IN RECOVERY - The Ark House Podcast - S2 EP 2 - Feat JOHN ROBINS

IN RECOVERY - THE ARK HOUSE PODCAST continues its brand new Second Season which last week hit the Top Ten of Mental Health podcasts globally.  We are so pleased you are joining our recovery conversation. 

A companion guide for those on their addiction recovery journey, we also want to offer advice and support for those still suffering and offer solutions for those who just want to know more. This is a well-being podcast produced and presented by people with lived experience who want to carry the message of recovery.

Every episode we speak to someone in the spotlight who shares their struggles with addiction. This week comedian, Task Master champion and author of THIRST, JOHN ROBINS. The newly released honest and powerful book about his battle with alcoholism has resonated with so many people, and he joins us to discuss some of Richard's chosen quotes from the book. 

Former resident of Ark House JANET found herself walking through the doors of rehab when she was 70 years old. Lock down took away her routine and her social drinking became a daily habit... earlier and earlier in the day. Janet has the most amazing family who stepped in and got her help and she has come onto IN RECOVERY to hopefully help others who may be struggling. 

This week's recovery hack comes from another former resident ANGELA JOHNSON who founded Addictions North East after her own struggles. This registered charity provides supported housing to those who feel unable to live alone due to addiction or behavioural issues such as mental health conditions, Learning difficulties or homelessness. She speaks to us about the work they do reuniting women with their children. 

This podcast shares real conversations, lived experience and honest stories of hope and transformation within the recovery community. From personal journeys to professional insights into addiction and treatment, IN RECOVERY gives a powerful voice to those walking the path of change. 

Join our recovery conversation..

BUY JOHN ROBINS BOOK - THIRST 

Out now 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=john+robins+thirst&adgrpid=187117247900&gad_source=1&hvadid=793448783167&hvdev=c&hvexpln=0&hvlocphy=9046328&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=13709377784647295625--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=13709377784647295625&hvtargid=kwd-2440600013668&hydadcr=24404_2435237_1556&mcid=9fae6d773dc43dc4bfd183231d7ef658&tag=googhydr-21&ref=pd_sl_9rehnmsatm_e

CONTACT ADDICTIONS NORTH EAST

https://www.addictionsnortheast.com/

0300 330 30 40

If you or a loved one need help from addiction, please know there is help. Reach out and speak to Ark House today....

PHONE 01723 371869

EMAIL info@arkhouserehab.co.uk

ADDRESS 15 Valley Road, Scarborough, Y011 2LY

WEBSITE www.arkhouserehab.co.uk

FACEBOOK  @arkhouserehabltd

INSTAGRAM @in_recovery_podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:10

Welcome to season two of the Amac House Podcast in Recovery. I'm Richard and I've been clean and sober for over six years.

SPEAKER_04 0:18

And Sam, also in recovery, and together with Richard, we are here to bring you inspiring stories of recovery as well as game-changing advice and tips.

SPEAKER_06 0:30

Whether you're in addiction, in recovery, or just want to know more, we welcome you to our recovery conversation.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

Coming up today, we are back with comedian and author John Robbins.

SPEAKER_06 0:42

Ark House Rehab in Scarborough has helped thousands of people battle addiction since it opened 30 years ago, and we now want to carry the message of recovery around the world.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

Welcome to season 2 of In Recovery!

SPEAKER_06 1:02

Every week we speak to someone in the spotlight who has kindly given up their time to carry the message of recovery. My guest today is a critically acclaimed comedian, taskmaster champion, podcast king, and an award-winning broadcaster. He is also now an author. His new book, which is out now, is called Thirst. Why? Because he's just chosen to tell his story of alcoholism. A story of what alcohol did for him and what alcohol did to him. It's a pleasure to welcome John Robbins to In Recovery. Hello.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

Hello. That's uh I like a podcast king. I have to sort of keep my ego in check on that one. Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:40

So the book is out right now, described as the funniest book ever written about wanting to drink yourself to death. Its chapters are formed as twelve drinks. So today I've chosen twelve quotes from each chapter. Tell me more.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

Well, I guess when I stopped drinking, I began to learn what alcoholism was, because what I learned an alcoholic was was very different to what I'd assumed it was. So I decided to look back at my life through the lens of that understanding. Like, why did it mean so much to me? Why was it so hard to live without? Why did it make me feel better? Why did it make things worse? So I'm sort of discovering that in real time as I write it. And why did I wake up one night and think I just can't do this anymore?

unknown 2:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

So I guess I'm still trying to answer questions for myself as much as for the reader.

SPEAKER_06 2:35

So what we'll do is we'll have a go at this. So I'm gonna start on chapter one, which is drink one. So we kick off with you saying, I think alcoholics can be born or made. It doesn't really matter how you got there. You can drink your way into alcoholism or you can find it there from as far back as you can remember. I'm the latter. So tell me about your childhood and drinking.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

I always noticed it from a very young age and always tried to get access to it whenever I could. Definitely came into my life at a period where I perhaps wanted to change how I felt. But I don't even know if I understood that's what alcohol did. I could tell that grown-ups always seemed relaxed when it was around. We might be going to Pizza Express, the most exciting thing it was possible for a sort of child in the late 80s, early 90s to do. So when I was going through difficult experiences as a kid, I guess my brain just went, oh that's the thing you do to feel better. And um, as has been said to me, if you had a peanut allergy, you would not be obsessed with digging into how that came about, what genes were responsible, whether you had access to peanuts at a young enough age, you would just make sure there were no effing peanuts anywhere near you for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_06 3:52

So, drink two, you address the marketing of alcohol in society. This is why many alcoholics, including myself, are able to convince themselves that because they drink 12 pound bottles of red wine and not own brand vodka, they do not really have a drink problem.

SPEAKER_00 4:07

When you add romance and sex and and nostalgia and all these millions of things that are around alcohol, it becomes more powerful still. I used to think, because I was in majestic wine, selecting my mix six and ah, this is Riesling. Yeah, you that's the most refined wine. If if you ask a sommelier what they drink, they would say Riesling, so I'll have one of those. And I would focus on that, as opposed to the fact that I was walking home with a rucksack with six bottles of wine in that were not gonna last 48 hours. I could sort of kid myself that I'm gonna get some some gin and some vodka and some vermouth tonight, and I'm gonna I'm gonna make martinis because that's what uh that's what they drink in the Great Gatsby. And forgetting the fact that what happened every time I made a martini, because I would make one, hate it, and then I would just have gin and squash because that was the only mixer I had in the house. Learning all the tricks alcohol played on me that I only really know at tricks now.

SPEAKER_06 5:16

I think uh you know, the analogy that I sort of can remember was my idea of an alcoholic, you know, somebody sat on a park bench drinking special brew. That was my understanding of it, and I was never as bad as them, even though I'm walking past them with a load of cocaine in my pockets, you know, not in a wine bar anymore doing it, not out with my friends anymore doing it. I'm just going to a dark, horrible place to do it. And I and in my head, it'll be perfect and it'll be amazing, and it'll be like, what how it's portrayed on television? And the reality was it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

The reasons I was never on a park bench is all luck and privilege. You know, I had a loving mum, I'm white, I'm male, I've got friends. I would have had to fall through so many safety nets, and I could have done, you know, that that park bench drinker is in my future somewhere, but I'm lucky in that my rock bottom was a sort of emotional one as opposed to a you know calamitous AE sirens sentencing that kind of rock bottom. So I'm very grateful for my rock bottom because I hadn't lost everything yet.

SPEAKER_06 6:22

So drink three, you know, you talk about something that so many alcoholics and addicts resonate with, and that and that's not fitting in. I think it I think it's why I signed up for anything you didn't need to be invited to clubs, committees, and societies. Also, they tended to be a bully-free zone.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

For me, it was like I was very quick, like with words, so I would you know probably made fun of people as a way of coping with the the sort of bullying I got, which was at times like physical, like being hit and stuff. So I just sought out places where they didn't go, which was stuff like the student council and the school play and chess club and the student magazine, and it also helped me develop my humour and comedy as a way of coping. I remember a a kid once said to me, I I was in the queue for like uh waiting to go into a humanities lesson, and he said, Here Robins, do you want a smack? And I said, No, I'm not that kinky. And he punched me in the face. But I spent a lot of time dipping in and out of therapy, speaking to counsellors, going for four or six sessions, sort of yeah, it's all familiar stuff, I know why this happened, it's because this happened when I was a kid and this is how I react. And that's good, it's interesting, but doesn't doesn't give me any tools to deal with it. It's just more information. It's a bit like knowing why you've got a peanut allergy. Unless I'm avoiding peanuts, that knowledge is is of limited use. And it was only when I found recovery and also found the current therapy I'm in, the therapist I see now, he was like, Okay, let's do stuff, let's work on our breathing, let's meditate, let's not engage the brain, let's deflate the ego, let's hand it over, let's pray, let's all of these things, let's call someone. So suddenly, instead of just a narrative in my head of oh, I'm all messed up because of this thing, I've got right, I've got eight different tools to deal with this problem. Which one, you know, what should I try first?

SPEAKER_06 8:18

So I think you sum up as well, addiction is almost so easy to fall into, and recovery takes such hard work.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, I guess that's the challenge of change. That's why change is difficult, because it's hard and it takes a lot of time and it takes discipline, and those were things I didn't want. I wanted instant, I want to switch my head off now. And anything that offers you the ability to change how you feel instantly is gonna be a very, very hard to stop doing and also very, very dangerous. And like I've started running the last year, and the reason it's hard is because it's hard, and the reason it is beneficial is because it's hard, and alcohol is just too powerful because it's so easy.

SPEAKER_06 8:57

So, drink four is this very easy to kid yourself you're okay because there is always someone worse than you in addiction. I love how you explained it. I've never met a rich person who thinks of themselves as rich. Rich people know really rich people, and really rich people know billionaires. So there is always someone with three houses, not two, or a yacht and a Range Rover, as opposed to just a Range Rover.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Yeah, I mean the the strange thing is, like when people think of alcoholics, they think of the drunkest person at the party. Like I was often in public not the drunkest person, because I had like systems and I had ways of hiding how much I was drinking. And I like a good example would be So if I go to a wedding and there's a free glass of prosecco at midday when you arrive, I would never have that. Because if I start drinking at twelve, I'm gonna be on the floor by six. So I now look like the guy who's actually oh yeah, he he doesn't he can turn down free wine, but in my head is the most exhausting process of calculation is going on. It's like I can't start on prosecco, I need to start on beer, and I'll I'll go on beer and then I'll have wine with a meal. But if I have wine with a meal, then I'm not gonna be able to drink beer after the meal, so I'll go into shots. But if I get shots, that could get messy, so I need to not have too many, and then I probably need to go home early because then I can drink at home. Like it's madness constantly going round and round, all the while not realizing that alcoholism isn't really what happens when you're drunk, because everyone gets drunk. They're not getting to a wedding thinking, wow, why are they serving Prosecco at 12? I can't drink at 12, I need to start drinking at 4 because if I drink at 4, then I need to get the last train in, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, and again and again and again and again. They're just thinking, oh, prosecco there.

SPEAKER_06 10:41

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah. And in the same way, when I was at uni, because I was hanging out in the bar every night, everyone's drinking. So in my head, everyone drinks like me. Well, what about the 90% of people who aren't in the bar? What about the people who are in the library? I don't know, I don't know what to think about them, losers. So obviously, someone's gonna throw up in the bar. Well, I'm not that guy.

SPEAKER_06 11:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:02

So you're constantly comparing yourself to give you a reason not to change.

SPEAKER_06 11:08

Explained very, very well. Yeah, I love that. So drink five, you reveal that you actually gave up drinking for a year and a half, just before you took up stand-up, and you say, I'm two years and two months sober writing this, and it's been the hardest thing I've ever done, but I don't remember it being as hard back then.

SPEAKER_00 11:26

I just don't think that it had its claws in as much then. I'd yet to sort of drink my way into it. I had a kind of embarrassing night, and I thought, you're drinking too much, you need to stop. The next week I did my first ever stand-up gig and I just had this whole new world of dopamine to get involved in of like performing and stuff, and like every alcoholic, about a year and a half later I thought, well, you nailed that when it was a problem, you stopped, so it's not a problem anymore, so we'll start again. And you know, like the touch paper, it was then another problem again for 20 years.

SPEAKER_06 12:03

So, drink six. We obviously learned through the 12 steps that addiction is a disease. If you're allergic to peanuts, you do not try to moderate your peanut intake or just eat peanuts on weekends, or eat peanuts like a gentleman. No, you stop eating fucking peanuts and make sure that there are no peanuts in anything you eat for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Hmm. Yeah, there are a lot of people I know. When they have dinner, they might have a glass of wine, and then they might have a cup of tea. It's the absolute maddest thing I could ever possibly imagine in my life. And I guarantee, never in my life have I had a glass of wine and a cup of tea. I can't I can't I mean I feel physically sick at the idea of that. It's making me feel uncomfortable. When I have a glass of wine, I have the rest of the bottle of wine, and then maybe another, and then maybe I move on to like my ill, ill-fated martinis or whiskey and squash or whatever it is, because that first drink flicks a switch.

SPEAKER_05 12:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

I have that switch. So yeah, that was very important in just seeing it in very black and white terms. I am allergic to this substance.

SPEAKER_06 13:04

So drink seven. Obviously, sitting down and writing this book had an effect on you.

SPEAKER_00 13:09

Going back into that headspace was very difficult at times. There's times I needed to step away from writing, there were times I needed to go to a meeting. I got there were people people have not appreciated me saying this in the past, but I loved alcohol like I have never loved anything in my life. And that's not an easy thing to say. I wouldn't drink it if I didn't like it. I wouldn't have ruined ten relationships and fucked up so much stuff if I didn't like what this thing did for me, which was to switch off my head. So, yeah, I had to I had to really get back into the headspace of someone who loved alcohol. And just be careful with that and apply the tools and the things I've learned.

SPEAKER_06 13:52

Okay, so drink nine. Obviously, you've done a lot of work on yourself over these last two years, and I love what you say about how you deal with anxiety now. Nowadays, when I'm caught in an anxiety spiral, worrying that everything is going to go wrong, instead of screaming to myself, I can't stop thinking, I try to calmly say, brain is thinking.

SPEAKER_00 14:12

I now have options in inside my head. I have places different places to go. And you know, the serenity prayer is very much like the parable of the second arrow, where the Buddha says, the first arrow we can't control, the second arrow, which is our reaction to the first, is optional. My suffering, to an extent, is optional. I choose it in my reaction to the event. I can make this better or I can make this worse. Those are the two options. And so regaining or learning some way of controlling how I felt and how I thought was huge.

SPEAKER_06 14:50

And it's those little things that help me, you know, when you learn from people who've gone a little bit further in recovery and have got a little bit more knowledge.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Yeah, definitely. It's like my reactions are 100% my responsibility and are 100% within my control.

SPEAKER_06 15:06

So drink 10. It's interesting about you you talked about dry January and is it a good thing or a bad thing? And you say it certainly wasn't for you. For me, it was a medal I wore for the next five years whilst patting myself on the back into oblivion.

SPEAKER_00 15:23

Yeah, I went mad. I I um I thought the way I was gonna stop drinking was to control my drinking. Yeah, five years of complete insanity thinking that if I had a day off a week, if I had two days off a week, if I drank weaker wine, it made me more and more and more obsessed with alcohol because I was so focused on when I could and couldn't have it with all these self-imposed rules. Made me more distant from people I loved when I was sober because I was thinking about alcohol. And you can't have relationships and successful careers while you're putting all of your energy into alcohol, and that's what I think I ran out of energy fighting this.

SPEAKER_06 16:04

So drink eleven. You speak very emotionally about the comedian Lou Saunders, and she told me that I was an alcoholic, and she told me I needed to get help.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

This is why you need alcoholics to help alcoholics because they know what it's like to be an alcoholic, and Lou's been sober, I think, for nearly eight years now. I think in the past people would have maybe called me out on my behaviour. Whereas I think what Lou said to me is that your problem is not that your relationship ended. Your problem is not that you're not getting what you want out of your career. Your problem is not that you're anxious or depressed. Your problem is the alcohol, because that's the one thing that has been present in your life through all of these things, and you're an alcoholic, and you need to get help. Huh. You could fit that on the back of a stamp. So I'd never heard it quite articulated like that, or if I had, I'd never heard it put so gently. And um, yeah, I owe I owe Lou a great deal, and I owe hundreds of alcoholics my whole life. An incredible thing to tap into, like 90 years of uh helping people for no other reason than that it helps you.

SPEAKER_06 17:23

So the last one, drink twelve. So this is the the quote that you say there is they say that the alcoholic in recovery is lucky because they get two lives in one lifetime. So what's your second life like today?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

It contains calm and peace and serenity and the struggles are struggles that are worth going through. I have uh some control over how I behave, how I think, how I feel. I'm very grateful to be present and I'm very grateful to be not the most important person in the world. That is such a a relief to be insignificant. I wanted alcohol to switch me off like a sort of TV on standby, and I can find moments of that through other things, which are much more beneficial. Someone once said, like, their friend asked them, How did you stop drinking? And she said that I can't lie to you. It's spirituality. And I can't, you know, I can't lie to you about the difference in my life now than when I was drinking, it's spirituality. It's just feeling less important. And that's for me was freedom.

SPEAKER_06 18:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

And you know, if someone said to me, You're gonna die at midnight tomorrow, I don't think I would do a single thing differently in my day. I would get up, I'd have my cup of tea, I'd do the wordle, I'd check my phone, I'd play a silly game, I'd go in and record my podcast, I'd have a nice dinner, I'd go for a walk, I'd come home, I'd do some crosswords, I'd listen to Brian Eno, and I would die. Perfectly happy.

SPEAKER_06 19:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Like if you'd asked alcoholic me, what you got, a day to live, what you're gonna do? Oh my goodness me! Well, are we gonna need to charter like ten planes? Uh, I'm gonna need to win a hell of a lot of money. I'm gonna have to have sex with that person I've fancied for years. I'm gonna, oh, I will need a full page spread in the Times, a real deep dive interview into how amazing I am. I would do exactly what I do every day.

SPEAKER_06 19:28

Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, John, thanks very much for your time. And you know, the the book is a great read, and uh I've really enjoyed spending some time with you today. And I'll just like to say thank you and all the best for the future.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

Oh, that's really kind. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and uh thank you to everyone listening too.

SPEAKER_04 19:58

As we know, addiction takes no exceptions. Whatever issue at, gender background, sexual orientation, or image, it can affect anyone and everyone. It takes guts and courage to seek help and making the decision to walk through the doors of a hack house can be daunting and scary. Every episode we speak to someone who has taken that decision and has chosen Hack House to start their recovery journey. It is a pleasure to welcome this week's recovery graduate Janet. How are you today?

SPEAKER_01 20:25

I'm very well, thank you. Call me Jen, please.

SPEAKER_04 20:27

Hi, Jem. Are you ready for our quick fairy questions? Yes. Age?

SPEAKER_01 20:33

Really? 70 and a bit. 74. Where are you from? I'm from Yorkshire.

SPEAKER_04 20:42

What brought you to our house?

SPEAKER_01 20:43

Well, I nearly killed myself drinking. And how long were you struggling with addiction? Making myself really ill was actually just quite a short time. Because as you get older, alcohol does affect you a lot quicker.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

In current clean time. Three years. Yay, well done. So let's go back in time. When did you realise alcoholism had gotten old of you?

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Probably about five years ago.

SPEAKER_04 21:06

With a clever head now, can you look back and see how things started to spiral?

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Oh, yeah, definitely. Most definitely. You know, life and and then lockdown was one of my biggest downfalls. During lockdown, I haven't got a routine, I could drink whenever I wanted, and that's when it started. I started to drink during the day. And I'd always been very careful not to, unless I was going out meeting people or doing things for special occasions.

SPEAKER_04 21:33

I'm guessing, like most of us in addiction, the consequences soon piled up for you.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

I was very fortunate. I didn't lose my family, I didn't lose my home, I didn't get done for drunk driving. But again, it's the yes, it was heading that way. I was most certainly heading for losing my family. Really? And I I was killing myself. That was the consequence. I was going to die. But very soon gone from being able to travel, because I have a daughter that lives in Vienna, being able to travel to see her to I wouldn't have been able to get on a plane, I wouldn't have been able to even get to the airport. Well, in fact, I probably wouldn't have even made it out to the car to get there. And I was just slowly getting bed-banged. You know, my hands shook. And it did happen very, very quickly.

SPEAKER_04 22:22

What was the hardest thing about admitting you had a serious problem?

SPEAKER_01 22:26

Earlier it was pride, but pride wouldn't let me admit I'd got a serious problem. But by the end, there was nothing stopping me admitting I'd got a serious problem. I knew I was in trouble. But but by that time I'd got to the stage where I wasn't in any fit state to do anything about it. If somebody hadn't taken it out of my hands and said, We've got you a place to go to detox and then you can go in for rehab, I would have just stayed at home and died. But then being the classic alcoholic, I was sort of thinking, well, they'll be better off without me. So maybe that's the best thing I can do.

SPEAKER_04 23:03

Yeah, I remember like when I was out there and you know, I couldn't get anywhere I was supposed to, or you know, it'd be straight for a drink or a substance, you know, I couldn't make appointments or anything like that, you know, and I didn't know I was anymore, you know, I was dead inside, you know, and yeah, death was feeling like a you know a good option for me. The life that I was living was just it was pain, it was like literally living in hell. All of our rock bottoms are different. Did you have a rock bottom moment that made you find recovery?

SPEAKER_01 23:32

I have just completely gone into myself. I was just fortunate that my family realised I was at a rock bottom moment and that I needed recovery. And I suppose when I eventually got into treatment and started to feel better, that was when I realised how bad I'd been.

SPEAKER_04 23:49

So you talked about your daughters getting your place in detox and rehab. What was your reaction when they told you that?

SPEAKER_01 23:56

They had suggested rehab to me before, and I was absolutely horrified at the idea. By the time I decided to go to Mark Health, anything was better than where I was. So it was really it was a no-brainer. And it was the best thing I ever did.

SPEAKER_04 24:11

You talk about the drink and being at your age. Do you think it it's a bigger problem than we know of alcoholism in older people?

SPEAKER_01 24:19

Drink was just part and parcel of life. That's what people did. When I think back to my parents, we lived in a small village, and entertainment tended to be going to the pub or going to dinner dances where they drank. So it was always embedded in what we were doing. It very, very slowly crept up on me. I got married, I had I had a career, I had children. And I think for my age, women, when they had children, either gave up work or they went part-time. I stayed full-time, but through this, and my husband wasn't of the era that helped with kids. I think if he changed a couple of nappies, that would have been it. In and have two kids. That would have been it. That was his input. So I found the stress of it very difficult. And it was easy to come home and have a drink because I felt better. It eased the stress, it eased everything, and it slowly took over from there. You know, one drink in the evening, you know, that odd glass of wine probably became a bottle of wine, and then it was easier to go on to something stronger because it acted quicker and I didn't need as much. And I can imagine that it would do that to a lot of people, but suddenly you find yourself wanting more and more and more, and suddenly realize that you can't stop.

SPEAKER_04 25:40

You mentioned about having a career and your children. Do you think like when you reach like retirement, it gives you like more time to drink?

SPEAKER_01 25:48

I developed when I retired, developed routines for myself. You know, I would not drink before tea time. I made sure that I was busy, that I was going out as I was doing things. When I first retired, my husband was still alive, but he retired shortly after I did. We set up a farm. So that kept me busy. My husband died, well, it's 10 years ago now. And even then it didn't trigger me to drink more and more and more. And that was when lockdown eventually came in, and that was when I'd not got my routines, I'd not got anything to stop me.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

Do you remember arriving and walking through all the doors at our house?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yes. It was awful. The positive effect was that I started to feel well. I spent those six weeks taking in the fact it was making me feel better. Certainly doing my step four and five gave me an insight into why I had drunk or why I'd done the things I'd done, which was really, really helpful. But I only did six weeks, and at the end of that time, I went home knowing that I was well, but wasn't sure how I was going to maintain that. But our country gave me an understanding of what I should be doing. I hated the place. And then when I left, if they said you can come back, I would have gone straight back in. But it it's a very difficult step to take leaving art. And if they hadn't had the morning meetings that they have, I wouldn't be where I am now.

SPEAKER_04 27:16

If people listening are struggling to come to terms with the fact they may need rehab, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Give in and go. I can't think of anything else to say to that. And what does your recovery look like now? It's it's great, it's really good. My daughters welcome me to their houses. I travel, I g I go on holidays. Just before I went into ARC, my youngest daughter had a baby, and I was allowed to go and see her, but I was told very in no uncertain terms that I would not be a big part of her life because they couldn't let me be. And and I quite understand that. But that was still something that didn't stop me drinking. This last June um she had another baby, and I have been very much there and involved. I you know, I've got four grandchildren now, but this the fourth one has been the only one that I have been properly struggling for, and it's been so different because they can ring me and ask me for help. It's about being present, and it's something that people say, and I don't know how you quite explain being present. It just is not only being there physically, but being mentally there as well.

SPEAKER_04 28:31

So looking back, you said you thought you you know you were gonna die. What is it like being here in the present now?

SPEAKER_01 28:38

It's just a whole different world, a different place. I can look at drinks, I can see people drinking, but I don't want to, which is a big, big difference.

SPEAKER_04 28:47

Are you ready for the final quick fire questions? Yeah, meditation or sports? Neither a hobby you have always wanted to try.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I do um thing you are proud of recently. My grandson.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

If you could name someone who has been a huge inspiration to you, who would it be?

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Yeah, my sponsor. One thing you're grateful for today, being alive and feeling well, sobriety.

SPEAKER_04 29:17

And finally, if you could give a younger Janet some advice, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 29:21

Be yourself and stand up for yourself.

SPEAKER_04 29:24

Thank you, Janet. Have a lovely day. Thanks. In recovery.

unknown 29:34

In recovery.

SPEAKER_06 29:38

Every week we speak to a professional working within the recovery community to give us a better understanding of addiction and the recovery journey. Today we are at Addictions Northeast, a registered charity who provide help, support and counselling to individuals and families who suffer from addiction issues. One of the special things about this place is the work they do with women, families and children. Another special thing is our guest today, a former resident of Ark House Rehab. It's a pleasure to welcome the operations manager, Angela Johnson. Hello, how are you?

SPEAKER_02 30:10

I'm very well, thank you.

SPEAKER_06 30:12

Tell me a little bit about your story and when you were in ARK.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

So I went into Ark House in 2006 because of alcohol, and I was a down and out, I'd lost everything, absolutely everything. So my children had been removed, my family had kind of disowned us and everything. There was all the the normal thing that goes along with addiction. I hated it when I was there, but loved it when I left because it gave us the foundation for my recovery journey. And I always, you know, I look back on that time in the ark and I know that I was blessed to be able to be there. Not many of us get that opportunity, and we really don't today. There's a lot of people who don't get the opportunity to go to rehabs because there isn't the money there to put people in. I celebrated 19 year last week, and my journey from then has just been phenomenal. And I think one of the things that I noticed was missing for people like me was when I come out of rehab, I had this great time there, I had loads of support there. But I'm a single parent with two children who were still in the system, who were still with my parents, they looking after them. But once you've completed your treatment, you closed off to everything. And I didn't know how to be a mother. I hadn't been a mother because I'd drank all the time. So it was a scary thing, you know. I trying to get I wanted the children back, but I was too scared to be a mum and there wasn't the support there. How do I I I was just so full of shame and I didn't want to say it to people, but I don't know how to be a mum. When I'm 36 years old, I should know how to be a parent, you know, and that's when I started looking at females in treatment and and what's out there for them and how are we helping them? And you know, I often think we have a lot of stigma that goes along with us because you know, mums shouldn't be addicts and alcoholics, you know, we we shouldn't be because the children should be enough to keep us clean and sober, and it doesn't work like that when you understand addiction. Addiction controls everything that I do, think, feel the lot. And I know that there's millions of other mums out there that go through exactly the same thing, and that was why my kind of passion moved towards females in treatment.

SPEAKER_06 32:14

Well, I mean it's an amazing story, and and you know, congratulations on your your 19 years. What makes women in addiction different to a man?

SPEAKER_02 32:22

I think the stigma, I think the shame, then you have the added bonus of if you've got children and the children are removed, so you've got all these external agencies involved. You know, I think agencies make us feel like a failure, and I think that's the problem. Agencies made me feel like an absolute failure when it came to being a mother. Where the truth is I had an illness, but nobody ever told us that I had an illness. I was just a person that picked a drink up and drank whenever I felt like it. And why don't you just stop? You know, why don't you stop for your children? So when you've got, you know, professionals saying these kind of things to you, and you know that you have you I can't stop, I don't know how to stop, you know, it just made me feel even worse. So I love to be around the women and explain to them, you don't have a choice, you don't have a defence against that first ring. You know, when you know them answers and you can go out there and explain to these mothers that this isn't a a you problem, you know, you are not the one to blame for this.

SPEAKER_06 33:21

I mean, it seems to me as though, like you've just talked about there, there seems to be a lot of barriers around women getting any kind of support, and and you've obviously got this addictions northeast now that that you're really passionate about. So, what specifically do you do for women in here then?

SPEAKER_02 33:35

One of the things we look at is we have about 150 beds altogether, and I think we have about a third of them are females, so roughly 40-50 beds are females. So a lot of them come in and they're in shared accommodation, and what we try to do, we run female groups only so that we can look at what they are going through, look at what you know have they got social services, are the children removed, what level are they at? Are is there any hope of getting these children back or not? And you know, looking at whether we can build that family unit. And once they've been in for a while, so they're in different stages, and once they get into stage three, we look at putting them in their own properties, so they'll go into single occupancy, and then that's when you say that they're allowed access to the children. The children are then allowed weekend visits and things like that. So we've got, I think there's five women in at the minute whose children have been returned foot and they've got full custody of the children. Yeah, you know, we have a lady who's in now who's pregnant, she's now in her own property. Her children were removed before she came here, you know, our children what she had prior, but now she's working with social services to look to keep that baby within the property because we're there to give her that support as well.

SPEAKER_06 34:41

Well, so in terms of you know, you talk about family and what have you, do you do family groups here then as well?

SPEAKER_02 34:46

So we have Alanon, two of our workers are actually Alan on, so they'll run groups here for Alan on, they'll bring family members in, we'll do work with family members if if they're if they're wanted. You know, it's not something we pressure them, but if they do want to come in, then we do when we do work with them.

SPEAKER_06 35:00

So we've talked about the women that come in to treat you. So what does their sort of day-to-day, what does their structure actually look like? How long does it last?

SPEAKER_02 35:08

So one of the things we look at is what is missing in society and what can we achieve? So we take self-referrals, the ring up, or a professional can ring up, and all they've got to do is give us a name and a contact number and we take it from there. Once somebody comes in here, they can stay within this within the properties for up to two years. If they need longer, then they need longer. We have one female who's been in one of the properties now coming up five years, but it's took that long for her to get her children back. So they'll come into stage one, they're in there ten weeks. So if anybody's on methadone or substitute prescribed medication, they will come off that within stage one. In stage one, they're in five days a week, in stage two, they're coming four days a week. Stage three, they're in three days a week, and then in stage four, they're in one day a week. So we reduce them days down so that we can look up what they're gonna do in their own time. Are they going out there finding voluntary work, are they going out there doing education? Is there something we can offer in here that they could be doing?

SPEAKER_06 36:03

I think the thing that's missing in a lot of treatment centres, which you've sort of talked about and expressed, is this thing of that we don't give them any life skills, paying a bill. Some people don't know how to do it, some people don't have ID, some people have come from prison, so they're they're regimented in a prison way. So I'm guessing around all the the work that you do with families, it can be really, really emotional for people involved in that. So, how do you how do you deal with that emotion within here then?

SPEAKER_02 36:27

We and we can see it, we can see it in the staff. You can pick up on it and you think there's something not right, are you? You know, one of our staff's going through a few issues at the moment and we're there, we're there, we support them, and not just at work, you know, this isn't it's not just a nine-to-five job, it never has been. You know, recovery isn't a nine to five job, and it never will be for me. You know, and if staff need that support on a night, then we're there on a night for each other. We have no issue ringing each other. You know, it just happens it automatically. We know, right? We need to keep in touch with this one or that one and see how they're going.

SPEAKER_06 36:58

I think what I found coming into when I started working in ARC was you know, work isn't your recovery. What you've got to understand is you know, you're working with 20 people, 20 addicts, 20 alcoholics, and then you've got another 30 on top of that who are clients, you're working in a really sick environment, and you need to up your recovery to make sure that you stay spiritually connected. I guess in here with the numbers that you have going through, I mean you will be absolutely swamped with it. And if your your own personal recovery is not right and you haven't got that support, you know, I guess people can quite easily just fall away, can't they, and burn out?

SPEAKER_02 37:35

Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely. And it is about knowing your boundaries in here. You know, we're not in here to fix anybody, that's not what we do, and we are definitely not an organisation that does tick boxes. You know, the one thing I will not do is a tick box. I'll never cause I was a tick box, and I'm never gonna allow anybody to be a tick box. They are a person, you know, and they deserve the best chance they've got at recovery and the best chance of treatment that they've got. My recovery is totally separate from work. I love my recovery, I love my recovery journey. And I'm one of these that's a Zoom girl. I I love Zoom meetings, I'm on them constantly on a night, you know. So when I go in on a night, I'm not a TV person, I'll just go in, have my shower, chill out, and I'm on the laptop and I'm on a meeting, and I love it. I love it.

SPEAKER_06 38:21

Well, so obviously the the job that you do is massively rewarding. Is there any one particular story that stands out for you? Apart from your own, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

There's a few actually, but one particular story was a young lady who was one of the first females that we ever had, in a yeah, and our children have been removed from our there was they said there was no way she was going to get the children back. There was horrendous abuse in her past. So it was always gonna be a risk trying to get the children back because he was still quite abusive with her if he saw her and things like that. And it took four years, four and a half years, and throughout that four and a half year, she was you know, she was persistent, she'd done exactly what she needed to do, and in the end, she would ended up going back to court and got full custody of the children, and and she's now got all three children living with her, very, very happy and still plain and sober. And it's just you know, this is it just goes to show, doesn't it? We were told under no circumstances would them children ever live back with ma'am. You just never know. You never ever know.

SPEAKER_06 39:21

Yeah, amazing story. So obviously, you know, you you you do some fantastic work here. So, you know, looking into the future, you know, what would you hope to change in the future?

SPEAKER_02 39:33

I would love to be able to see uh professionals uh change their opinion on on addiction, you know, to see that addiction is an illness. You know, I didn't wake up one morning and think I'm gonna spend the next 20 years ruining my life and becoming an alcoholic and I'm gonna screw everybody else's life up, I'm gonna make people hate us and isolate myself off and wish I was dead. Nobody wakes up with that plan, you know, and I just wish the government, treatment agencies, professionals, everybody would be trained up and know what addiction really is. We're not bad people, you know. There's not a a single person in this building. We have 150 beds, and there's not a single person in this building that I wouldn't help because they are lovely, lovely people. It's not about let's just label them and leave them as they are. When is there gonna be a change? When is there gonna be money put into treatments that work instead of plummeting millions of pounds into treatment? That does not work, and it never will. You know, you can put people on 100 mils of methadone a day, it ain't gonna get them clean, it ain't gonna give them a life, it isn't gonna get them a job and the family back, and you know, where's the money really going? What are they doing with it? Why can't they look at what's needed, you know, and give these people the chance that they deserve.

SPEAKER_06 40:54

You know, what you've built here over a period of time and 150 beds is just phenomenal, and uh and and the job that you do and the the support that you give is incredible, and you know, I'd just like to say, you know, from my point of view, all the all the best for the 2026, and I hope it all continues to grow as it does. So thanks very much for your time, Angela.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

Thanks to Jum and Geminet for sharing their incredible stories.

SPEAKER_04 41:39

We are back next Monday with from the professional girlkeeper for Liverpool Chris Care Club.

SPEAKER_06 41:44

If you and your loved ones are struggling with addiction issues, then please know you are number one. Reach out to one campus today.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Thanks for listening. We'll be back in a week.