Episode 7: Building a Life You Don’t Need to Escape | PJ Smith

Our guest this month is Liverpool writer, storyteller and recovery worker PJ Smith — also known through his writing and performances as Roy.

PJ was a talented young footballer who signed for Everton, but as his home life became less stable, football, school and eventually any sense of direction began to slip away.

By his late teens, alcohol and drugs had replaced football as a way of finding confidence, connection and identity. What followed was a decade PJ describes as repetitive, chaotic and increasingly hopeless.

In 2007, with his life reduced to getting through each day and the possibility of suicide becoming very real, PJ finally asked for help.

During treatment, he was asked to write his life story. A member of staff told him he could write and that he should nurture it. A few weeks later, a slightly dishonest attempt to get an afternoon away from rehab led him to an open audition in front of playwright Willy Russell and another person telling him to keep writing.

He did.

PJ’s first collection, Algorithm Party, introduced Roy: part character, part alter ego and part collection of the men, voices and contradictions PJ had grown up around.

His new book, Boomerang Process, returns to those lives and asks what happened next.

We talk about growing up anxious, his father’s absence, football and belonging, addiction, recovery, creativity and the uncomfortable period when an old identity has disappeared but a new one has not yet formed.

PJ also tells us about his work at Damien John Kelly House, a recovery living centre in Liverpool where men rebuild their lives through honesty and accountability, but also through football, cycling, books, art, music and community.

This is a conversation about wasted potential, second chances and why recovery has to become about far more than simply not drinking or using drugs.

It’s also about what makes a good man: consistency, honesty, responsibility and being prepared to live by the things you ask of others.

PJ’s work

Buy Boomerang Process
https://www.tncbooks.co.uk/store/p/boomerang-process-by-roy

Find out more about Algorithm Party
https://roughtradebooks.com/pages/authors

Damien John Kelly House
https://hubofhope.co.uk/service/835359ba-59f3-42d5-badd-53be0754d932

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

Like and subscribe — and, more importantly, share the episode with a mate who might get something from it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome everybody. Our guest today is PJ Smith or Roy, depending on which part of him you're talking to. PJ is a Liverpool writer, storyteller, spoken word performer, and recovery worker. His writing finds poetry in the ordinary details of life: football, music, clothes, hubs, families, friendships, and the people trying to hold themselves together behind a convincing jacket and a decent pair of trams. But his own story travels through some much darker places. His parents separated when he was young. Football gave him an identity, and at 14, he signed for Everton. By his late teens, alcohol and drugs had begun to take the place of football. And what started as a way of feeling confident and connected eventually left him feeling isolated, frightened, and unable to imagine a different life. PJ got sober in 2007. It was during treatment, while he was being asked to write down his life story that somebody first told him he could write. From there, Roy began to emerge. Part PJ, part character, and part collection of men, voices, and contradictions he'd grown up around. His first collection, Algorithm Party, was published by Rough Trade Books in 2020. His new collection, Boomerang Process, returns to some of those lives and stories to ask what happens next. Alongside his writing and performing, PJ works with men, rebuilding their lives after addiction at Damian John Kelly House in Liverpool. Today, we're going to talk about fathers, football, addiction, creativity, recovery, masculinity, and the gap between the person we pretend to be and the person we actually are. PJ, welcome to Och Brothers, Where Art Thou? I did how was the intro? Anything you want to uh edit?

SPEAKER_01 2:00

Absolutely not. I was just sitting listening and thinking, if I like there's this misconception that I hate podcasts, I don't. I just think a lot of them are crap because the people don't do the research and not interested in what they're doing and they're trying to sell something.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

But after that intro, you fuckers know what you're doing. Yeah, that's brilliant. Right, well, we'll end the podcast there.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

He texted, I'll be honest with you, mate. He texted me just before we went online. He said, Uh, so you are you're gonna lead this one, you're gonna you've got to do the intro. And I looked at the intro and I thought, as it happens, mate, you know, that's that's got you written all over it. So that's all of Pietro's research, man. It's uh that was a beautiful intro. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Yeah. Right, that's awful timing, but I've got to deliver it the door, I'll be five seconds.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Love it, that's gonna be great to the podcast.

SPEAKER_03 2:59

You won't listen to it because you uh you support a crap football team, but there's a great uh Arsenal podcast called Arsblog, and this often happens. He just he does like filler music, and it's just like thank you.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

I knew that was gonna happen. That's you on a fantastic intro. Yeah. Thanks, Ross. I mean, Ross, you tell us tell us how you guys know each other.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

That's I think it's quite important.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Sure. Uh so I met PJ when I was living down in Liverpool, and uh I wouldn't say I know you terribly well, mate. I know you'd say hello to, and uh we had the privilege of of having you up to perform at the Queen's Hall with us too. And uh and I I I I visited um the uh Damian John Kelly house um to do a bit of a testimony as well, uh, see what the lads are are doing. Uh and he's just uh he's a guy who you are a guy, PJ, that uh you know I've just always had my eye on. I you know, I think you've got a really interesting story. I like the way that you move, and uh you're a guy that I know from recovery.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

Yeah. Yeah. And we what we often like to do, PJ, to start things off is to find out what made the man really, where it all began, you know, where you grew up, what the world was like, what the atmosphere was like at home, you know, who was around you, you know, what sort of boy were you like when you when you when you when it all kicked off?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Um been talking about this this morning, actually. Um so I'm I'm from Liverpool, I'm from the north of the city, which is where the the football grounds are, and um Stanley Park, right next to Stanley Park, I lived. But this morning, in terms of what kind of like kid was I, this morning we've been talking about it, and somebody spoke about how they used to listen to their parents arguing on the top of the stairs, and um I've I never used to do that, but what I remember is times when you think as a kid I'm bunking into the adult world here. Like you might overhear something, you might see something, but oh I'm in I'm in the adult world, is this what it's like? It's like mad. I don't and and I and I related to a uh situation in school that would have been about nine, which old terms, third year junior, maybe year six, I think it is now. Uh, and the teaching was just like, what do you want to do when you're older? What do you want to be? And every kid was just like actor, footballer, dancer. And I can remember saying, I don't, I don't want to get older because you'd have to pay bills and find a house and stuff. And the teacher was like, Don't worry about that. And I was like, no, I I am worried about that. So, but it was an early indication that something wasn't quite I was unsettled as a kid. And I've always said that like I was a September baby, and when you're in school, being born in September means you're the tallest and most advanced in your year. You I was quite tall and I was quick and I could play football and um I didn't get picked on, and that kind of uh shielded me from without that, basically, as I've been a shy, freckly ginger kid who did get picked on. And I think I mastered it behind like sports and football for a long time, but I was I just remember just being like quite a worried, scared kid, apart from when I was playing football. But I but as I've spoken to people as I've got older, most people were like that. Yeah, you know, this notion of I had a normal upbringing is like, well, what the fuck's one of what's one of them? Like, what do you mean by that? And when people say that to me, and I do ask the question, what do you mean by that? They go, um, well, you know, I I I always had nice trackies, and uh, we went on a holiday, and my mum and dad gave us the right food. And I'm like, okay, so normal, all right. What you what and then they go, well, my dad was in prison for six years, and I'm like, that that's not normal. That's not a child's regular experience. And they're like, No, um, you know, my dad's never told me he loves me, but normal upbringing, like, that's not normal.

SPEAKER_03 7:26

Like, it's funny, it's you know, you often you know, whenever I share about my upbringing and and people say things like that, it's often because they feel it's almost like they feel like they don't they don't deserve to feel what they're feeling because of of you know when they compare their their upbringing to yours, it you know, they they feel it's it's much better, it was a much better experience. Um so I think it's you know it says But I you know, I don't know, I th I think there's there's got to be there's gotta be people there's definitely a scale there, isn't there? I mean you see you see you must see, you know, just reading through some of the show notes today as well, you know, there was a a line in I think it was the the review that you had of uh boomerang process, and there was a line about the posh kid, but he was alright. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm thinking and I was thinking, oh yeah, yeah, well what would that have been? Who you know, who would the posh kid have been? Yeah, every it's like uh Does that mean normal?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

I suppose we thought, oh, he's got it, he's got it better, he's got it easy, and in some ways maybe they did, but um what you learn as you get older is everyone experiences fear and it's a cure. Not like no matter who you are and what you've got. But this this kind of like comparison thing in league table, oh no, I'm normal, I'm normal, he's he he he was in a care hole, he's not normal, that type of stuff. Like I've learnt not to compare, I suppose I'm trying to say, as I've got all there isn't a league table of shame or trauma, it's not a competition. If things affected you, they affected you.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah, it's my missus, you know. She often says that to me. She often says, you know, it's almost like she can't accept that or she feels like she doesn't deserve, you know, this uh the the difficulties that she has. Or she doesn't she doesn't it's not that she doesn't deserve it, what am I trying to say? I'm trying to say she's well, you know, you look at you know how you were and you grew up. You know, I I should be, you know, I should be fine, I should be happy, I should, you know, it's you know, I shouldn't have these problems because you know I had a normal upbringing. So it's almost like um uh people's way of uh just not giving them uh giving themselves a chance really to to work it work through and process stuff. Yeah. It's another way of honouring ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

I always find there's um like this sense of misplaced loyalty to the not so much to the individuals, not your family, but your family system. Yeah. Like if I say I went without love, that's disloyal. My mum, I love my mum and I'm not gonna talk them down. And it's like you're not you know, there's this thing about people who avoid like therapy or counselling and all they're gonna tell me I'm fucking like this because my mum didn't hug me and all, they can fuck off and all. It's not that, like, it's just sometimes you can still be loyal to people and be disloyal to the culture that isn't serving anybody well.

SPEAKER_03 10:40

Yeah, I'd so I'd love to hear about uh your football career. I I didn't I didn't know about this, man. That's uh that's a great bit of research. It sounds as as if uh football gave you something solid at a time when things felt a bit less certain for you.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, um it was short-lived, like the and it's deteting it on a career, but um Up until I was about nine, I only played out in our street and our school. And then when I was nine, I joined my first club um community. So I joined a pub team, a Sunday league team, and it meant I met 15 new mates, and it meant that I travelled to a different area every Sunday and saw hundreds of other kids. And I suppose with hindsight looking back, it was the first time I felt I'm part of something. We play in this kit and we we play against different teams every week, and we've got to know the other players, and sometimes we fight with them, and sometimes they become friends, but it's great. I'd have I'd feel excitement on a Saturday night, and we didn't have mobiles then, and we'd play out on Saturday night and we'd talk. Have you cleaned your boots? Are you ready? Are you getting the bus or are we walking? You know, it was the first time outside my immediate life, so my street and my school, where I felt like this is good, this is great, I've got these new mates and part of a team, and um I was good, I was a good footballer, and it was the first time other people started to notice I was a good footballer because I just played in the street, and those kids knew I had played, but when I got to the Sunday League, um other managers would notice and scouts until eventually a couple of years later, I played the cup final we won 2-1, I scored the two goals, and after the match, a fella came to me and he said, Well is your mum and dad? I said, My dad's a um I said give him that. It was just a a business card and he was a stint for Liverpool of all teams. And uh I looked at it and was kind of the I don't want to play for Liverpool. Five minutes later, uh no, it wasn't actually that's not how the story goes. I yeah, I got a I got an offer to go and play for Liverpool straight after the game, come up for a trial. And I was pleased, but I didn't I didn't want to go, which is a ridiculous decision, really. And the next night, um at home, my football manager knocked on the door, which is unusual because that never happened. And he said, Is your is your mum or dad in? And me was on holiday, my dad was minding us, looking after us. My football manager came in, he said, sit down, and blah blah blah. He said, Everton have been in touch. So I threw the Liverpool card in the bin straight away. And he just said, they want you to go down and have a trial, and it's half-turn soon, it'll be two matches, and they want you to play. And like that, that was just it for me. Like that that I was just I remember running up the stairs and knee sliding on the landing and just thinking, this is it, this is it, I'm gonna be the next Barry Lineker. And because Lineker, I loved Lineker when I was a kid, and uh yeah, played, got signed, played for about a year.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

But uh it was around the time my dad went missing.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

He was like my dad was a and still is a compulsive gambler and a binge drinking algae, which just means he doesn't drink all the time, but when he does, all bets are off, really. So he goes on the missing list, and I don't know, even though I was probably one of the best players there, I just never felt like I was gonna do it. I'd look I'd get the bus with my carrier bag, and I'd see all the lads in the car with the mum and the dad and the cleat training kit, and I just I just I never felt confident really, even though the the evidence was you've just scored three goals and you've beaten Man United 3-0. But I never quite bought into the fact that I could do it. I had no um it's on me really, but I didn't have someone there saying to me, you can do this. Train hard, think about your future. I was just a little I was smoking weed and everything, you know. I was like just wayward at that age, even in the end, I just left. Just fizzled out, and and everything's managed, what do you mean you're leaving? Like, we're not stupid, we know you're going to another club. And I was like, I'm I'm not. I'm going back to my Sunday League team. And looking back now, it must have been um in my Sunday League team, I'm the star. When I go back for a Premier League club, they're all stars. Like even the full backs could play, you know what I mean? I was like, and um that just fizzled out very quickly, my football career. And there was a few failed attempts afterwards when clubs would hear I was unattached, they'd be come and play for us, come and have a trial here, we'll we'll pay you to play for us. But by that time it was like I'd started to opt out of just regular society and what what it says you should be doing with your life. I was just smoking weed and drinking and acting defiant, but all the time kind of like sinking and sliding into my own little world that I was unhappy in. So that that was it. That's a long story short, but that that was my football career.

SPEAKER_03 16:40

Just what at school? I mean, did do you have happy memories of school? Like were you because you know you're a really bright guy, you know, really super articulate. Is it was it something that you felt comfortable with, or did you were you just not interested?

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Same story. I enjoyed school. I was mostly in top sets for everything. I I went regular until about the last year when I couldn't get out of bed because I was up watching films and smoking weed and and I and again just opted out, didn't take any exams, didn't stay on, didn't go to college.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

That was that was my pattern of everything. Things just fizzled out because I had no before anything.

SPEAKER_00 17:26

TJ, did did you feel uh the disappointment from others towards you, like were teachers or foot or coaches? Could you could you feel them disappointed that you weren't like um putting everything in or they they could see your talent? Was that like apparent to you?

SPEAKER_01 17:44

Yeah, yeah. Adults, whether it be like from the area or football managers or other kids, that's they'd just be like, What are you doing? You're one of the best footballers we've ever seen. What are you doing? They'd see me in the pub when I was six in the pub drunk, and they'd just be like, What the f what are you doing? I'd feel it off teachers sometimes, they'd be kind of going above and beyond for me, making allowances for me. And uh yeah, I did. In answer to your question, I felt other people disappointed for me. I felt disappointed in myself, but then that's where kind of arrogance was coming in. And because I was into music and stuff, and the the the bands I was into were like rebellious. I was like, ah fuck you, you know. But really it was fuck myself, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_03 18:39

And and uh did you in your in your mind, did you have a kind of a pathway that you wanted to follow?

SPEAKER_01 18:44

Or or was it just uh a pathway from from the age of about 16 Maybe not that early, but um a little bit after that, it was just get through the day. Wake up whenever you wake up. See if you can get some money, get some weed, get some booze, even more money you can go out and you say the word party, it ain't a party, is it? But it was just a quite a miserable, repetitive existence where I was getting older, I could kind of brush it off when I was a teenager. And then it's you know, it just it stops being fun, but I'm still doing it, which is what I know now to be an addiction.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

So your dad's posted absence and you and you're living with your mum?

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, but my mum my mum's um must just be unbelievably like frustrated by it because at age 15 I'm uh academically flying and a staff at Everton Centre of Excellence. So the future's mapped out for me. A year later, I'm like a different person with no prospects, and everyone's just like, what went wrong? What happened to him?

SPEAKER_03 20:02

And I stayed like that for 10 years. And do you see do you see that seminal moment as as your dad leaving?

SPEAKER_01 20:10

It's gotta have been a big factor. It's gotta have been as much as I used to say, well, he w it didn't affect me because he wasn't there. If he was there being a fucking terrible father, it might have and I used to believe that. Oh he just went. But obviously now, and I s I see it in other youngsters as well. Yeah. I just see if if they just had a bit of guidance or support or I see it in adults where to work.

SPEAKER_02 20:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:36

I try and try and be if I can. I don't, you know, I know what it's like to be left alone, to just I wasn't fender for myself. My mum was my mum, she was great, but uh I think a young man needs needs guidance from a man, their dad, ideally.

SPEAKER_03 20:56

Yeah, I couldn't agree more. And and you know, uh we come at I come across time after time uh in the rooms, you know, people of 40, 50, 60 years old, and they're just lost little boys. Yeah, yeah. And it's heart it's heartbreaking, actually, you know. Uh and in the end, you know, you've got you know, I I've talked about this a lot, you know, I I was a kind of lost little boy until the age of about 40 myself, you know, and I I can't, you know, I can't put that on my past. You know, you've got to, you know, there has to come a point in your life where you've well has one has to take responsibility for your own path, um, and it took a whole load of pain for me to get there. But uh there's only so there's only so long you can you can go on uh without detaching from that stuff so you could so you can live a decent life, you know, and start building. But the fatherlessness thing is um you know, more and more we're seeing it, you know, we're seeing the the problems manifest in in the previous generation and the coming generation. It's just that lack of a kind of adult. Meal guidance.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Yeah. And even even dads who are physically there. Yeah. They're just emotionally absent. They they help, they provide and all that, and they make sure people eat and are clothed, but we need more than that.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I was just about to say that you just took the words out of my mind, you know, the the yeah, the the the dad doesn't have to be physically absent for for the yeah. For there to be a uh like um an absence of of guidance, yeah. So um in that 10 years that you were drinking and smoking, PJ, like um talk us through that. Like, was there any work involved? Did you have did you go from job to job or was it was there other means of like kind of funding that life?

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Got by however I could, and sometimes it would involve uh labouring bits of manual work like that. I never stuck anything out and I tried I was never I was never cut out for crime. I was never cut out for it. All my mates we went to school with and uh around the area, they got into it and they started to earn money. And and I and I just always knew that's that's not a road I'll ever take, because I'm just not I'm not that way. Um plus I've always been terrified of prison, mate. It's been like there's no way I'm ever going there. This mad fear that I'll never get out. Um so just survived any way I could, bits of painting here and there, mates on building sites, removal firms, but I never had a steady job or I mean having a career like was just not an option at that point. Um so it was just it was chaotic, really, even though there wasn't any like crazy things going on. My life felt chaotic despite the fact that I'd done the same thing every day. It was directionless and it was there was no hope there. And and I the older I got, the more I started to panic. I'm not gonna be like this forever, surely. Surely to God I can't live the rest of my life like this. And then I think, well, what's gonna happen? Like, I was irresponsible and I just had these kind of mad pipe dreams that like I'd just wake up alright one day or someone had come to me. We've been watching you, you're a good lad, really. Come with us, we're gonna save you. Like, when when are they coming for you? Yeah, um, and it took, unfortunately, as it does with most people in my situation, it takes a lot of pain, and it takes for you to run out of options, and it takes for you to um finally, finally realise I'm playing a huge role in this misery because prior to that it's just I focus a lot on other people about how much at fault they are or how bad they treat me or how unjust, or I just used to think I was unlucky.

SPEAKER_03 25:19

Um at the same time, you must have felt a certain sense of kind of specialness too, right? Because you've been able to show these skills. So it was it was it that paradox of feeling like this special guy that usually uh unlovable. This can't happen to me.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Yeah, do you know what I mean? Do you know who I think I am?

SPEAKER_01 25:38

Yeah, it's a real cliche around recovery circles that you think you're better than people but feel less than them, and that was it, and it that's quite a confusing state to live in. You know, who I thought it was and who I really was were two totally different things, and the around 2007 the full-on surrender happened, like my mum had been patiently waiting for years, and she'd been doing her best to time speed the process up by putting um by cut by stopping enabling me. You know, I'd say into me at some point, you're gonna have to find somewhere else to live by saying, no, you can't have this money, no, you can't stay at our house. Those things helped me, but at the time they don't feel like help. They don't feel like help at the time.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

And uh so it all just kind of conspired around that time where I just thought I've I'm gonna try and change you.

SPEAKER_01 26:50

I think I I think I need to. Like everyone else was like, no shit, Sherlock, you know? But I was like, I think this could be a me problem.

SPEAKER_02 26:59

They're like, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:03

Were you PJ, were you Oh sorry Ross, we got one question. Were you reading like during the like those 10 years? Were you reading, listening to music? What was like your what was creatively going in?

SPEAKER_02 27:18

I musers um all day, every day.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

All day, every day. Films as much as I could. This is back in the days of like cable and taping stuff off the tell and meeting people with similar interests after nightclubs, hedonism, and finding someone who liked world cinema and they turn you onto something. There were lots of positives for me about using drugs, lots of them, like they stopped at the age of about 20, but there was lots of positives in that I would step into other people's worlds, creative people, and I buzzed off being around them, even though I didn't class myself as one. I buzzed off it all, listen to this, watch this, come and see this gallery that's traveled to this place, and do it was just magic. Um I never wrote, never ever wrote. I read a lot of fanzines, and what I would do the last year, two years, was just an utterly miserable existence. I had nowhere to live. I was um I was sleeping on people's couches, and what I would do, I was living on like a gyro, so if I got a gyro and blew it, and then I think, well, I don't get another one for another 10 days, I've got no money, I've got a bit to eat. My plan was to go to the library and spend the day like on the internet just reading articles and fucking doing whatever you do on the internet in the library, but also taking out the maximum number of books I could get, I think which was 11. So how they arrived at that number, I don't know. And I thought it will take me 10 days to read these 11 books, and in 10 days I get paid. But didn't I like to borrow money? I can't borrow money because I'll have to give it back. You know what I mean? And I probably won't give it back, and I'd have weird sleep patterns, seven I'd wake up at like 7 pm in the night, and then through the night smoke, drink. I lived with my cousin, I'd get cans off uh our street was one of them where you could knock on people's houses, give a bit of weed till next week, give a bit of this, and um and I'd stay awake through the night and and and I'd it'd feel like yeah, that you know I can do this, but when you're in something you don't know what you're in, do you? So now I just think that's a that's a really miserable, miserable way to live. It's it's just doom, it's just utter doom, and you deserve better. And and and I can say that now with experience when I see people and the methods they're using to try and stay off drugs or change, and I'm like I see I see the effort you're putting into this, but it's still no life. Like, leave the house. You know what I mean? Like now I just I'm one of them where I'll just I want to um I want to just experience life and everything that's in it. And if someone suggests, let's go to this museum, I go, yeah, alright, let's go. But I used to think, why? Is there a bar in there? Like what what why would they want to do that? I'm here on my couch, got loads of CDs there, what what so that's probably the biggest shift I've had. There's lots of things that have changed, but um the my perception of the world and my place in it is the biggest, biggest change. And that happened gradually and slowly with a lot of resistance and then light bulb moments, and to the point where I just think just say yeah to most things. Yeah, obviously discern if something's harmful, don't be saying yeah to it, but just say yeah, just go. Why would you not? Why would you not tonight, like six o'clock tonight? About 40 of us will get on our bikes and we'll pedal down Lidpool with a massive speaker, usually playing Deggay or house music. It's called the Joy Dive, and um it's called that because the responses we get, everyone just smiles and claps and cheers, and people outside pubs dance and stuff. And if you'd have suggested that to me 20 years ago, I would I'm no, I'm too self-conscious. But the self-importance, what if someone I know sees me? What will they think? They'll tell people I'm an idiot. And like that just I haven't got that now to well, I have, but just not on that level.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

I don't, I'm just far too interested in enjoying myself to worry about what people are thinking. So you're you're right at the end of the line, mate.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

You're right at the end of the line. Uh, did you have an option that rehab might be the place to go, or did someone suggest it to you? It wasn't I I didn't think I needed to go.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I didn't I didn't know anything about addiction, the details, the definition of of what it is. I just knew my life. No one in your life was in recovery. No, weirdly, my mum managed the treatment centre. But whenever she tried to bring that up, I'd just cut her off. I'd say, listen, I'm not like them fucking scumbags at your worth. I'm not a smackhead, I'm not this, I'm not that. And like wisely, I don't know how she did it, because if I had a son and he was behaving like that, I'd I just I don't know. But she managed to just put keep a lid on it and just say, Oh, okay, she she'd be quiet and but that was eventually that was me link in. So I hadn't seen my mum for a long time, and the the week when I broke and caved in and realised there's a chance I'm gonna take my own life here, and I don't want I don't want it, I don't want to do that. She was the first person I went to because I knew what she did for a living.

SPEAKER_02 33:17

And um when I went that day and told her, I think I was in treatment within a week. Boom, where did you go?

SPEAKER_01 33:26

I went to a place a residential place in Liverpool for three, three months. But it was one of them, you know, and you're desperate and you're crying and it's all coming out and you're sorry, and you say I'll do anything. The next morning I just thought, oh no, no, no. Yeah, yeah, I'm not willing, I'll do it on my terms. Yeah, like I don't know whether I want to go away, and but I knew I've committed now. I'll just but I had this plan of just like I'll go, I'll give it a go, it won't be for me. And um at least I can say I had a go, you know what I mean? My mum will appreciate the effort. But the bastards broke me in there after two weeks, and I just after two weeks I just thought I I I know what it was, but didn't know what it was then. I started to experience feelings and and it was it was hope, like there's no other way of saying it, as cheesy as that sounds, for the first time in my adult life, age 26, I thought, I'm only 26. Whereas I used to think, I'm finished me. But I thought, I'm only 26. And the thing that did it was meeting um when you're in treatment, part of the deal is you have to attend meetings of an evening. And in our one, you have to go every night. So it was just one of them, all right, I'll go, you know, clock watching all the way through them. But eventually I started to meet people and bump into people I knew. But I knew them as like no opers, lifers, addicts who I knew from my area or round town, you know, well-known addicts who you'd see on the street and that. And I'd I seen them like looking well, dressed smartly, with jobs and cars, in relationships, being fathers, and I could I could not believe it. The only people in my life who had drink and drug problems, they stayed like that forever. Kind of got like one side of the family where there's a lot of heroin in it, and the others were like they would call themselves hard drinkers, but what I know now, they were alhees. Uh so to see people who changed their lives inside and out, because they became I got talking to them and they were better people. It was you could have, and I just thought, okay, if he can do it, I can do it. And that's the whole that's the the nature of recovery, innit? To to inspire each other, and and that was it. I think I just decided I'm gonna give this a go. I'm gonna give it a go because what's my other option here? I've just been considering suicide. So I should just give it a go. And um I've never really looked back. I've always kept that desperation thing of just give it a go, give it a go.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

How how did how difficult was it to then go back into like say your community as uh as like an uh for want of a better phrase, a new a new person, a new man? Like was like because you'd create you'd created a a a character, right? Or you you were a a different person before you went in and now you've come out. What what what was what what was met? What did you meet? Did you meet people that just assumed you would go straight back to your old ways, or were people supportive?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

A bit a bit of everything really. It's interesting you mentioned about creating a character. Um so you'd have like uh even a bad identity, a negative one, is better than not having one. So I did used to play up to the fact of yeah, I'm the one who'll take things too far. I'll take anything you put in front of me, I'll stay awake longer than everyone else, and that became my reputation, and um I kind of thrived on it because I didn't know anything else. Then after three months in in rehab and a lot of group sessions and one-to-one, I didn't I didn't really know who was or what I was about, or that person isn't me, I don't believe in them things, and but because I hadn't yet formed my new identity for a sustained period of time, I was in this middle bit, which like at my day job now it we call it the state of non-existence, which is a brilliant thing because it means you've shaken off your old harmful negative identity, but you haven't quite formed your new one yet. So you're just so when the lads at work say it to me, I go, yes, and they look at me like I'm mad, I'm like, yes, they're like, no, I'm telling you, I'm lost, I don't know who I am. I'm like, I know I'm made up. Why? Because you've shaken off that old character you created. It's part of it, you can't avoid this bit, it's uncomfortable, but it's it's unavoidable.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

Can you uh is your is who you are 100% authentic to you, or or do you or do you think people can't be 100% authentic?

SPEAKER_01 38:44

No, not all the time, because we've got egos and um mind kicks into play now and again. Not as often as it used to, and it's the the shadow in it, we've all got shadowy sides, yeah. And uh and embracing it means there's less you're less likely of it playing out in the real world with the people you love.

SPEAKER_03 39:08

So I really want to talk about uh Damian Sean Kelly House, but uh before we go on to talk about that stuff, because I'd I'd really like to hear about how you've carried your experience and treatment through to the house and what it looks like in the house, but uh you know, we've not even talked about your writing, we've not even talked about your you know your your actual career, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Um talk about writing your way back to life. That's a good way of putting it.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

Um I think it was one of them where I'd always admired creative people, me mates in bands, me mates who love making videos and painting and writing and But I just always thought, oh I can't do it. Like I'm I'm a space cadet, I can't I can't do it.

SPEAKER_03 39:55

Um really I've got a I I find that so hard to believe, mate. And I you know, clear, I just want to just push you on that. You really there was no sense in you that actually maybe there might be just something down the line. You just hadn't got to the point where you you never fent felt that there was just there was something under under wraps there that you were just waiting to unwrap uh down the line once you're in the right place. You really didn't feel that you you had it in you because that you don't strike me as a guy, and clearly here you are. How long are you in recovery now? 19 years. So I I I guess it's just so hard to imagine you as someone that lacks confidence like that.

SPEAKER_02 40:35

I wouldn't bother trying anything new because I'd just be so frightened of failing, getting through people not liking it.

SPEAKER_01 40:48

So I'd think what's what's the point in anything, but actually sorting myself out kind of give me this thing of you know, all those things you've always wanted to do and never done them. There's nothing stopping you now.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

Like have a go, have a go at stuff and uh I did.

SPEAKER_01 41:09

Slow process, writing, thinking I like this, but I'm not very good at it, I just like it, it's a hobby, and then thinking, I'm getting good at it, but no one else will be into it, and then go, oh, other people like this, and just as like everything, and I always say to people like that that there's not really any quick fixes to anything, but if you commit to something and you're consistent with it, you know, you can get good at stuff. Everyone who's brilliant at something was one shite at it. But I've always maybe this was linking back to the football. I didn't want to train. I wasn't interested in some manager marking out tactics on the board. I I I wanted to be George best. Can I just turn up on Saturday and play at three o'clock? I'll score you a couple of goals and set a couple up, and then I'll just see you next Saturday, and that's not how things work.

SPEAKER_00 42:05

But that that that's surely that's the creativity in you, right? You know, you don't want, you know, the there's a training part of like sport, football, but there's then there's the this um this this this creative part that just wants to turn up and see what happens and see what comes out.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Yeah, maybe, yeah. And and I can use that now, actually. I mean, I like planning stuff and I like researching and I like evidence and facts and all that, but uh I just love a bit of mystery and curiosity and surprise. And sometimes I've worked with people and we've gone, what's the plan here? And we've gone, dunno. Let's just see, shall we go for a walk and just see what happens? Yeah, bring your pen, let's see. And and so a nice mixture of both, really. Yeah, for me, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_03 42:54

I th I think you're going for a walk, however, with years of experience of uh uh honing your trade, aren't you? Yeah. So like you you've put in that because the world is full of talented people, and the ones that are successful are the people that that bring the discipline to it, right? Yeah, um and actually, you know, I was the same. I'm sure I said this on the pod before, but I always thought ambition was just having a good idea, you know, but really I was a fantasist, yeah, you know, because ambition is not that. Ambition is having a great idea and then and then putting the hard graft in. Doing something about it, yeah. You know, and it's so childlike uh to just think that you can because I you know I was the same at school, you know, I would turn up and just busk it, and then when you had to actually start studying, I can't I can't do that. I'm not I'm not doing that. I want to just turn up and uh just just busk it, you know, just talk about stuff and pontificate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

When did you realize, PJ, you were like you were good at writing dialogue? Was that it was that it was that like an instant was that like your kind of superpower?

SPEAKER_01 44:01

I don't know. Like, I think when other people would comment on it and I'd and or when I when I started to perform and read them out, noticing the reaction, it got and I thought, oh this is I mean I started, I got a bit of a head start because I just when I started to write and there was like short, snappy stories that would like entertain, and I thought, I need an audience. And it can't be hard building one. You know what I mean? I'll ask my mate who are in bands, will they just give me ten? So I got lucky that I could go and perform in front of 300 people. They weren't there to see me, they were there to see the headline act. But um I would practice and kind of keep a room full of gig goers quiet on a Saturday night after they'd been on the ale and the sniff and that, and I'd think fucking hell, yeah, just there might be something in this for me, yeah. And eventually it kind of snowballed where someone said you should put these together as a collection. Then someone wanted to put them out, and then they came out, and then I got offers to write scripts, and so I'm just kind of like going along. There's been no grand plan, really.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

And signing a deal with Roth Trade's a big deal, man. You know, I mean how was that?

SPEAKER_01 45:24

Yeah, they were brilliant. Um they were brilliant, they they showed like faith and they got the smartly um well-made and designed pamphlets out and sold well more than we expected. And I think it just that kind of got me known a bit. And that people would ask me, can you can you do commission me to write something or come and perform here? Or can you work with our group of youngsters? So that was like a whole new world opening that and I owe Rough Trade a lot of gratitude for for doing it, really.

SPEAKER_03 45:59

Um it's a real kind of stamp of authenticity, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 46:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it helped, I think it helped when they saw the words rough trade and thought this has credibility. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 46:11

And your script writing?

SPEAKER_01 46:14

Yeah, it's uh I'm still learning, I class myself. So in recovery circles, when you're brand new, we say, like, just look at the ones who are doing it and copy them for now. You know what I mean? And and um like you would with anything if you want to learn how to lay bricks or cook or cut air, you go to someone who can do it and you you copy them, and um that's what I'm doing at the minute.

SPEAKER_03 46:38

And what if are you writing for TV or are you writing for theatre? Because you strike me as the kind of guy that would say, I don't watch much TV. A bit of both, a bit of both.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

The books have come out and some people have read them and gone, oh, this guy can write. I wonder whether he can write for Telly. And of course, when they ask me, I just go, Yeah, of course I can. Yeah, yeah. It's a whole different way of doing things, and I've had to start again and learn. Yeah. But I've had a lot of help along the way from from established writers who thought, oh this guy, man, he's like 40 odd. He's not like took the conventional route into writing, but we'll help him, we'll help him, we like him, and and again I'm I'm thankful for that. I'm uh fortunate to be amongst a group of people like that.

SPEAKER_03 47:26

I think one of the things that I find so appealing about your writing is just you seem to be just in possession, in such incredible possession of your memories. Yeah. You know, what what is that process like? Is it are you are are you spending a lot of time walking through the past in your mind to bring things to the future? Uh into the present rather?

SPEAKER_01 47:51

No, I think they're just sometimes you can't there's certain things you remember in your life and you don't have to try to remember them. They're just there, you don't know why. They're just like significant, or maybe they lay dormant for years and something else brings it out, but yeah. I I don't know, sometimes um I have conversations with my mates and they'll go, Say, I don't know, do you remember Everton beat Middlesbrough fat? And I go, Yeah, yeah, and I can tell you exactly what I was wearing, what I was doing before the match, where I went after it, who who was, what music we listened to. Longer term memory's like crystal clear around things like that, and it's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

It really is it's like amazing time machines like writing in this cachet of memories, and it's uh that's so evocative, and it and there's so much there, it's like that as you say, it's the whole snapshot uh of of just that that mark of time. It's real, it's a really special talent, mate. It's really interesting and and uncommon, super uncommon.

unknown 48:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

At the moment, a couple of um things for stage, and I'm developing some TV thing, which has been hard, you know, it's been hard, it's a different way of writing, and because I'm brand new to it, and you you hand your first jacket in and you're like, this is great, and and then you get a load of notes back, and and you take pays. We love it, but can you just change everything? Exactly, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Can we go again but just better this time? Yeah, uh I remember I remember getting that note. I I I used to be an actor PJ, and I do remember getting a note very similar to that when when we were rehearsing a play, it's like, let's go again, but just a little bit better. I was like, what the fuck does that mean? That is not helpful at all. Yeah, oh Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

Um I'm sure that will happen, but I've only had like really kind of empathetic people helping me with my feedback, and it's I can work with that. I'm not one of those like footballers who goes, I just need telling straight. I'm a sensitive soul, man, and I need like control, you know what I mean? And and the people have sussed that and we're getting somewhere with it.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

PJ, the the Willy, the Willie Russell connection, what happened there?

SPEAKER_01 50:17

That was an old um so that was in in treatment. One of the first things you do is you write a life story, which makes basically a list of significant events in your life, eight pages maximum. I struggled with mine, because I just never even reflected on the life at all. It's quite upsetting, even though there wasn't massive like traumatic events, it was a series of small things that upset me. Like, how has my life ended up like this? But the fella who was working on the day I read mine out, he they all give you feedback and that he said, before I get to the content of what you put in there, um, I just want to tell you you're a good writer and you should nurture it. So at the time I was about three weeks sober, I was off the obvious, obviously off the booze, but my brain wasn't, I was still quite sly and conniving. So I thought, okay, I'm gonna use this as an excuse to you weren't allowed out on your own. And um I didn't really have any sinister motives, right? I didn't want to drink, I wasn't trying to score on the slight. I just wanted to go out on my own and have a nice fucking cup of tea and mooch around the charity shops. I I just wanted to I wanted to be on I wanted my own way, basically. So I I went to the the office with the the local paper and there was an advert in the back, open auditions for for a Willie Russell play, and I just blagged them, I said, Oh look, you you told me that I should nurture my creativity and and I want to have a go at that. Is there any chance I can go? And he fell for it. Yeah, amazing. So like maybe a week later, I'm made up, I've got my bus ticket, I'm going out on my own, I'm excited, I'm like, yes. I get on the bus, and something that hasn't really happened to me previously, my conscience kicked in, and I thought I can't spend the day out just doing what I want and go back and lie to them. These people have been good to me in the past three weeks, it's gonna kill me. I understand the part lying is playing in my misery, but I don't want to do it anymore. I can't do it. I I'm gonna have to turn back and own up and or I just fucking do it.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

I just do the shit.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

And I thought, yeah, I'll do the audition. Which is if you spoke to someone who knew me back then, it's the most unlikely thing I would ever do. Put myself in the public domain and have sets of eyes on me. It's what I do now, and I'm not I like it, but back then it was just absolutely not. So I get to the royal court and I do it, you're meant to have like a four-minute monologue prepared, and you're meant to have your CV with you. And obviously, because it's an open audition, it's the queue's massive and it's full of theatre school people and the dancing in the queue and everything, and I'm like, oh God, what the hell am I gonna do here? I ran down the betting shop and I got a pen and a piece of paper, and I wrote a CV out, which basically just said, Look, I'm on I'm on a day out from rehab, I don't have any experience doing this, and I'm just here to get away from there for the day. And then I thought, well, I still haven't got a monologue. Like, this I can't go in there and not so I'm in the queue and where there was, lost if you know like Queen Square there, where the royal court is opposite to some hotels and bits of restaurants, and I always remembered a restaurant in Liverpool that seemed so um elegant back when it first opened because it was called La Tasca and they sold tapas, and I could I could see it. So I just in my head kind of came up with this quick monologue of a of a Liverpool lad who'd never had any money, he'd never been to these places, and he'd just come into money, all gotten gains, so he decided to go and sample all these restaurants. And in the tapas place, obviously they serve him tapas, and he kicks off because he thinks they're serving him small stuff because he can't order big stuff. So it's all do you know who I am? So I got it in my head, but I couldn't get it to like the time they needed, which was three or four minutes or whatever. And uh as I got nearer to the front, one of the the staff came out and went, everyone, there's been a change of plan. The monologues are being cut short, there's too many of you, we can only do two minutes, and I had about one minute, 49 seconds or something. Thought, okay, I'm doing it. I remember having a rucksack on, but my heart and and my head were just like, What are you doing? You're not gonna do this. It was like X Factor. It was a panel in front, Willie Dussel was sat on it, and I just thought, okay, give them your thing, your CV, on a William Hill bet and slip. They all passed it down the table, looked at it, looked at each other, looked at me, who's this dickhead? And um in my head, I just went, drop the rucksack, and as soon as it hits the floor, go into character. So I did. And I was just this angry young man moaning about tapas. And um I dragged it out for two minutes and they all just fucking went like that. They just started laughing and we're like, what the f and I went, let's just make one thing clear. I don't want to part. And they were like, We weren't gonna give you that. They said, but stay there, stay there. I went to walk out, I think, and they went, stay there. And Willie Russell was just like, is this true? He's pointing at me CV. I was like, and he's like, okay. And and he stopped and someone else started talking. And he was just like, we haven't had an audition like this all day. Thank you for entertaining us. Someone else said, you must continue making stuff up like this. It's clearly based on something and and he just gave me a load of encouragement. Willie Russell on the way out just went, make sure you carry on writing. And I was like, okay, oh well. It was like I always need someone else to give me permission. Like up until then, I'd have just, oh well, I had a day out, it was nice. I go, but when he said that, I thought, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. And so I just started to go to a writing group and and like here we are now, writing scripts and having a couple of books out, but it at that moment was quite pivotal.

SPEAKER_00 57:13

Have you ever come across Willie Russell again?

SPEAKER_01 57:15

No, never.

SPEAKER_02 57:16

No.

SPEAKER_01 57:17

Not yet. Not yet. I will have to tell him that if I see him.

unknown 57:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:21

Wonder he'll remember. We'll see. We'll find out.

SPEAKER_02 57:26

Wow. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 57:28

Um, I just I just feel like we I mean we've we've been gone for a while and and there's still so much to talk about really. I want to know I want to know about Damian John Kelly. Who is who was Damian John Kelly?

SPEAKER_01 57:44

Yeah, so obviously my workplace is called Damien John Kelly House. Recovery live and centre where 17 people live, 17 men, and um around the time we opened, we opened in July 2019, and in April uh 2019, my friend Damien died. He just um you know he was 10 years sober, had a son, um, bought his own house, employed gainful employment, and just one night he just didn't wake up. He did, yeah, he did. I'll I'll come to like his his big his big character really, but he we were looking for a name for the house at the time, and I I just thought, okay, like I'll check with his family, but this makes total sense. We've got to call the house after him. And the reason being is that he was it was one of it alright, if he can change, anyone can. Damian had been erm written off by people, rightly so, I think, the way his life had panned out. And then it seemed like all of a sudden he just er started to go to meetings, went to rehab, started to listen and uh change his ways, and it was a dramatic change in circumstances, in his outlook on life. It was profound, is the word I'm looking for, and he changed. It's difficult to express, but it was almost like magic, even though I know it was hard worth, it was almost like how can that person be like that and then a few months later be like that and he carried it on and he was my friend, and um we had lots of disagreements and that, and but he was my friend, and um like you said, Ross, he was popular in the Liverpool recovery community, and also he was still popular with people he drank with and used because I think he was a bit like me, where people thought this idiot's wasting his life, he's a good fella then, and he's got potential. So when he did, everyone was made up for him. When he changed his life, everyone was made up for him, and then obviously it was it was devastating when he passed away, and we we just want to honour his kind of spirit of you can change, man, you you can change.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:17

And uh up until that point, up until April 2019, you uh what had you been doing?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:25

What I'd been doing, yeah. Yeah, I'd been working in recovery circles since about 2009, different organisations, uh so gained like my experiences, made the mistakes, learned what works, what doesn't, and it feels like it all built up to this because I just love what I do now. I love how we work with people regarding um art, sport, culture, all aspects of life rather than just sit in a circle all day.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

I feel like it's like a and I might be wrong about this, but it certainly in my experience it's a unique model. It's uh uh uh did you take the idea from that, you know, is it because could maybe you could just explain because my experience to go to rehab is you know that all the rehabs I've been in have been, you know, mixed uh facilities, you know, some have been 12-step, some have not been 12-step. Uh a lot of them are you start detox, and then you go on and then there's aftercare and whatnot. But yours is it's not that. What what is it?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:28

So it's a it's a 11 cent es of people live there, and we've had anything from I I explained this to one of our visitors this morning because he asked how long, and um we've had people who have come out of rehab, they've maybe done a two-month stint in rehab, and one guy who's still in recovery become a real good friend of mine, Eddie. He was like, Look, I have five kids and a business and a mortgage. I can't move into this house for a long time, but I I think it will do me a bit of good to come in short term before I fully go back to my job and my home. Well, he stayed for two months, but then there's another guy you probably know, Big Sam. He he came from Yorkshire, he you know, his life was a mess, basically. And when he turned up, we said to him, You're staying for 12 months, minimum. Minimum. And and and he just went, yeah, whatever it takes. So it's all different for people, it's kind of tailored to them. We it's quite an um organic process where we we know when someone's time is coming, we've got a couple of lads booked in to leave, one in September, one in November. We know when they're but they're staying too long because they're scared. We know when they're trying to leave too early because they're taking their own will back, and um it's it seems to work that way. You know, there's no set time while you're there. You learn to live in the world again. You're not locked up and you're not monitored all the time. It's you you you can do voluntary work and you can't.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:13

What makes it so special is and and what really brings it to the heart of you know what we try and talk about on here is it what it is most strikingly is that it's it's a culture. You've built a culture there, uh, and it's a male culture. Uh, you know, and a guy who spent loads of time by himself growing up, you know, hasn't always felt comfortable in in men's groups. Um you know, I you know, I walked in and you know, you know, and I could feel I could I felt a bit I I I nothing to do with you guys, it was me. Like, you know, I felt a bit intimidated actually, you know, just because of the the testosterone in the place. It's a match your place, you know. Uh or maybe it's not a match your place, but maybe because where I'm coming from, that's how I experienced it, you know. Um but then when you see and experience the uh open communications, the the sort of keeping each other right, you know, the the holding each other accountable, uh, you know, talking about your joy ride, you guys to um cold water dips and in uh Waterloo Marina, uh Crosby Marina, you know, there's loads of social and creative things that you do, creative writing, all that stuff. But how did you come up with that model?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:34

We we didn't initially. It wasn't like here's what we're gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

Let's start like this and see what happens. Um so there's obviously a core there. Like none of the none of the bike rides or the the trips away or the football or the yoga, none of that would be effective unless there was a unless it was all underpinned by like you've got to look at yourself here. You've got to take some responsibility. This is on you now to break break patterns from generations. So we have usual talk therapy groups, the psychoeducks, um, but also there's a lot of like we gonna we say to people like be open-minded. Especially, this is and not everyone's like this when they come, but my my breed, it's this scally thing of just dismissing anything, you know. I'm not fucking doing that, I'm not, you know. So we'll say to people, listen, we're going to book club, and they're just like, you what? I'm not book club, I'm like, yeah, but like you say, Ross, it's the the culture is contagious. So that very person goes to book club and sees other men. Sometimes like them, bit of an Al scal who's done a bit of jail, just coming to life in this book club, and it then it gives them permission. It's like, oh yeah, okay, this. This kind of resistance I had, what's it all about? I've just spent an hour in there and I liked it. I liked it. I'm going again. And then they'll be setting that culture to the next new lad who comes in to the point where, like, we have a WhatsApp group, and whenever I put stuff in there, it's random stuff. I've lived in the same city all my life, so I know a lot of people and they know where to work. And they might just say, PJ, we want to offer your lads a free day at this pottery class. So I put it in the group, and you just get 17 fellas going, go ahead, yeah, that'll be great. Let's have a go at that. Whereas when I think about my life before recovery, well, I wouldn't have even I wouldn't have even passed that message on. I'd have just gone, nah, mate, you're alright, I'm not interested. No one else will be either. Stick your pottery class, tanks, but no thanks. Just cutting myself off from the world, whereas this culture, we've just got a culture of have a go, do what you can. If you can't play football, take the camera. If you can't take pictures, take the whistle, you're the defidae. Just get involved somehow.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:12

And it it's it's that exposure, right, to those different things that I guess offers something alternative to like for formal therapy, right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:22

We believe in formal therapy, we do. But alongside all these things, creative things and holistic things, and and also we do, we do, we say do circuit training, and that's not everyone's bad, but we do say to people, look, if you're getting clean and sober, you don't want to sit on the couch getting fat, man. You want to prolong your life, start to think about other areas. And I mean, there's a lad in there now, and he's lost about 14 stone since he came in. He's running marathons. When he first moved in, he broke the bed. And we were just like, oh man, but we're gonna have to address this. And before we did, he he he did, he went, right. Like I said before, Pietro, about this thing of those things I've wanted to do, but while I'm drinking and using, I'll never do them, so I won't even try. When you get sober, the excuses melt away, don't they?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:14

And isn't that just the best example of when you are surrounded, you know, by uh people with the right intentions and a supportive environment. You can really optimize your potential. You know, you can you really have that support to take it forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:32

That's why it's being part of something is so important. It's just the old cliche in it, I can't, we can. When you did it.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:41

You know, I you know I've seen it in Liverpool, you know, the guys go around meetings together and you can see there's that fierce loyalty. Um, where you really look out for each other, and it and I guess it's really old-fashioned. And and w we want it to come back into fashion, but just these these male environments where you know where you can be rigorously honest, where you you you can where you can support each other, um and you could and you can express yourself in in ways that you might not have your self-consciousness might not have allowed you to in the past.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:14

Yeah, true. It's nice to hear you say that, like, because there's a lot of there's loads of men's groups now, there's loads, and and a lot of them focus on um like grappling and fighting and self-defense and that, which is good, it has its place in the world, but we also want to cater for people who are a bit creepy, you know, uninterested in that, yeah, the creative, the flat thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:42

It's too much the other way as well, where like it's just like emotional talking shots.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:46

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:47

And there's you know, we talked about this on the last pod. It's like, you know, how about a bit of strong and silent as well? We could we can bring that, we can bring that back too. There's absolutely a time, you know, to be introverted and explore the past, but actually, how about we just live in today? You know, so it's getting that combination right, and that's what you guys do, you know. It really involved physical, you know, uh creative, uh, and also uh you know, emotionally engaged too. Yeah. What an example. It's uh it's like an incubator for culture, for men's culture, is what you've got. Yeah, I'll take that, mate. Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:22

PJ, how do you um how do you guard against like um somebody coming in and then going back to like the the like going back into the community where they see all those kind of triggers and their their mates and the you know how it is when you talk about um uh taking it on a case-by-case basis, and you know what, that person needs to be in here for six months because we've seen this before, we know what it's gonna take. Is that like yeah, how do you guard against them going back out and like and and and just jumping straight back in?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:00

Yeah, it's um you can't basically if people want to go and drink and use you can't, and and it happens. But what we're finding that most of the lads who move in and make a planned exit, they're all alright now. If they if they stick to their like graduation date and leave cleanly and move into the graduates group, they're all doing alright. It's when someone just goes, I've met a girl, I'm moving out on Thursday, and we're just like, This is just a continuation of your old patterns, you're running away, because it's we tend to find that happens, but regarding like triggers and all that, where the building is situated, it's in between two pubs, an off-licence in the middle of 80 ice streets, boats getting dropped off, and so those things aren't going anywhere, pubs, yeah, so that when you work on yourself and build your confidence and shift your perception and that you realise it's not your environment. That's the thing. I feel like I'm really not caught.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:09

I don't I really don't like that the whole concept of the trigger. No, no, you know, it's like it's a bit of an excuse, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:15

Yeah, it is, yeah. The problem is that you're gonna address is internal, and when something happens, like you don't stop an addiction by stopping using. You stop an addiction by build stuff you'd have to stop using anyway. But then in order for to return, you build a new life, gotta change it. You're not fighting, you know what I mean? You're not you're not sitting there every day going, oh god, I hope I don't use today, or maybe I can't go on that bike ride because we've got to ride past the pub. None of that. We will say to people, no, like none of that. We're never gonna put you at risk, but we are gonna encourage you to come to this comedy club with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You're at more risk, Saturday on your own if we all go out. 100%. Um and that works in the in the early days. I went back to the football and I thought those days were over, and I and I just went back with people who were in recovery. And it was dead easy. I didn't even think and I realised ah, this is not about the match or the gig. This is about my head, and my head's alright now. I don't have a desire to to alter my mind anymore. It's I feel alright.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:29

You know, I I I owe my uh I owe my life really to attending 12-step meetings and and will continue to for the rest of my life. But I, you know, I uh a thing that I see a lot, uh and and it's something that I don't you know I I see that you guys do the opposite. There's a lot of keeping yourself small, there's a lot of talking yourself down, there's a lot of uh self-flagellation, a lot of a lot of criticism, a lot of like superstition, you know, around, you know, absolutely, it's one day at a time, we get up, we start again, you know. But actually, we also need to plan for the future too. You know, we need to look at the fact that we have a big life, there's a big world out there, you know, we need to get on with that. And uh and it's really easy to sit in meetings and and ruminate on your past and you get locked in that thing. There is no getting out your shadow. There's no leaving your shadow, but there's no getting out of your shadow unless you can start to look at what you're gonna do and who you're gonna be and how you're gonna change. And I think that's where you need, you know, you're a really good example of that in meetings, mate. You know, you um you always talk about you know the hope uh and the life that you have.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

Yeah, you have to, otherwise, like what's what's the point really? Um we do encourage people to go to meetings. I still go now. I I've got so much from going over the years, but we'd also make a point of saying that's 90 minutes.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:04

There's another 22 and a half hours in the day there. Yeah. What are you gonna do with that? Yeah, you know, you don't get well based on how many meetings you go to or how many books you or how much fucking meditating you do, you know, you'll find out where you're at when something pisses you off, you know. We say that to them. Yeah. It's about understanding that you're trying to become an adult, emotionally immature, and you can't flip your look and you lose your pen. You're 38.

unknown 1:15:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:36

And that you know, that that's the one, isn't it? It's like um how what kind of mistakes are what what are what are the mistakes that typically make people make in the house?

SPEAKER_02 1:15:47

Um thinking they've got a crap too quick and not really understanding that playing the long game is the way forward.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:57

Um and staying long enough to experience life. So if you stay for a year, you will have experienced ups, downs, successes, failures, and you'll have got through them and you'll have thrived and you'll you know how to cope. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:16

And so we've had lads in the house that have just not been able to give themselves over at the community.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

Yeah. Yeah. Everyone who moves in, we say to them, because of the high standards we've got here, we can't keep anyone who won't who won't meet us there.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:33

So let's we've decided you're suitable for the house. We've done an assessment, we've met you a few times, you come to the house, you move in tomorrow, but you're on a four-week kind of trial. And during those four weeks, if you are just telling a lot of lies, being invasive, not joining in with the stuff everyone, if it four weeks down the line, we just well look, we give you a go, it's not for you this. We're not stopping them getting recovery. There's numerous places they can go to, but they just can't get it with us.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:06

And ha ha has there ever been an opera uh uh uh situation where someone has been asked to leave and then they've come back? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:16

Yeah, um successfully. Trying to think.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:22

There's been a couple, yeah, there has, man. Um that's such a valuable lesson, mate. Because that's the world, man. Yeah, the world is not full of yeses. You know, there's loads of no's, man. You know, there's loads and loads of no's.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:34

A lad who has just recently celebrated four years in recovery, who's become a friend to me. He moved from London to Liverpool. But his first hint at the house, he just left quickly against everyone's advice.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:50

He was involved in the rave kind of party setup in London, and he hadn't fully surrendered. So he was talking the talk, I'll go to meetings, I'll do this, that, and we were like, hmm, okay. We think you should stay in Liverpool and get some more recovery with these lads who've become you anyway. Within a year, he's on the phone crying, kind of come back. Like, let's have a chat and let's see what he came back different.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

Came back different. He's had the arrogance knocked out of him, f out of him, and he was just like, uh, I'll do whatever it takes.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:30

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:30

And I said, Oh, we'll you know, we'll see about that. Yeah, we'll tell you, yeah, yeah. He did he's four years the action is he's four years sober.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:40

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:42

Amazing. Um Peter, who who uh what's the funding like for the house? How how's how's that where where does the funding come from?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:50

It's um because it's not uh a rehab like program that that costs people however many thousands of pounds for however many weeks, it it's a house. So it's just classed as a house paid rent to live in the house. We've had people who can afford it and pay it privately, and we've had people who are out of work at the moment so that they they qualify for housing benefit, and that kind of pays the rent and stuff, and somebody owns the building, but mostly in the seven years we've been open, it's like the kindness of strangers, it's like people appreciate what we do. We're not a closed-door service. If you live in our area and you know you've got to know we will say, come in, come in and have a cup of tea with us, come and watch the map. Well, they see what we're doing, we're not secretive or anything like that. But uh over the years, people have said, like, there's we've got 17 bikes, so there's one each for every resident. They've all been donated.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:01

Um we're going to Anglesey for five days, and that's some somebody um we're doing a fundraiser, but someone's threw in quite a large amount of money and just said we run a um kind of builder's yard, and this is like an altruistic side of what we do. We'd like to make up the difference so you can go. TVs, just it just we're doing alright, we don't need massive amounts of funding. We're just and the lads we're trying to teach the lads some responsibility as well. So when they go to football, they have to they have to pay themselves. They have to pay the £2.50 themselves to go to football. When they get in the cars with the other residents, yeah, we say to them, make sure you've got two pounds to throw into that petrol. Just basic responsibility stuff. They eat together, they cook together. It's really standing them in good stead for the rest of their lives, really.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:00

We're gonna put a link to Damian John Kelly House in the show notes uh for anyone that would like to uh donate, and uh I couldn't think of a better clause, really. Nice one, mate. Um I feel like we've had you for so long, mate. Um I just wanna just before just before we finish up, like I really wanted to ask you, you know, living amongst men, working with men, you know, for nearly 20 years now, what do you think makes a good man? Like what if you were to gonna sit someone down, if you sit sit a lad down and say this is this is if you want to get get better in your life, if you want to change, this is what you need to move towards.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:40

Yeah. This probably is more prominent now. Now I've got two stepsons who are teenagers, and you know, I asked my wife to marry me a few years ago. And I thought all this through. I thought like, I can't ask her to marry me if I'm not willing to be a really steady example to her sons. Young men need consistency. Um they need that to see adults being honest and admitting when they've made mistakes and explaining the decisions really, being, you know, I don't want to be this evil stepdad who's just like, do this, do that, do this. So sometimes I do have to kind of say, come on, lads, listen, but I'll explain why. And although they don't say it, I think I think they respect it. And um I think I probably have to have one conversation where it's until you can see the role you're you're playing in this, all you're doing is moaning. And yes, they are at fault, and and she's got a part in it, and that shouldn't have happened to you. But you've got to give yourself a chance here as well. You've got to get out of bed earlier. You know, the tighter you do them, it'll make you feel better. Just basic stuff like that. But but if I say all those things and don't do them myself, they won't they won't listen to me. Nobody will. It's the same with the lads at work, they keep me on my toes. Because I can't tell them one thing and do another. So suppose um being congruent like with who you are, your values, and that I don't change my opinions based on who I'm with, and and I think they're like fair play.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:35

Do you have a mentor?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:38

I've had I class my mum as the biggest influence in my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:44

That's lovely.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:46

But over the years in recovery, I've had many people just kind of inspire me and help me and show me the way. Meetings for listeners who don't know, you get what's called a sponsor, which is just like a mentor, teacher, whatever you want to call it. And I asked a guy, I don't know whether you remember him, Ross, his name was Des. He passed away in like 2018, but he was so influential to me. By doing stuff, not by saying it. I watched how he behaved, I watched what he didn't do. I seen that he was generally at peace and enjoyed his life. I thought, I want, I want it, I want some of that. He never argues, he never gossips, he doesn't blame people. I'm gonna have to start copying some of his characteristics, and um I hope now I would love it if people would look at me and go, I'd like to have a bit of that. Um, because it's doable. The great thing about recovery is it's a great level. You don't need to be loaded, you don't need to be intelligent, you don't need to be tough, you just gotta be willing to have a go emotionally.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:57

That's lovely, that's lovely. Pietro.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:02

Um, yeah, yeah, it's I mean it's yeah, really, really insightful. Um amazing to hear your story, what a journey. Um I think we um we like to ask everybody, every guest before before they leave us um what they're excited about. Uh we also chip in with this as well. Um last time I was excited about the Mexico match. Um I can't I'm afraid that's I'm not gonna be.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:29

We've not even talked about Scouts not English.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:33

But um but yeah, like uh PJ, what is something that is exciting you at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:39

Um quite a lot, really. I'm really excited about this TV script. I'm writing seems to be going somewhere over the weekend and playing records in three or four different places for three or four very different people and audiences. So all the shit behind me, I have meticulously picked that out, and uh I like doing stuff like that. And my wife is on her way over here any minute now, and she said she's taken me for the meal, and I can go anywhere I want. I can't see it, and I'm going to it's close down, I think. We're going for the Vietnamese.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:17

Yeah. Ross, what are you excited about, man?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:24

Do you know what we got uh my my cousin has just had a little boy, a little Cameron, and uh my my eldest daughter is coming to be with us for the week. We're all gonna go down to London and and see see the wee laddie for the first time, the four of us, and uh just excited excited to have some family, family time over the summer with um my eldest as well as as as well as Gloria.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:49

Amazing. Uh well I am excited about uh I've got one week left to work and then I've I've taken some parental leave. So I've got six weeks off from the end of next week, and we are going on a journey, uh a holiday around Europe. So we are packing everybody in the car, and we're just gonna do a massive loop. I've never done anything like it before. Um and uh we're gonna see family in Germany, family in Austria, and then have an adventure. So that is something I'm very, very excited about.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:22

I don't think we plugged uh your book and boomerang. Let's do that now. Uh which is out now uh on TNC Books. Um we'll put the details in the show notes. I don't know whether you felt you wanted to give us a it's alright, really.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:40

Um yeah, if it's selling well, it's going down well. If people want to buy it, they can message me or order off TNC Books website. Um yeah. If you do, enjoy it. Amazing, lovely, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:55

Uh right, thanks everybody for joining Och Brothers Where Out Thou. Um, I hope you enjoyed our conversation with PJ Smith. Um, if you uh could like and subscribe uh where you get your podcast, that would be really helpful. And more importantly, probably pass this on to somebody that you think might want to listen to it. Um, it's really important that we keep talking and that um we are positive and uh we're there for each other. So thanks everybody for listening. See you on the next one.