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[00:00:00:02 – 00:00:55:02] Today’s guest is a man who became one of the defining faces of British club culture. From a tough upbringing in Essex to co-founding Clockwork Orange. This is the Clockwork Orange RB for 2016 Clock commentary. And in 1997, as one of the stars of Ibiza Uncovered on Sky One, he became the face of a movement. About eight years old I got drunk. My mum left me alone. She said there’s three green cans. You are not to touch. The more successful you are, the more you party. Seven nights a week. As the parties grew, we soldered the addiction. We didn’t earn no money in 96. We spent it all on my pay. When you still had money, did your usage also go to using on your own? I’d arrange it so that I was on my own. Clean the flat. Bang the gram. Sitting there so paranoid. I’d have the windows open. I’d have to go to the toilet to crawl on my hands and knees. Thinking, “I’m fine now. That is wrong.” What year were you at? 2003. I haven’t drunk since.

[00:00:56:04 – 00:00:59:06] How many years you’ve been clean? 22. That’s my proudest achievement.

[00:00:59:06 – 00:01:06:02] Elliot Ward, what? Addiction specialist, you’ve become a happy queen with me.

[00:01:07:24 – 00:02:15:07] Hello and welcome to another episode of “Coming Clean With Me.” My name is Elliot Ward, addiction specialist, and today’s guest is a man who became one of the defining faces of British club culture. From a tough upbringing in Essex, to co-founding clockwork orange, Danny Gould helped shaped an era. And in 1997, as one of the stars of Ibiza uncovered on Sky One, he became the face of a movement. That documentary didn’t just capture the scene. It fueled it. Catapulting Danny and the Ibiza night club, culture into national recognition. But behind the fame, the chaos, and the relentless partying was a life spiraling deep into addiction. Please welcome Danny. Yay, how you doing Danny? Thank you for joining us. We got you in the end. We did, I had to do that twice. Three times. Thank you. No one would know that except for you. I did do that three times. So Danny, listen, thank you for coming and sharing today with everybody listening. Let’s start by talking about your upbringing.

[00:02:17:05 – 00:02:21:05] Growing up in Essex, family life, what do you think of the background context for the listeners?

[00:02:23:05 – 00:02:26:07] Grew up in Chabal Heath, Essex.

[00:02:27:20 – 00:02:41:20] The nice enough street, nice enough people. Me and my mum was like, there was a poorer family at the bottom, single parent mum with a son. And then me and my mum. But then the block of flats that we lived in,

[00:02:42:23 – 00:03:01:00] they were socializing. It was half of it was socializing, half of it was, it was like people who lived there. I can still remember the old people. We had Ron and Rose, Marge and Pete, and Stephen and Peggy down at the bottom. Stephen and Peggy, I was just a nick their milk. And my mum used to tell me that we ain’t got no milk, go and get some milk. So I was just going to nick their milk, come banging on the door.

[00:03:03:06 – 00:03:12:09] All the other families down there, they were nice families, like two boys or one girl, or brothers and sisters, blah, blah, blah. Mum was alcoholic.

[00:03:13:23 – 00:03:21:00] I had no dad, nanny and granddad were my go-to. Kind of like a support kind of thing.

[00:03:22:06 – 00:03:39:01] And that was it really. And it’s only from that growing up, what that created when I was later on, what it caused the problems with me. I’ll tell you about that later on. But it was just a different time, wasn’t it? The 70s and the 80s and you know. What was school like?

[00:03:40:04 – 00:03:40:24] School, junior school.

[00:03:43:10 – 00:03:47:16] I don’t remember being too naughty at junior school, but I probably was.

[00:03:48:19 – 00:03:52:19] And then, but when I got into higher school, when I got into higher school, I think it’s probably when the,

[00:03:54:24 – 00:04:02:05] when all the problems started, all the problems came out. You know, mum’s drinking, getting worse,

[00:04:03:15 – 00:04:20:10] no money, you know, like all that. To put in context of no money, because we had a short conversation on the phone before the recording. When you put in context of no money for the listeners, what does that actually mean? No money for the meter. So literally like, you know, you broke the lock off the meter, the electric meter,

[00:04:21:15 – 00:04:32:02] and she’d cut that off. So then you just put the same fucking 50p back through and then they come and then you get in trouble and they put another thingy back on the man. And then when it run out, it run out and you had no electric for it.

[00:04:33:07 – 00:04:45:00] Trousers with holes in, shoes. Some guy said to me, I went to golf in Portugal and he said to me, he said when you was a kid, I said, “Sorry for you, I was shit you had.” So he’s shit associated with that, you know, like secondhand fucking shoes that were too small.

[00:04:47:11 – 00:05:15:12] Other kids, what they got that you didn’t get or in families probably handed down. So they might’ve got a bike, but it was their brothers before. Anyway, when I was older, I discovered it. My nanny and granddad who bought me this stuff and my auntie told me seven or eight years ago, if it wouldn’t have been for nanny and granddad, you wouldn’t have had that fucking Christmas presents because they bought me, you know what I mean? My mom’s money went on drink and we had food.

[00:05:16:16 – 00:05:31:24] And not a lot of it, I’ve said it before and I wrote a book and then I put like, you know, you go in the cupboard when I was a kid and all there was was dried spaghetti. So you fucking had dried spaghetti, that was it. Or if it was summer, you went out and apples off a tree.

[00:05:33:07 – 00:05:39:12] Learn how to survive basically, you know what I mean? Later and get starving hungry, but like yeah, mom never had no money.

[00:05:40:22 – 00:06:06:08] Remember once I think with my granddad passed away, I was giving him 50 quid. I was a fucking millionaire. My daughter spends that now on Deliveroo on one thing. She does that three times a week, she’s only 15. Do you know what I mean? The difference, the difference in what she’s provided with and what I wasn’t provided with. But then there was also that lack of emotion and lack of, because my mom, oh your mom had an illness.

[00:06:08:21 – 00:06:20:10] What she was going for, and I was thinking about this in the car on the way up, I don’t ever remember being like cuddled or fucking ill. Do you know what I mean? She did probably, and in a way tried to love me.

[00:06:22:16 – 00:06:49:18] Yeah, it was a different time, 70s and 80s. I’d just go out and then come back, go out at like eight o’clock in the morning when I woke up and remember once I’d come around the streets in the dark in the summer, crying her eyes out, thinking I’d been fucking abducted and then family planning someone’s front guard and I was about eight years old. Just been gone for like 15 hours. She was probably only awake for about five hours at him because she’d been drunk and passed out. This was a normal thing to go home to?

[00:06:50:23 – 00:07:32:09] Not to go home to, to wake up to or to experience. Yeah, if she used to hide the key, sometimes not always under her mattress so I couldn’t get out so she knew I was there. But I knew it was under the bed. So like I was saying this a little while ago. So she was asleep there and her face was looking at me and I’m like right down on her face like that. I put my hand under the bed and I find out and then just like basically bring it back out again and I got the key. I’m gonna fucking go out and slap the door. But I never used to have a key to get back in or my mum used to leave it unlocked because I could put my arm through the door and flick the handle with my arm because I was young. As I got older I couldn’t do it because my arm got a bit bigger.

[00:07:34:14 – 00:07:50:23] So yeah, I still let myself in and out with the thing because my mum, when she had work, just used to leave me alone on my own. Like five, six, seven, eight, definitely from eight years old. Yeah, just go out for the day and just leave me. Do you know what I mean? Never knowing when she’s coming back.

[00:07:52:05 – 00:07:55:07] And then after school, what happened after leaving school?

[00:07:58:05 – 00:07:59:11] I got a job.

[00:08:01:02 – 00:08:34:00] My first job was on the markets. Done that for a while, enjoyed that. Thought I was full of confidence until the man on a Sunday, a guy called Jeff, he went, now you can shout at the shirts. Like where you can tell, “Three for a tenner, three for a tenner, blah, blah, blah.” Mate, it scared life out of me. I was like, “Oh my God.” But once I did it, I thought, “I fucking loved it.” I cannot do it now. He wouldn’t do it all the time. If you want, just keep shouting. Do you think that was your grounding for what was to come later with the club promoting? No, it was just like that was my first job and having, I had always had confidence and I wasn’t lacking in confidence.

[00:08:35:18 – 00:08:56:22] Even in junior school, they said, “Oh, we want you to be the in-keeper.” So I went, “Oh, I want you to shout.” And the school teacher, Mr. Slatter, the headmaster, kids were being all noisy. And he just looked at me and he went, “You’ve got big mouth.” He went, “Tell him to shut up.” And I went, “Shut up.” So it was always loud or outgoing, but probably as a result of whatever.

[00:08:59:01 – 00:09:12:10] Then I worked in a place that made saddles and provided equestrian stuff for the industry. And they had a shop in Bond Street, Champion and Wilton’s and Giddens.

[00:09:13:23 – 00:09:24:07] That was all right. In fact, I lasted about six months. And in 1989, I worked in the greengrocers. That was fun. It was like the 80s, the end of the 80s. I’ve been doing that since I was 14.

[00:09:25:08 – 00:09:28:17] And we moved, we moved to my old school when I was,

[00:09:29:24 – 00:09:46:04] when I was 13, 14, when my brother was born. I was near to where my dad lives. I started thinking about it on the way up. I’ve been working for 40 years, 40 years. When you say that, I feel like it makes me fucking old. Do you know what I mean? 40 years I’ve been working.

[00:09:47:11 – 00:09:50:02] And then I worked in like the greengrocers, loved that.

[00:09:51:08 – 00:10:01:04] Remember going out all night, one night on acid and going to work next day. Before we go down the acid trip, at what age did you start getting into drinking, using?

[00:10:02:09 – 00:10:21:04] Swore I’d never drink because of my mum. Okay, makes sense. But I, eight years old, I got drunk on three cans of lager because the reason why is that my mum left me alone to watch the 1980 Cup final, West Ham and Arsenal. And she, she went, look, I’ve got to go out. Eight years old.

[00:10:22:09 – 00:10:42:05] There’s a cheese sandwich. Always remember it, big thick white bread, big, big bit of cheese, probably about half thick. I don’t think there was two or three, there was one. And maybe, I don’t know if there was anything else apart from that. She said, there’s three green cans at the back of the fridge. You are not to touch them, do not. You know what I mean? In there it’s like, do not, you fucking go, do not, you go.

[00:10:43:06 – 00:10:46:03] I had the cheese sandwich, watching the football, I had one. I was like, ooh.

[00:10:47:15 – 00:10:54:22] I mean, I had the next one, three cans of lanyard, which come out, I was pissed. I can remember coming in, eight years old.

[00:10:57:07 – 00:11:11:06] 12, I think I started on aerosols, never done the weed. Never done the weed, or, because my mum was smoking, every smoker. I’d never wanted to smoke. I only started probably smoking, when I gave up drinking.

[00:11:14:13 – 00:11:21:21] Yeah, done aerosols, and then drinking from like 14, the nightclubs, we’ve got the 16, 17 year olds,

[00:11:23:05 – 00:11:34:05] wearing my school tie to fucking get into Hollywood on a Tuesday or a Thursday, 14, 15 years of old age. I’ve got no money, standing at a spare thing at a wedding.

[00:11:35:08 – 00:11:42:22] Everyone’s having a good time, and you’re just like, what am I doing here? I’ve got a bit of school in the morning. Just to fold about two or three pints, trying to act older than what I was.

[00:11:44:02 – 00:11:59:21] And then the reason why the drugs and the drink got more is as clockwork progressed, and we got– For those of listeners who weren’t in that generation, explain how you got into clockwork, what clockwork was.

[00:12:01:19 – 00:12:13:07] Andy asked me, my partner Andy, Andy Menston, at the time I met him and he said, I was like, what, 20? Yeah, I was 20. He said, “Do you wanna do a pie?” Nah, nah.

[00:12:14:12 – 00:12:25:14] And he said, “Come and we’ll do a pie.” So I did it, and from the first one I enjoyed it. When you say do a pie, what does that entail? Hold a pie. I’m stuck in a venue like this. In them days you printed the flyers.

[00:12:26:14 – 00:12:44:04] So the internet hadn’t even been invented. That’s how fucking mad that is. That’s how old– I know I look young, but I’m actually older than you. Yeah, I know, but any kids who watch it, like, you must have played the internet. They just laugh at you now. I realise that I’m actually starting to speak a language that kids just don’t understand. I have become my nan.

[00:12:45:10 – 00:12:50:21] No, I’ve become my nan. When my nan used to talk about the war and shit like that, you didn’t understand it. Let’s not go down that path.

[00:12:52:06 – 00:13:10:08] So you were promoting this, clockwork? Yeah, flyers, posters, and it grew. And the reason why it grew is that we took it to Ibiza in 1994. Again, Andy said, “I think we should take it to Ibiza.” Oh, no, no, no, no, no. And he contacted them. They gave us a Wednesday.

[00:13:11:09 – 00:13:18:15] There was a busy night on a Tuesday and a Thursday that I always used to go to, or a busy-ish night. And we started on a Wednesday, 1994.

[00:13:19:15 – 00:13:20:16] And then when we came back,

[00:13:22:06 – 00:13:38:15] because we was only London before 1994, and we’d done parties in Ibiza, and that was a nation, national thing, all of a sudden, we came back and was like, “Fuck hell.” It’d gone from to like that, do you know what I mean? Like packed, queues down the road.

[00:13:39:23 – 00:13:59:09] And that’s how it progressed. And it got bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. We started earning and earning, and then more were doing more and more like drugs and drinking more. Because 97, 96, you were on Ibiza. 97. 97. How did that shotgun your business?

[00:14:00:19 – 00:14:05:14] They filmed it in July, and I think they filmed it in July.

[00:14:07:00 – 00:14:08:13] Yeah, July 1997.

[00:14:10:03 – 00:14:23:23] Late June, early July. And then it came out in August. And then in September, as a result of that, and then when it came out in September, we broke the record in S-Paradease of like 2,500 paying people.

[00:14:26:11 – 00:14:33:23] 1998, that was 1997, and we’d achieved that goal. That was held by Appneur Onsen in 1995.

[00:14:35:07 – 00:14:50:11] 1998, every week, it broke the record, 2,500, 2,700, 2,700, 2,900, 2,900, 3,100, 3,200, went up to 3,600 people. It was like madness. That was double the capacity of the club.

[00:14:51:11 – 00:15:04:02] Double the capacity. Say this is like 300, you had 600. Do you know what I mean? It was like that, but the atmospheres were unreal. It was all, it was madness. It was still packed at like six, seven o’clock in the morning.

[00:15:05:02 – 00:15:38:09] The cleaners would literally be like queuing up to like get in, like waiting on the outside by the bar with their buckets and all things like that, and the manager was like, “Oh fuck, so I gotta turn this off.” And he catapulted us, but that was 1998, but in 1999, more competition arrived on the island, and it went like that. So we got to our pinnacle in 1998, and in 1999 I said it was the last great year for us. And how did that all trans? Now tell me about your rise and fall of using. How did that correlate to your success, and then what happened after that?

[00:15:40:16 – 00:15:57:14] As you earn more, you do more. The more successful you are, the more you party. We did, because like undiagnosed, unknowing of what you are, but then we had the flavor. You know what I mean? We had the flavor, you wanted to do more peels. We went out seven nights a week, nearly enough seven nights a week.

[00:15:59:08 – 00:16:15:19] And as you grew, as we grew, or as the parties grew, so did the addiction, but then when it came crashing to an end for me, I left in 2001, because I was working on projects for six months and I earned my money, so I had to get out and start again as a site laborer.

[00:16:18:02 – 00:16:43:06] But then the addiction still carried on, smoking weed every night, you know, whenever I could afford code. I basically lost all my money. I just spent a long time drinking. Before we get to the losing the money, how did it look in terms of the quantity of your usage? I know you said seven nights a week, but in terms of using the packet, or nasal ingestion if you know what, whatever word you want to use, how did that start? What was the worst it got to?

[00:16:44:22 – 00:16:45:20] And what did that look like?

[00:16:48:16 – 00:16:51:05] It started because someone said to me,

[00:16:52:09 – 00:17:00:03] he said, “What are you buying 10 pills for?” He said, “Why don’t you just get a gram of gear?” And he’s like, “Oh.” And we trot, cocaine was never my friend.

[00:17:01:09 – 00:17:02:22] Never, from the minute off.

[00:17:03:22 – 00:17:24:11] Pills you could have a laugh on and be a bit, whatever, and dance and still talk to, but cocaine did the reverse of me. Maybe that’s like, you might know better than me, like for the psychological shit from when I was a kid, how it affected me different. Didn’t give me, I had confidence. I was outgoing. I weren’t scared to talk to people.

[00:17:25:12 – 00:17:43:11] But it totally made me the opposite. In the end, it made me want to just sit indoors and do it on my own. Then I was a pizza on my own. Can I ask you a question? When you first started doing it, I know you were in that environment of those clubs and those scenes, and that does have an effect. When you first started doing a line or a few lines,

[00:17:44:13 – 00:17:55:24] you said it didn’t have that effect of pills. Did it make things seem calm? No, things were moved ahead rough. erratic, or paranoid, self-conscious. And how quickly did paranoia set in?

[00:17:57:15 – 00:18:05:19] I think the paranoia or that kind of uneasy come from the withdrawal to start with, because we weren’t buying loads.

[00:18:06:20 – 00:18:16:12] Then we was buying loads and doing it for days. After every clockwork in 97 and 98, we had an ounce waiting for us when we got back. And then we’d party.

[00:18:17:23 – 00:18:29:21] That was for you to share with- Yeah, with friends and stuff like that. Normally the people who fucking sold it to us in the first place, that’s the irony of it. He’d sell it to us for whatever, and he’d sit there and sniff it with us. I was so fucking thick, I was just like, yay!

[00:18:30:24 – 00:18:32:11] People pleasing, giving it all away.

[00:18:33:19 – 00:18:45:17] There’s a fucking story about some left, but I’ll leave that for later. Don’t tell me that now. Well, a guy, when we came back one night, and a kid used to work for me, Mosquier was his nickname, his name.

[00:18:47:02 – 00:19:02:22] And he went, “We’d done it the night before, “then we handed it all over, “then we’d gone to sleep and we’d gone out, “and then there was still some left, “and we’d come back.” And I went, “Oh, I must have all gone.” And he went, and he worked for me as my right hand man, little, little guy. He went, “I think you should ask Chris.”

[00:19:05:16 – 00:20:13:22] (Knocking) Chris, are you awake? He went, “What’s up, mate?” I went, “You ain’t seen the bugle, have you?” He went, “No, mate.” He said, “I haven’t seen it.” He went, “You’ve been like that.” I went, “Didn’t think nothing of it.” Went back out, and so I went to me. He fucking lied to you. He went, “I know it.” He went, “I can sense it.” Because I used to teach you mad shit. I said, “I can sense that.” And he went, “I can sense it.” Because he said it, he got it in my head. Get the stick, we had this metal fucking stick. Get the fucking stick. So I went out and kicked his fucking door open. I’m sorry, I had this bed in the bedside table. And I smashed everything on the side of it with one swipe. And I went, “Where’s the fucking bugle?” He went, “It’s under the bed.” He went, “I’m so sorry.” And there was still quite a lot of it left. I went, “That’s it. “That’s it.” I went, “Get up. “Get up. “You’ve got to join in.” So we was all doing big massive lines. Made him wake up at like three o’clock in the morning. After seven in the morning, he had to go to work. We just watched him, this overweight guy, I decided to open. Got out on his fucking bike. Went, “No fucking teacher to sniff all up. “Try and sniff our bugle.” So yeah, that was how it used to be. That was how it used to be in the villa. The villa was a fucking mad-ass. Who lived in the villa?

[00:20:14:24 – 00:20:27:06] Me, Andy. Andy was back and forwards, didn’t stay there. Little Si, as everybody knew him. Our mate Catford turned up one day. We’d been working on the beach, sitting in big massive villa.

[00:20:28:10 – 00:20:32:03] Totally got done for the price. Stupid, I got 15 grand, I got, yeah, fucking.

[00:20:34:02 – 00:21:51:03] He’s sitting under the shade with his two suitcases. Met seven bedrooms and he went, “Oh, I’ve just been kicked out of my gaffa. “What are you doing with us?” So it was just parties on every fucking night. DJ stayed there. DJs that stayed there vowed they’d never stay there again afterwards because it was just carnage. Air bombs going off at one o’clock in the morning, setting fire to the fucking furniture. Trying to find the furniture out of the window where the air rifles, it all went on. Shopping trolleys everywhere where we just took them from the fucking supermarkets. We used them. You know what they do with the crash dummies in the cars or when planes go in the water and the pilots, we used to do that on the swimming pool. Crash dummies, someone go in, you had the goggles on, you had to get them out from the thing before they get caught in the trolleys. That’s just what happened every day. That’s what happened every day. Someone to pull up and you try and shoot with an air rifle into the drive because you’re too scared in case you didn’t know. We knew the drug dealer’s car from half a mile away on the gravel, how it sounded on the gravel. You knew everybody’s car, how it sounded. That’s our hypervigilant. In tune, I was on one occasion at me and Andy, I was waiting for it, I was waiting for it, waiting for it. I’m laying there in the shade and the paranoia

[00:21:53:11 – 00:22:04:10] and the withdrawals had gone. At that point, we were like, oh, I’m all in the sun as I was falling asleep in the shade. At nine o’clock, the sun was just about to set, nine, 17, it was in the summer.

[00:22:05:23 – 00:22:08:21] I’m laying there just for a start. Oh, thank God, I’m through that.

[00:22:11:05 – 00:22:22:03] And his nickname is, hey, hey, I think it’s the bugle. I looked at that and the keys pulled up and then the driver went, you in? I went, who the fucking bugle was he? That was it, it was off again.

[00:22:23:13 – 00:22:57:18] The excitement. Excitement that the gear was there, yeah. It’s like Gollum’s ring, isn’t it? That’s the only way when I saw “Lord of the Rings” and he’s going, “Hey, my precious, that fucking ring.” I was like, that is cocaine. That is their ideology behind it, addiction. Addiction, I got it off to a T with that ring in “Lord of the Rings.” As long as I had cocaine, I was fucking that, mate. As long as I had cocaine on my own, then I was that. How long did you think after, I mean, yours accelerated fast because money got thrown into the equation,

[00:22:59:03 – 00:23:17:12] nightlife got thrown into the equation and partying and fun and girls and everything that went with it got thrown into the occasion. So how fast did your usage of the packet, we’ll call it, so I can get some great shorts out of this, from the packet to madness was the escalation?

[00:23:19:20 – 00:23:26:14] Uh, 90, 90, 94, 95, I’d say. 96, we started eating it hard

[00:23:28:05 – 00:23:36:15] because the Spanish guys were getting some like naughty, mad shit, so we was doing it more. We didn’t earn our money in 96, we just spent it all on cocaine.

[00:23:38:00 – 00:23:41:12] (Woman Laughing) God’s honest truth. 95, we did, we weren’t eating it hard.

[00:23:42:14 – 00:23:51:09] 96, because it was a weird year in our beef, it was quite like they said this year, our things are down because it’s being sucked out by a universe, so it’s not enough to go around.

[00:23:52:09 – 00:23:56:12] That, it was a weird year in our beef. It was like, that was actually like, oh, we’re not gonna go back.

[00:23:58:12 – 00:24:18:21] 97, started earning, started pushing it up and the addiction had gone up, so we started spending more. How much were you, do you think you were spending? 97, 98, at the end of the summer, I used to give the dealer 30 grand for the answers, so it was a grand an ounce in, I think it was two grand, three grand there. So we had 30 ounces, but that’s not,

[00:24:20:09 – 00:24:28:19] and then the bar bill, my fucking bar bill, he’d so done me over this, that was 25 grand in 1998. That’s what he charged me, he’d done me over. Oh, we weren’t even going to that.

[00:24:29:21 – 00:24:45:21] That’s not taking into consideration all the pills and grams and weed and all the drinking and everything else that you might associate with it that we was doing on the side. So like, yeah, you’re doing it like 40, it doesn’t sound like, it was like in the 90s.

[00:24:46:22 – 00:24:51:06] And that’s only like the end of May till September.

[00:24:52:08 – 00:24:55:00] Not fucking year, it’s like three months, do you know what I mean?

[00:24:56:08 – 00:25:01:05] I’m gonna have to help over it. Yeah, so like, and he said, he turned up and he said to me in the summer,

[00:25:02:08 – 00:25:12:12] “How much you got 30 grand?” And I was leaving and I had the money, so I just gave it to him. And my mate, that little side went to me, he went, “It ain’t that much, you mean, “you should’ve fucking, you should’ve.” I was like, “Ah, fuck it.”

[00:25:14:00 – 00:25:31:15] As I was asked before, do you think it was gonna continue? I was just reckless. I was like, “Yeah, fuck it, fuck it.” But my mate, whatever mate of mine, he went, “Oh, so I was gonna stab me “’cause I owe him money for some bugle. “I’ll give him the money.” And I was like, “For fuck’s sake,” do you know what I mean? And then next year, what’s skin?

[00:25:34:09 – 00:25:37:21] It’s the most expensive substance, drug giveaway.

[00:25:39:03 – 00:25:45:08] Dave Courtney said that, didn’t he? He did say that. Dave Courtney said that, yeah. And the way he said it was, yeah, he said, yeah, what he said was really, really good.

[00:25:46:09 – 00:26:12:02] But it was, yeah, we started earning, but we was, see, the way I look at it is, as I say, no, no, I don’t have no regrets. I don’t look back on it and go, “Oh, I wish I’d done this, I wish I’d, I bought houses.” Because as I always say, I was so in the addiction, if I would’ve given any money for a mortgage, I’d have sold that house, because I would’ve had that money. I didn’t know, I couldn’t manage myself, let alone.

[00:26:13:11 – 00:26:22:20] Portfolio or property or paying a mortgage. I said to my mum, “Oh, I’ll buy your accounts.” Well, she went, “No, you fucking won’t.” She went, “Because I know you won’t be able to like,

[00:26:25:05 – 00:26:27:03] keep up the payments, I’ll be out of my ear.”

[00:26:28:05 – 00:26:31:02] Provide a lot of ego. “Yeah, I’ll find you.” So we’re out of skin.

[00:26:32:08 – 00:27:29:24] Two years after, we was the most successful promoters in Ibiza in 98, space and all the other ones were like, “How many people?” We bought with 3,600 payers. He went, “What?” He went, “What about in advanced tickets?” I went all on the door. He went, “What?” I couldn’t believe it. Two years later, like the worst night in Ibiza, the worst night in Ibiza, lost all the money, no fucking money, mental breakdown, totally diverse. Did you put that down to your using as well? No, we was on a Wednesday, and then a big night went in on a Tuesday, and there’s only so much to go round, and they pulled in thousands from Manly Mission, but it changed the dynamics. It just totally changed the dynamics. But do you think, had you not been using at that level, you might have kept your eye on the ball a bit more? No, and in some resident of Ibiza, a guy who moved to Ibiza in like 1974, Peter Hankinson, he’d done a podcast a little while ago, because our door percentage was 30%.

[00:27:31:01 – 00:27:41:24] We got ripped off, and in every five people who come in the club, he took a ticket for himself. So we probably lost another 20%, so I was probably getting paid like 20, 15%.

[00:27:43:21 – 00:28:01:22] And he said, the reason why all the other clubs paid good money, 50% or whatever it was at the time, plus a cut at the bar, so they could have formed the better DJs, whereas we stuck at a level, and the night before us on a Tuesday, and then they put more money into advertising,

[00:28:03:01 – 00:28:10:03] and we basically just got knocked out of the park, and then we got trademarked as well. We got trademarked in Spain and told, we can’t use our name anymore.

[00:28:11:05 – 00:28:19:21] So we had to go back and think of a new name, change the night, it was fire serious, fucking shocking. Such hard work. It was heartbreaking.

[00:28:20:22 – 00:28:45:22] He’d had that, and then he’d gone down to that. So yeah, it didn’t do a lot for the ego at the time, yeah. And how did you try and console yourself? What was your– Drinking drugs. That’s all you knew at the time, yeah. Just getting pissed, smoking weed, sniffing gear. Pills are more when you win out, except for Christmas. We had them at Christmas if we had a little fancy dress pie, which was totally off the cuff once, but really good.

[00:28:48:08 – 00:28:54:14] And then I’ll start, when Clotwork, when I got to that, that was 2000,

[00:28:55:15 – 00:29:13:16] and then 2001, I left Clotwork, started working, and then 2002, I got me knocked out, still using. At what point did you use and go from social, that craziness you were in, to on your own? And what did that look like?

[00:29:15:06 – 00:29:34:21] Monday to Friday, normally, if, because I didn’t have the money then, I’d lost all my money, it was just weed and booze. Let’s backtrack a little bit. Before then, when you still had money, did your usage also go to using on your own, and you weren’t working? It was my most favorite thing, yeah. Explain to the listeners what that looked like.

[00:29:36:15 – 00:29:52:05] On a good one, I’d arrange it, pre-arrange it, so that I was on my own. I was living with a world sky called Flumpy, and I remember one time, my go-to movie, it’s that fucked up it was, was Apocalypse Now. Apocalypse Now on the gear.

[00:29:53:19 – 00:29:59:06] Say you got like an eighth, or a quarter, or something like that, and we’re going Sainsbury’s,

[00:30:00:12 – 00:30:41:24] buying all Spanish, we’re not, I’d like, I’d earned some money and been paid, and then like, got some Spanish like, tap hats and stuff, bottles of wine, loads of fucking beer. Make sure, yeah, I’d clean the flat, it was like I was, I’d give myself a reward, and put a gram in one line, bang the gram, press play on Apocalypse Now on the video recorder, I think I still was still using, and as soon as the beginning of it, like the doors, the end came in, I’d walk, walk, walk, walk like that, fuck, I could feel it going like that, and I’d come round about an hour later, because it was like too much for the overload. Sitting like that, fucking what’s going on, it’s like halfway through the movie, I was like, where the hell, I got in the fucking blackout.

[00:30:43:15 – 00:30:49:06] On my own, the cocaine was where it, where it got me to the point where,

[00:30:50:09 – 00:31:04:12] I’m thinking in my head, like, gasping for breath, like if you could be videoed, you know, I’m going, oh, cocaine’s a sexy drug, fucking sexy about fucking cocaine. It’s a lurid thing, and it makes you more fucking like, ah, turns you into the devil,

[00:31:05:18 – 00:31:27:18] but it wanted me on my own, and sitting there so paranoid, that I lived on a, above a beautician’s, that was shot on a Sunday and Monday, so I’m getting on it all day and then on a Sunday, so that late night, Saturday, I wouldn’t have the windows open, so no one could hear me, I just had my breath, so no one outside could fucking hear me. If I wanted to go to the toilet, I’d have to crawl on my hands and knees,

[00:31:28:24 – 00:31:44:17] and think, sitting there gasping one day, going, so in anxiety and fear, I was self-created, and thinking, if I die now, like, because I had about an antiseptic, whatever, how much I had at that time, not this apocalypse now time,

[00:31:46:12 – 00:31:52:16] it was on the table, going, if I die now, I die happy. It’s fucking madness, isn’t it? That is wrong.

[00:31:53:16 – 00:31:59:24] But as the money went on it, and as the ticking was less like, oh no, you still owe me money,

[00:32:01:02 – 00:32:06:12] and then when I got into working, it was at certain periods, but the drink,

[00:32:08:19 – 00:32:26:04] the drugs were always a problem, but the drink I didn’t think ever was, even though my mum was an alcoholic, I grew up with alcoholics, my mum went to AA from when I was 14, just one of those ones, it’s so blatantly in your face, you can’t see it. Your mum was an alcoholic and went to AA from when you were 14? Yeah.

[00:32:27:08 – 00:32:40:00] Yeah, when I was 14, the damage– And she was drinking up to what sort of age do you remember? When I was 13. Yeah, 13, she stopped to lie, but digressing from that, my mum said to me, when I was older,

[00:32:41:16 – 00:32:52:02] I’ve given up, I’ve given up drinking and sorted my life out when I was about 20-odd. Why can’t you do the same? And only now in hindsight, I was probably a result

[00:32:53:04 – 00:33:32:22] that she was saying, why can’t you sort your life out? I was a result of what had happened due to her drinking and lack of fucking care and attention when I was a kid. So that was a bit of a, do you know what I mean? Kind of question. Your emotional dysregulation from your upbringing affected your choices? Yeah, but I know I just became like, became a lunatic, I mean, I was always that kid in school, got in trouble. I thought about the other day, I was banned from everywhere, banned from fucking scouts, under 18s, discos, I was banned from my own parties, I got banned from the cross, I got banned from my own– So you got banned from your own parties? Yeah, me and Andy, both us together actually, me and Andy, we used to do parties at the cross.

[00:33:34:11 – 00:33:39:16] We used to model ourselves on Billy and John, I was like, I’m more like John, and he said I’m more like Billy.

[00:33:40:22 – 00:34:04:14] So it was 22, and the cross was the place to be and we managed to get in there. That’s why I said when I walked in, I could smell that. It’s not stagnant, it’s like that beer smell, that alcohol smell, it still permeates in the floor. We’re filming in a nightclub for those listeners. Yeah, so that was what you used to get when you used to walk into the cross, because anyway, and they said we wanted to see ya. Like, oh Cole, we went up there, see them.

[00:34:06:10 – 00:34:10:02] You boys are a fucking pain in your arse when you come up here, oh yeah, Cole.

[00:34:11:18 – 00:34:21:21] We need to do something, what was that even? You can only come to the cross when you’re in short parties, we don’t want you down there any other night. It’s like playing up and whatever.

[00:34:22:23 – 00:34:26:10] Like, right, Cole. Why is that then? Because you’re a fucking pain in your arse, right, Cole.

[00:34:28:06 – 00:34:36:13] First Friday, we’d been out in Fingern, the cross was open on Friday, we went up there and we stood at the door for about half an hour of shouting until Billy came out and then he went, oh for fuck’s sake, just let him in.

[00:34:37:23 – 00:34:42:16] Then, on my 30th birthday, I went out on a Sunday

[00:34:44:21 – 00:34:57:08] went to the cross, didn’t even want to go across, went to the cross, I think I got old or something, don’t know what it was, done it in one, gram or something, done it in one, come round and I fucking had all this security around me, I’d done something in the back room.

[00:35:00:20 – 00:36:21:18] Woke up on the Monday in my bed, I remember waking up in bed, like that, going, I was looking around in my bedroom, I’d lived in for years going, where am I? Didn’t even recognize my room, what the fuck is that? Phone rang, it was Andy, we’d stopped working together at this point, we’d done it an hour, I’d stopped doing parties, I’d stopped being part of the clockwork, I’d done what he went, down the cross, blah, blah, blah, went, nothing, I couldn’t remember a thing, he went, they banned you for life, he said, don’t ever fucking go down there again, I went, oh, so I tried to with Billy, he just went, oh John, they wouldn’t even answer the phone, wouldn’t even answer the phone, got banned from Mambo’s for throwing an air bomb in the fucking pack thing, air bomb’s going off, they’d come out with baseball bats, fucking like that, looking for like an invading, marauding army, he was just gonna kick off, he was just like this wild geyser, wild air madness, who’s that? Me, he went, for fuck’s sake Danny, and then the owner come out, he went, that’s it, run this geyser, fucking your band, so I had to sit on the wall opposite, they used to come out as well, don’t give him no drinks, don’t you not have to bring out drinks, give him no drinks, don’t you just sit on the wall like that, fucking all we can, yeah. There was some serious negative consequences that you were using. Oh that’s nothing. And your whole, go on. Yeah, no, no, no, that’s just, that’s what I see as like the fun times.

[00:36:23:02 – 00:36:33:05] Compared to the what times? Well the dark times. The dark times, the addiction times, like you know, psychosis, that came about in 98.

[00:36:35:00 – 00:36:38:03] When you have psychosis, it’s an interesting thing just to bring a bit of psychology.

[00:36:39:20 – 00:36:44:19] When someone develops psychosis, in the brain they develop something called kindling.

[00:36:45:19 – 00:36:49:07] So once you’ve had psychosis, when you go to use again,

[00:36:50:08 – 00:37:15:24] kindling, a little bit like making a little fire, if you were to take a fire and then leave it overnight, for example, a bonfire, and if you was a blow on it, like embers, the kindling will reignite. Once you’ve had psychosis, it develops kindling in the amygdala of your brain, right deep inside your brain. And that kindling means that psychosis comes much faster, much quicker, more frequently with your usage.

[00:37:16:24 – 00:37:18:22] You notice that once you start getting psychosis?

[00:37:21:08 – 00:37:32:11] I think I said this on your phone, and you said like leave it for when I speak to you. Oh, okay, probably, excellent. So we’d admit this is the story, this is like the maddest occasion, like we’re all just like, what the fuck?

[00:37:33:16 – 00:37:34:18] We’ve done a party on a Wednesday,

[00:37:35:22 – 00:37:37:00] gone through to the Thursday,

[00:37:41:12 – 00:37:52:10] Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, Thursday night, yeah, that’s right, Thursday night. Then the dealer arrived, but I said I could hear him a mile away.

[00:37:53:23 – 00:37:58:12] And we got an ounce, so we’d done like a gram or, it doesn’t matter, it was a big lot.

[00:37:59:15 – 00:38:09:19] And I remember I said to him, just shake hands. So we shook hands, it was like fucking like, it’s like waiting to get some more like fucking crazy for it. It was all lumpy, like whatever, as you’d done it, and it’s all falling apart, it was really chopped it up.

[00:38:11:00 – 00:38:21:04] And it was almost like, let’s shake hands, I’ll see you on the other side. And we did it, it was both like, and it was just half a fucking, I remember seeing my hand go like that, it was like, fuck, it was like overload. I went, we need to go on the roof.

[00:38:22:16 – 00:38:31:14] I went on the roof, and we’re standing here. (Laughs) And I don’t know if it was the moon, or if it was a plane, or what the fuck it was, but there was this light in the sky.

[00:38:32:24 – 00:38:49:00] And then I said, put your hands up. And he went, what? I didn’t put your hands up. And he went, well, I didn’t put your hands up, we’re standing on the roof. And he went, why? I went, they’re gonna get us, they’re gonna take us. We both just went like that. We’re not gonna get us. He went, oh, I don’t know, just come and get us. I stood there for God knows how long I went.

[00:38:50:16 – 00:39:08:02] I need to do it. And I looked in the garden, and I just went, oh yeah, I need to put his arms down. I looked in the garden, and what you’re saying about, you try and explain this. And I saw people in the garden looking at us, I didn’t. I was like, fuck, this is something going on behind the van.

[00:39:09:05 – 00:39:24:23] And I went to him, this is the mad thing about this story, me and Andy. I went, listen, I didn’t say to him, can you see this? I went, tell me what you see. And he went, he went, there’s fucking people in the garden. He went, is it gazing behind the fucking thing?

[00:39:26:09 – 00:39:46:14] People there, people behind a tree. I went, fuck. So, I went downstairs and went, and I just, I just murdered fucking out of nowhere, like fight or fly, I’m gonna fight. So, I went down and I went, I got this big fucking carving knife from the drawer, Andy’s got this stick, both like that. I fucking like petrified adrenaline, everything.

[00:39:47:15 – 00:40:14:21] Gone out, and I could see him. I could see him fucking doing all this. People looking, like hiding in the bushes. And I was like, it’s like two o’clock in the morning at this fucking point, whatever it was. And, can I say, see you, N.T’s? I was like, come on, you see, I’m shouting at two o’clock in the morning, like, there’s farmhouse next door. There’s no restrictions here. Oh, cool. Come on, you can’t. And I’m edging forward with his knife. Andy’s just like, oh my God, oh my God. He’s going through the same thing as me.

[00:40:15:24 – 00:40:28:21] I got to the end of the drive, and this thing run out the bush. Run out the bush, a human body outline, and jumped like that, and I went, you fucking like that with a knife. And it went like that.

[00:40:30:17 – 00:40:39:11] And I went, and then I had that instant, like, hold on a minute, something ain’t right here. But as I’m saying, it ain’t right, I can still see him looking at me in the bushes.

[00:40:40:18 – 00:40:46:24] And I’m backing down the drive, even though this thing’s gone like that, I’m backing down the drive going, fucking like that. Andy’s gone like that.

[00:40:48:04 – 00:41:10:03] (Yelling) Banging on all the doors, all our friends are asleep. They’re coming to get us, they’re like, ooh, ooh. He went, they’re just coming to get us. Didn’t know what was going on. Locked all the windows, all the doors. Middle of summer, our beef, it was about 150 fucking degrees, things stripping off our nose, trying to do more thing. Andy’s looking at the windows like that, fucking. And in the end, I went, no, but I went, so I had that.

[00:41:11:21 – 00:41:12:12] Went to bed.

[00:41:14:00 – 00:41:20:18] We had no curtains, no air con, no sleeping tablets, no eye masks, no ear plugs, it was just fucking raw.

[00:41:21:19 – 00:41:49:06] And I’m laying there, the sun’s come up. I’ve gone out on the balcony and looked. I was scared to go out my door, but onto the balcony, I was petrified. Fuck it, I went out and I looked. And the thing that was looking at me behind there was bags, and there was like a thing on the top. The thing on the tree was like a bit like that, was like something like that, so in my mind. So I’ve got some normality from it. I was like, ah, it ain’t fucking real. But as I’m laying in bed and looking at the door,

[00:41:50:21 – 00:41:57:23] probably thinking, don’t come through the door, don’t come through the door, don’t be there, don’t be there, don’t think, fucking, fucking person went like that, round the door.

[00:41:59:16 – 00:42:06:09] That’s it. But then that started happening when I was on my own in the dark. And that’s when it got fucking, that’s when it got scary.

[00:42:08:07 – 00:42:44:14] What I did is, psychologically, is try to make friends with the devil. So I started talking to the devil so that when he came, he was my friend. That’s how fucking, that’s how naughty that got. And here’s the thing about listening to you and thinking about addiction. The site you said during all that process of complete psychosis and paranoia was, and the thing was running down my nose because you did another line between it. Even while you’re experiencing this off the chart feeling, you’re still going to do more, rack up more, do another line, which is creating the feeling that’s creating the fear and the paranoia

[00:42:46:09 – 00:43:05:09] and you go and do more of it. I know, I know. But when you’re in it, it’s your friend. Do you know what I mean? It’s not your friend. It’s your abuser. It’s the thing that’s hurting you the most, but just as it taps in and all the stuff that you understand about psychology, it’s all I fucking wanted. It’s all I fucking wanted.

[00:43:06:10 – 00:43:17:23] And drinking, and then drinking turned to me and then I found out very sharp, the cocaine drink, my friend, very sharp. How long after these episodes of psychosis

[00:43:19:18 – 00:43:38:09] did it take before you went, okay, this is enough. Now really seriously, you got to do something about it. What do you think that period of time of experiencing paranoia and psychosis to reaching the point where you decided, I know you might’ve decided several times before or maybe you didn’t, but to that end point where you go,

[00:43:39:10 – 00:43:40:14] fucking, this is enough now.

[00:43:41:16 – 00:43:46:20] I never did. I thought I’d always be out of take drugs. I thought I’d always be out of smoke weed.

[00:43:47:21 – 00:43:49:05] I thought I’d always be out of drink,

[00:43:50:10 – 00:43:51:19] even though it was just not a problem.

[00:43:53:01 – 00:44:10:20] Very near the end of my drinking, on a Monday night smoking weed, stoned out of my head, pissed, slurring, “Here’s what I live with, “please head and sit down.” (Mumbles) You’re a fucking alcoholic. You fuck, how dare you? No, I went, how fucking dare you? Do you know what I mean? You pressed the button. Yeah.

[00:44:12:19 – 00:44:20:02] But always thought I could. I went to Ibiza 2003, August 2003,

[00:44:21:04 – 00:44:24:16] and I was full of resentment, full of insecurity, full of fear.

[00:44:26:11 – 00:44:39:18] Went to this restaurant called Sacapea, drinking red wine, and the alcohol, as it said, the alcohol smoothed off the square edges. Do you know what I mean? Like, made everything like, “Oh.”

[00:44:40:24 – 00:44:46:22] And what it did is it went from making me feel good, straight away to going making me feel fucking depressed. Whoa.

[00:44:47:23 – 00:44:54:11] And I was drinking that night, looking for a better result, but it was only that one night after that is when it all changed.

[00:44:58:01 – 00:45:16:11] And it just changed, just changed. Because alcohol was working, I still drunk alcohol. Even though cocaine didn’t work– You stopped cocaine that night? No, that night with the drinking in Ibiza, I came back, went to the V Festival,

[00:45:18:20 – 00:45:38:09] totally raw, do you know what I mean? Like, telling my friends that I’m not gonna drink, not gonna take drugs, and they were all getting on it and taking pills, drinking, and I pressed the fucking button. I just started, two pints of lager straight, doing shots, started smoking weed, give me fucking more pills, give me more people, turn into a pest.

[00:45:39:11 – 00:45:46:12] And that night, I think it was either August the 18th or August the 19th, the pain was so much in my head.

[00:45:47:19 – 00:45:56:23] Where I’ve always described it as a melon on a table, and it felt like you could just, it was gonna split open, that’s the pain I was in. Not an eight-hour pain.

[00:45:58:08 – 00:46:05:10] And I woke up the next day, went like that, went like that, and went, oh, it’s over.

[00:46:06:16 – 00:46:11:05] That was it, that was it. I just went like that, went, oh, it’s finished.

[00:46:12:12 – 00:46:23:15] That was it. What year were we at? 2003, and I haven’t drunk since. The only times when someone’s bought me a Coca-Cola and I’ve gone like, ah, fucking hell, it’s got a brand in it, on the floor, loads of water.

[00:46:24:18 – 00:46:26:10] And that’s happened about five or six times.

[00:46:28:00 – 00:46:30:11] And the cocaine, six months after being sober,

[00:46:31:16 – 00:46:34:19] I was out, insecure, jealous,

[00:46:36:07 – 00:47:17:04] total low self-worth, fucking, all them negative things. My friend gave a line of gear to the then-girlfriend, they were laughing, I got resentful, I went fuck it, done the gear, as soon as I did it, as soon as I did it, I went, pfft, what have I done that for? And there was loads of booze on the table. Psychologically, I knew, I needed that after that six months to go, that shit’s done, that shit’s done. And that was it? And that was it. But then the real stuff started, where I’d start fucking– Working. Working on my edge. Yeah, then you had to start the graft. Yeah. The decision was made in that moment, and then you put the hard work in. But just for the listeners,

[00:47:19:10 – 00:47:24:19] say how many years ago this was, how many years you’ve been clean? 22. Sorry, again? 22.

[00:47:26:04 – 00:47:53:06] Fuck, you know, I gotta shut your hand, that’s just awesome, man. Yeah, no, 22. That’s great. And that’s my proudest achievement. Obviously, I got my daughter, and I was married once, and clockwork, and all that, but as they say, if you’re not sober, you ain’t nothing, I’d be dead. That was it, I’d be dead long ago. Do you remember Goldie? Yeah, he was a good laugh, yeah, fucking found him on a train track. You know, I’d like to ask you something, because I don’t think there’s a week goes by that I don’t put a video out that I get, because there are thousands of comments, because I put thousands of videos out.

[00:47:55:12 – 00:48:45:08] I don’t think there’s a week goes by that I don’t get a comment from someone on one of the platforms that says something like, “Oh, I saw the good laugh, mate, just having a laugh, you just couldn’t hack it, you just quit too early.” Or, “You couldn’t take it.” And I’ve interviewed people who have done a lot of different substances in a lot of different quantities over a long period of time, but that person that’s listening, I always have one’s expression, I always say, “Said every addict once.” That’s what I just like to write down, said every addict once, because we did, right? But from someone who’s 22 years clean, who’ve been through the complete hedonism, the complete Ibiza– Hedonism twice. Hedonism twice. Oh, hedonism in a sense twice. Yeah, that’s true, that’s true. And the complete Ibiza circuit, and everything that incorporated,

[00:48:46:10 – 00:48:51:22] what do you say to that person who says, “Oh, it’s not doing your mate.” I don’t, I ignore him.

[00:48:53:04 – 00:49:35:11] Don’t get in the bed with an idiot. You can’t have a fight with a clown, do you get what I mean? It’s like when you was talking about, when we used to talk about, I don’t know about you, but I used to ring this guy in Spain, and we used to talk about COVID, when COVID was going on. And you took for two hours, and you come back to the same point. You could argue with that person for fucking hours, and you come back to the same point, you won’t get no fucking, get no answer. That’s all, that’s the point. It’s like when people leave nasty comments on social media. Delete and block, that’s it. That’s what we need to do. I agree. Delete and block, because they’re not in that space. It’s like me years ago, if someone, we asked some guy once, we was in this group, and we went, “Oh yeah, mate.” And he’s like, “What?” And he thinks, “Oh, you’re getting on it.” And he went, “Nah, mate.”

[00:49:36:18 – 00:49:57:18] I’m on a natural high. I remember looking at my friend going, “Who’s this coming?” I was like, “What’s he all about?” Do you know what I mean? I’m on a natural high. Oh fuck, no nothing, mate. Just water, just water’s a bit extreme. You gotta have Coca-Cola or a Red Bull or something. Give yourself a bit of energy. Bit of wings. Yeah, I thought we all fucking hated Whiz. Ah, Whiz is horrible.

[00:49:59:00 – 00:50:12:08] Unless you did it, double dropped, then I fucking grabbed a Whiz. I said wings, but anyway. Oh, sorry. It’s all right. That’s why he is. It’s getting carried away. Y’all are being warned here. But, yeah, no, just deleting. Politics, arguments on social media.

[00:50:14:01 – 00:50:16:14] Don’t even bother. And for that person who’s struggling,

[00:50:17:22 – 00:50:21:18] not about where to go to get help, but they’re struggling themselves thinking,

[00:50:23:11 – 00:50:25:03] “This is fucking hard. This is really tough.”

[00:50:27:04 – 00:50:32:00] What’s the one thing that you would say to them that might encourage them listening today?

[00:50:33:02 – 00:50:58:13] Or the one thing, an hour it starts, is having the courage to ask, “Well, whether it’s from a friend, someone you know, or you literally look online, everybody’s got a computer, everybody’s got a phone, if it’s drink, if it’s, mine was drink and drugs, I went to AA. For both, for both. I didn’t like CA. I’ve done CA a couple of times afterwards with friends, and I’ve enjoyed it. But, went to AA.

[00:50:59:21 – 00:51:04:02] And, and it just clicked. Because it was for alcohol?

[00:51:05:06 – 00:51:21:16] No, it just clicked. I was in a room full of people who understood what I was. Because they were alcoholics? Yeah. And everybody goes there for drink and drugs now. You know, all this, ain’t dual addiction. It’s AA, or drinking. You don’t go there if you’ve got cocaine addiction. You go, anyway, look it up.

[00:51:22:21 – 00:51:33:08] You don’t have to be a member. You don’t have to fucking speak. You can just sit there, take a pound with your foot apart, because they’re self, self-supporting through their own contributions.

[00:51:35:15 – 00:51:48:00] Don’t talk if you don’t want to. See if it resonates. My first meeting I ever went to, was a load of shit. I was absolutely broke. I had a Prada suit on, Prada belt, Prada shoes, Prada fucking shirt.

[00:51:49:01 – 00:52:02:00] Sitting there like, oh, fucking insane. I’m going through like proper like madness. Who the fuck do you think you’re looking down at? Who the fuck do you think you are? I was worse than anybody in a sense of like, I need a deal.

[00:52:03:12 – 00:52:17:12] Driving a van that was condemned, but I didn’t know by my company I was working for. No steering, but no gear stick, it had a bit of metal, no wing mirrors, and I was driving it through London every day before cameras really would have got here. I’d have got a nick the first day.

[00:52:18:24 – 00:52:37:22] I think one of the windows was broken. My boss went, “I ain’t seen that van, have you?” I went, “What van?” He went, “The transit.” I went, “I’ve got it.” He went, “You said it.” He went, “That’s been condemned.” He went, “It’s got no tax, no insurance, just driving.” And I come out and got in that van, in that Prada suit. I was driving, my mum was scared. My mum took me to my first meeting.

[00:52:40:09 – 00:53:02:22] Ah, no, fucking need, AA. Went to work all week. I sorted it out. I drink six liters a day. That’s sorted it out. All I did was just go away all the time. And I was mental. And a week later, actually eight days later, on a Saturday, I run my mum up. And I went, “Oh, please help me.” Because it was just on me. She went, “You know where you got to go. “Just tough, love.

[00:53:04:08 – 00:53:07:17] “Get yourself to a meeting.” I got myself to a meeting in South Woodford

[00:53:09:03 – 00:53:18:16] on a Saturday night. And I tell this story all the time, I had a mobile and I’m bringing my mum up. Because I was pulling up and going, “Excuse me, mate, do you know where South Woodford thing is?” And he’s going, “Yeah, mate.” I went, “I weren’t listening.”

[00:53:19:24 – 00:53:41:11] “Under 200 yards later.” “Excuse me, do you know where it is?” “Just weren’t listening.” Brian was talking by. “I still like it now.” And I got to this meeting. I went up and there was no one outside. There was no one in the kitchen. And I had my mobile phone. I went, I was talking to my mum. I went, “You fucking told me to come here “and there’s nobody fucking.” As I’ve turned around in this little window, there’s about 30 odd people, 40 people in this little room.

[00:53:43:08 – 00:53:52:18] The floors were uneven. The floors squeaked. Old curtains, something from the 70s. This old leather chair of all the stuff in the whole room. What year are we in? 2003.

[00:53:54:17 – 00:54:22:14] And this guy called Dave, he bit it, he bit it. It was an alternate bit of me. Seat at the front. Sat at the front. And I heard all these stories, nobody sharing, honestly. I come out of there. It was like, it’s like I did fucking fluorescent white light just fucking coming out my fucking head. Just definitely made sense. I just went, “Shh, fucking hell.” Did you stop drinking the alcohol then? I don’t know. I stopped too. Oh, you’d already stopped? I’d already stopped. You’d stopped before you went to the meeting?

[00:54:23:19 – 00:54:29:06] That moment, that moment I woke up in bed and went, “It’s over.” You stopped but went there for support?

[00:54:30:07 – 00:54:40:03] I went there to learn, basically. To learn and get support, yeah, and get through it. And that’s what I tell people to do. Just go to a meeting, sit in a meeting, listen.

[00:54:41:08 – 00:56:19:00] If it don’t work the first time, go the second time. If you don’t like that meeting, go to another meeting because it’s gonna fucking work eventually. Danny, with alcohol I’m gonna agree with you because a meeting’s based on the 12 steps. And that 12 steps is what titrates alcohol addiction. Titrates? Yeah, in other words, it lowers alcohol. The way to come off alcohol is, alcohol has a physical addiction. So therefore, to come off, so an alcoholic who stops drinking immediately, if they are requiring alcohol in order to function, will shake or… I didn’t have none of that. Then you weren’t at that point where your body was dependent on it. So what happens is when you become dependent on it and you withdraw from alcohol, your body requires it to function. And if you look at someone who’s in alcohol, it becomes alcohol dependent. They will start shaking. They’ll get the convulsions when they reduce alcohol. So you can’t stop someone dead, okay, because otherwise it can cause massive problems. What they do is with an AA model is you titrate, you lower the quantity in a detoxification to reduce the quantity of alcohol your body’s consuming. And that’s the model that works really, really well with AA. The problem is, and what you just picked up at about CA, the problem with CA is they’re using the same model, but it’s a different substance that works in a completely different way. Because if you think about it, there’s no physical addiction to using cocaine. There is with alcohol. But if you don’t do a line for a day or two days, you don’t get a physical addiction. You get a psychological withdrawal. You get a, I want it, a craving, a desire, because it’s affecting that part of your brain, okay?

[00:56:20:04 – 00:56:53:18] The prefrontal cortex, which becomes smaller, reducing your impulsivity, and it’s the impulsivity that drives you to your usage. So there’s a distinction that I like to make, because I think AA is a great model for alcohol. But I also think AA is not a good model for cocaine addiction. And I like to look at the research. And the research with alcohol is it’s very good. It works effectively. The problem with cocaine is it only has a 10% success rate. So I like to make a distinction so people can clearly understand the difference between the two. And I think that you were,

[00:56:54:19 – 00:57:17:22] having stopped the alcohol and going to the meetings, you learned a lot, and it was a great support for you. And I think that’s done you the world of good. Really appreciate your sharing the time. Yeah, massive world of good. Yeah, I’ll be dead. That’s a simple thing. Simple thing. Danny, I really appreciate 22 years clean and sober. That is an accomplishment. Thank you for coming clean with me. Thank you very much. Appreciate your time. Thank you.