Episode: 1 Richard's Story

In this introductory episode, Richard Turrell, one half of the Unlikely Christians duo, tells his story of trauma and addiction, and how Jesus showed up just in time. 

Transcript

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And welcome to everybody who's having or have had a great day, and those of you who are hanging in there, and those of you who are just thinking, oh Lord, I don't know if I can continue to do this. I'm comedian and author, pat McCool on the shores of Lake Deep in the Piney Woods of Southern Mississippi, and now. My co-host from across the Atlantic in London, England. My brother from the mother country esteemed psychotherapist and addiction specialist, Richard Turrell. Rich, what's up? Yes, pat. Nice to be here man. Nice to see you. Um, yes, I'm coming from Oxford in the uk. Uh, so about 30 miles outside London. Got a big university here, very green leafy rolling hills. Yeah, that's what's up man. Nice to be here. Nice to see you again, pat. That, that's so much better. I like it when you're from Oxford, because when we met and I ended up with a friend from London, as I told you my international sophistication, uh, level rose. But when you moved to Oxford, that kicked it into another notch. I mean, look, honestly, like, it felt like a supreme act of service. It felt like, it felt like an area that you needed support in part, I needed to be pulled up. Just a little bit, you know, when I, when we combine all of your degrees and my GEDI felt like between the two of us we're pretty well, uh, pretty well rounded and we're both in interesting places. You're from, I guess how far is, Cambridge Oxford University from you? About three miles. Um, this isn't, I actually grew up in a little town, uh, outside of London, the other about 35 miles to the east called South End on Sea, which is a small seaside town. Um, so that's where I kind of misspent a large chunk of my youth. And then I, I came up here, I was in Oxford for five years and misspent the last of it here really. Um, so I've, yeah, I've dotted about a bit. I'm a bit of a nomad pat. Nomad within my own country. Well, I'm a bit of a nomad. I left these woods and went to New York for six or seven years. And then move back and so we're both near fairly interesting locations because you, you're three miles, from one of, if not the premier institution, uh, academic institution in the world. And I am a 3.1 miles from a nuclear test site where the US Army blew off a nuclear weapon. In a tall salt dome in the middle of these pine woods, I'm not kidding you, you can Google salmon, salmon test site. So I haven't seen any three, little three-legged frogs crawling around the lake. But, uh, but we are, you know, we got a little testy back in the fifties. We did, you know, we didn't want the, we didn't want the Soviet showing up on the Jersey shore, so we started blowing up a few things that maybe we could persuade'em otherwise, but literally they blew up two nuclear bombs three miles down the road. So, so as you can see, the similarities between us are spooky there. Yeah, absolutely. What there, you notice I called you Rich. My wife asked you do you go by Rich? Do you guys like shorten names in, yeah. Nicknames. Rich Is Rich is my favorite. I prefer to be called Rich. Yeah, Richard. Oh, rich is good. Yeah. Richard's quite, quite formal. So I'm not that, I'm not that formal. Pat. I know that's actually devastating to you.'cause I'd imagine in your mind I walk around in like a bowl of hat twirling a cane. Doing all that good English stuff, but actually, I'm, that's, that, yeah. Drinking tea. Drinking tea. Drinking tea. I don't, I don't actually like tea. You don't? Is it, is that still the, still a British thing? The tea. The tea and I noticed you're doing it Pinky. You know I this like, it's kind of aristocratic you lift the pinky up. But yeah, I mean, I can do, but I like, if it makes you happy, you know I can do that for We're good man. You're making me, uh, you know, if I'm gonna get my sophistication level up, I just want, I just wanna meet you there. You know what I mean? So yeah, my wife said, you calling him Rich? Does he go by Rich? Because, over here, we shorten every name, you know, like Yeah, no, similar. Similar, yeah. You know, go ahead. Are you Patrick McCall Officially, and when I was in trouble, which was quite often, as you know, as a child, it was Patrick, but it's Pat. And, uh, which, you know, wasn't, was kind of tough in school because Pat can go either way. And I asked my mother why I was named, a girl's name and she said, well, Patrick is an honorable name in Ireland. And I said, well, yeah, it's a sissy name here in Mississippi and it's, and it's causing me a lot of fights. But yeah, I just didn't know if we abbreviated, so we're, we're cool with Rich'cause like if we had a monarchy, we would have king chuck. Maybe King Chucky. You know, we, we, we'd have Prince, prince William would be Prince Billy. If it was Texas it'd be like Prince Billy Wayne. So yeah, that kinda stuff would probably get you, uh, hung for treason over here. Alright, well we're not here for getting hung for treason. Well. It's good to see you, rich. And, for those of you that are joining us for the first time, which is virtually everybody, because this is the first time we've done the podcast, uh, Richard and I met and we have a passion for, Helping others experience the same joy and the happiness, and peace that we found through Christ. And, we decided we wanted to try to get together and, see if we could help people experience the same thing that we experienced. So, for our first episode, we wanted to kind of give you a background on how we both got to this. Part and in, true southern hospitality fashion. We're gonna let Richard go first. And Richard, if you'd just like to give us your story, how, you came through the struggles you've had in life and got to this point. Yeah. Lovely. Thanks Pat. And I just wanna really echo what you've said there. You United Mission here is to. Just kind of carry that message really about what Christ has done in, in my life, in your life, in our lives, the transformation that we've experienced. You know, I've got a lot from reading your book, pat. Bonzo wasn't that big of a hill woman's walk towards God. Um, you know, our experiences were very similar in that regard. So, yeah, my story, as I say, it began, in 1980 in a small seaside town in England, called South England Sea. Ironically, it's not actually on the sea, it's actually located on the banks of a big estuary. You know, the River Thames where it starts to come out towards the North Sea. So it should, it would more accurately be called South End on mud. Um, and you know this is the northeastern part of England, Southeastern. Southeast Southeastern. Yeah. Yeah. So if I was Northeastern, it would be the Northeastern and the Southeast are very different places. Yeah. I've done research, sorry, I very different cultures, but, um. Yeah, so I grew up there. I mean, look, I came into quite a middle class background. Um, you know, my dad was a lawyer, and he went on to become a judge. My mom was a doctor, you know, like, uh, what would you guys call it? Um, family doctor. Like family medicine, you know. So general would be a general practitioner. Yes, that's exactly what she was called over here. Yeah. A gp. So, you know, on the face of it, like a nice kind of middle class house. Yeah. Five bedroom house, two kids, mom, dad together, you know, two nice cars on the drive, a cleaner, a nanny,'cause mom and dad were both busy with their careers, you know, sort of like private schools, you know, initially. Right. So all very, not all looked very nice and whilst. I have a huge amount of, um, like admiration and respect for, for my parents. You know, like they've both been for a lot, you know, they both come from difficult backgrounds, from like emotionally, um, absent, at the very least, um, backgrounds and they didn't know too much about how to bring kids up. And on top of that, my mom was, my mom was an alcoholic. Yeah. So she. She had a, you know, a very serious, um, ongoing problem with alcohol and later prescription drugs. You know, obviously I know that's, you know, a huge problem that you guys have over there as well. It's like a, definitely a, a growing, getting worse and worse. Yeah. And same over here, actually. Same over here, getting worse and worse. And particularly the sort of younger generation, that's increasingly something that they turn to. Um, so yeah, I mean, it, it was. There was violence in the house growing up. Dad was scary. Mum was kind of checked out a lot of the time. Mm. Um, and my brother and I. Was this towards you or between the parents? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No violence towards, you know, towards myself. I think my brother got a little less it. My dad was a bit softer with him from, from a little bit what I can remember, but also what I've heard, you know, from, from relatives and stuff. My dad was a bit softer towards my brother. Um. By no means, like Easy Mum was pretty volatile, you know? God bless her, you know, and they both passed away, so, and you know, and I know that my mum came to Christ maybe about 20 years before she passed, and my dad fantastic. Yeah, my dad did as well towards the end. Although he never told, he never told us, right. We never knew. We never knew until he was in the hospital in his days. He was in the hospital in the last week of his life, which was pretty brutal. Um, you know, the way he died was very tragic and very brutal. Um, and, uh, and a priest turned up and, uh, and it was, it was the priest from the local church and had come to, had come to see him. And, and you know, we found out that he had, you know, had become quite a big part of that like community and had had come to faith. Right. So. So that was, so they've both passed on in about the last five years, but setting, if you might, so he didn't share that with you? No, and that's a funny, go on Pat. Sorry. You go ahead. No, you go ahead. Well, that's the funny thing about the story is that my mom came to faith and, um, there were Christians in and around our house a lot. Um, and no one ever spoke to my brother or I, and we were like, well off the rails. By this point you have that expression, like gone off the rails. Yeah, I lived off the rails, you know. We'll, we'll get you in the next I was the one that bent the rails. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rails. The rails were well in the rear. The, were you, uh, had you and your brother left home by the time they came to Jesus, or, I'm trying to remember the dates. I might have got it a little bit wrong, but, but I, I mean, well, you're still, you weren't kids. We, we were in our teens, so maybe it's about 30. Yeah. Let's, so you're out doing your things. So they're not really expressing this with you. They're not sharing it with your, you find this out later? Oh, much later. Much, much later. So much. Wow. I mean, so our upbringing was one, you know, there was a lot of dysfunction. Basically it turned out Dad had been having like this long running affair. We found out after he died, you know, there was another house, another woman, another child, you know, all this, you know, big secret. So we grew up in this soup of dysfunction, pat, this so of kind of lies violence and addiction. Right? A lot of anger, a lot of unspoken feelings floating around the house. Like until I was well into my thirties, I wouldn't have known an emotion if it walked up to me and punched me in the face. You know, very much learned, like moved like to live upstairs, you know, live in my head,'cause that was the sort of safe, safest place to be away from it. And um, and then by the time I was 12, very, very uncomfortable in my own skin. You know, by the time you were 12. Yeah. Very, very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable in my own skin. Anxious kid. Didn't really fit in different from the other kids at school. Quite a bit of bullying. Very overweight. A bit odd. And you know, it was like the eighties going into the very early nineties. Like kids were, kids were particularly cruel. Right. You know, they still are. Definitely can be. It shifted a bit over here. Um, but yeah, like it wasn't great basically. And then I was 13, I found, I found hashish, you know, I found cannabis, right? And um, I remember smoking my first joint and just thinking, this is how I want to feel, you know? I don't wanna feel that other way, you know, I don't wanna feel like this is how I wanna feel, you know? I felt like. I felt happy. I felt free. You know, I felt that, like that ease and that sense of ease and comfort. Right? And so that was my, you know, in the 12 step fellowships, we talk about powerlessness, right? So my first experience of powerlessness was, it wasn't the, you know, I smoked a joint on day one. And then on day two I started stealing for it. But what it was, it was like when day two came, I realized I had an option. I had an option. I can either feel anxious, uncomfortable, full of self-loathing and fear. I can feel happy, free, relaxed, you know, like in the moment. And so like my mission after that point, pat, was to feel like that as much as possible. And that was a, you know, that was a mission that I, I ran with man. Like I ran with, been there and done that. Yeah. Yeah. And I know, I know, you know, you have your, you, you know, very similar kind of set of experiences and like, look, you know, lots of people that, you know, hopefully Will, will be listening to this or come to listen to this, will identify with that experience. Right. And, um, you know, and it went on like, you know, when I became, uh, my education fizzled out, um, I, I mean, there was a lot of stuff that happened, man, but by the time I was, like, by the time I was 20 years old, I was addicted to crack cocaine. By the time I was 21, I was addicted to Heroining. Um. That was like on and off, you know, like by the time I was 25, that was much more on than it ever was off. Right? Um, but there was always something, whether it was booze, cocaine, powder, cocaine, cannabis, ecstasy, amphetamine, whatever. There was always something. Right. There was always something. And, um. I sold drugs, um, you know, sometimes relatively successfully, sometimes spectacularly, unsuccessfully. You know, I ran, I ran around over a lot of money to people. I got into a lot of trouble. I was stabbed. I got stabbed. And, you know, I nearly died in an argument to do with drugs and money when I was 25. And then when I was 27, I, I left South end. I left my hometown, um, under. Something of a cloud, let's say. Right? Like there was a lot of people that were like very unhappy with me. Um, I owed a lot of money my to criminals, you know, my behavior. Uh, apart from the money, my behavior was pretty off the wall. I'd upset a lot of people with my antics. Yeah. Blackout drinking, causing trouble, you know, all that sort of stuff. And, um. I, I came actually up to Oxford'cause I had some family here and, you know, for the fresh start, you know, and I got clean, I did what would say over here. I did my rip, did my rattle. So, I dunno what you call that over there, but I, I withdrew, I withdrew from everything, you know, so I, yeah, I got clean. And, um, how did you go from South end? What, what took you from South end to Oxford? I, I had family there, so I knew I, I would have somewhere to stay. And, um, I was homeless. Um, I was like living like in a crack house. Um, uh, you know, life. I was at rock bottom, you know, like I was at rock bottom. I was at this point a very subsistence level kind of drug user. Right, right. And um, so I came up to Oxford. I got clean. I had no idea what I suffered with. I had no idea I had this big spiritual, like emotional void within me. Um, you know, a good shaped hole. I had no idea about any of that. And, and then the truth is, pat, I was in so much pain that I, you know, I used heroin again very quickly within about five days. Right. Because I just didn't know how to deal with myself, and I certainly didn't know how to deal with the world. Yeah. Was it, was it the emotional or the physical that got you right back in five minutes? Emotional, the physical. I could deal with the physical. It wasn't fun, but I could deal with a physical, you know, but it was the emotional, yeah. You know, it was get. Getting, getting clean and like just this sap, I think I'm happy here. Over here. I'm not, but it, it's all a lie, but keep going. Yeah. Well, it's that thing. It's like I'm not com I'm just not comfortable. I'm not comfortable wherever I go, you know? And it, and I just couldn't, yeah. I just couldn't deal with myself. Right. So I realized very quickly the part of Oxford I was in had a lot of drugs in, and a lot of drug dealers. Right. And, and I, you know, I went, you know, I bought, I found a dealer, I bought some heroin. It was very easy. And, um, called it smack over here or brown. These are different slang names to, to what you guys have, I think. But, um, uh, and I, and I used, right, so I used the heroining and I remember, like, I remember thinking, you know, I knew, I knew it wasn't a one off. Yeah. I knew I understood enough about my experience of addiction at this point to know that it wasn't a one off. It wasn't like I was just gonna have a night off these difficult feelings and then got on with Build, rebuilding my life. I was back in. I was back in it, you know, and that this was, it was all gonna happen again. And that's what happened. It all happened again. Anyway, I found after about three years and, you know, a suicide attempt, some very lonely and kind of existence in Oxford, some work, you know, like I wasn't, couldn't sell drugs. I didn't, you know, I just couldn't, new Town, didn't know anyone. So I did some work. I stole a lot from different jobs and, and all that kind of thing. But you know, I did what I needed to do to feed my habit. Um, and I ended up at a real emotional bomb, um, in that I had somewhere to live. I had a little bit of money, but I was just so kind of empty and lonely, and I'm happy that I. I sought help and I found Narcotics Anonymous. So I went on the, and I, I've tried to track the date back. I believe it was March the 16th, 2010. It was March, 2010. I went to my first Narcotics Anonymous meeting and, um, in, you know, I didn't get it straight away, but in July, 2012, I got clean, right. And I, and I'm still clean now. So next, uh. In July this year, basically in a couple of months I'll be, I'll be 13 years clean. Right. By the grace of God, right? Yeah. So, you know, not one drop of alcohol, not one, you know, total abstinence clean for, for the best part of 13 years. So, phenomenal. Right? Life changing. And then I did all the things, you know, I did lots of 12 step meetings and I explored the ideas of spirituality, but I, I, I was a bit of a like. Spiritual tourist. I've bounced around different things. I've been to some odd places, done some odd things. I've been, you know, kind of Buddhist type stuff. I've done a Native American sweat lodge, right? Like that was different. Um, but it wasn't for me. You know, obviously it's some people's belief system, but, um, but what happened as well was that my addiction began to manifest in other areas. Um, work money. Food and sex were like the main culprits. And I built a life, you know, externally, I had this life, you know, I became quite successful. You know, I had my own business. I had a, you know, career, I had a reputation, you know, a good reputation within the recovery community. You know, I was looked to as someone that kind of had his, you know, had his SHIT together, right? And like knew what he was about and actually had this kinda secret life where. To manage the stuff that was going on inside of me. I was still, Floyd was still there. The emptiness was still there. Yeah, still there, man. And acting out sexually overeating, you know, kind of getting on for like an eating disorder. Definitely workaholic. Right. And, um, I was married, um, I lived in London. I lived in a nice part of London. I had a nice car. You know, I had some nice watches, I had nice clothes. You know, I had all these, you know, all these things. Right. All the stuff, all the stuff of the world, um, you know, all the, all the glitters, was, uh, you know, I had, I had a lot of that stuff. And then my, my wife discovered that I was a sex addict and that I had been cheating on her regularly for the entire duration of our relationship. And at that point, and that gives me chills, even just saying it right, like. I remember that day, I remember how devastated she was, and I remember how, for me, the, there was guilt, of course, for what I'd done for her, which I still carry. There was also just this sense of absolute shame that this part of me that I'd kept hidden, you know, I'd really done everything to, to keep hidden, had been ripped out into the world, um, into the light and was shown, and I. To, to cut a long story short, I was admitted to a treatment center in the US in Arizona for, for treatment, for sex addiction. And it was there in the desert that, um, that I had a really personal encounter with Christ. You know, there was a friend of mine there who was a pastor. There was a chaplain there who was a remarkable man. I'd already, I'd begun to attend church, um, looking for answers and had found some respite from what aided me, but was still, you know, still very much, uh, wrapped up in, in addiction, um, in different forms. And I ended up in, in the desert of Arizona and I. I started to understand what grace was, and I started to understand who Christ was, and I started to understand what forgiveness meant, and, and everything changed for me and I had a very powerful experience of feeling like I was forgiven. And I don't, by that I don't mean forgiven for the things that I've done. By my wife or, or, you know, by other people that had got hurt by what I did. My wife's family were very, very badly hurt by what I did. But I mean, like, on a deeper spiritual level, like I was forgiven. And, uh, and I remember that was very profound and that, that told me, what I learned from that, from that experience was how I'd, I'd, I'd never been able to forgive myself, like just for being alive, you know? I carried such a deep level of shame. Like, even for just existing. And so that was very profound. And then, you know, I know this is of course stuff we'll, we'll talk about in more detail as, as this develops, but you know, and then I began to have an experience where I realized how loved I was. You know, I just felt this love wash over me. Like just this, it was like taking a shower in, in this room. Yeah. That, yeah. It was all that emptiness. All that emptiness. Yeah. I was just. Just filled with this sense of love. And I, I, I remember I was in church and I, I sobbed, you know, I was sobbed, uh, you know, and, um, I, I just realized like I'd never, I've never felt love like that. I'd never known how to be loved like that, you know? And, um, it's the Holy Spirit, so, yeah. Yeah. The Holy Spirit man, like, it touched me, like it touched me and I just felt, you know, and there've been many other experiences along the way that, too much to get into now, but they, you know, that told me that I was. I was in the right place. You know, I was in the right place and I was, I was where I needed to be. Like, I've come home, you know, I know that's a cliche, but it's like I've come home and, uh, and so my faith journey's continued since then, you know, and, um, I have found such peace and grace and direction and purpose, and. So much through it. And, and, and that's why, you know, that's why I, I, you know, like we spoke about Pat, I, I want other people to have the, you know, the opportunity to experience the same thing, you know, and, um. I'm not like you and me, pat, we're not theologians. You know, and we're, we're certainly not classic churchgoers. Right? We are not. That's why we are the two unlikely Christians. Two unlikely Christians man. But yeah, that in a nutshell, that's, that's my story, man. Well, that's a beautiful story. And, it is home. It's our heavenly father that you came to. And while I had an entirely different upbringing, we ran the parallel paths. And when you finally realize that Jesus has been there all along, you find out that you have a purpose in life. And what's amazing, and we're, we're kind of running out of time, but. The, the way God works, he's filled you now with that peace, that joy and I have, I have the exact same. We'll get into it in our next episode, how I got to, uh, how I reached this path. But without getting into it, that trip to Arizona led to you and I meeting and led to what we're doing now. And hopefully we're gonna be able to help some people out along the way.'cause there are a lot of people that are struggling. But you and I have found the answer and, we're gonna try to help share that, along the way. Yeah. Lovely. Well, rich, it was fantastic, catching up with you. We'll catch up again. Uh, we'll catch up again next, next week. Sounds great. And um, we will, if we got just a minute, let me, there is a scripture that I wanted to, to end our meeting with that it just keeps popping up. And if you can just bear with me just one moment. I wanna end with Philippians 4, 6, 7.'cause I think somebody out there might need to hear this.'cause I keep getting it popping up. And you and I have talked in the past that things just keep showing up in our heads that need to be, And people think of the scripture, uh, in our conversations. Rich, uh, one thing I have learned, uh, that kind of brought was. The Bible is not just, uh, words in a book. They're actually God talking to us. And you didn't really have time to get into it, but you had an experience where you looked at scripture and it reinforced you, and uh, it filled you with the peace. But, uh, I really think people are out there struggling, need to realize that, Bible verses are actually God talking to us. And this is Philippians four, six through seven. Do not be anxious about anything. In every situation by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving, present your request to God and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah man. Great talking to you, rich. Talk to you next week and hope the rest of you will join us. Take care. Thanks Pat. Stay off that moonshine man. See you next week. We're just filling the cattle up outside and it's time for me to go out, uh, and start hunting for my meals. Rich. Nice. We, we've made a little progress since we got electricity down here,, but I'm still out in the woods, brother. Alright, love you man. Talk to you later. Yeah, big luck Pat. Alright, bye.