in the fetal position and I was pulling at my hair just so that I could take. I actually thought that if I had done that, because it helped a wee bit to pull my hair, so that it helped my brain calm down a wee bit, but I screamed out. I screamed out in the room help me. That was all I said. Help me. And then I had the most amazing experience. I had a. It was like a nuclear blast here in the middle of my I don't know. I just felt as though it was like a nuclear explosion in a millisecond that went right through my body and I experienced peace for the first time ever. I actually experienced peace. I felt it. I'll never forget it. I actually can feel it again, and it was so beautiful. It was so lovely because I didn't know what it was and for a second I knew that there was nothing. There was nothing, there was no noise, there was no emotion, there was no. I didn't actually feel as though I was in my body either and I felt the words I am the way, the truth and the life. And I thought I've heard that somewhere. I don't know what that is, I've heard it somewhere. And I thought I've heard that somewhere I don't know what that is, I've heard it somewhere and I fell asleep. That was my experience. That was my experience.
Speaker 4:And I got up the next day and my middle daughter came into the room and I remember her eyes were like diamonds. I could actually see her on a molecular level. Wow, it was a bit like that film what was it called with Keanu Reeves? You know Keanu Reeves the Matrix? Uh-huh, it was a bit like that. I could actually see my daughter's eyes like tiny, tiny diamonds millions and trillions of them, and they made up the colour of her beautiful, beautiful eyes and her hair was sparkly. It was like it was the strangest thing and they everything I could see. On a deeper level, it was like everything opened right up the houses across the road. When I looked out the window, the houses across the road looked as though somebody had taken a massive paintbrush and painted them. They were superimposed. They weren't real. They didn't look real. It's a light.
Speaker 4:So I still had this sort of this adjustment. This was like a readjustment in my whole. The alignment shifted in me. But I don't know it. I'm thinking that I'm losing my mind. I've not got a clue what's happening to me. It wasn't until a long time after that. Somebody says me that's an experience with God you've had, and I was like what? No wonder it was feeling crazy, Because I was feeling crazy. So that changed everything. And in these moments because you see, I'm saying this, see this spiritual experience I've just explained to you. There's people out there that's had these, oh yeah, and all different, and there's millions of different stories of the same kind of thing, and what it actually does for us is it shifts us. Do you know what I believe? Right, and as I say, you might not believe this, but I do. I believe that God and his mercy, or her mercy, the universe, knew I needed help.
Speaker 2:You surrendered and it came, it came, it was given or her mercy. The universe knew I needed help.
Speaker 4:You surrendered. You asked for it.
Speaker 2:It was given. And I think, see, when you open up all your vulnerability and you just ask, whatever it is, god, the universe, your higher power, whatever it is, it's going to come to you. See if you feel it and you need it. It's coming.
Speaker 3:Honestly see when you absolutely see if you, you feel it and you need it. It's coming.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know, see, honestly, see, when you said that to me, I was like that is like it's so powerful. No, no, but it is. It's so powerful and so beautiful yeah and that's what we need to talk about. Like I think, a lot of people talk about God and there's maybe negative connotations because it's about religion, but it's no, it's I am you, you are me, I am everything, I am everywhere. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 4:in that and it always makes me feel a bit sad because I think some folk don't know that they don't need to believe in the God of the Bible, they don't need to believe in the. I mean, I've got lots of friends that are Christians and they believe in the God of the Bible, but that's their belief exactly.
Speaker 1:I think there's a stigma when you say the word like because of that background and religion and belief, and you go see whatever that higher power is for anyone, right can be called, anything, can be anything, but see if you are in touch with it and you know what it needs and what you get from it, like that's the most important thing, regardless of what you're going to call it or how you deal with it. You've just got to be willing and open to connect with it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, see that word God, though right, you could also, because I've heard this and this was in the mind and this is somebody else's, but I heard it and I thought that makes so much sense. Good, orderly direction. Oh, ta-da Mic drop, I mean Mic drop. Don't use heroin. Do that Get better, and that's what happened?
Speaker 1:Did you feel like See that experience? Did you feel like that was the beginning of that new life?
Speaker 4:Aye, that was a whole new. That was a I knew. I know now, looking back and I think I knew then I was either going to live or I was going to die. And as much as I wanted to die at a particular point there was still that wee bit in me that felt so sad about leaving the girls and never seeing them growing up. But I could also see a picture that if I continued to take drugs and alcohol I wouldn't see them growing up because I would just keep trying to take my own life to it. I actually had done it and I wouldn't know everything. I've got the day.
Speaker 2:May. This has just come into my head. You remember the night that you went to that group and your first meeting when you were You'd just tried to take your own life and I cycled, you cycled and you met Sorry, I think that you met somebody years later and they told you that when they watched you that night they saw something. Tell us about that.
Speaker 4:The guy told me that. So I've never I've been at a meeting nine years before, but I can't wait to get out because I was absolutely under the influence and plus, I wasn't ready. But this guy told me that night. So I've cycled along, I've tried to take my own life, didn't work, went, phoned that helpline. They've sent me here and I went to this meeting and I'm sitting in the meeting and the guy told me he says the whole room lit up right round about you. He says the whole room. He says I'll never forget. And I was like what, what was it? What was it? He went, oh my god. He says. Well, some folk would say it was the light of the world, the light of god. He went. But I remember looking at you thinking, jeez, oh, something's happening for her. She's got stuff going on here and how powerful and how powerful that is because I'm still clean and sober. Yeah, and that's what? 16 years now. I celebrated 16 years in May, congratulations.
Speaker 1:Celebratory tradition for your birthday.
Speaker 4:Good. This is good because I know I have a wee barbecue or a wee tea party or that every year. So I do that every year and we have a wee thing in the garden because May, the 30th of May, is a nice time and the sun's out and that and the weather's getting better. But as time's going on, I've got to be honest. As time's going on, I feel as though I want it to be more about my daughters now than me and my pals for the fellowship, and I want it to be more about the girls than me.
Speaker 4:So that's where it's getting started to getting tweaked now yeah and that's how I'll have it, because imagine that they've put up with me all the year, especially my oldest, lassie. You know she's she's 43 next week. She's done really well. She deserves a gold star for that. So it's suppose it's merri. But them now do you know? I mean I name what a life because's Mary. But them now do you know what I mean? I name what a life Because when I got clean and sober, I was able to get an education because, mind, I've left school, so I'm 14 pregnant, so I didn't finish anything.
Speaker 4:I never go to the end of anything. Plus and all I started to remember my mental health's bad. So I've told myself that I'm nae good, nothing good's going to come for me, that I cannae get anything, and then fast forward to tape all the years. I'm clean and sober and the first thing I want to do because I mean like I was living in a house, my meter was fixed, I had a negative in my meter to stop my meter. I was a shoplifter. It wasn't so much then because I couldnae do it. I was living in the dark and they were such a part of me that wanted to live in the light. So I'm clean and sober now and I think right, I want to pay my own rent Because I've been on benefits my whole life.
Speaker 4:I'm not saying there's anything wrong with being on benefits there's no because some folk need benefits and I needed them, yeah, like there are times. But because I've become a drug addict, I obviously overdone it. Do you know what I mean? But I wanted half the benefits. I wanted to work, I wanted to keep myself, I wanted to support myself and be self-sufficient, more than that. So I thought I need to get some education. So I started to slowly college. You know, do that, wee course, do that for a year. Do that. Go there, get a job. I've done masses and masses. Uh, um, a voluntary and sponsorship. I sponsored a lot of women, thousands. I all over the world. I have sponsored women all over the place.
Speaker 4:But I'm not sure if I should put that out there, because it's a dead funny one, because in the fellowship we don't. People do it's like, it's like we're falsely modest. I don't mean you, but maybe I've been falsely modest. But that's my truth and that's fine. That's my truth, I'm quite happy with putting that out there. But we do it's like oh no, you just got on with it and you don't talk about it and all that. But it's like, oh no, you just got on weight and you don't talk about it and all that. But it's beautiful work that you do. Aye, it's good, and my heart lies with women working with women. My heart lies way there. I mean I do some work now with some men's groups as well, which I do enjoy. I've got to be honest. I do enjoy it because I've got a newfound respect for men that I never had before because I was always scared of them. There was a fear. Do you know what I mean? But now that's gone because I've done a lot of therapy over the 16 years and counselling and that. So I'm moving on. I'm no there. I still have fears, lingering fears here and there, but there's nothing, nothing like it.
Speaker 4:A lot of the trauma's been looked at, dealt with, shifted. That's a portion Blame, a portion then moved on. Yeah, no victimness there. No, no blaming others. That's over. But I, the educating stuff was brilliant because my first time at college I'm 44, educating stuff was brilliant because my first time at college I'm 44, and it was brilliant because I'm 42 when I get clean. I've done masses of sponsoring voluntary work. Then I went to college and I'm in a class with all these 18, 19-year-olds who are brilliant. They're just brilliant. Do you know what I mean? I'm like an old woman to them, I'm only 44, but that's.
Speaker 4:But something really beautiful happened. They started to help me with some of the work that I needed because I couldn't really get my head. It was not clicking in so easily, but remember, it's nearly 30 years since I've left school and all the trauma and everything, all the drug use as well, which has obviously affected my brain functioning. You can't connect the same way. So these guys and lasses are helping me and then they start coming to me, going me. Do you know, my girlfriend, my boyfriend me I was out on it at the weekend and this happened to this guy. I feel as shit. So I became like a kind of agony and they became like my wee pals because they helped me with the academic and I helped them with the real life stuff. So it was always there for me, that kind of thing. But it's like, as the years have passed, I feel myself so much more comfortable working in a situation with women and, as you know, you know, I do a lot of stuff now. It's quite unbelievable your business.
Speaker 2:We need to plug this because it is incredible and it's a family run business as well, with you and your daughter. So talk to us about medial therapies.
Speaker 4:I've done a few jobs as the years because I was dying to work. I wanted to pay my electricity bill, pay my electricity bill, pay my rent and all that, and eventually got all that done and that was good. And, by the way as well, I've never shoplifted again. Do you know that? Which is always good? 16 years away from the shoplifting as well, you told that you weren't allowed to do that as well, did you? You were told you weren't allowed to. I was actually quite annoyed about that. Was that the worst Aye? But you know, she says you know, this is an honest programme and I was like well, for God's sake, you know? I mean, I've got to stop everything in the world.
Speaker 1:There's nothing I can do.
Speaker 4:But aye, so I'd done the work and everybody does. I've went to work for this person and that person. Some of the people I've worked for have been marvellous. They've been lovely bosses, they've been good folk. They've helped me and helped me to grow in my life and I'm what people would see, or a boss would see, as a hard worker. You would want me to work for you, that's what I mean. You would want somebody like me to work for you because I'm the person that's doing the work and I'm a very hard worker and stuff. But I felt that sometimes people, when you're like that, some folk can maybe start to sort of take advantage and know you what you need and that sort of, because there's all sorts of relationships and there's relationships. We were work colleagues, we were family, we were partners and all that. But the work stuff was there was a few things happened over the years, but anyway, cut a long story short, I started my own business in January. Oh, incredible step, I mean. Can you believe it? Actually, I'm actually quite flabbergasted, are?
Speaker 4:you still shocked when you say it Aye, aye, but you must know what that feels like. Aye, because there's a part of you that's like oh my God, is this really happening? Is this me? So I started my own business and at that point, when I made that decision and we went for it, I had £38 in the bank £38. So I mean, mean, I just started on. Um, we didn't really know what to start with. I just wanted no, because I promised myself, when I get clean and sober, I'd never get benefits again. Yeah, as I say, there's nothing wrong with benefits, but I just had done enough, enough for myself, I. And so I thought right, I'm gonna have to work. So I already work online, doing online. I work for Edinburgh University doing online meditation for their students. So I already do that. I've been doing that for a few years. So my daughter, my daughter says mum, start with some meditations, you're already doing that, you're good at that. Start with some meditations. You're already doing that, you're good at that. So it was great.
Speaker 4:There's a wee story behind that. When I got clean and sober 16 years ago, I started having meditation nights at my house and storytelling nights where I would read my pal's stories and they would all be like right, well come me, but we're not really into this. Well come, because we love you, aye, but aye, that's what happened. Si happened, siobhan and I ended up working for Edinburgh University because of that. So I did some work for them. So I thought the new business in January we'll put some meditations out. I didn't really want to date online. It doesn't feel right, but anyway I done it and wee, trickles of money starts coming in. But I know because I've spent 16 years working in addiction. For the day I got clean, I done voluntary, then I worked on it and I've spent 16 years working with folk with problems, mental health and addiction, and I've done 16 years of group work and that is what I am a group facilitator. That is what I am. It's in my heart, stuck in a room full of folk, especially women, and giving it the truth. This is what we're doing. So that's where it eventually went and the meditations have fell by the wayside Also as well.
Speaker 4:On my wee business, am I allowed to say Absolutely, do it everything. It's called May Riddle Therapies on Facebook. We don't have a website or anything like that yet. We've only got a Facebook page and we've not even got everything done yet, what we've not even, and we've not even got everything done yet what we're actually doing, but we're getting there seven months in. But, um, I do a a day.
Speaker 4:I'm a recovery and addiction consultant. I also do motivational workshops for women and the inspirational talks you know, and also as well, I do some corporate work where I can go into workplaces and do what we call hand massage therapy and everything that I do. I'm qualified to do incredible, and the hand massage therapy for the corporate work is where I would go in. So something like, say, you've got a company of 300 people. You would book me in to come in and you would give them all like 10-15 minutes each and they'd come and I would do a wee hack. When you're actually that intimate, you're touching somebody's hands, they want to talk to you and folk are covered with a date of protection so they can tell me anything.
Speaker 2:You said it's really quite profound what comes out of those wee 15 minutes.
Speaker 4:It's a special experience. So if you run a business, get me in Also. I could come in and do a meditation as well. So that's just the wee part. But my real heart lies in doing a full group and life and real life with people, and I do want to do ones online as well with anybody with addiction problems. I'm actually working with some people that have Addiction's never touched their life, but they have other sort of life issues, just basic life issues. I'm not a psychiatrist or a psychologist but I do work with basic counselling stuff, you know.
Speaker 2:Do you know what's been beautiful? See what you just did there. I see every single bit of energy around about you, your whole aura, everything lit up, your whole aura, everything lit up your face, everything, your eyes. Honestly, this is exactly where you're meant to be and I think, from going from where you started me, like I said, it's nothing short of an absolute miracle where you've got to and it just it gives hope, and this is what we need in our life. We need hope that things can get better and you can get better and the situations can get better. Yeah, because that's what I needed.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I got it. Yeah. So thanks to the folk out there that gave me it. Yes, because there was many. There was many, not just Second Chance Project. There was folk I met along the way that have given me so much. Do you know what I mean?
Speaker 1:You can't help but think about that light that that guy once saw round about you in that room. It's that light that's absolutely within you and that driving force behind everything. So nice, that actually isn't it. I know it's beautiful and you know.
Speaker 2:It's so internal. Now. I know that you're going to watch this back and you're going to see your face, and I cannae wait for you to actually see that, because all of the talks that you've ever done, they've probably been video, jess, but probably from quite far away. This is going to show you just how powerful you are and what a joy it's been to have you on this episode, mate. Honestly, it has been incredible. Thank you for being so candid and open and honest and this I truly believe, nats, you'll be the same. This is going to help a lot of people.
Speaker 4:I hope so.
Speaker 2:It really, really is. There was just a couple of more things, may, that I just wanted to ask Now. You had said a bit second chances, yeah, is there any other avenues of support you would recommend to anybody that's listening to this that either has family members who would be struggling to deal with them being an addiction, or anyone else you would recommend anybody going?
Speaker 4:Yeah, brilliant question. Yeah, so there's all the fellowships online. Some folk are not sure about Alcoholics Anonymous, cocaine Anonymous, narcotics Anonymous. Can I just say to you that you can go online to any of those meetings. They're all online and if you don't want to do a meeting here, you can do a meeting in Chicago if you want, because it's online. So like say, just say, for talking sake, you think you're an alcoholic or you've got a problem with drink, right, just for talking sake. You could look up Alcoholics Anonymous online meetings and then it'll go shh, it'll give you a list of them you choose. And another thing if you're not ready to face that yet and face the world, you can go on to that meeting, no camera, no name, and just listen and see. If I were you, I would do it. And that's the same for cocaine addicts, heroin addicts, prescription drug addicts, sex addicts as well food addicts. There's an anonymous fellowship. I think there's over 120 or 30-something fellowships. Wow. So Alcoholics Anonymous was the first one. So reach out to the fellowships online so you can keep your camera off and you don't need to say nothing and you can listen in. It gives you a wee tasty at first. It gives you a wee idea of what it's like. That's a good start for you.
Speaker 4:Also for the family there's. I mean here in Ayrshire there's Harbour Ayrshire, which is a marvellous place. I mean I've done some work for Harbour recently but Harbour Ayrshire's got a great family programme. They've also got family groups. I actually have done some groups for them in Harbour. So big shout out to Eddie and the Harbour guys and girls there doing great work.
Speaker 4:And there's also Scottish families affected by drugs and alcohol, which is a brilliant place. Done some work for them recently as well. So they're about the families of the addicts and the alcoholics helping you. Now Don't think we're saying that you've got the problem. We know that it's not you that's got the problem. This is for the family members here. We know that. But what happens is Alcoholics Anonymous have got it spot on. They call it the family illness. We all become a wee bit unwell, run about other addicts. Do you know what I'm talking about? We try and change our ways in that. So it's not that you need help, but it's a place for you to go for the peace and comfort that you deserve, dealing with a family member that's got drug and alcohol addiction.
Speaker 4:Also, second Chance Project. There's a masses of places in Glasgow. There's Abbeycare, there's Castle Craig, there's I mean, you know, put it in a Google and there's all these places and as well there's telephone places as well and see if you're affected by any of this the day in a way that it's left you feeling and you're not sure. Remember there's the Samaritans and remember that there's other places that you can put into Google and you'll get a number that you can speak to somebody, that you can talk to somebody. Also, I know that Harbour Ayrshire have got a helpline. So if you put a Harbour in Facebook or that, it'll come up their telephone. They've got a. I think it's 8 in the morning to 10 at night, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 2:I think Edible have so local as well, we will put all the websites in our bio for this as well, and we will put all the websites in our bio for this as well, so that everybody has the information there's also we are with you as well in Ayrshire and across Glasgow as well, across Scotland.
Speaker 4:There's also we are with you, so check them out incredible thank you for sharing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so, mae, as I said, it's been an absolute pleasure. We've loved talking to you. How have you found being in today? I've loved it. Yeah, you want to come on every week, don't you?
Speaker 1:pure natural. I've got like oh, thank you so much. I'm honestly looking at the camera and all that much that took us until second season.
Speaker 4:I never thought that mine to next time you sign this. See, it's so easy, it's been wonderful.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you both very much, so I got me a wee gift. Do you think you'd be able to grab it? Would that be ok? I don't know if you've read this book, but I felt like the name was very apt for you. I'll give you a wee squeeze after know if you've read this book, but I felt like the name was very apt for you. Yes, thank you. I'll give you a wee squeeze after, because I don't want my bum to be on the camera. I mean, it is a good bum, but I don't want you to see it.
Speaker 4:Hopefully mine avoided it women who run with the wolves.
Speaker 2:Now I've heard about this, yeah, and and um, you said something earlier. Ah, there we go. You said something earlier on about being a lone wolf when you were younger and that just totally resonated to that book that was over there. Yeah, so I just we both, of course want to say thank you for everything today. It's been a pleasure, it's been an absolute pleasure, mate. Thank you for having me. You're so welcome.
Speaker 4:It's been an absolute pleasure, mate, it really has and all the best for your stuff, for yous are doing sisterhood circle sisterhood circle taking over the world.
Speaker 2:But, yes, so guys, just remember that you can follow us on all social media platforms. Please make sure you subscribe to the channels on everything that you're listening to, please like and share, and if you have anybody in your life that has went through anything like what may has gone through that needs some hope, then please share this with them. Thank you so much for joining us today. We'll see you again. Bye, lots of love.