Latest / Whats Your Story With Richy Thrower / He Beat Addiction & Found Purpose in the Mountains | Keavo’s Story

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He Beat Addiction & Found Purpose in the Mountains | Keavo’s Story · Whats Your Story With Richy Thrower

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Brother, hey Dude, how's it going?
0:02
SPEAKER_02: Yes, lad, nice one for coming down.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: You're very welcome.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: We've um I think it's safe to say we've both gone from kitchen talking to mountain walking.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I think pretty much something up.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: That's it, we're done nothing up.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: Mate, but listen, nice one for coming down the boat.
0:16
SPEAKER_02: I've I've been well excited for this.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: And um and to to sort of find out, you know, how it all started, you know, you're doing fucking you're always out fucking walking and hiking everywhere, and it's you go some fucking unreal places, and and I swear by it now, and it and I always say to people, you know, Snowden saved my life, and we're just having a chat then, and and you know, you got a similar sort of story.
0:37
SPEAKER_02: So obviously you ex-forces yourself.
0:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
0:40
SPEAKER_02: What let's go like back to you know the start of such how come you join the army?
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what?
0:46
SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll be brutally honest here, right?
0:48
SPEAKER_00: So I was what was it?
0:49
SPEAKER_00: It could have been the fucking same 15 years old, maybe 16 years old, and I remember sitting in my mum's front house who's this council council house and in Atherton, you know, a little place called Hagfold in Atherton.
0:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, put proper rough, but lovely.
1:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01
SPEAKER_00: And she's just said, Oh, there's a thing there to go and um enjoy, you know, go and see what it's like in the army.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And I thought, I'll just go and try that out.
1:07
SPEAKER_00: So I got a few days off school, and that was it.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: That was why I started.
1:11
SPEAKER_00: So I got a couple of days off, I got the army careers, and then one thing led to another, and all of a sudden it's like, fuck, I'm in.
1:16
SPEAKER_00: How did that happen?
1:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, so I literally left school on the 30th of June 87, and within three weeks I was in the army.
1:25
SPEAKER_00: That's literally how quick it and so I left school and joined junior leaders.
1:29
SPEAKER_00: Where did you do junior?
1:30
SPEAKER_00: Where did you do that?
1:31
SPEAKER_00: So little to little town near Bath down south, Chippen.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: No, so I went um Winchester.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Ah, okay.
1:38
SPEAKER_00: Winchester minded.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:39
SPEAKER_02: Because you when I joined it, it was either Winchester or Harrogate.
1:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, so you did junior entry.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Like, how long was your phase one then there?
1:46
SPEAKER_00: So junior leaders was there for 12 months.
1:48
SPEAKER_00: Right, okay.
1:49
SPEAKER_00: 12 months of getting beasted and chucked up and down hills and absolutely annihilated to within an inch of your life.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm crying on the phone to my mum, I want to come home, I don't like this.
1:58
SPEAKER_00: And then I can remember some of the things that used to make you do that.
2:01
SPEAKER_00: One of them was get your your locker and push your locker down to the guard room, right?
2:06
SPEAKER_00: And you still have everything boxed in in little box shapes, you know, iron it to within an inch of its life, and then push it down to the guard room over cobbles, and then when you got there, you couldn't touch anything, and the guards would come out the targets, and you'd say, right, open your doors, and he'd be like, Are you taking the fucking piss out of me?
2:20
SPEAKER_00: And they'd just been gearing everywhere, and you'd just be like, I just spent an hour doing that, and then you've got to push it back up, and he was doing that for 12 hours.
2:29
SPEAKER_00: But that's what it was, it was just building your resilience and your mentality to say we're gonna push you to your breaking point, yeah, and you do what you're told, doesn't matter how many times we tell you, you just fucking do it.
2:38
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
2:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's part of that's what the army is, isn't it?
2:40
SPEAKER_02: If you 100%, and like do you think like very much now?
2:44
SPEAKER_02: You know, when people like if something happens to someone and they go, Oh, that's this is really shit time, and this is really wank, and this has happened, or you know, I've banged my toe on the sofa and I'm having a really shit day, and I'm like, You're a fucking weirdo, like that's not shit.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
3:02
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
3:02
SPEAKER_00: You've got that mentality you can always draw back on things.
3:04
SPEAKER_00: Nah, it's not that's not.
3:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this is an awesome day.
3:08
SPEAKER_00: You get pushed to your breaking point, don't you?
3:10
SPEAKER_00: And when you've been pushed past that and you go past it so many times, yeah, you know, I can remember one instance where they had this um thing called Lone Tree, right?
3:18
SPEAKER_00: So out of camp, it was like a two three-mile circular round camp, and down one side of it it was called Heartbreak, so the hill went down, and up the other side it was killer.
3:26
SPEAKER_00: And at the bottom of it, there was just like a stream that you had to run through and then run up this fucking big hill, and there's a tree at the top of this hill, right?
3:34
SPEAKER_00: So you could see where over the years people had just run up and down.
3:38
SPEAKER_00: So they'd get the full platoon running up this hill, and if one of you slipped, bear in mind you just had to run through a fucking bit of a river or a stream.
3:44
SPEAKER_00: If one of you slipped, you have to do it again.
3:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, how many hours can you think that took us?
3:49
SPEAKER_00: And people were getting battered, it was like, Well, you fucking slipped because if you slipped, you'd get a good hiding bed off all the rest of the lads.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
3:54
SPEAKER_00: But that was just the mentality that they'd get you in, just to keep you saying, right?
3:58
SPEAKER_00: You work as a team, you know what I mean?
4:00
SPEAKER_00: And that it worked, you know.
4:01
SPEAKER_00: When you look back on all the beastings that we had and all the messing about and the shit, you know, bumpering ceilings with big heavy fucking bumpers that they used to have, mate, polishing ceilings.
4:10
SPEAKER_00: It's like it was bullshit, but it bullshit baffles brains.
4:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh I and I always say, right, I've I've got no problem with the army.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: Like, I I love the person who the army turned me into.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
4:26
SPEAKER_02: I genuinely, genuinely do.
4:28
SPEAKER_02: Um, because I've taken so much into my normal life, and you know, even like, you know, attention to detail, like even now with the business and that, I wouldn't be as fucking anal as I am with everything without going through all that bullshit.
4:44
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
4:44
SPEAKER_02: So I like, and it's very annoying when you come out and you realise that nobody else is like that.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: I know you expect everyone to be up there, don't you?
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, fucking still.
4:55
SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, you can't drop them standards, and that's what's got, and I think most people who've been in the army, regardless of what job you go into when you come out of the army, yeah, you still always got that high, you just set it for yourself.
5:05
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I only did like five years, but that time between 17 and 21, 22, that made me.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, I went in the army, I was a young kid, I had no confidence.
5:16
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't say boo to anyone.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, quickly realised when I got to Germany, you need to stand up for yourself here because right bullying was rife, people were still getting regimental baths, it was like you were getting absolutely battered, and if you didn't drink and keep up with the rest of them, you were shunned.
5:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: So that then became a thing.
5:32
SPEAKER_00: So drinking culture was massive, you know, like 87, 87.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's even like still when I was in, and that I mean like 2009 I joined um and left in 2014.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, even then, like it was drinking, like you drank most nights.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
5:47
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'll never forget when we were um we'd sit there fucking getting absolutely obliterated at night, and like the fucking platoon sergeant would come in and go, like, what the fuck are you lads doing?
5:57
SPEAKER_02: And we'd be fucking sat there drinking fucking whiskey or German beer or whatever it may be, playing call off duty, and he'd go, What the fuck are you doing?
6:04
SPEAKER_02: Like, just picking up on my skills and drills.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
6:10
SPEAKER_02: But it but like I think Germany is fucking dangerous because I mean Germans fucking drink all the time anyway.
6:18
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
6:18
SPEAKER_02: So like you go as a fucking someone who's English who likes to drink anyway, and you get put in an environment when beer's a fucking culture.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, like it's you and you're with the army and in your Germany, you're in the fucking best of both worlds.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
6:34
SPEAKER_00: It was back then.
6:35
SPEAKER_02: They closed our naffy bar.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: Did they?
6:37
SPEAKER_02: Because we were that much of a like we were that much of a nightmare.
6:40
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
6:40
SPEAKER_02: We're the only fucking we went to Canada and the fucking guy, Garrison Sergeant Major got fucking pinched for whacking someone in McDonald's.
6:46
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
6:47
SPEAKER_02: It was that bad, like we were just absolute nightmares.
6:51
SPEAKER_02: Um, but yeah, so so you did did your phase one, passed out, yeah, phase two, went to Munst Munster.
6:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I got I did my driver training, so I was a heavy goods driver, so Road Corps of Transport I was in.
7:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:04
SPEAKER_00: So got sent to which then changed to R L C, didn't it?
7:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes, yeah.
7:08
SPEAKER_00: Um so I did all my heavy goods past my bike test, my car test, and my HGV test in about six months, which was great.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: You know, 17-year-old kid got all my license, yeah, yeah.
7:18
SPEAKER_00: And then got sent to Munster to five armoured field ambulance, which was just that was it then.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: It was like the shit it in the fan.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: It was just this is your job.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: You're driving these big one-ton ambulances that were like a big fucking box.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: Spent, but because I'd got drawn into that culture then of having to stand up for myself and drinking and going out and causing trouble.
7:37
SPEAKER_00: I'd gone from that really shy lad to this fucking hang on a minute, he's he's turning into a bit of a out of control a little bit here.
7:44
SPEAKER_00: So it turned into fighting, drinking, and on one morning parade, the sergeant came out and we was all lined up on parade outside the front.
7:53
SPEAKER_00: I'd had another night where I'd probably been out fighting, I was probably my face was all messed up.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he said to Right, we need four volunteers to go up the Gulf because the Gulf War was just about to kick off.
8:02
SPEAKER_00: He said, Keeveny, you're one of them.
8:04
SPEAKER_00: I didn't volunteer.
8:06
SPEAKER_00: How did that work?
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, volunteer.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I know why he did it because I he could see that I was going off the rails, and to be fair, all right, it did me good.
8:13
SPEAKER_00: But that decision that made that changed the rest of my next 20 to 30 years because of what happened over there, you know?
8:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, of course.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: So I got attached to 12 Squadron, I got sent to 12 Squadron who were in Munster, um, 8th Regiment, Royal Corps of Transport, and got sent over to drive the drops wagons.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: So they were the brand new things from Leyland Daff that picked up their own load and dropped off their own load, and it was like a new bit of technology.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I thought this is fucking brilliant.
8:36
SPEAKER_00: This is what a what a great posting this is going to be.
8:39
SPEAKER_00: And it was it was it was great for the first four months because all we were doing was taking everything off the ship.
8:45
SPEAKER_00: So we basically landed in a place called Alger Bile in Saudi Arabia, all the ships landed, we were port there, everything would get taken off with containers and whatever, and then we would take it out into the desert, set up ammunition dumps, storage dumps, and everything, right?
8:59
SPEAKER_00: So we were doing that for like four months constantly on the road, and it it was great.
9:03
SPEAKER_00: Comaradery was brilliant, it was just having the crack, but then eventually you've got to get down to the nitty-gritty, and in January, like 91 January, it all kicked off, ground war kicked off, yeah, and that's when it all just started looking, it went all south at that point.
9:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
9:18
SPEAKER_00: Because we was right behind because we was what we were doing was delivering these um the multi-launch rocket system.
9:24
SPEAKER_00: We was no no no, we was driving the ammunition for them.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: Right.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: And it was like, I can't remember what platoon.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: I think it might have been the Scots Guards who was using this thing, but it was like an ARV that would basically you drop off, they look like um almost like like massive pods they were on the back of the wagon.
9:41
SPEAKER_00: And then each pod, I think if I get my math right here, each pod when it got fired had 60 bombs, and then each one of them 60 bombs split into 644 and it wiped out at four kilometres square.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: But when it landed, there was like little tennis balls, yeah, and they worked on pressure, so obviously they blew up.
9:58
SPEAKER_00: We went into Iraq and I'd had a battle casualty replacement in my wagon, and I was training him how to use this wagon for like two weeks or so.
10:05
SPEAKER_00: So I got my original co-driver back on the morning of this incident.
10:09
SPEAKER_00: So I trained this guy up, young Jason, same age as me, 19 years old.
10:14
SPEAKER_00: Coming out of Iraq, we'd just dropped off a load of ammunition, and we're just coming back into Saudi to pick more up.
10:19
SPEAKER_00: This was probably on the first or the second day of the Grand War.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: We stopped for a piss, he jumps out of the wagon, which is now two wagons behind me, and all average fucking massive explosion.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: What he's done, he didn't know, is he got one, picked it up, and thought it was gonna be a souvenir.
10:37
SPEAKER_01: Fuck off.
10:38
SPEAKER_00: As soon as he's jumped back in the cab, it's just fucking gone.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: So my mate, because I was trained as a uh medic at the you know, with being in the field ambulance, I've just dropped everything and I've just started fucking running because you just go off, you work off um just instinct, don't you?
10:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I've got uh Scotty's holding my mate, he's holding the the steering wheel, and it looked like the best way I can describe this, he he didn't get hit at all.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: It looked like a knife thrower, just you know, when this dude all the shots had gone all the way around him, missed him completely, but I literally have to drag him to get him out of the cab because he was just in fucking shock, he didn't know what had gone on.
11:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: And then I've looked at boy Jason and it was just you can imagine what that was like.
11:16
SPEAKER_00: His arm had gone, it was it was just chaos.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: And then we've had to put field dressings on him, trying to trying to get him back and bring him back to life.
11:25
SPEAKER_00: What we had we then had to get him out of the cab, put him on the deck, put an airway in.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: His lungs had filled with blood, God bless him, and he was just you could see he was going, but I wasn't up for letting him go.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: I was doing CPR, I was doing everything to try and and you just get in that frame of mind, you just I want to save him, I can't let him go.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: But he died in fucking in my arms, and it was like that at 19 year olds.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is, and it's I think one of the that night I remember being sat on the back of this flatbed wagon, I was still covered in Jason's fucking blood, and I'm sat there and thinking, his mum and dad don't even know yet, you know.
11:59
SPEAKER_00: And that landed with me, and that stuck with me for years.
12:02
SPEAKER_00: That and the guilt, that's when guilt started coming in.
12:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, what could you have done more to save him?
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:07
SPEAKER_00: No, I know I couldn't.
12:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, and you can't forget.
12:09
SPEAKER_00: But in the early days, that was like shit, yeah, yeah.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: It's my fault, you know.
12:13
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that was just that was the biggest thing that we saw over there, but there was a lot of shit that went on in just after that, you know.
12:19
SPEAKER_00: So everyone's been to war will have different kinds of stories, yeah.
12:22
SPEAKER_00: Find to know bigger or less than everyone.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: And every everywhere is different as well.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: Like it's different walls, innit?
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, like I went to Afghan, but it's totally different to why they're fighting in Ukraine now.
12:30
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
12:30
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's all it's all different.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I always say to people, everyone's shit smells the same.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
12:36
SPEAKER_02: Looks the same, but it all smells, it all all smells the same, like it's but it's still shit.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
12:42
SPEAKER_02: Um but yeah, it's fucking you should never have to go through that at the age.
12:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, not even at any age, but like especially at the age of 19, like you're still a kid, like you know.
12:52
SPEAKER_02: I I look at my cousin now when he's 18, and I'm like, fuck me, I was in Afghan when like I was that and I look at him now and I think you're a child, like you're still a child, you are.
13:01
SPEAKER_02: And I just think fuck like but it's it's a different and nothing prepares you for something like that either.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: Like it's a it you know, you stuff like that happens and you and you crack on and you know you do what you're trained to be doing, but it's nothing prepares you for seeing that, you know.
13:20
SPEAKER_02: And even like you could have been sat there an hour before having a laugh about something happening, and and you always think, Oh, it's never gonna happen to me.
13:26
SPEAKER_00: That gallows humour, that's what gets you through it.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: You know, it did after, even after the event it got us through, you know, we had to you had to club together and get on with it.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
13:33
SPEAKER_00: But what comes after that then is the fucking hard bit to deal with.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: It's when you then go home and and everything relaxes.
13:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's when it all comes to bite you like guys.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
13:42
SPEAKER_00: But it was like I literally got it.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: I was telling you before, we just landed in we they sent us back from the Gulf, we landed in Germany, and we've been in the Gulf for like six months, Germany for one night, yeah, massive piss-up, and then back on a plane to Manchester.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's how do you deal with that?
13:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you're going home on a fucking come down, you're rough as toast, you've been through all that, you've just spent home relaxing on the front line, and you're just you've gone from being on a battlefield to being sat in your mum's front room within like 48 hours, and it's like and everyone's asking you how many people have you killed?
14:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like, well, I don't want but the rave scene was just kicking off.
14:17
SPEAKER_00: It was 1992, so it was booming.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: So, what am I gonna do here?
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I've got two and a half grand in the bank, I'm gonna go out for five weeks because that's a longer.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: But then that led to me becoming really sort of tolerant to drugs and stuff because I'd been using them for five weeks.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, then I have to take some back to Germany because I thought I'm not going back and anything, yeah.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I decided to take a load back with me.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Put them in the in the uh ski jacket in the in the fold away hood there.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: And as we pulled up to the border at Venlo, my mate was in front of me.
14:46
SPEAKER_00: And anyway, there's a story behind that.
14:48
SPEAKER_00: But when we've got to the the the checkpoint, this guy's at it uh out of your car.
14:53
SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking this isn't fucking good.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: This we don't normally get stopped here at Venlo, it's normally it is easy.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: Well, anyway, they stripped the car, so they took the wheels off, they took the seats out.
15:00
SPEAKER_00: I think I've been fucking lined up somewhere.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: But the last place that they checked was inside this because I'd got the jacket out of the car while they were searching it, and I thought, if I keep this on here, I'll be a bit savvy and I'll stare at the way, and they'll not they'll not fucking clock me.
15:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
15:11
SPEAKER_00: And it was the last thing he did is he flipped these buttons on though the press studs at the back of me, and I was just like shit.
15:16
SPEAKER_00: He gets this bag, and it was like it was just 14 grams of amphetamine I was taking back, yeah, pure amphetamine.
15:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he said, cocaine, cocaine.
15:24
SPEAKER_00: I went, Yeah, yeah, I'm okay.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: I thought, fuck yeah, I might as well take the piss out of him now.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: I was on the floor, I had my fucking hands behind my back, gun to my head, and he was like, Oh, okay.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: Military police were called, you know.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: So I ended up doing I got court-martialed for that.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: It took them about three, four months to court-martial me.
15:39
SPEAKER_00: And in that time, we used to go to Rotterdam every every other weekend to a club called.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: So funny you're saying this because that's all we did.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: We went to the parks dick and just get off our nut.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but then it got to the point where we was we were not making it back to camp.
15:51
SPEAKER_00: We ended up coming back to camp once on a Wednesday, you know.
15:53
SPEAKER_00: We should have been back on a Monday.
15:55
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:55
SPEAKER_00: Tried robbing cars, we'd just run out of money and just absolutely spoke it up the wall.
15:59
SPEAKER_00: It was chaos.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: It's mad that.
16:01
SPEAKER_02: So we were uh we were three-hour drive away from Amsterdam and we'd do the same fucking thing every Friday, early finish, Germany, fucking half on finish.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: Every you chuck your bag in the car before you go on parade, parade finished, fucking in the car, three hours, fucking on the way to Amsterdam, and you'd get absolutely blotto all weekend.
16:19
SPEAKER_02: Blokes would come back Sunday, yellow.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Like and it would do it every weekend to the point where like most of the regiment was fucking doing that, and it got to the point where we'd get a CDT and we'd be pre-warned about the CDT coming back.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
16:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, lads, CDT this afternoon, be where you need to be.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
16:40
SPEAKER_02: You'd have fucking sergeants shoving fucking blokes in lockers.
16:43
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Like it was fucking there's it's not a surprise that we got disbanded, like we were a fucking nightmare regiment.
16:50
SPEAKER_02: But it's just I don't regret any of it.
16:52
SPEAKER_02: No, so it was fucking, it was a fucking funny time.
16:55
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
16:57
SPEAKER_02: Crazy, isn't it?
16:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's mad.
16:58
SPEAKER_02: Germany was just, yeah.
17:00
SPEAKER_00: It was just I becoming rife as well, then.
17:02
SPEAKER_00: It was like because the the army didn't know how to deal with drugs.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: No.
17:04
SPEAKER_00: Because this was like very, very early 1990s, so drugs were just starting to become an issue in the army, I think.
17:10
SPEAKER_00: And especially then with the rave scene happening, and they'd caught me with these 14 grams and thought I was Escubar.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: Escubar.
17:17
SPEAKER_00: And they're coming out with all these stats.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: Well, an average user would have 0.1 of a gram.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: I said, Have you ever been to a fucking rave?
17:24
SPEAKER_00: I said, it lasts me about two weeks.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: I thought it would take me time, you know what I mean?
17:28
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but they really went to town with me.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: And this is after leaving, victim mindset really fucking set in for me because they didn't take into consideration anything that had happened in the Gulf and the reasons why I had then started hitting the drugs hard and why I'd started going off the rails as much as I did.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: Because I'd had an exemplary record, really, up until that point, especially in the Gulf, you know, work work my fucking ass off over there.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and then you get back, and there was even talking about taking my medal off me.
17:53
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, if you do that, that's gonna be, you know.
17:55
SPEAKER_00: I even remember getting the box with my Gulf medal in it, and it had the words withdrawn written on it.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And I've said I've still got that home, and I thought, you know what?
18:02
SPEAKER_00: If you'd have taken that off me, that I would have fucking I would have been like a I'd have lost the plot properly.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: But that's what happened.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: I turned into a victim for like 20 odd years, and I I was I started blaming people for fucking everything and not taking any accountability for myself.
18:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, carried on with the drugs, got involved with all the party scenes in Manchester, um, got involved with the band called 828 State and went and sort of rolled off the back of what they did.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: I co-presented their radio show for like 15 years and just did, I was just involved in that party scene, yeah, yeah.
18:34
SPEAKER_00: But I never took any accountability for anything that was happening in my life, so relationships would come and go, I'd blame them, you know, it'd be your fault.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
18:42
SPEAKER_00: And then when I hit 50, I just thought I can't fucking live like this anymore.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: And I just realized that and it was about the time when COVID was happening, so 2020, and I just took a look at myself and I'm fucking 50 years old, and I'm blaming every other fucker for everything that's gone on in my life.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And I just started reading self-out books, and I read one called The Power of Ted, which is all about uh having a victim mindset, and it just fucking landed with me.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: So then I thought, right, I'm going on the quest for knowledge here, and I've got to start looking at myself.
19:10
SPEAKER_00: What do I do with my drinking?
19:12
SPEAKER_00: Because I've been doing six months off, six months fucking because I'd do a few months off and then I'd be like, right, that's it, I've earned the right to go and get I said, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: But that I knew I was on a cycle of this has to stop because it was getting dark, it was getting dangerous.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I was doing cocaine on my own at seven o'clock in the morning when everyone else had gone home.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd be buying more drugs than I needed just so that I could when I got on.
19:34
SPEAKER_00: We'd go out and party, and I'd be like, I'd have an extra two or three bags there, they're in my pocket.
19:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I thought I get home there and I can be safe and I can be snorting till seven.
19:41
SPEAKER_00: But then it's like all you're hearing is noises, and you've got to go.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: And you that's horrible for lying in your bed with your heart going out.
19:51
SPEAKER_00: The amount of times I thought, that's it, I'm fucking got, I'm gonna die here.
19:54
SPEAKER_00: And then you do another line, yeah, because you've got it, and I can't go to sleep until it's over.
19:58
SPEAKER_00: And that psychosis of staying up for days upon days upon days catches up with you.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And it fucking the amount of times I genuinely thought, I am dead here.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: This is me, I am done.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Um and then you if you make it through that, you've got the other side where you've got to spend a week and a half, two weeks coming down because you just hit it that hard.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that then is the other side of it, and they get worse.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so you the highs that you're chasing get fucking smaller and smaller and smaller, yeah.
20:23
SPEAKER_01: They just horrible.
20:24
SPEAKER_00: It I used to do drugs, me, and I'd be doing drugs at these festivals, and I'd be just paranoid as folk, and I'm thinking, what am I doing?
20:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: And that's supposed to be me enjoying myself, but I knew nothing different, and um and it's like it got it got very different, like, you know, even like you know, not that long ago, if I had some, I would go fucking weird straight away.
20:48
unknown: Yeah.
20:48
SPEAKER_02: Whereas I never used to do that, and I don't know whether I always it always interests me whether is that the drugs have changed or you've hammered it that much that your fucking brain can't cope with it anymore.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: You've got to that point now where you you're not getting anything off it, but it's just it's turning you into something that's weird, it's it's paranoia, it's all that fucking nothing was good about it at the end.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was all bad.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: The only time it was ever good was when I was going rave.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: Like young, younger, like well younger.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: It stopped getting it stopped being good a very, very long time ago.
21:20
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
21:21
SPEAKER_02: And because it used to be a case of just go to rave, just go to rave, I'd go to rave, I'd have, you know, whatever it may be, and then that was it.
21:28
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
21:29
SPEAKER_02: I wouldn't have it in the week, I'd you'd you'd just wait until the weekend on the way, you know, in the car down to the rave, and you'd have a pill or whatever it may be, and that was it.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: You were never I'd never have it for that whole time I was DJing and raving and that.
21:41
SPEAKER_02: I'd never have it in the week, ever.
21:42
SPEAKER_02: It was when I stopped doing that.
21:44
SPEAKER_02: Then it started, you know, and it's just maybe it's you know the same, same sort of thing as you.
21:49
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it's like you've been in that party lifestyle and you think all this shit stuff happened.
21:53
SPEAKER_02: And I wonder whether it's a thing of your brain saying, Well, listen, when you went raves and took drugs, you had a really good time.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Try and do that now to sort of mask everything else.
22:02
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
22:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: And it but it can very quickly spiral, can't it?
22:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
22:05
SPEAKER_00: I mean, like I said, the drinking was massive in the army.
22:08
SPEAKER_00: Then I came out and I didn't really drink that much because it was all just going to rave, so it was all drugs.
22:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:12
SPEAKER_00: But then, as sort you get to the late 90s, then I stopped doing I was still doing drugs, but drinking was part, I got back into drinking and drugs then.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: So then you carry on doing that.
22:21
SPEAKER_00: And it's just where does that end?
22:23
SPEAKER_00: And for me, when it got to the end of it, it was like I'd have I knew that if I had one or two pints, that would be me.
22:30
SPEAKER_00: My brain would switch and I would be like, right, who am I ringing?
22:33
SPEAKER_00: I've got to ring a dealer.
22:34
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't.
22:35
SPEAKER_00: I'd never sit there on a when if I if I went out and it was just alcohol then that was turning that switch.
22:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: So I thought, right, well, this keeps happening, and this is every time I have a drink, I'm getting drugs in.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: So that's mad you've just said that, you know.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: So when I when I got really, really bad, and I was doing the same thing, and I found out why that happens, right?
22:56
SPEAKER_02: So I was going out doing the exact same thing, and I'd go, right, I'm not fucking taking fucking coke anymore, I'm not doing it, it's fucking horrendous.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: It costs too much, I'm fucking ruining my life, blah blah blah blah blah.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: And the amount of times I said that, and then was still going to the pub, and I'd walk into the pub and I'd go, I am not getting any of that.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: I'm not, I'm just coming in here, I'm gonna have a few drinks, go home.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: First sip of that pint, poof, right, okay, right, get a bag in.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
23:24
SPEAKER_02: And the reason you do that is because if you drink and have drugs at the same time, like say coke, say if you drink and have coke at the same time, and you do that for over a long period of time, it creates a chemical in your body called cocheflamine.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: Now, you can walk into the pub and have no intention of getting a bag in, but as soon as you have that pint, then your brain says, right, okay, you've had that, coche, then your body craves cocheflamine.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: So you need your brain, even though you don't want to, your brain says, You need to have some of that now because this is what you normally do.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: So you like you come um not climatise, it's the wrong word, but you your brain basically gets used to having them too, and then it really craves that chemical.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: So my I sat down with a mate who now works in a rehab centre, a holistic rehab centre in Thailand, and he told me.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: And that is the only reason I managed to stop because he said, Rich, this happens every time you have a drink and you go into a pub, your brain craves that chemical.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: So you need to stay away from the pub.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: Just try and not drink for a year, just see what you do.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: Mate, I never touched it again.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing, isn't it?
24:30
SPEAKER_02: Never touch it again.
24:30
SPEAKER_02: I'd still have a drink and that now, but I won't, I'll only go to pub.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: And you've got to realise you've got to really step back and go, Oh, you massively got what makes me have that?
24:40
SPEAKER_02: Like, do you know what I mean?
24:42
SPEAKER_02: Like, I still now I won't keep cash in my wallet, I won't go into a pub with anybody or any of my mates that I know that do it.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: Like, you've got to really control your environment, like to get away from it.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Because I had to remove myself completely.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: So when I felt when I stopped drinking, which was May 2023, we'd just been away to Benny Dome, right?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So we have we get we get together once a year, all the ex-gulf lads who were in the Gulf still got a really close bond with each other, and we have like a an annual piss-up, but it turned into chaos.
25:14
SPEAKER_00: You can imagine what it's like in Benedict for five days with the lads.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: It's like and I was always the one that took it too far anyway.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: So it's like so the last time we went and I drank was 2023, and five days I was on it, I was absolutely oh god, some of the stuff I was doing.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: I was just like, what that really sort of didn't land well with me.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: And I landed back from Benny Dorm, I had a shoulder operation booked in, which was already booked in, two about literally about four days after.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: So I was still hanging out my arse and I had to wait for to have my shoulder operated on, which was a lot worse than what I thought it was going to be.
25:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I then had two weeks to sit at home with this, nursing a really bad shoulder in recovery, and that's when I just started evaluating everything.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: And what really changed for me was my mate inviting me to his wedding, and it was literally right.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: I was still had all my shoulder dressings on, and I thought, well, I can go, I'll just go and I'll I'll drive because I'm still on these really strong painkillers as well, morphine and all that, and I'll just come home.
26:10
SPEAKER_00: And that'll so anyway, I get to there, they've been out all day, everyone been on it.
26:14
SPEAKER_00: I get to there about five o'clock ish, lovely sunny day, and it's only two miles from the house.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: Drove, and as I walked in, I just saw everyone they look like fucking foaming at the mouth, and I was like, This is what I normally fucking look like, and I was like, and then everyone's repeating, everyone's saying, and I don't everyone's fighting to talk like and I don't slag anybody off that does it because I've been there and I've I'm no one to judge anybody who does drugs, everybody does their own, and everybody, if they want to stop taking it, they stop taking it.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but as I look around that room that night, I was just like, shit.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: You don't like what you see.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: I know, and this is me, I've been like this for the last 20 odd years, and it really landed with me.
26:49
SPEAKER_00: So I drove home that night.
26:50
SPEAKER_00: I remember getting in bed and I was feeling all confident, and I think, fuck it, I feel I feel really good.
26:55
SPEAKER_00: But when I woke up in the morning and I looked at my time, it was like seven o'clock, and I thought they'll still be in the kitchen, they'll still be fucking, they'll be feeling really roughly 100%.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: And I had my brew, and I think it was only like a couple of days after that I went for a hike, and that's where the hiking started, and I thought, this is what I fucking want.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: This it's mad, isn't it what it is?
27:14
SPEAKER_00: I stood on the top of this.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: I went, no.
27:16
SPEAKER_02: Where did you go?
27:16
SPEAKER_00: I just went up in the late district onto um, I can't remember the first one I did.
27:22
SPEAKER_00: It took me about an hour to get to the top of it.
27:24
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't one of the big ones, it was probably about 500 metres, and but as I got to the top of it, it was like one of the horseshoes, and I stood on the top of it in these pair of shorts and a vugging old P backpack.
27:33
SPEAKER_00: Look like I've been dragged out of the house, and I just thought, how good is this?
27:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the feeling of just being up here.
27:37
SPEAKER_00: It's took me a while to get up here.
27:38
SPEAKER_00: I'm knackered, you know, I wasn't fit, but I love this feeling, I love what I can see.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: And I remember doing stuff like that in the army, you know, you do stuff like that.
27:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're like Brecken and shit like that.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: But that's what kicked it off, and that was for me the start of my sobriety.
27:54
SPEAKER_00: And that's what if I hadn't found hiking, I don't think I would have been able to, you know, continue.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I had to remove myself from everybody, and that's what I did.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: I didn't go out, I didn't socialise, I stayed away from everybody that I knew, and they all knew what I was doing.
28:07
SPEAKER_00: It was just like, I said, I can't come near you.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: I've got to a point now where I can go and do pretty much anything.
28:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I went to an Oasis concert last year, I stood in the middle of 80,000 people with people sniffing everywhere, and I was just like, I couldn't be more happy for you.
28:20
SPEAKER_00: You crack on and do what you're doing, yeah, yeah.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: But I know I'm getting in my car at the end of the night, and I'm gonna be driving home and I'm gonna be waking up in the morning feeling fucking great, having my cup of coffee, doing my meditation, and my little normal drills that I do.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what makes me happy now.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: Not because I know I could just go out and have a bag and I could I'd be on a bender for days, you know.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Oh, 100%.
28:38
SPEAKER_00: I know what would happen.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, and I don't want to feel like that anymore.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: No.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing you can teach me about doing vogging drugs that I haven't done, seen, experienced.
28:46
SPEAKER_02: And it's like every single and and to be fair, I haven't had an earth I I was saying it only to me to my mate the other day.
28:52
SPEAKER_02: I said, This is the first time for since ever where I've literally not fancied it.
29:00
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
29:01
SPEAKER_02: I've I've for a long time I've I've not thought, ooh, I'll get some of that.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
29:06
SPEAKER_02: Like, and I know it sounds mad, but you probably relate to it, but like that I've never felt like that.
29:12
SPEAKER_02: I've I could I've never like don't get me wrong, if I went to the pub and got absolutely obliterated, that could be totally different.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: But it's the first time where I've I've genuinely thought, do you know what?
29:24
SPEAKER_02: No, I'd I nah I don't fancy it at all.
29:28
SPEAKER_02: Because I always think now about if I ever if I ever fancied it, I always think about the day after.
29:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, do I want to put myself through that mental fucking torture trauma like of you know pretending to be asleep when the fucking missus walks in and hear the birds chirping and terrified of the phone ringing after yeah, phone anxiety, like not I didn't used to be able to reply to messages and that and it just total madness, like and I'd much rather go up Snowden, yeah, or do something like just get out.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: Well, at the end of mine, what I was doing is I was having to, and I know most people have done this.
29:59
SPEAKER_00: You go out on a night out and you've got a piece of night about remapping on what you've done on your phone.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: You know, looking what did I do?
30:05
SPEAKER_00: I was at the end of it, I I'd go out, and because I started drinking, I was always the one that would drink too fast.
30:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'd be having too much.
30:11
SPEAKER_00: I'd be I was always the guy that was getting the shots in because it's like, come on, let's oh, come on, so everyone get on it.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: But that's because I was wired, you know what I mean?
30:18
SPEAKER_00: But then that means you've just got to drink more and more and more, you've got to sniff more, you've got and it just I was having like blackouts of four or five hours.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I was like, that's scary, that you know what have I been doing for five hours there and how did I get?
30:29
SPEAKER_00: I know everyone says how did I get home, but literally, what the fuck was I doing?
30:33
SPEAKER_00: Don't know how whether I've walked it, I've got no phone there to say I've rang a taxi, what's gone on?
30:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, anything could have happened when you get to 50, and I was like looking at evaluating my life, I can't fucking this is not how I want to operate.
30:45
SPEAKER_00: No, I've done it now and I've parked it.
30:48
SPEAKER_00: It took me a long time, took probably 18 months, two years to really settle into sort of being sober, but no, I I couldn't imagine ever going.
30:56
SPEAKER_00: I'll never say never, because you you've still got to take it one day at a time and you can't get cocky with it because it'll just come and kick your ass.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: No, 100%.
31:03
SPEAKER_02: And you know, and it's like even when I go, even when I go to the pub now, I it and it's not very often, but if I go to the pub, I'll have to go with somebody that's sensible.
31:12
SPEAKER_02: And I know that sounds mad, like I've got uh it was we were laughing the other day, we went uh shooting with my mate, um Robert, he's uh he's like I think Robert 72, I think.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: Really good, like he's in the navy, like um, left as an officer, and he is like my sensible friend.
31:28
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
31:29
SPEAKER_02: If you like, and um we went to the pub after the shit and he was like, Do you want to go to the pub?
31:33
SPEAKER_02: I was like, Yeah, I will.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: I was like, but I'm just letting you know, like we'll go for one or two, and I need to go home because I know I know what it'll turn into.
31:42
SPEAKER_02: Um and got speaking to him about the drugs and alcohol and everything else, and we literally sat there, we were there for no mon no longer than 10 minutes, and I'd had two pints of Guinness.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: And like he'd not even finished his first, and I was like, Come on, we'll go.
31:55
SPEAKER_02: We need to go now.
31:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and I know that you know I can still go out now and just be a fish.
32:00
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
32:01
SPEAKER_02: And but having that the difference in having someone like that with you or going, go on, then we'll have one more, and then that ends up ten, and then you end up fucking three day up somewhere, you know, and that's it.
32:13
SPEAKER_02: Your whole environment will dictate how you behave like that.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but there's people there that you could tell them, you know, I've I've had to get rid of mates, you know, and tell them black and blue in the face, tell people like, don't talk about it, don't mention it in front of me, don't let me see it, I don't want to know, I just don't because and he'll still go, Oh, you sure you don't want one?
32:33
SPEAKER_02: Boof, gone.
32:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: And it it just it's so easy, and I'm easily swayed, like, but that's why you have to change your whole environment.
32:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, you have to change your environment.
32:42
SPEAKER_00: I'm lucky, I've had mates that have really supported me through it, especially when we went to I went to like I said, 2023 was the last time I went to Benedome, 2024.
32:50
SPEAKER_00: I missed it because I thought I'm a year into sobriety, there's no way I'm strong enough to go and do that.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Well done.
32:55
SPEAKER_00: The year after, I went.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: So I went to Benny Dome five days sober with all these That's amazing, mate.
33:01
SPEAKER_00: And I was just like, do you know what?
33:02
SPEAKER_00: The hardest thing for me.
33:03
SPEAKER_00: That is some fucking discipline.
33:05
SPEAKER_00: I had to do it for myself.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I've got I've got to a point now, I'm two years in.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: Can I manage this?
33:10
SPEAKER_00: And I knew none of them would be like, come on, have a drink, because that they know what we've been to the golf and everything, so they they know my back history and why I I went like I did.
33:19
SPEAKER_00: But the hardest one for me was getting to the airport and not having a pint.
33:23
SPEAKER_02: After that, everything else was just easy because you're creating different habits, aren't you?
33:27
SPEAKER_02: Like you, you know, what did you do?
33:29
SPEAKER_02: You go to the airport and fucking hell.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the first thing you do.
33:32
SPEAKER_02: You could get a flight at five o'clock in the morning to go somewhere on all day and go to Manchester Airport, you will still have a pint.
33:37
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
33:38
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
33:38
SPEAKER_00: Well that was I mean, I'm I I remember back at that 2023 one, I'd probably had four or five Jack Daniels in the bar, then maybe another 67 on the plane to Benedome.
33:47
SPEAKER_00: We got to Benedome, I was absolutely spanned.
33:49
SPEAKER_00: The first thing I did when we got off at Benedome was went to phone these Romanian kids on the corner to score a load of gear, and that was it then, five days just on it.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:57
SPEAKER_00: This time we got there, and they all went out and did the thing.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: I stayed with them.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I was having you know alcohol beers and stuff like that.
34:03
SPEAKER_00: But I went home at nine o'clock and I documented everything and started putting it on TikTok and Instagram.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: I thought this is it.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do five days sober with all my mates, and it fucking blew up because everyone was resonating with it.
34:14
SPEAKER_00: How are you gonna do that?
34:15
SPEAKER_00: And I just thought, well, this will give me something to do.
34:17
SPEAKER_00: Well, I was getting up at six in the morning, running up to the cross, running back down, having a swim in the sea.
34:22
SPEAKER_00: I was ready for the day.
34:24
SPEAKER_00: Iron motorbikes and just going seeing different parts of Benedome.
34:26
SPEAKER_00: I've never been.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: It's such a better holiday, isn't it?
34:29
SPEAKER_00: It's the best one that I'd ever had.
34:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I I remember everything about it.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: I was present, I was talking to one of my mates, I had the crack, but when it was ready for me to go home, I'd say, right, lads, I'll see you see you in the morning.
34:39
SPEAKER_00: And that was me, I was done.
34:40
SPEAKER_00: And because it is exhausting having to go and do you know, they were good lads, not one of them said you want a drink, you know, which was fucking brilliant.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think I could have done it if if people were saying, Oh, come on, come on, don't be so.
34:51
SPEAKER_00: But after that five days, that was it.
34:53
SPEAKER_00: Then I sort of got this really big sense of comfortable.
34:55
SPEAKER_02: If you can do that, you can fucking do anything.
34:57
SPEAKER_00: I proved it to myself now that I I don't need it.
34:59
SPEAKER_00: And actually, I'd kidded myself for all these years that I did need it.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and that's the fucking because it's a habit.
35:04
SPEAKER_00: Of course it is.
35:05
SPEAKER_02: You just you're so used to doing it.
35:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, do the same shit.
35:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
35:09
SPEAKER_00: So that's really where I started.
35:12
SPEAKER_00: I left my job of like 20, 25 years.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I was a sales manager at OD.
35:17
SPEAKER_00: Everything started after sobriety, I started questioning everything.
35:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, what am I doing?
35:21
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm spending all my fucking days working for this, and don't get me wrong, it was they were a good company, but I was just there for seven in the morning till seven at night, uh, and I didn't have a life.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: And I was just uh a slave to this machine, and I knew it had been I well, it hadn't sat well with me for years, but I hadn't had the confidence to do anything about it because I've been drinking and that's the fucking honest truth.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: Once I stopped drinking and then I started questioning all these different things, do I want to still be doing this job?
35:49
SPEAKER_00: A little blip happened at work and I got tucked to a um what's the word?
35:53
SPEAKER_00: A try like a tribunal thing over something that was really unfair.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I appealed it and won.
35:58
SPEAKER_00: And then as soon as I won my appeal, I resigned.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I said, right, that's it.
36:02
SPEAKER_00: Because I thought if you can treat me like that after 15 years, I'm actually better off out of it.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: So I left that job, started, I trained as a coach, so I'd done like a diploma in positive psychology, and I just saw the power of how you can help someone just by another having a conversation.
36:16
SPEAKER_00: I thought this is I fucking love this.
36:18
SPEAKER_02: It's a minute in it.
36:19
SPEAKER_00: So I started doing that, and then as soon as I left Odie, set up my own little business as as a coach, and I've been doing that for like the last 12 months, and I'm building that into something that I can be really proud of.
36:29
SPEAKER_02: That's amazing, mate.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so well done.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, mate.
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Well done.
36:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and so what so what are the like what is the plan for the future?
36:36
SPEAKER_02: Obviously, I know you you spoke about is it mass mass, do you say?
36:39
SPEAKER_02: Massive.
36:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so I've got that.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: I've got so I'm spinning loads of plates, and that's the beauty of it.
36:43
SPEAKER_00: Whereas when I had that job, I was just doing one thing.
36:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
36:46
SPEAKER_00: And you realise if that one thing's taken away from you, you're fucked.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
36:49
SPEAKER_00: No, I've got quite a few things that I'm I'm involved in doing.
36:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'm doing I've got my coaching that I'm growing.
36:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm probably I'm aiming to go back into the motor trade as a coach to help people with mindset.
37:00
SPEAKER_00: So that's like me aim this year.
37:02
SPEAKER_00: That's where I'm where I'm aiming.
37:04
SPEAKER_00: Because I've done a lot of one-to-one coaching in 2025, yeah, helping people with all kinds of different things in in the life.
37:10
SPEAKER_00: I've also set up something called Mast, which is men are stronger together.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: And what that basically is, is because I spent so much time on my own in recovery, I know what it's like to sort of sit on your own, and I know men don't talk properly.
37:23
SPEAKER_00: So getting people out, it's just basically like a walking group.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: That's the initial plan.
37:28
SPEAKER_00: Get guys to come out of their house on a Wednesday evening every once every two weeks, and just go for a walk.
37:33
SPEAKER_00: It's an hour, have a chat.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: Don't have to talk about your problems, you can just get together and have a chat.
37:38
SPEAKER_00: So I'm starting that, and eventually I want to turn it into a CIC and apply for lottery funding to then take people away and go and do trips away to the Lake District and do like you know outdoor pursuits and just stuff that's fun.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
37:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean no phones, just get rid of the phones, yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:53
SPEAKER_00: Like what you said earlier, and just go in having a laugh.
37:55
SPEAKER_00: So that's that's another project.
37:57
SPEAKER_00: I've also written a book.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
37:59
SPEAKER_00: Well, it's a chapter in a book.
38:01
SPEAKER_00: So there's a series of books called Start Over, and it's about turning a loss into a sensational comeback.
38:07
SPEAKER_00: So in each volume, so there's 14 authors in each book.
38:10
SPEAKER_00: There's only a short story that you write, about 5,000 words.
38:14
SPEAKER_00: And my story is all about everything that we've just been talking about.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: But that I'd I've written that in early 2025, and that was hard work, you know, because I was sober, and it was the first time I'd actually had to sit and put pen to paper and write about everything that I'd been feeling that I'd because I'd been masking that for so many years with drinking drugs.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm having to sit there with it and write it all down.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:36
SPEAKER_00: It was cathartic, mate.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: I tell you, it was it was one of the toughest things I've ever done because I had to write everything down.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: And I was I was getting all these letters that I wrote to my mum while I was in the Gulf about when the incident happened and all the shit that had gone on, and rereading them raw, you know.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: And it but I'd never done it before because I'd always I'd get a twinge of a feeling before, and I'd fuck it, let's go and get pissed and get off your head, and then I'll forget about it.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
38:59
SPEAKER_00: And that's what you that's what I'd done.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: But there's a time in your life when you've just got to sit with those feelings and think, actually, you know, let's and I'd dip my toe back in, I'd write a few, I'd write a thousand words, and I'd feel really heavy for a few days, and it was like it was a long process to get it done, but it's done now, and that should be out in maybe March or April this year.
39:16
SPEAKER_00: Oh, amazing.
39:17
SPEAKER_00: Chuff with that, so that's another um part of the puzzle.
39:20
SPEAKER_02: That'd be unreal, mate.
39:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that'd be amazing.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: And like, well, and again, mate, well done for doing what you've done, like, because I fucking know how hard it is, and like even now, I'll you know, and I've got I've got a better relationship with drink, and I've never really was a big drinker, so it wasn't really a massive, it was more so the drugs, like so.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: I know fucking you know, fair play for like what you don't because it's fucking it's a hard road that is.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh, of course it is.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: It's a fucking hard road, yeah, and it ruined fucking nearly ruined my life and took everything.
39:50
SPEAKER_02: And to come out of the bat, and you always you come out such a better person, and like you do like I'm fucking ten times the person I was now than I was then.
40:00
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
40:01
SPEAKER_02: And and everybody like and it's so easy to fall into it.
40:05
SPEAKER_02: I was always that guy, yeah.
40:07
SPEAKER_02: I was always that guy, mate, who said, I'll never get addicted to anything.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: I always did, always did.
40:12
SPEAKER_02: I was religiously ill going, I can have whatever I want.
40:14
SPEAKER_02: I'd never like addiction is fucking stupid and blah blah blah blah, and then fucking boom, got me.
40:21
SPEAKER_00: You realise when you come out the thick end of that, don't you?
40:23
SPEAKER_00: That actually there's more to life, and helping people is such a good thing.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
40:28
SPEAKER_00: So it's it's like when I first started and I was going through my sobriety, I just started up this little vugging Instagram uh thing, and I thought, because I used to do this thing called because my name's Keaveney, my surname's Keeveny, right?
40:38
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, everyone in the in the motor trade used to call me Kivo.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: It's like a so I used to do this thing called Kivo car of the week when I was sales manager, and it was me just taking the piss because when someone inquires on a car, you used to send them a video, like a presentation video.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: So you get the sales executed, walk around the car, and show it, but yeah, yeah, everything was very same, it was all corporate, and yeah, I thought I can put a different spin on this.
40:57
SPEAKER_00: So I used to, I used to, this was like I was sales manager at Aldermodie, and I used to go out on a, I think it was on a Wednesday afternoon, and I'd just go out in these most random places and start recording these really fucking stupid videos walking around this car, but it went fucking mad, you know.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Because someone was doing something different.
41:11
SPEAKER_00: I've been dressing up, I've been putting wigs on, I was in a BQ car park once with this like um Ron Burgundy gear on.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: Good morning, America.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: And then I thought, well, I can do this with my hiking videos, I can start having a bit of a laugh.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: So I just created a thing called Kiva Upper Mountain, and that was it then.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: So that was like when I went out hiking, I thought, I'll just make some stupid videos.
41:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's literally from I document everything on there to the journey of what it's like to be sober, the ups, the downs, highlight reel can fuck off.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: It's just because a lot of people, and that's the danger with social media at the minute, is everybody is comparing themselves to somebody 100%.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: And what I'm trying to do with my page is just to say, if you're fucking feeling it, then it's alright, then just feel it.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna be up one minute, you're gonna be down the next.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I put funny stuff on there, I put serious stuff on there, I put whatever I feel like talking about.
42:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'm I'm quite similar.
42:02
SPEAKER_02: I'll you know, like you say, just a mix of everything.
42:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, because I think people just want to see this, or some people want to portray themselves like everything's perfect, and that has a negative effect on other people that are comparing themselves against you, and that's not real life.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: No, the more you can try and normalise real life on social media, I think the better it's gonna be because it's got to this point now where it's saturated with people trying to say my life's fucking perfect, and it isn't.
42:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just talk, just be real, just say that you're having a shit day if you're having a shit day, you know, because that helps other people down the line.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, absolutely.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: Oh mate, well, this has been fucking amazing, and like I can't wait to fucking we need to go Snowden 21st.
42:39
SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest.
42:40
SPEAKER_02: We need to absolutely go Snowden, yeah, absolutely.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: Do a sunrise one because it'll just honest to God.
42:44
SPEAKER_02: I've been sat up there before, like, yeah, it's the best, it's the best thing.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: It literally saved my life, like genuinely it did.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: Like, and I can't wait to take a load of people up, and it'll be so good for like you know, you and and some of the lads that are coming and stuff, because you know, in the same position we were, like at that, you know, people haven't left the house for months because drink, drugs, whatever it may be, and like you know, you to be speaking to them and having a chat, like you know, that's the end product of fucking not doing that anymore.
43:12
SPEAKER_02: Do you know what I mean?
43:13
SPEAKER_00: Being consistent with it for me, it's it's almost like a spiritual experience now for me.
43:17
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not that much I've really got into spirituality since I stopped drinking, but when I get out into the mountains, as soon as I get out of my car and I start walking on my first little part of the route, I get this feeling where I'm like, I'm on it's free.
43:29
SPEAKER_00: This is how I feel, and this is how I and it always connects back to like you you're a part of something bigger because you're in the mountains and it just it's you're a very small thing in that in that situation.
43:40
SPEAKER_00: You might have had of just fucking gone for the next four, five, six, seven hours, however long you're out for that day.
43:44
SPEAKER_00: Nothing else enters my mind apart from my little fucking stupid ramblings that I make when I'm doing my videos and just enjoying being in that in that moment.
43:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I don't I don't think I'm ever as present as I am when I'm in the mountains.
43:55
SPEAKER_02: No, I'm exactly the same, and it's it's so funny, innit, right?
43:58
SPEAKER_02: That you know.
44:00
SPEAKER_02: When you go up like the like Susnowden or wherever it may be, right, there is nobody moaning, whinging, or this is shit, innit?
44:09
SPEAKER_02: Or that's maybe like the shit like you're in clip, but like there's nobody going, Oh, my fucking work's shit.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: Like, no, it's like it's you're unable to go up there and moan, like because you're present, like you say, you're present, and and it's funny because there's so much shit now going on in the world everywhere, with the news and fucking you know, you go to the shop and it's just pure drama.
44:31
SPEAKER_02: Every single person you walk past when you go to Sten, hi mate, you're alright, yeah.
44:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, good, mate.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
44:37
SPEAKER_02: How long's left?
44:39
SPEAKER_02: It's just nice, isn't it?
44:40
SPEAKER_02: It just everybody's in that good mood, like do you know what I mean?
44:44
SPEAKER_02: It's it puts you in a different track.
44:45
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't, and I haven't done this for years.
44:47
SPEAKER_00: I don't watch the news, I don't listen to the radio.
44:48
SPEAKER_00: No, I don't all of that now is gone because we're we're being controlled regardless of what you think, it's just bollocks.
44:54
SPEAKER_00: So that why would I want to feed my mind with all of that shit?
44:57
SPEAKER_00: You can do enough when you're scrolling on social media because we all get caught in that.
45:00
SPEAKER_00: That's a bit of a trap.
45:01
SPEAKER_00: But just being present, if you can be present more, I'm really sort of get trying to get into this much more now and trying to listen into more Buddhist practices and stuff that yeah, if I'd have said this to myself 10 years ago, I'd have thought you'd laugh enough.
45:12
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:13
SPEAKER_00: But I'm looking at it now.
45:14
SPEAKER_00: All I want to do is I just want to make myself happy.
45:17
SPEAKER_00: I want and being happy is part of just growing up, isn't it?
45:21
SPEAKER_00: I think you just I used to associate happiness with having like I used to drive the hundred grand cars, I used to have a decent wage.
45:28
SPEAKER_00: I used yeah that for me, I thought I was chasing fucking happiness.
45:31
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't, I was just it was the hustle, it was like that now.
45:34
SPEAKER_00: I'm I've got virtually you know the money side of things from where I was this time last year, but I'm loving it.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: I I control my own life, I make decisions now that I want to do, yeah, and I do things because I'm either helping other people or I'm helping myself, and giving something back to other people just makes you feel fucking great.
45:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I think that's the best thing that you can do.
45:54
SPEAKER_00: And I think everybody when they come out of the thick end of going through what we've been through, and everyone's everyone's shit is relative, but I think when you come out of that, you naturally want to start giving back because you know what it's like behind you.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you want to pull you wanna pull people like that rock.
46:09
SPEAKER_00: Of course you do, yeah, yeah.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
46:11
SPEAKER_02: Mate, that's fucking brilliant.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: I can't wait.
46:13
SPEAKER_02: Love the conversation.
46:15
SPEAKER_02: Mate, that was fucking brilliant.