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[00:00:00:02 – 00:00:16:22] Today’s guest is a man whose entire life was shaped not by chaos on the outside, but by noise on the inside. Today Andy is two years clean and here to share his story. I dread to think how much money we spent because we just did whatever we wanted and we spent fortunes.

[00:00:18:04 – 00:00:57:14] I went from basically running the biggest parties in our diva, DJing all over the world, to in a position where I was like, I literally haven’t got enough money to pay my mortgage. Cotwork was relaunched in 2010. By that point Danny is completely clean and sober. But I’m not. How did that change the dynamics of your relationship? I don’t think he did at all because Danny’s not a judgemental person. Went into lockdown so I’d gone from DJing every week, nothing’s on now. What do we do? Started getting bang on it. My diet at that point consisted of like pizza, wine and beer. Something’s telling you, just get one more. Total madness. I’m ruining absolutely everything. What’s different now? For the first time, I actually wanted to do it for me and not to appease other people.

[00:00:57:14 – 00:01:04:06] Elliot Ward, what? Addiction specialist, you’ve become a happy queen with me.

[00:01:05:19 – 00:01:26:15] Hello and welcome to another episode of Coming Clean With Me. I’m Elliot Ward, addiction specialist, and today’s guest is a man whose entire life was shaped not by chaos on the outside, but by noise on the inside. Growing up in Walthamstow as an only child with undiagnosed ADHD,

[00:01:27:15 – 00:01:57:23] Andy Manston didn’t find his path through rebellion or fame. He found it through sound. Music was the one place his mind finally settled. From his dad’s vinyl collection to teaching himself instruments. Andy’s world was built on rhythm long before it ever reached a nightclub. By his teens, he was mixing tapes on an Amstrad stereo, earning a slot on pirate radio, warming up at raves, and that journey eventually led him to co-found Clockwork Orange.

[00:01:59:00 – 00:02:07:08] Clockwork Orange exploded in Ibiza, drawing thousands every week, and Andy found himself running away of success he never expected.

[00:02:08:17 – 00:02:11:20] But with the long nights came a lifestyle that crept in quietly.

[00:02:12:23 – 00:02:18:03] Alcohol, speed, and a cocaine habit that began back in 1989,

[00:02:19:03 – 00:02:48:17] became woven into the rhythm of DJ culture for decades. Today, Andy is two years clean and here to share his story. Hi, Andy, welcome. Thank you for being on Coming Clean with me. No problem, thanks for having me. Excellent. So, Andy, let’s start by just giving some background context of your upbringing, what that was like, what school was like. Just give some background about yourself. So I’m an only child. I was born in, brought up in Walthamstow in East London

[00:02:50:03 – 00:02:54:05] to parents Margaret and Jim, Jim Bow, as he’s known.

[00:02:55:11 – 00:03:11:19] Yeah, I mean, upbringing was good. School was very difficult for me because of undiagnosed ADHD at the time. How did that play out in terms of difficulty? It was just, I was a disruptive child.

[00:03:12:24 – 00:03:38:04] Unfortunately, back in them days, there wasn’t any reason, it was just a pain in the ass at school sort of thing. So just concentration, constantly talking, didn’t wanna learn, wasn’t interested in schooling, which is mad because like I said, as the older I’ve got, I now love to learn. But at that point, it was just, I wasn’t interested. I just used to struggle with it a lot.

[00:03:39:16 – 00:03:43:21] Okay, and then leaving school, what happened then?

[00:03:45:07 – 00:04:02:24] I mean, school was, like I said, it was a struggle. Exams weren’t great, just so I could like, I didn’t like revision, wasn’t interested, thought I’d get away with it, didn’t do great. And then I moved on to, I got a job at NatWest.

[00:04:04:07 – 00:04:23:24] And basically, in those days, that was kind of before you actually needed to provide any qualifications to get jobs. It was very easy to sort of get work back in them days. I managed to get that job before my exam results had even come through. So I sort of did that for about seven years.

[00:04:25:24 – 00:04:57:06] It actually was, it was quite, I actually enjoyed it. Because it was almost like being back at school, but getting paid for it. Because we’re all like, 16, 17, fresh out of school and that. And it was, yeah, it was, I had good times there. And then the opportunity came up to do clockwork. So that was kind of cool. Let’s go back, work back a bit. So you’re working in the bank in NatWest Bank. You were there for seven years. And what about your love for music? How did that start to develop?

[00:04:58:06 – 00:05:00:19] I mean, music’s been part of my life from,

[00:05:02:04 – 00:05:21:06] from like forever, basically. I like to, from the very early days, I remember my dad, he was heavily into like, vinyl and stuff like that. So he’d always be bringing home albums and playing music consistently. So I was sort of like, it was drilled into me from a very early age.

[00:05:22:21 – 00:05:33:17] Just like being fluid, everything really. I’ve got all these songs that my dad used to play that I still can sort of remember from really young. And I can’t really remember much from that age, but I seem to tend to remember things like that.

[00:05:34:19 – 00:05:40:13] And then it was like, I played the guitar for quite a long time as a child, had lessons.

[00:05:41:19 – 00:05:48:10] And it just went from there really. I remember being, I’d say about 13.

[00:05:49:14 – 00:05:50:18] And then I got into,

[00:05:53:14 – 00:06:05:17] there was like these soul tapes that were knocking about at school and they were mixed. So all the tracks were just mixed over one another. And I was just remembering, just hammering that constantly. I had it on my own, my little personal stereo.

[00:06:06:19 – 00:06:11:03] And then hip hop.

[00:06:12:07 – 00:06:21:17] That was my thing. So I discovered, Dave Peirce, funny enough, used to do London radio, which was years ago. And about, I think about 14, 15,

[00:06:22:24 – 00:06:35:07] the hip hop was kind of exploding. And I was just like, this music’s absolutely unbelievable. And then it transpired from that, moved on from the hip hop. Then it kind of went into,

[00:06:36:17 – 00:06:41:02] I suppose the music was kind of getting a bit hussy. And then in the late eighties.

[00:06:42:09 – 00:06:51:20] And for me, the kind of thing what sort of got me into this whole DJing thing was what we spoke about when we talked was,

[00:06:53:00 – 00:07:52:17] I managed to, I had a tape deck, like an Amstrad with a record player on it and a tape deck. What I discovered was that if I pressed play on the tape and then phono and tape at the same time, I could mix the vinyl track with the tape. And I just started messing about trying to like get tracks in time. I kind of came across mixing before mixing was really a thing. And that was it then. I think from that point I was hooked. So Alan Sugar got you going because Alan Sugar was the one that started Amstrad, wasn’t he? And he started on that tape deck machine that you started mixing on. So Alan Sugar’s got lots to say. So you started mixing this music and your love for music continued to develop. And what about your social life and going out and the scene of using, what was happening there? I mean, look, drinking, I can remember sort of drinking,

[00:07:53:19 – 00:07:55:05] because it started off with alcohol of course,

[00:07:56:06 – 00:08:04:02] I can sort of remember drinking in my late school time. So probably 15 to 16.

[00:08:05:06 – 00:08:16:16] And even then, that’s the main thing. You could go in a pub then and get served. There was really no kind of age restriction, stuff like that, if you looked old enough. And yeah,

[00:08:16:16 – 00:08:20:13] kind of drugs, I suppose, they started coming in with the rave scene.

[00:08:21:17 – 00:08:47:01] Because I used to go out, because I’m from Wolfram State, we used to be a club called Ritzy in Tottenham, which is basically the– The Ritzy. That’s it. And that was the place to be. So we’d be there on a, we do a, or a Friday night at Cannon Palace, which was Chris Paul, which is called Orange. And then Saturday we would end up in Ritzy in Tottenham. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law met at the Ritzy. He was a doorman, Ed Doorman in Tottenham.

[00:08:48:01 – 00:08:59:00] But I mean, drugs weren’t a thing then. It was more, you’d go out, you’d have a drink, you’d only get a kebab at the end of the night. And then it sort of changed when, don’t think I’d even ever tried drugs.

[00:09:00:01 – 00:09:06:09] And then I think the first ever rave I went to was called Energy in Latimer Road in West London.

[00:09:07:12 – 00:09:12:03] And I think someone said, “Yeah, let’s try a bit of this like speed.”

[00:09:13:11 – 00:09:15:19] And I had a little bit of that, obviously,

[00:09:17:07 – 00:09:21:12] got the buzz off it. And then I think the next time I tried half a pill.

[00:09:23:06 – 00:09:26:10] And that was it. But like I said, for the first,

[00:09:27:13 – 00:09:38:15] I suppose the first good few years, it was just a sociable thing in a nightclub environment. And it wasn’t a lot. It was a little bit, it wasn’t a caner.

[00:09:40:02 – 00:10:56:07] Classic, how it starts. That’s exactly it, isn’t it? Classic, right. Even now you’re saying, “I just did a little bit.” It wasn’t like, you know, classic, right? And then how did that continue and progress also with your career against the music club promoting, using cocaine, or we used the packet with, like the one we used. Tell me how that was. It’s like, it’s a cocaine, you know, I think I never really, I never touched coke. And my first kind of experience with it was like, Danny, and Danny’s my partner in Cottler Corringe, if anyone’s wondering. And he was, we went to a club called Gas Club in London. And I was driving that night. And he’s like, “Can you give me my mate Bugle Sy?” It was his name, I was like, “You can work that one out. Can you give us a lift home?” So I remember them both sitting in the back of the car and they were like pinching. I’m not looking in the mirror thinking, “Fucking hell, what are they doing? It’s disgusting,” sort of thing. And then went out to another night, a month or two later with one of my other friends, Michael. And I remember some guy going, “Do you want some coke?” I was like, “What does it do?” And he’s like, “Oh, just try.” Anyway, so we tried a bit. Didn’t get a lot of it, to be fair.

[00:10:59:00 – 00:11:09:21] And then I think it was just, it just started creeping in a bit. And it did start creeping in more, I think, with clockwork, 100%. Because before clockwork started, I wasn’t into it.

[00:11:10:24 – 00:11:14:11] But when clockwork kind of started getting successful,

[00:11:15:19 – 00:11:16:22] with more money, of course,

[00:11:18:01 – 00:11:35:03] then we were like, we started up in the ante. Because when we first went to Ibiza in 94, we were living in like, a shithole in San Antonio. We didn’t have a lot of money. We were doing acid and like, we never bought coke. I think we bought one gram maybe, if we were lucky, if we had the money.

[00:11:36:11 – 00:11:40:14] What sort of happened is, as clockwork got bigger and bigger, and we started earning more money,

[00:11:41:15 – 00:11:55:18] then it become much more easy. Because it went from how many people going in on a– So when we started in 94, I think we were averaging four or 500, when we first started. 500 customers, paying customers. Yeah.

[00:11:56:18 – 00:12:06:01] By the time we were at full, well, we thought we were over full capacity, we were putting in like 3000 plus every week, from sort of like 97 onwards.

[00:12:07:03 – 00:13:07:09] It just went, it just grew and grew and grew. It blew up after we was on Ibiza Uncovered, in about 97, I think. Not sure the date, but as that, the first one was aired, it was aired on the end of August, the following week, we were like, double capacity. I mean, let’s think about this. You were young, you had money, you were in a club environment, and you’re full of hedonism and sexual thoughts, in a country with a sunny shining 300, God knows, days a year. I mean, that is a recipe for– Yeah, and we did, like I said, we didn’t give a shit, we were living, we lived life. I mean, God, I dread to think how much money we spent, because we just did whatever we wanted, whenever we wanted, and we spent fortunes, absolute fortunes. It was just rock and roll, basically. I tell people the stories now, and they say like, yeah, whatever mate, we would have known us from back in the day, and it just was crazy. So it manifested itself from just using it a little bit.

[00:13:08:15 – 00:13:23:16] Did it go to a on your own in the end, or how did that work for you? Yeah, I mean, so Clockwork Orange was running through the 90s, and most of that time it was in a group environment.

[00:13:24:21 – 00:13:29:08] So it was with Danny, or like, you know, in Ibiza, we were just mad off the parties.

[00:13:31:01 – 00:13:40:24] And then Clockwork kinda, he come to a natural end about 2003, and Danny was getting ready to go on his sobriety then. He’d had enough.

[00:13:42:10 – 00:15:35:02] Because let me understand this, I’m painting a picture. You’re inseparable at this point. You spent years going to Ibiza back and forth, you’ve built a business together, you’ve promoted clubs, you’ve had nights together, you’ve shed every substance under the sun together. And now your partner in crime has decided that for him, he’s decided to get sober and get clean. Well, no. So what happened was Danny was shot to bits, because he was literally, he was still, you know, when he came out of Clockwork, he was still taking drugs, but he couldn’t, I don’t know, he had his reasons. He just didn’t wanna do it no more. And it was subsiding a bit, because what started happening was, we had a big problem in Ibiza, where we had our logo trademarks without us knowing, we get there the following year to be told that you’re not allowed to use Clockwork Orange, it’s owned by someone else in Benadon. So literally we had to change the name of the night, and it killed it. So we had to go from Clockwork Orange, you had to come up with just a name that we could get away without getting infringements on trademarks. And it was called the Orange Summer of Love. People couldn’t connect with it, it just killed us. We’d gone from like, you know, two, 3000 people every week, back down to 500. And with the sort of caliber of DJs we were booking, we were losing money. And I think it done, Danny said it really did. But he was basically like off the rails, you know, he was bang on it all the time. He was getting, you know, he had a really bad car crash on drugs. He was just completely gone. And I think he was just like, I thought I’d do this no more. I didn’t know what, I didn’t think he really know what he wanted to do. And what were you like at this point? I think I was, I wasn’t as bad as Danny, but I just wanted to carry it on. But Danny had obviously hit that point then of being on his own. I think he was in that zone of doing it on his own. Whereas I kind of, that didn’t happen for me until the latter years.

[00:15:36:04 – 00:16:10:06] I mean, Clockwork was a, sorry, Clockwork was a big, I think that was a big thing when that was coming to an end. Cause we kind of knew it was coming. And obviously the thought of not doing it again, you know, I’d gone from basically DJing all over the world to all of a sudden the gigs were drying up a bit. Clockwork was crap. It was losing it. And it was like, what am I gonna do now? Sort of thing, you know? And that was a big sort of, I think that was a big point in my life when then the drug, the drugs moved on to the next level. That’s a very interesting combination. Cause if I look at that from a psychological standpoint,

[00:16:11:15 – 00:16:16:15] you’ve reached your career and it’s come to just the highest point you’ve ever achieved financially

[00:16:18:07 – 00:16:39:15] in your level of confidence, in your relationship with your best friend at that point. Everything has come to the absolute pinnacle. And now your partner has reached a point where he can’t cope anymore or deal with it, he’s burnt out and everything else has happened. The business is failing because of other things that have happened. And where he has now reached a point and decided,

[00:16:40:15 – 00:16:43:09] I’ve got to look for light at the end of the tunnel, if you want.

[00:16:44:10 – 00:17:09:15] You’re now moving on to using more on your own and now you’re using to escape the problems. Whereas he’s now thinking, I’ve reached a point where there is no escape from the problems. I have to confront the actual real problem. But now what you’ve done is you’ve developed this slower rate, right? So it’s taking you a longer burn to get there. And by the time you reach where he reached years before,

[00:17:11:17 – 00:17:26:18] you now use this to escape from all your problems and where you’re financially losing money and going down and can’t afford it, you’re now using to forget the problems that you are facing and to forget the fact I did have money and to forget the fact that I did have every single thing

[00:17:28:09 – 00:18:26:01] at my beck and call. And I did, I went from hero to zero. I went from basically running the biggest parties in Ibiza, like I said, DJing all over the world, to in a position where I was like, I literally haven’t got enough money to pay my mortgage this month. And then I had to go into laboring, started off as a laborer with my mates company. So you’ve come back to spend more time in the UK now. Ibiza’s gone. Ibiza’s done. Right, you’ve come back. So about 2004, I needed work basically because I didn’t have enough money to literally pay my bills because I said I’d gone from gigs, two gigs a week. And what was happening was the music was changing in the UK. So the garage and the progressive, the different sounds were coming in. What we were doing, which is kind of the happy house music, was just dying. We couldn’t move at a time because we were two basically fucked on drugs and didn’t really know what to do. So we just carried on doing what we did.

[00:18:27:02 – 00:18:34:10] And then before I knew it, I’m like, I’m not doing that anymore. And I’m now having to get up early every morning and go and work on a building site.

[00:18:35:13 – 00:18:43:20] So it’s probably a lot to do with what has happened here. What else have I got? Why shouldn’t I do this on a Friday or Saturday?

[00:18:44:21 – 00:18:55:22] Is that how it felt, right? Yeah, I mean, like I said, my drug taking wasn’t a daily thing. I was a weekend good time boy.

[00:18:56:24 – 00:19:24:21] And this weekend good time, what did that look like, Andy? In the days then, say in the 2000s, it probably would have been a night, like I did still do a bit of DJing, but what I would do is I’d go and do a gig and I’d get coke and I’d sniff here. And then I’d either try and go out somewhere after or I’d come home and I’d sit with a mate at that point and we’d sniff gear together.

[00:19:27:11 – 00:19:31:20] Then it just kind of gradually got worse.

[00:19:33:02 – 00:19:37:04] It was becoming a problem. Because this is what happens, right?

[00:19:38:11 – 00:20:00:17] You’re taking away all of the structure of your life. The moment it goes to at home on my own, you’re losing the environment of going out. You’re losing the friendship of going out. Friends that you do have left around, you’re probably friends that you use because you’re the only people you feel comfortable with because you don’t want to invite people over to jazz of an evening when you’re using and they don’t use. No, correct.

[00:20:01:18 – 00:20:35:04] That’s what’s happening. And your money’s reduced, your lack of confidence because you’ve lost things. You don’t feel good about yourself and your only escape is using. And while all that’s happening on one level, on the next level, the actual usage is taking your dopamine. You’re now not producing dopamine, right? Your receptors have turned down. The only time you feel good is when you use and human nature is I want to feel good. And so you go to look for your external use, right? That’s what happened.

[00:20:36:22 – 00:20:43:18] I mean, I’d spend my weekends were, you know, doing it, doing it, lack of sleep,

[00:20:44:19 – 00:20:55:22] hating myself, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, feeling a bit better Thursday, weekends here again. By that point, you know, definition of madness in it.

[00:20:56:23 – 00:21:13:06] Unfortunately, I know Danny always quotes that one. Doing the same thing over and over and over again. That is the very definition of madness expected. A different result yet getting the same result. Exactly that, exactly that. And then that continued on for how many years?

[00:21:14:07 – 00:22:42:11] So that was basically my life. You know, it wasn’t every weekend. It was, but like me being me, my problem is I am a greedy bastard and whenever I do anything, it’s excessive. So for me, when I take drugs, I take drugs quicker than most people do. I do more than most people do. And I want to stay up longer and later than everybody else. And that’s just unfortunately me. And I’ve always been the same. That was probably till about, so Cotwork was relaunched in 2010. By that point, Danny is completely clean and sober for a very long time, but I’m not. And now we’re back into Cotwork’s now becoming more popular over a course of two or three years. We were gradually growing and then it kind of just exploded again. And at this time, Danny’s clean, but you’re not. And you’ve been friends forever and you’ve done the IB through and you’ve done everything up to now. How did that change the dynamics of your relationship? I don’t think it did at all because Danny’s not a judgmental person. And he used to find me quite funny, I think, because we’ve had conversations so many times about I want to quit, because I’ve been saying it for years. And I can’t do this no more, but you always end up just going back on it. And Danny was like, he just sort of laugh at me and go, like, he could just see me in my life in a club. You’ve had a bit of thing, sort of thing. But he said to me one day, because I was, I mean,

[00:22:43:14 – 00:22:56:10] I’m trying to think the amount of times I’ve said to him, I want to quit, probably hundreds, you know? And I always ended up going back and doing it. And I remember him saying to me one day, when you’re ready, you will know. And I was like, what do you mean? He said, you’ll know.

[00:22:57:17 – 00:22:58:15] And he was right.

[00:22:59:18 – 00:23:20:19] It’s a really interesting thing watching you two. It really brings something home to me on a personal level because obviously for those who don’t know, Danny, I did the podcast with Danny just before Andy. So they know each other, their business partners known each other for years. And Andy was here when Danny was finishing his. And I watched the dynamics as Danny left. And what was really interesting was,

[00:23:22:06 – 00:23:28:06] me sitting here thinking about my friendship with my friends and my past, just for a second and thinking,

[00:23:29:12 – 00:24:35:06] wow, when you have a friend that you obviously have a lot of love for, he has a lot of love for you. And he’s been in that absolute mayhem. And what you want for your best friend is to, them to come out of the mayhem because you’ve got a lot of love for your friend. It must’ve been pretty challenging. Even though he was like, you know, Blaazzeh, and are you still doing a bit of cheering? You still there? It must’ve been quite difficult because when you have a lot of care for a friend, right? And you spend a lot of time together, you have to have that love and affection for a friend. It must be quite hard for him to have got through it and then him looking at you. Well, look, the latter years when we’ve relaunched clockwork, I’ve relied heavily on Danny. And I did piss him off a lot of the time because I had a lot of negativity around me. And the thing is, he was clean, but I wasn’t. And unfortunately, as we all know, come Monday morning when you’ve had a really heavy weekend, you don’t want to do anything, you’re negative, you’re this or that. And I think, I did mind, you know, don’t get me wrong, I pulled my weight,

[00:24:36:22 – 00:25:23:11] but I do remember there’s one time when I can’t remember, Danny wanted me to do a lineup and I was just literally putting up brick walls. I was like, oh no, you know, coming up and he just went out, he just said to me, if you don’t want to fucking do this, you need to make a decision because your attitude is just all wrong. You know what I mean? The way you can’t be bothered. And I was just like, fuck, you know, give me a kick up the ass for that day. But, you know, like I said, I think Danny pulled me along with him because I wasn’t unreliable, but I was on certain occasions. And unfortunately, when you’re addicted to drinking drugs and that, it’s just part of the course, isn’t it? Tell me down that dark place for you. Now, describe that to the listeners. My worst point, point.

[00:25:24:14 – 00:25:28:22] So my kind of dark days started,

[00:25:30:21 – 00:25:35:18] I was really bad around 18, 19.

[00:25:36:22 – 00:25:41:19] And I split up with my then wife

[00:25:42:20 – 00:25:46:21] in very early 20.

[00:25:50:11 – 00:26:03:20] I didn’t really know what, I mean, what came out of a lot of my therapy was I was very, very unhappy, but it wasn’t about anything. It was about me not dealing with some of my inner demons.

[00:26:04:21 – 00:26:18:12] But that was kind of the start of the real, the dark days. So obviously we split up in early 20. We went into lockdown in March in the 20. I’d moved in with my mate AJ.

[00:26:19:14 – 00:26:23:03] So I was living with him. All of a sudden we’re like,

[00:26:24:14 – 00:26:37:06] you know, my world again has completely collapsed because I’d gone from Clockwork Orange, DJ’ing every week, running all the parties, nothing’s on now. And it was like, fuck, you know. So what did we do?

[00:26:38:19 – 00:26:47:20] Started getting bang on it because we were bored. And we were like, my diet at that point consisted of pizza, wine and gear.

[00:26:48:20 – 00:27:01:11] And literally, I couldn’t tell you sometimes what day it was. It was that fucked up. We were literally just partying. There was that thing called House Party. I don’t remember that. And the apple was unblown up where everyone was online in different boxes.

[00:27:02:12 – 00:27:19:08] So it was just like parties were going on Tuesday night, Wednesday night, because no one’s got to get out of work. There was no like, it was just mad. You know, it was just, there was no sort of like patterns to anything at that point. It was like, you didn’t have to do anything. So, and then I,

[00:27:20:12 – 00:27:45:06] my mate had had enough of me, because again, I was a lunatic and I was ruining his kind of life. You know, because I just didn’t want to stop. I was like getting on it sometimes on my own and stuff. Then the big, the big change for me was, in the September of that year, I left AJ’s because he wanted me to go, because he just had enough of me. And I moved into a house in Barnet on my own.

[00:27:46:16 – 00:27:52:19] And that was, that was, that was it then. It was just, it just started becoming,

[00:27:55:00 – 00:28:00:02] it was easy because I was on my own. No one was watching me. Do what I wanted when I wanted.

[00:28:01:03 – 00:28:08:02] And that was when it started. I’d met my current partner Jade and I’d met her.

[00:28:10:07 – 00:28:12:09] So we were then sort of, you know, seeing each other.

[00:28:14:05 – 00:28:35:17] But I was just, you know, doing all the things that I could get away with doing, thinking I was clever and no one would know, but unfortunately, it’s there to see it. You’re lying, you’re deceitful, you know, I haven’t done it and stuff like that. And that was kind of when it started,

[00:28:36:22 – 00:28:39:00] like, you know, got bad.

[00:28:40:18 – 00:28:42:06] Bad is in, what does that look like?

[00:28:44:02 – 00:29:22:20] Well, and I, I’d call some, I’d get a bit of gear, it would be any day. I mean, I was coming in, I was actually working as well. So I’d asked my, I’d, because I was a site manager before Gary Cheek, who’s my old boss. And I’d reached out to him because I was like, going insane with just boredom. And I didn’t have anything to do. I had no sort of structure in my life. So I just said to Gary, “Gary, please, man, can you, you got any work? Cause I just need to get a little bit of routine in my life, you know, get a lot, any sort of, I’ll give you a job.” So I started working for him at Berkeley homes, you know, isn’t it? So as I was working, I was getting up for work,

[00:29:23:21 – 00:29:56:20] but my night would be, you know, get a bit, um, call you out, drinking wine, sniffing. And then it would like, What sort of quantity was talking? I mean, it could vary really, but I wasn’t a, like, see, I was never a person that would call on a lump. I was of get one, finish it, get another one. Did you think that that was going to be the only one? Of course you do. But you, it’s like sliding doors, isn’t it? I always say this, you know, I’d sit there and I’d be like, it’d be three o’clock in the morning. I’ve got to get up for work at seven.

[00:29:58:12 – 00:30:04:21] Your brain’s or you, not you, something’s telling you, “I’ve got to get up for work. I’ll just get one more.”

[00:30:06:22 – 00:30:13:05] And that was the start of my life. Just like, you know, whenever I should have like, not done it, I’ll call it a day.

[00:30:14:24 – 00:30:18:11] And so then I would end up paranoid.

[00:30:19:24 – 00:30:23:04] I would spend the night going up and down the stairs, looking in cupboards.

[00:30:24:14 – 00:30:43:11] Fucking crazy, really. I used to sit there with a telly on one, like one ear listened to the telly, which sounded like it was on about 50. And the other ear, I’m scanning for noises in the room. I’d, the radiator might go, go, I’d be, I mean, I mean, I would literally would, I would turn the house upside down and it is absolute. That is classic. Bonkers.

[00:30:44:15 – 00:31:57:06] It is bonkers. But if you look at the neurology of how the packet works, it’s not bonkers because what happens is over a period of using, your tolerance goes up, your quantity goes up, your frequency goes up, okay? Now imagine this, you have a neurotransmitter, dopamine, suddenly coming in at a vast quantity, more than your synaptic level, more than your brain can cope with at any given point, all right? And what it does is it overstimulates your brain. And there’s a point in your brain called the salience network, okay? Salient as in what’s important to you. And this part of your brain, when dopamine is overstimulating, produces too much, attaches meaning to the dopamine, okay? And the meaning that it attaches to the dopamine is always fear, doom, anxiety. So the very thing that you’re talking about is this, right? Because your quantity has gone up, because your frequency has gone up, because your tolerance has gone up and you have far more dopamine coming in, it’s setting off the neurons in your salience network that’s telling you this anxiety, this paranoia, this psychosis.

[00:31:58:12 – 00:32:14:03] And the only time you break is to do another line to go back to it. And so there’s a real neurology that’s the reason of why these things are happening. So what seems crazy is actually the substance you’re using is causing that.

[00:32:15:22 – 00:32:16:21] And the main thing is with it,

[00:32:18:06 – 00:32:23:07] it would taper off a bit. And then what do you go and do? Yeah, what do you do, Andy? Another one.

[00:32:24:20 – 00:32:25:17] And then you’re back in it again.

[00:32:27:18 – 00:32:27:24] Yes.

[00:32:29:18 – 00:32:53:22] Were there some of those classic paranoia things like looking at windows? What was– All the time. I mean, literally, I– Give me a list of the things that you would be commonly doing. I would, I would literally spend all night, like hours, going up and down the stairs, looking out the windows. I used to have this thing that there was people in cupboards.

[00:32:55:00 – 00:33:09:16] So I would open the cupboard and I would feel in it to make sure there’s no one in there. And I’d look under the bed. You used to have a gap under it, but that would be looking under it to see if there’s someone hiding under there. It’s just complete madness, total madness. One night, I got so paranoid

[00:33:10:17 – 00:33:14:11] that I thought someone was in the house. So I got in the car

[00:33:15:17 – 00:33:24:24] and I drove around my block for hours. I don’t know how long. Like driving past house, looking in the house, thinking I could see someone and then driving off again.

[00:33:26:02 – 00:33:36:08] It was just, it was relentless. And the thing was it became kind of a bit of a habit. So every time I did it, it was the same thing every time.

[00:33:37:11 – 00:33:46:12] And I would spend hours just thinking I hear something. The security light would go on. That would set me off. Someone’s outside creeping around the house.

[00:33:47:16 – 00:33:58:11] And that paranoia happened quicker and quicker the longer you used. Correct, yeah, it got more, it would be at the end of a night thing maybe.

[00:33:59:24 – 00:34:04:22] But then I noticed as well, I’d also have it, even when I was with other people.

[00:34:06:21 – 00:34:26:18] So when I was with other people, I’d do a bit. And then I’d start being a bit like looking at the curtains and with people got to that point. But like definitely the more, the latter years of use, it was much quicker. I would come on pretty much instantaneously, I think. Couple of lines, bosh, we’re in it.

[00:34:28:00 – 00:34:28:23] Let’s go and look in some cupboards.

[00:34:30:05 – 00:34:38:21] And, but the next time you go to use again, before you’ve made the call, you’ve not thought about that. Not at all. Didn’t give a shit.

[00:34:40:08 – 00:35:12:04] At that point, I didn’t care. It was just like, you know, there wasn’t, the thing is with Coke, it’s a funny one, isn’t it? Because it tells you like, you know, like, oh yeah, don’t, and that’s the thing, once you get to that point when you’re on your own, when you cross that line and you really wanna be on your own, you don’t wanna be with anyone, you wanna be on your own. And I think it tells you that, oh, it’s all good, you got me, don’t need anyone else, don’t worry about, and that’s the thing with it, it’s just awful. It’s like being in a bad relationship with the wrong partner. Yeah, correct. And it makes you think that all the real good people are gonna be in your life, you don’t need them.

[00:35:14:08 – 00:35:17:21] And this negative consequences,

[00:35:19:08 – 00:35:27:02] that began to become more and more frequent to a point where clearly you reached a point where you decide, I need to do something about it. Yeah, so– So what does the end look like before you got there?

[00:35:28:21 – 00:35:29:01] So,

[00:35:30:24 – 00:35:31:12] Matt Jade,

[00:35:35:08 – 00:35:46:11] we was sort of like, you know, dating, seeing each other. I was still living in Barnet, but what was happening was that she was kind of like,

[00:35:47:11 – 00:35:56:03] look, I don’t care if you do drugs, but just be honest with me, because you’re just a lying CUNT, you know what I mean? And the problem was, I had this really,

[00:35:57:20 – 00:36:23:02] a problem where I couldn’t be honest about anything, just lies and deceit, and I would swear blind, I hadn’t done it. And what would happen is, if she said to me, I would explode, just deflection, you know? I’m fucking done here. And so that was kind of, that was the next few years. So in, I moved in with late 21.

[00:36:24:17 – 00:36:28:15] And it was just sort of like,

[00:36:29:22 – 00:37:09:10] what was happening was, well, my mental state was absolutely shot to bits. So what would happen is, I was, I kind of got into this habit, which I’d done my whole adult life, I did it with my ex, and it was this mental torture that I would put people under, when I’m like, you know, loathing, and I’m feeling shit about myself, which let’s face it, was pretty much all the time. So what I would do is I would attack her mentally with things that I knew would piss her off. There was no rhyme or reason for it, and I’ll keep on doing it. And she’d warned me time and time again, “If you carry on doing this to me, we’re gonna end.”

[00:37:10:12 – 00:37:16:22] But you think you’ve always got that final chance in you, then you ask, “You carry on, you carry on doing it.” And then the final straw was,

[00:37:18:20 – 00:37:33:22] we went to, we had a holiday, we’d had Christmas. Now this Christmas was the first year that I dreamt for this. I wanted to get my two eldest kids from my parents’ marriage, they’d never come stay with me at Christmas in Birmingham. So I had my, Ali and Alex down, my son and daughter,

[00:37:35:06 – 00:37:43:09] or daughter and son, I should say, said it round, my parents, and it was just all I’d wanted for Christmas. I went in my whole family under one roof,

[00:37:44:14 – 00:38:06:01] but what I’d been doing through the whole time they were there was using. Now there was parties going on, there was this, that, but I was doing my sneaky bit. So I was, I’d be like, “To Jade, “I shall get some gear.” And she’s like, “Yeah, get a bit anyway.” But I’d take, I’d get like maybe one bag, which would be for everyone to have a little bit. I’d be buying two or three that were in my pocket.

[00:38:07:05 – 00:38:23:23] And that’s the problem. So I’m going around doing a line with them, then I’m sneaking toilets and I’m having another line. So obviously I’m, but what, so what happened was we went away to Belgium and it started off okay to trip. Then my mind started playing tricks on me. I started getting pissed off of what I’d done over Christmas.

[00:38:25:00 – 00:38:31:06] Started loathing, you know, self-pity, you know, you’re wrong and you got stopped, da, da, da, da. Then I started taking out Jade.

[00:38:32:15 – 00:39:09:14] So I started my usual mind games, got in the up with something. I think that we even had a railway, but she wanted to watch a film and I didn’t want to watch it. So, and it was just built, it was building and building and building. Then we had an argument about something on the plane. I made a cry, you know what I mean? I said something, didn’t get my shit out of coffee, you know what I mean, whatever. And then the kind of final straw was, it’s the New Year’s Eve. I’d, because I did stop. So I should go back. I did stop, I had a period where I stopped drinking for about three or four months. And I didn’t take any drugs for probably about nine months.

[00:39:10:21 – 00:39:23:16] And you slowly just slip back into it. And then I just ended up back at the same point. And I will come back to that because I just tell them to finish the story. So New Year’s Eve, I wasn’t drinking.

[00:39:25:03 – 00:39:33:06] So went round, we had a rugby, we had a party at our rugby club. Gets in there, straight on the Guinness, smashing points.

[00:39:35:16 – 00:39:38:19] Let’s get some gear. Fuck it, you know what I mean? Might as well.

[00:39:39:24 – 00:39:42:14] Pissed off now, got the hump, got the hump. So what do you do when you got the hump?

[00:39:43:17 – 00:40:04:23] Get on it, didn’t you? You’re happy, you get on it, you know, you’re celebrating, you get on it, you’re sad, you get on it. So I called on some gear, did it, got paranoid about. We went round our neighbours when I weren’t feeling it. It was getting a bit para. Went home, wanted her to come home with me, but she didn’t. So went home.

[00:40:07:09 – 00:40:35:13] My pattern is, this is the thing, my pattern is always the same. So I might start off doing a couple of lines, but what will end up, this is always what I realised at the end of it. The pattern is always the same. It starts off with drink, drugs, more drugs, and then because I’m smashed to bits, vodka. And I got home, I was like smashed, paranoid, dissed at, got a bottle of vodka, pretty much drunk the whole lot.

[00:40:37:03 – 00:41:01:24] Then I’m like, where the fuck are you to Jade? I’m messaging her, nasty messages, da da da da da. Think I even locked the door so she couldn’t get in. Still this just stupid shit that you do. Anyway, she’s come knocking on the door, I’ve opened the door, we’ve ended up having a massive row. Fell asleep, passed out, woke up the next day, and I was just like, couldn’t really remember, but I know it was bad.

[00:41:03:06 – 00:41:21:22] Sort of kind of knew what was coming. So I thought, I’ve used up on my tokens. But I just sat in the front room on my own before she got out of bed, and I just literally sat in, I was like, I can’t do this shit no more. It’s gonna kill me. I’m ruining absolutely everything.

[00:41:23:11 – 00:41:33:24] And that was the start of it. She came down the stairs and she was like, I love you, but I can’t be with you. You are just too much, you’re really not happy.

[00:41:35:06 – 00:41:39:04] And she was right, you know, and I wasn’t happy.

[00:41:40:05 – 00:41:43:02] So that was the kind of rock bottom.

[00:41:44:07 – 00:41:46:10] And that was it really, that was the start of the journey.

[00:41:48:21 – 00:41:51:00] Two years almost. Yeah, coming up.

[00:41:53:23 – 00:41:54:16] What’s different now?

[00:41:55:24 – 00:41:59:16] So, I mean, I went away from,

[00:42:00:16 – 00:42:06:11] so like we’d split up and she said to me that we’d never get back together.

[00:42:07:11 – 00:43:09:03] And so I kind of think, I’d kind of, well, I said I’d accepted it, but I hadn’t. And I think part of me wanted to go away and prove to her that I could do it. But for the first time, I actually wanted to do it for me and not to appease other people, which was the big, the big thing for this, because I’d spent so much time promising to everyone else and letting them down. You know, like, I mean, the times I’ve told her, babe, I won’t, again, I promise, I’ll get help, I’ll do this. But I was like, oh, you’ve got this, you know, you don’t need help, you don’t need help. So for the first time, I think I’d accepted that I actually wanted help and I needed help. And that was the big catalyst for the difference in– Massive step, massive step. There’s a difference between being denial, thinking that I can deal with this. I mean, people would underestimate this substance, you know, it changes your whole psychology, your whole neurology, your whole biology, you know, it’s massive. Yeah, yeah. And so I moved into my mum’s.

[00:43:11:02 – 00:43:18:08] I was, right, but I didn’t know what I wanted to do. I was like a week sober.

[00:43:19:09 – 00:43:39:02] Didn’t want to drink, convicted of anything worse, you know, taking drugs. And I literally was like, the thought of it just made me feel physically sick. And I remember it was a Sunday morning and I was like, moping about the house, like didn’t know what to do. And I just run a blocko. I just said, “But I can’t need help.” For those who don’t know this, DJ Brandon Block.

[00:43:40:10 – 00:44:51:07] Now bring me and Brandon, go back for many, many, many, many years. I’ve known Brandon for 35 years. And he’s been in the same boat with me. Brandon, I want to stop, da, da, da, da, da. And he said, “What’s the matter?” And I said, “I told him the story.” And I said, “I just don’t know what to do.” I said, “I am fucked, my head. I’m so angry. I’m so defensive all the time.” And he said, “I’m going to put you in touch with a friend of mine called Sean McNicholas, who’s ADHD and a behavioral expert.” Come on on to, excellent. Yeah, it comes on to what I wanted to discuss. So Sean rings me up and he said, “Right, tell me your story.” And I just explained to him what had happened. And he went, “I’m going to stop you now.” He said, “Basically, what you’ve just told me is basically you’ve described me, my life.” And the thing is, Sean’s the first man, I’ve had therapy before, but never with someone who actually gets me. Someone who understands it. Someone who’s been there. And he’s seen whatever I’d done, he’d done it. Yeah. And that was the thing. And he took me on this mad journey of, you know, a lot of therapy. And it was getting into me and my, you know, because I had a lot of anger issues. I was very defensive.

[00:44:52:17 – 00:45:10:23] And it came into like, you know, things that had happened in my childhood that I’d dealt with. And he just taught me about this kind of to learn about understanding me. And the problem I have is when someone says something to me, if I take it as an attack,

[00:45:12:01 – 00:45:15:20] I don’t listen to what they’ve said. And I overtake it as fight or flight.

[00:45:16:22 – 00:46:07:21] But if I don’t think, if I think they’re having a pop at me, I’ll just go straight at it. And it’s like, he was saying, an observation like my mum said to me, well, you’re doing this part, do you think it’s going to be busy? And I remember going, so what’s your fucking means it’s going to be busy? Of course it is. Offensive. Straight away. She didn’t say it’s going to be crap, but I take it as an attack. It’s a protective mechanism. And I had to learn about, stop what you’re doing, listen to what they’ve actually said, and analyze it because you’re just going bang, bang. It’s interesting. I don’t mean to cut you off, but it’s interesting because we had a 10, 15 minute chat on the phone yesterday before today’s podcast, just to get an understanding of your background. It was really clear to me because, first of all, 70% of my patients have ADHD. It is a fact that people who have an addiction to the packet, to gear,

[00:46:08:22 – 00:47:19:03] have a higher propensity to have ADHD because their brain is full of chaos and it creates calmness. There’s a whole host of different reasons why people with ADHD, they produce less dopamine, therefore they’re more susceptible to using the packet because the cat packet creates dopamine, which they’re in a deficit of, and they feel bored without it because dopamine is that chemical, it’s a bit like an accelerator of a car that tells you to move forward and go and seek something. So boredom is created without dopamine in your system. And when we spoke on the phone, it was just, it rang so clearly within minutes. I mean, it’s about for 10, 15 minutes. Within a few seconds, it was like how you behaved at school and then your thought process and unruly, we like to be the kid who made all the jokes, the fun kid in the class, but deep down, the fact of what you were struggling in your life, you became fascinated with music. Music is quite a personal thing, it allows you to focus your concentration. You found a passion in playing a guitar, often a great structure for people with ADHD.

[00:47:20:07 – 00:47:27:23] And you also realize that you said a couple of things along the lines of there was no structure in my life, structure is probably one of the number one things to dealing with any addiction.

[00:47:29:08 – 00:47:31:14] And you were so classic ADHD.

[00:47:32:15 – 00:48:26:11] And what I get from all this is you went somewhere and this chap looked at you on a personal level. He didn’t try and create a formula and fix you to a formula, which is often what happens when you go to meetings. The meetings are, these are the steps, this is the formula and you fit to that formula. But what you got and which is the best, which is why I always say to people, you can’t give everybody the same thing, you have to look at an individual basis. And that’s exactly what happened to you. That was the breakthrough you got. I mean, I did go to meetings as well. Yeah, no, I know. And they were really, really, really. There’s nothing wrong with supporting and being in that environment. If you feel that you require that, what I feel is people who do it for long term and years later are substituting one addiction to another. When I went, I needed to,

[00:48:27:16 – 00:48:29:19] because what I discovered with it was that

[00:48:30:24 – 00:48:33:06] I was listening to other people.

[00:48:34:11 – 00:48:40:24] It gave me a lot of solace, you know, that right word to use, but where I was literally like, people were speaking about things.

[00:48:42:05 – 00:48:45:05] I’m like, what did you just say? And it was like, it was me.

[00:48:46:05 – 00:49:24:03] My words are coming out of their mouth. They were similar identities. And it made me actually realise that I’m not the only one. Because I did just, I thought I was wrong. You were an absolute wrong. You can’t seem to conduct yourself and go through your life without causing hurt to everyone and doing what you do. But it made me understand that it is an illness. And there’s a lot of bloody people out there that think and act the same way that I do. But what started happening was with the AIO, when I, I don’t know, I just got to a certain point where I don’t really think I needed to listen to it anymore. Does that make sense?

[00:49:26:01 – 00:49:26:18] Because I felt like,

[00:49:28:09 – 00:49:50:18] I was kind of, I’m cured, because you’re never cured, but I just felt like the- You’d taken what you needed from it. Yeah, it was like, yeah, I used it to- That’s a different thing. I agree with that. Get what I needed. Yeah, absolutely. You got to use what you need for that moment in time, but realize that you’re still growing and you need to move forward. So what do you do for stretching your life now, Andy?

[00:49:52:01 – 00:49:53:12] Well, look, I’m obviously

[00:49:55:09 – 00:49:55:24] clockwork orange.

[00:49:57:03 – 00:50:01:17] We’re very lucky that we don’t have to go and sit in an office and do what we do. It can be done from phones.

[00:50:03:03 – 00:50:07:02] So, just like, you know, doing clockwork.

[00:50:08:11 – 00:50:24:15] I’ve started doing trading, actually. Not very bloody good at it, though, but that’s something else I’m trying to get into. So that’s kind of, that’s a game, that’s a classic ADHD. I’m literally on these charts watching them all day. Interesting trading. Let’s just think about this for a minute. No, I’m ridiculous, isn’t it?

[00:50:25:20 – 00:51:25:06] (Laughing) Trading is one of the highest dopamine rushes that you can get. Oh, no, I know. Because when you, trading is a gambling forfeit, right? So let’s think about this concept, right? I’m not saying it’s a trade or not trade, by the way. But I’m just putting it in psychological terms. When you trade, there is the potential of making money. I know. There is also the potential of losing money, right? So therefore, it’s no different to gambling. And the thing about gambling is this. It sets off huge surges of dopamine because it’s the anticipation of perhaps winning that creates dopamine. It’s the winning that creates dopamine, and it’s the losing that creates the next chase to get dopamine to gamble again. So you just have to be aware. We’ve been through some fair processions on it. As long as you’re aware and you’re here with me, I thought I’d give you some free advice. I’m learning, I’m trying not to. There’s a difference between learning- I get exactly what you’ve just said there. There is a big difference between learning the structure and understanding and gambling. Spunking all your money.

[00:51:26:10 – 00:51:26:16] Yeah.

[00:51:27:18 – 00:51:49:20] Andy, listen, two years almost clean. When are you two years clean? On New Year’s Day. New Year’s Day. So obviously it’ll come about after the New Year’s Eve. Of course. The New Year’s resolution, the waking up the next day, but two years coming up this New Year’s Day. Andy, I really appreciate you being here today. Thank you for coming clean with me. Andy Manston, thank you. Thanks a lot.