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[00:00:05:05 – 00:00:33:06]Today’s guest is a fresh-faced family man whose life was completely railed by addiction. He’s taken the pain of addiction and turned it into purpose. From Harry Beattie to Ice Bath Harry. His story is one of resilience, reinvention and remarkable change. Hi, I’m Harry and this is day 468 of taking an ice bath. Every single day to help me stay clean and serene living free from active addiction.

[00:00:34:17 – 00:00:41:01]And my mum left when I was four years old so I was raised by my dad and whatever girlfriend he had at the time.

[00:00:42:01 – 00:01:09:20]Financially I was looked after but emotionally and spiritually the love and the nurture just wasn’t there. And tell me about starting to use. I found Charlie, my gosh, I loved it. It was like getting a warm hug from my mother who was never there. I found an escape and I felt safe in there because I wasn’t having to deal with my actual reality. But there were times where I would stay awake for four or five days just pure. What sort of paranoia were you getting at that point? I was really tripping.

[00:01:11:07 – 00:01:22:05]What changed for me 409 days ago is that I do it for me. If I don’t put myself first I’m no good to anyone. I don’t know how I’m still 409 days clean today but I’ve still got a lot of stuff I need to work through.

[00:01:30:04 – 00:03:13:02]Hello and welcome to another episode of Coming Clean With Me. My name is Elliot Ward and today’s guest is a fresh-faced family man whose life was completely derailed by addiction. With his partner pregnant and his youth spiraling out of control he knew something had to change. That moment became the turning point that led him to break free. Today he proudly celebrates 409 days clean but his journey didn’t stop there. He’s taken the pain of addiction and turned it into purpose. Launching his own business and transforming his life from Harry B.C. to Ice Barf Harry. His story is one of resilience, reinvention and remarkable change. Welcome Harry. What an introduction that was. There you go. Bill, would you offer that? Yeah you did. I wasn’t expecting that. There you go. Hey it’s good to meet you. Thank you for coming. Appreciate you being a guest today. Thank you for inviting me. Let’s dive straight in. Tell me about growing up for you. What it was like. So I grew up relatively privileged I’d like to say. My dad was in sales and he worked extremely long hours and extremely hard and he wasn’t at home much. He was usually on the road traveling selling what he was selling, printing ink. He was selling to commercial printers and yeah I grew up in a big four-bedroom house with a swimming pool in the garden. I had an au pair looking after me most of the time. I was put through private education and my mum left when I was four years old so I was raised by my dad and whatever girlfriend he had at the time as I was growing up you know he had lots of different women in and out of his life

[00:03:14:03 – 00:04:12:08]and yeah I had a pretty good upbringing I like to think. It’s only in recent times where I’ve looked back and sort of dug deeper into that and into the trauma that’s sort of driven the the addiction problems that I’ve had over the years that I’ve gained an understanding of actually it wasn’t all that. From the outside it looked good yeah big house swimming pool. I had all I wanted drum kit guitar if I wanted to play ice hockey I got the new you know latest ice skates. If I want to play cricket or rugby I got all the kit but so for night financially I was looked after but emotionally and yeah spiritually the love and the nurture just didn’t it wasn’t there so and I do believe that it has played a big part in well played a big part in what was to come. You said to me when we spoke prior to today’s interview that you had good education but you were thrown out of a number of schools. I was. What do you put that down to? So I believe now I was labeled naughty rather than

[00:04:13:17 – 00:09:17:23]shown the extra support that I thought I might have benefited from and yeah I’ve got ADHD and I’ve only I’m actually on the waiting list I haven’t been diagnosed I’ve self-diagnosed okay so I’m undiagnosed but all the signs are there yeah big time and I think I was very similar when I was younger I was very high power I was always fighting for people’s approval always you know trying to get get everyone’s attention and I think had I been shown a little bit more love and nurture from even teachers at school and and maybe been a bit more understood I might not have been labeled naughty I might not have then been punished and then I might not have then rebelled even more because I felt like you know that that affected me my school journey even like early years year five year six junior school year year seven I got expelled from a private school year seven or the junior school kicked me out as well but listen to this this school was so posh yeah they didn’t want on their records that they had to expel a child because they didn’t want it to come back around for someone to say well how did you you know how did they get through how did they get into the school yeah there’s this posh school up in waterlooville at the back of hornedine you know the colors of the uniform were the Wimbledon colors which was chose by the parents it was that kind of school right somewhere where I shouldn’t I had no fucking place to be and yeah they literally made me stand outside the office for hours with a dunce cap on and and I was ridiculed and I was bullied and then anyway halfway through year six they booted me out I did a little bit at a state school got bullied even worse and then I went to a secondary school and yeah that that junior school they asked me to leave they asked my dad to take him out I said look can you take him out because we don’t want to expel him but he’s going to do something else and we’re going to have to expel him and we don’t want it on our record so it took me out of there and yeah I just feel like had I have been more understood I might not have acted the way I acted you know the rebellious side of me if it says wet paint don’t touch I’ve got to find out well I still do now sometimes and I want to know when the sign was put there and I want to know how wet it really is and how many coats were put on it yeah and what color it was and so it sounds like to me not only was it ADHD but your dad was a very strong character uh successful yeah financially but a little bit emotionally vacant yeah he was in the SAS back in the 60s wow tell me about that I can only tell you wow I don’t know how far I could go with this but some of the stories that I’ve heard from some of the stuff that happened back then yeah it doesn’t happen these days put it that way and yeah growing up with a father who was an SAS reservist you know albeit 20 years before he was still you know in the regiment um 21 SAS and I was brought up you know men don’t cry yeah stop crying I’ll give you something to cry about and yeah that’s kind of how I sort of grew up I was I was never really I never felt like I could show my true emotions and it’s only now that I understand that anger for me is a secondary emotion for my sadness but what I’ve you know developed over these last months years whilst working on myself is I’m able to quickly identify which is which and if I do find myself getting frustrated or angry or quick to go you know what’s going on it’s often because actually I’ve already sat inside and I feel hurt and I struggled to to express that so I’m just working on trying to be true to myself you find it difficult to address your emotions yeah I think I do you’ve always bottled them up yeah big time and then I explode and everything just goes to shit was that what it was like growing up yeah and in later life growing up I was just a big ball of energy just you know I now know I was just looking for attention I was seeking approval and I still sometimes do it now you know if I say something and you don’t react the way I think you want I think you’re going to react I say it I said a punchline twice to sort of like get you know approve you know it’s interesting because when you find a child with ADHD there’s usually one or more parents not far behind it and I’m wondering whether you how your dad was or how your dad behaved and whether that was outside of his own control and how that affected you perhaps so it’s not actually my dad that I get that from it’s my mum oh there you go who left and yeah my old man’s is he’s yeah he’s a good guy and he did the best he could with the tools he had he didn’t do a bad job but he was very busy you know building his empire if you’re like you know working hard but growing up for me I witnessed a few bits that kids shouldn’t witness you know I’ll come home from school and there’d be you know he’d be trading the stock market you know I was like 14 15 and there’d be three screens with you know the Dow Jones and the FTSE under and he’s trading I look how much money I’ve made has look look look and you know it’s two two women in the garden in the pool with their breasts out and I’m thinking like this ain’t normal yeah and I said Nicki’s cigarettes and drink the beers from the fridge and I kind of it’s a lot of behavior in it I guess and when I was sort of 14 15 16 I was out drinking in the parks and stuff but I don’t think that those those behaviors in in me you know the ADHD and the sort of obsessive compulsive style behaviors that doesn’t come from my dad a little bit does but majority of it comes with my mum

[00:09:20:06 – 00:09:39:03]and what about the risk-taking behavior yeah I loved taking risks I was all about danger who do you think you got that from probably my old man you know the stories used to tell me jumping out of the Hercules and and to be a risk taker do you think that makes you impulsive very much so yeah and people impulsive usually have

[00:09:41:19 – 00:09:45:14]lack of control when it comes to drugs and alcohol because they have

[00:09:46:22 – 00:10:17:23]the thing that you think your mum has that you think you’ve got it from ADHD yeah so I mean classic impulse control classic risk-taking behavior is your dad so it wouldn’t surprise me if there was an underlying part and having it with your mum as well which can make it so strong in you what part of ADHD do you feel pushed you toward your risk-taking behaviors early on or now early on early on

[00:10:19:15 – 00:12:34:02]I’m about to dig deep here I reckon I was just I think it all kind of falls in together don’t it so the ADHD that was undiagnosed because back then I’m 33 now yeah so back in like the early 2000s when I was in school with what I you know believed to now be ADHD there wasn’t it wasn’t really talked about you were just literally labeled naughty and I think that kind of all comes under the same umbrella doesn’t it the ADHD would lead to the risk-taking which would come back under to the um the seeking approval yeah fighting for everyone’s approval fighting to make people proud and you know look at me and I spent years doing that early early adulthood and into my early 20s I was shouting from the rooftops how great I was because I wanted you to see who I didn’t see does that make sense because I was so insecure I needed everyone else to tell me how great I was so I made sure you knew about it when I was in a room I was a big ball of you know and I was just yeah and that’s that is me definitely me but I kind of I don’t need to do that anymore the ego slowly slowly you know settling in it’s interesting because ADHD patients are great to work with I have many many of my people with addictions who have ADHD and they’re bright funny determined hard working so when people look at ADHD as a negative there are a lot of positive aspects within that yeah I agree makes you more of a go-getter absolutely high achievers you know addiction ADHD people I find people with ADHD are very if they get focused on something there is also a downside to that though because over the years as I mentioned earlier ice hockey rugby cricket I did all these different things guitar lessons I played the drums um you know I know a lot I know a little about a lot of things and I’ve got what I call the ADHD graveyard yeah I’ll focus on something yeah the other day I thought I’ll set a podcast up I put all the equipment you know got everything all organized and in two weeks later I lost interest and I was like I’ve come back to that and I’ve had something else to keep me going you know so there’s lots of things that I’ve tried over the years um but right now what I’m doing online with my ice bath stuff yeah something that I’ve stuck to this is the longest I’ve stuck to anything don’t know what’s keeping me going I’m sure it will get there but what I’m doing is working for me now and

[00:12:35:02 – 00:13:48:08]I’m still a work in progress I know that I’m far from cured I’m far from recovered I don’t know if I’ll ever be cured or ever be recovered but I’m just trying to yeah just trying to not harm anyone anymore and I feel like what I’m doing now is working cool let’s go back let’s go back to the beginning of your addiction and your introduction to it talk me through that so I used to be a big gamer I used to play call of duty and grand theft auto games like that and there was days when I wasn’t at school obviously because I got kicked out I’ll just sit at home and eat pizza and eat crisps and drink energy drinks and and play games for hours and hours on end and I I never knew it back then but it was very compulsive and no one was there to sort of stop me because my dad was busy with what he was doing or whatever it was he was doing at that time and I was just playing games all day and you know even with the lads we’d be playing for like six seven eight hours and they say right that’s me done and I said come on one more game one more game and I believe that gaming was my first addiction because I found within that video game an escape of reality and I felt safe in there because I wasn’t having to deal with my actual reality

[00:13:49:11 – 00:15:35:11]and then when the gaming wore off I found other things women drugs drinking gambling what age are you at this point so I started drinking and playing around with with women at about 13 14 smoking my dad’s cigarettes out the window of my big four-bedroom house um yeah I used to hang out the window I remember one night I hung out the window I’ve got a sister by the way who’s three years older than me and I remember because we’ve sort of we’re quite different a similar bit different and I remember one night I was hanging out my window and as I looked out the corner she was hanging out her window and we both had a fire which shh shh don’t tell dad yeah so she had a bit of a belliose but she kind of straightened out she’s doing really well my sister um yeah she’s got two beautiful boys and life’s good and she has a relationship with my mum and I still don’t at the moment but we’ll get to that so yeah gaming and then when I got to 13 14 15 we were you know standing outside the shop can you go in and get me a pack of 10 sovereign mate can you get me four beers or a crate of beer or some white lightning yeah some cider and yeah I was drinking getting pissed in the park getting picked up by the police they’d come down they’d empty the cans out as they go home and we just we were just yeah we were like it was just anti-social behavior kids with nothing to do yeah and I had nothing well you you’d think you know I should be like in the tennis club or something and you know what I was over in this lovely little house with my family and and and you all I wanted to do was play over here with the naughty kids in the flats and you know rebellious very rebellious very rebellious and tell me about starting to use we’re going to refer to it as the packet the packet the charlie so I

[00:15:36:18 – 00:21:41:12]think I first snorted any substances when I was about 16 17 I want to say okay so I went from women to drinking 14 15 16 by the time I was 16 or 15 16 I was I was smoking that brown stuff you used to smoke ash yeah whatever that is you used to leave little holes in your trackie bottoms do you remember that little cherry drops yeah is that what they call it hot rocks or something they called it I’m not sure they anyway I used to have loads of holes but I just go where’d you get them and I go I don’t know cherry burns yeah something like that and yeah I was I was doing that and then I found charlie the white stuff and my gosh I loved it a wage 17 maybe 16 17 and you loved it because it made me feel safe and it was like getting a warm hug from my mother who was never there and I felt alive I thought this is fucking amazing I finally feel you know I don’t know I just felt at home I felt safe it was really really weird it was a friend of mine I know exactly who it is I’m not going to mention him and he’s not very well still now and I’m just trying to lead the way like I say and show people that it is possible and if I can do it because I actually used to look at him my mate yeah I won’t mention him I used to look at him and think fuck that I’d hate to get that bad and then you know a couple years ago I was like he was looking at me like fuck no Harry’s unwell and here I am now 409 days clean I just hope that he sort of sees what I’m doing because I do care about him even though he’s very unwell and he’s acting the way he’s acting but yeah he was the first person ever and every time we used to meet up from then onward yeah from the first time I took it I thought this is great from then on moving forward every time we meet up he’d go and I used to get really excited and that actually that feeling actually used to continue and that continued for years even up until recently when I got before I got clean yeah in the latter stages I felt like I was more addicted and more excited about the chase and the buzz of trying to meet the dealer get the cash how long mate yeah all that sort of stuff I feel like I was addicted to the buzz of that more than actually doing it strangely there’s nothing strange about that is there not no okay so let’s just analyze what you just said okay when I used I felt normal that’s what you said yeah and I felt safe yeah I did and then we refer back to the classic ADHD so here’s the difference somebody with ADHD when they use nasal ingestion if you know what or Charlie or the packet they are already not producing that much dopamine in their system not only are they not only producing not much dopamine but the transmission speed of the dopamine that you produce in other words the speed in which it goes across the neural pathways of your brain runs very slowly okay when you suddenly introduce the packet into it you get a huge level of dopamine right yes that is a neurotransmitter that sends a message to tell your brain that what you just did felt good good made you feel good absolutely now because you didn’t produce much ADHD prior to this because sorry because you didn’t produce much dopamine prior to this because you have ADHD is that true then so people with ADHD don’t produce as much dopamine is that why we have that kind of by far I didn’t know that far so people with ADHD produce far less dopamine than somebody normal right not only do they produce far less dopamine but the speed in which dopamine moves through the brain’s network is much slower that makes sense so now what happens is someone with ADHD when they do a line of you know what right they get a huge surge of dopamine but for someone with ADHD it’s going to slow down the chaos that’s in their brain initially exactly what it used to do earlier now there’s a reason the reason is you didn’t produce sufficient dopamine or move at the certain speed you now had a surge of dopamine and the first two three lines will counterbalance the dopamine you don’t normally produce which means everything now seems to slow down or fit into a pattern you become more methodical you can work things out you can work more clearly things seem more rational right and that’s what initially happens that’s classic ADHD okay the problem is this once you’ve started doing that okay first of all the dopamine that you get when you’ve done a line is a huge quantity more than your brain more than your synaptic clef can deal with at any one time in order to compensate for that it’s going to turn down the receptors in your brain that produce dopamine now for somebody who has ADHD who’s already producing a small quantity at a slow speed this is just oh my gosh because you’re already producing a small quantity of dopamine it’s now going to turn down your own dopamine production even less yes so when you finish that evening your dopamine receptors don’t suddenly turn back up no and every time you use they get turned down more and more for someone with ADHD who already has low dopamine this is just a nightmare and that’s exactly what happens you make a lot of sense you know your stuff that is exactly how it is and how it was and that leads me on to the ice bath stuff yeah that’s why i looked into ice bath therapy because i knew that i was lacking dopamine yeah so when you come off of prolonged use of charlie and drugs like that you lack dopamine natural dopamine yes you do so i said hang on if i’m going to get clean yeah i’ve been smashing myself to bits for the last 10 years i’m finally going to get clean yeah you’re telling me for the first year or two i’m going to feel miserable because i’ve got no dopamine i’ve got no natural dopamine that’s what’s going to happen i said i’m not happy to live like that so i was looking for something else to try to adjust those levels and that’s why i started doing my cold plungers very good so let’s just so now you understand how it’s really affected you because of your ADHD yes so tell me how your addiction progressed how that carried on so i dabbled

[00:21:43:06 – 00:23:03:00]for maybe a year or two how frequently every weekend it wasn’t doing a week it wasn’t doing a day i drink most nights i’d have a few beers i lived in this so we moved out of the house my old man so my old man sold the house that we lived in and moved into a slightly smaller house and my dad had met his new girlfriend who he’s still with now and they he was staying at her house quite a lot so i had this like big four-bedroom house not as big as the old one didn’t have a pool he was terrorist what age poor me um 19 and i lived in this house pretty much on my own so my mate who i won’t mention again the one who got me into it him and i were just ruthless we’d be out all the time we’d be going down to nightclubs get him drunk bring him back women and just having like that party lifestyle and it was fun i could do a couple of keys i could do a couple of lines and i was all right and then i didn’t do it for a little bit we i used to meet up with the lads for a few years this is a bit of a blur because it’s been so much has happened i then didn’t do it for a little bit but i was still drinking because i was like cross addicting which i now know is what it’s called yeah cross addicting i was i was like bloody hell i haven’t done that for that long i’m doing really well but then i’m you know checking my betting accounts the second i wake wake up and then i’m drinking every night you know so i was swapping one for the other one substance for the other so yeah i dabbled in in in in the gear the charlie um for maybe

[00:23:04:03 – 00:24:06:04]two years and then i started working in sales again what i feel maybe now might have attracted me to that was the risk part you’re getting it now you get it you’re a risk taker fortune favors the brap the bold fortune favors the brave whatever you want to say i’ll do that again fortune favors the bold and yeah it kind of starting to make sense now this is all come together so yeah i was in sales and i was working hard selling double glazing for a big national company and it wasn’t long uh before i realized that it was rife in the industry yeah everyone was doing it and they offered me it i was about to go and sit an appointment one evening and the manager went yeah mate snort that and i did and i sold that job full money and i made about 1200 pound commission i was only in there for an hour and i thought fuck me that was good i might do that again tomorrow and i did and then it progressed from there quite rapidly to daily use

[00:24:07:07 – 00:26:25:05]um drinking within what a short period of time in the evenings maybe six months i was doing it every night of the week micro dosing is what i used to call it it’s a silly city sort of terminology but i was doing like little bits yeah little little lines very thin very small yeah you know like a cocktail stick so if you had a 0.4 how many lines you get out of a 0.4 at this point now that’s me three or four days so how many lines do you reckon that were point four i don’t know maybe 20 wow okay point four okay it didn’t end up like that no but it started off like that it’s progressive this illness isn’t it uh if it’s an illness but you’ve got a different maybe you can ask me after all right cool after why not now well you can ask me now so my yeah my it’s i think it’s a progressive i think i’ve got the disease of addiction i don’t know what your thoughts are on this i tried to seek help quite quickly after i knew this was a problem yeah so when i was about 21 22 it’s about 11 years ago i saw help i was i’m fucked i’m snorting this shit all day long and it’s affecting everything my missus didn’t know about it so i told her she asked me one night this is my son’s mum yeah she asked me one night um because i was doing really well at this job i was earning lots and lots of money and over the course of like three years probably yeah i was probably snorting for about three years without anyone knowing and then it got real bad for about eight or nine months where i was doing like every day and i was really struggling to what quantity we’re talking at this point at that point i was waking up in the morning going to the office at eight o’clock maybe nine o’clock in the morning yeah bearing in mind how i’d operated before this for the last couple of years was i’d sit at home i’d ring the officer say i’m ready for a lead if you’ve got one let me know they phoned me about two hours later i’d never needed to go to the office he came in the lead over the phone i’d drive to it i’d sit you go in there and sit i’d sit at the job and try and sell the windows i’d get to the office at eight thirty nine o’clock in the morning and i’d be like hello mate have you got anything in the safe and then i’d tick a bit i’ll go upstairs snorting and then i’d just sit in the office i need so i’ve got a lead for you i can’t go on it my hands were like that i was fucked at that point and it really it went the opposite way yeah cocaine for charlie for me you can edit this right no no edits no edits don’t worry fuck there’s no edits don’t worry this is live charlie charlie you’re gonna follow me now charlie for me

[00:26:26:06 – 00:31:08:00]uh worked the opposite way at the beginning it was fun it was social and at the end it wasn’t you can bleep that can’t you because that’s gonna beat me up it’s fine go on uh yeah for me in the end it was it was it just shut me down the more i did and it progressed and progressed and progressed until i was snorting just as big you know point forward last me two lines one up my left nostril one on my right and i’ll just get i’ll just be gone and for like an hour maybe and then i’ll come back down and be like i need a bit more of that and then i’ll try and tick a bit more because i don’t money because at this point i couldn’t sit any jobs because i was so twisted it gave me a job for a door up the road like i can’t go i’ll panic and i was just it spiraled so i left that job i left that company when i went for another national company to try to get away from it within two weeks i was at the manager of that of the guy who run that company’s house snorting gear with him and i was like this stuff’s everywhere i can’t get away from it i then left work for a local company geezer who owned that company was fucked and then i set my own company up and yeah i had a double grazing company for about three years and i was really unwell i was really unwell and i was taking deposits from people and struggling to fulfill the work and and and the you know the order that i’d taken and there are a few people that i will make amends to when i when i’m able to i’ve kept every single contract of every single job i saw i saw over 100 jobs across a three-year period all jobs of you know all of which that i went out and i got myself i went out and i knocked doors and i said i’m i’m harry and this is what i do i got a company you know we do windows and doors we’re in the area leaving prices and i was fucked i was you know just sorting gear all day long from the second i woke up sorting drugs to when i went to bed and that this is before rehab yeah i went to rehab five and a half years ago this is before rehab at the time i was i knew i had a problem and i was still trying to get help because i was still going to fellowship meetings i tried hypnotherapy i tried counselling i tried therapy i was trying all these different methods and none of them were working can i stop you for one second what do you think you needed that you didn’t get from all of those methods you tried i wasn’t ready i was doing it for the wrong reasons i was going to keep my mrs happy i was going to keep my dad off my back i was going to keep everyone else happy because they all told me i got this bad problem i knew i had a problem but i didn’t care about myself enough to want to change they wanted me to do it so i started going to meetings for them to keep them happy and i’m glad i found the fellowship when i did i went back and forward in and out for a long long time but i just wasn’t ready and i was doing it for all the wrong reasons and what changed for me 409 days ago is i started to show myself a little bit more love and nurture and start to do it for me not because i don’t care about my family or my kids now or my mrs that i’ve got yeah i care about them of course i do but if i don’t put myself first they’re all fucking i’m no good to anyone so that’s what’s changed i think i don’t think the hypnotherapy worked because my dad was taking me to my appointment so paying this keys at 50 quid to try and fucking put me to sleep and get me to cry 50 quid 50 quid an hour or 40 minutes in some old hippie some old 50 quid 50 quid i’m talking like 10 years ago 50 quid 10 years ago yeah was that cheap then yeah it’s a shame he didn’t find you you might sort me out let me just answer that i do not do hypnotherapy do you not no hypnosis i do hypnosis there’s a difference here’s a difference okay i don’t know that so when i deal with somebody’s addiction i deal with psychology geshtaut therapy emdr hypnosis psychodynamic therapy linguistic therapy so you know you i use a multitude of different therapies do you put people into under hypnosis do i put people into under hypnosis no i use some hypnotic techniques to change how they think and feel about using okay but i don’t use it as a singular okay i use it alongside others let’s go back a couple of steps you explain how i mean yours is classic harry classic ADHD started using slows the chaos then look what happened your tolerance level went up yes your frequency went up did do you know why because i put up a tolerance i guess didn’t i do you know why no tell me okay so no one ever explained and all this is what upsets me about when people go to meetings or they go how many therapies did you go to a few yeah name them how many give me a number six different types cbt six different types of therapy no one single person explain to you why this happens why why you have ADHD why it affects you and what needs to change

[00:31:09:00 – 00:33:53:18]straight away i look at that and i go it’s because people are so uneducated don’t understand and haven’t researched nasal ingestion of you know what or charlie because they don’t understand but let me explain this is what happened to you and anybody else who has ADHD out there because i think it’s a very valid point so first of all as i’ve said a couple of times already today your amount of your dopamine is being produced is far less the transmission speed is far lower and then what happens is this once you introduce charlie into your system your prefrontal cortex which is here gets hijacked by the dopamine okay the prefrontal cortex receives far too much dopamine from your first line of charlie it turns down your receptors as i said earlier now you produce far less dopamine but not only does that happen okay and remember dopamine is your chemical that tells you that you feel good not only does that happen at the same time your prefrontal cortex from your usage okay reduces down your gray matter your gray matter is part of your brain that makes a decision to be rational to decide no it’s not clever to use that which is already small with ADHD now it’s shrunk down even further the second thing that happens is right here in the prefrontal cortex is controlling your impulsivity people with ADHD are incredibly impulsive i have read that i have read that but only in recent times but you’re right none of these lot have mentioned that not only that this is what i would tell you ADHD Ferrari brains bicycle brakes in other words your ability to say no because of the fact that you don’t have the dopamine produced is far more difficult to say no because you don’t have that control over your impulsivity plus i like the idea of doing it because it’s because you sound risk taking because i fancy that because that sounds dangerous because you like risk taking which i guess does go on to why i sometimes and still now have that thought yeah creeping of pressing the big red f*** it button yeah is that linked again do you think to that of course because you are far more impulsive and you are going to continually be impulsive for the rest of your life because the underlying issues you have ADHD and therefore you produce less dopamine than other people and therefore you will always be slightly more at risk which is why 70 of people with ADHD are more likely to have an addiction that makes a lot of sense you know i like to make sense Harry you do you make a lot of sense so let’s carry on right so then your your usage as spire what sort of quantity frequency we’re at with this point so before rehab we’re talking yeah before rehab so before rehab i was probably

[00:33:56:05 – 00:34:10:17]oh i was living in a family home owned by my mother i reluctantly moved in because i knew that moving into the one of the houses that she owned came with a level of control and power

[00:34:12:02 – 00:34:34:20]i moved into this house lovely house we renovated it i spent a little bit of money she spent a little bit of money she said a couple of years you know you can buy a bit i said okay cool i was with my son’s mum this before my son was even born yeah and his older sister who was my stepdaughter at the time and i was in that house and i was snorting every night probably

[00:34:36:14 – 00:34:51:14]two to three grams racking it or pinching it or what fucking sticking out my ass in the end my nose was so blocked i was yeah i was really unwell and i was just desperate to

[00:34:52:15 – 00:38:17:14]get out of my head to get out of my head because i was in so much pain mentally and spiritually i was just lost and after about a year my son came around and his mum said you can’t be here anymore you know there were times when i was she’d be in the house in the bedroom asleep kids are upstairs asleep and i’d be in the front of the in the garage which is connected to the front of the house you had to go out the driveway and round through the front shut the door yeah i’d turn the power off so you couldn’t come in and i’d be in there pissing into empty bottles of beer nostrils on fire yeah the only time i’d open the garage door was slightly a jar manually to give the gizzards of money to get the gear i was sitting there for like two or three days at a time she didn’t know where i was she just wondered why the garage wasn’t working and i was in there pure paranoia and then she kicked me out i said you can’t be here you’re so she found out she found out also she asked me she said have you been that you know have you ever done drugs this is like a couple years before yeah she said have you ever done drugs back when i was working at the national company she said have you ever done drugs you know like with the with your lads you know work and whatever and i said do you want me to be honest with you she said yeah i said i’ve been on it every day for the last eight months and i’m on it now and she went what she didn’t believe me and then i said i’ve got some in the car so i went down to the car got it came back up and showed her and she couldn’t believe it she’s like really i was like yeah every day i’ve been doing this shit and i can’t stop and then we thought that that sort of sparked you know let’s try to get you fixed because she was a fixer she wanted to help she thought he can’t be wanting to do this surely not because he’s hiding it from me that tells me that he’s not proud of what he’s doing yeah so she tried to help and she tried to understand and educate herself on the disease of addiction and she couldn’t help me god i just wasn’t ready to accept the help so i was in and out of meetings anyway we moved into this house with my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my my i live there now i see but we moved in there and after about a year my little boy was born travis who is back in my life now i’ll tell you about that um to kick me out and then i was living in like hotels i was living in airbnbs i was sleeping on my sofas i was just lost and i was like staying awake at this point for two three four i think the longest i went was like five days just sitting in the car in a lay by out in the countryside snorting gear looking at naughty websites yeah gambling doing anything because the gear wasn’t working so i was looking at other ways to try to get even more fucked because i just didn’t want i didn’t want to face reality to increase your dopamine correct yeah that’s that’s that’s what i’m starting to understand now you’re in hedonism at this point this makes sense what you’re saying makes so much sense and i and i was just so i was paranoid i’d drive from one spot to another and then hide in the trees and i’d be in the fucking woods looking around and i’ll pop back to the car and do another line and here’s and here’s the thing harry during all of this period as you just said i was having paranoia i was out the car get back in the car do another line the very thing that gave you paranoia because it surges dopamine so high that the salience network in your brain attaches fear to your dopamine in other words that’s what’s giving you the paranoia and eventually psychosis you’re continuing to do between your paranoia continue to align the logic of it is this the very thing that gives you the paranoia you’re only stopping to do between having the paranoia

[00:38:22:14 – 00:38:22:21]yeah

[00:38:26:12 – 00:38:29:07]does that make sense it does

[00:38:30:09 – 00:39:58:18]you’re feeding your whole paranoia by continuing to use of course and the more you use the more dopamine because that neurotransmitters telling you to feel good and you want to feel good and i’m coming down at this point i’m like i don’t want to crash i don’t want to feel that i don’t want to have to deal with the phone calls that i’ve missed i don’t want to deal with the people that putting out search parties for me i don’t want to deal with the text that i’ve had from hampshire constablees and if we don’t hear from you in the next three hours we’re going to put a facebook post up saying you’re fucking missing yeah i don’t want any of that and i was that’s where i was where i got to and it’s poly substance right you’re using more than one thing so at that point i wasn’t okay no alcohol no i was dry sniffing so i was thinking because i thought if i get pulled over i might be able to try and get away with looking like all right because i was so fucking delusional that i thought if i was pissed they’d smell it if i was drinking they’d smell it on my breath and you you know i mean you can smell it up in the windows even a drink so i used to just dry sniff because yeah that’s that’s why you’re hitting a very interesting point because people go dry sniffing but actually you hit on a very valid point yeah the point is when people use and the longer it goes on i know you start adding alcohol but generally well they go hand in hand the longer that people use the more they stop drinking alcohol do they because if you start using during the day as you quite rightly said you can’t turn up smelling of alcohol well no exactly that but you can get away with being a dry sniffer and i did for years working with you know in the double grazing industry i couldn’t turn up to customers out and so i’m here for the free quote

[00:40:00:15 – 00:42:09:01]you’re right there mate you know i could turn out as i’m i’m here for your free quote yeah and i come in and i’ll just put a pop to the toilet quick yeah and they say make sure you flash i said don’t worry cocaine doesn’t smell done it again sorry don’t worry challey doesn’t smell um yeah so i dry sniff for a long time i dry sniff for a long time and yeah i didn’t i was very isolated it was very on my own my disease wanted me on my own beaten and broken and vulnerable and lost and that’s where i ended up because i was thrown out of the house you know i had a son a stepdaughter a fiance at a time yeah she kicked me out and within a year and a half i’d lost her the woman i loved i lost access to my son travis stepdaughter she didn’t want to know me still doesn’t there’s something i’m trying to work on might work on at some point i lost the house the cars i was i was on my own my driving license caught revoked i was in a hire car under someone else’s name sleeping in tesco’s car park and the only time i come out of the car park was to meet the albanians and go back in meet the dealer and go back in and i lived like that for for about a year and a half about yeah about a year and a half but there were times where i would stay awake for four or five days no food no water just pure gear what sort of paranoia you’re getting at that point fucking out i was seeing monsters and shadows and shit i was really tripping like bad yeah i remember one night i was parked on the motorway it was i was on the a3 by butts a hill in paul’s movie if you know it peter’s field way and there’s like a new lay by there and i pulled in there because all the cars are going past you the headlights i swear to god i was in there for like four hours looking in the rearview mirror thinking every car that went past there’s like cars just general traffic it’s nighttime yeah i’m thinking every car that goes past coming the light labor and i’m like they’re coming in they’re coming in they’re not they’re just cars going past but for four hours i sit them out they’re coming in they’re coming in no one came in

[00:42:10:09 – 00:42:38:21]that’s and like that’s not what this drug was sold to me as and what am i doing i’ve got a child i got a baby who needs his dad at home i’ve got a missus and a stepdaughter who i’ve you know looked after them for the for the last four or five years and anyway i’m sitting in in a lay by just i don’t even know how i ended up there iliac i don’t and it it is painful talking about it because i didn’t really want to be doing that but at the time i felt like it was my only option

[00:42:41:23 – 00:44:17:09]and it fucking robbed me of everything and that was just the beginning that’s before i went to rehab you said this was not what was sold to me what was sold to you what you see in the movies wolf of wall street yeah the movies where everyone’s right guys come on let’s go you know out on the boats miami and you know you had that though you had that though for the first six months yeah but is that what they don’t they don’t show the next six months in the movies did they or the next 10 years or the next 20 years because some people don’t get this till they’re 40 50 i’m lucky i’m grateful that i’m i managed to get the message i feel like i have got the message now one day at a time i plan to keep doing what i’m doing and staying clean yeah i don’t know if i’ll ever use again i can’t say that’s been your most challenging thing to deal with or challenging moments or challenging time in recent times yeah yeah in recovery now recovery yeah i’m clean now do you want to know about rehab and when i come out yeah do you want me to tell you about that go for it so i came out i went into rehab sorry after being lost my dad finally found me a flat hang on you got so that you got to a low point before rehab clearly yeah very low okay so tell me about that and then let’s go to the rehab desperate in the car completely just felt abandoned felt abandoned and rejected like i felt when i was a kid my mum fucking left me that’s how i felt really and i never said that before until today and that’s kind of how i feel at the moment because i’m not speaking to her

[00:44:20:03 – 00:44:28:19]and i was really really lonely back then and i can still feel like that now

[00:44:31:07 – 00:46:54:08]and i was just desperate for someone to help me and people were trying to help me but for some reason i just wouldn’t accept the help even though i desperately wanted it and my dad found me a place to live and i moved in there and i was running my business going about my business still using you know i’d go a couple of days without using and then i’d use again then i’d go a couple more days it was a couple of days on couple days off and and then i begged my dad i said dad like i really need help i need medical assistance i need intervention i need professional help to to help me understand what it is i’m suffering from and why i keep doing this because at this point i’m using against my will and my dad put me in rehab it was 11 grand for 28 days it was in essex and um i put my business on hold i was so fearful i set that business up on ego by the way but i was so fearful of losing it in the end but i did i made the decision to take myself out of out of um society and go to rehab for 28 days and it was the best thing i ever did and you came out and tell me about that i lasted 67 days i met my missus in there you met your missus in rehab so at this point my boy travis his mum is waiting for me i think to come home because she kicked me out a year and a half before she’s still single there’s no one else at home with her she’s wondering and worried about where i am doesn’t know if i’m dead or alive doesn’t know if i’m clean or using doesn’t know where i am and i finally said to her i’m going to rehab and i remember she let me see travis the day before i went in he was only about two and i went around there and i gave him a cuddle and i said i’m going to rehab i’m going to get sorted and i don’t know whether or not we were both on the same page but my understanding of it is that she was expecting me to go to rehab get clean come home and have this kind of happily ever after with travis with his sister with her and i went to rehab and i met someone who i’m still with who i’ve just had a baby with and i don’t think i ever told this story in full the way i’m telling it it’s fucking messy isn’t it it’s traumatic i don’t know how i’m still all 409 days clean today because i’ve still got a lot of stuff that i need to work through

[00:46:55:20 – 00:47:16:20]i still got a lot of stuff that i want to work through and i need to and i want to yeah this program that i’m working is a program for people who want it not people who need it and i needed it for a long time but because i didn’t want it i didn’t get it you know what your problem was travis your problem harry was this you were looking for external validation

[00:47:18:08 – 00:47:36:13]when really what you needed to achieve was internal confidence yeah and you were always looking for someone on the outside to make you feel better yeah when really it needs to come from within and until you stop looking at it from a mother or a father on the outside

[00:47:37:19 – 00:47:51:14]and realize that it’s you here on the inside you with your partner you with your child you with your responsibility and the bottom line is it comes down to you and you’re always looking for the outside you’re always looking for external

[00:47:53:00 – 00:48:04:21]yeah i am i was i was so now in order to move forward you have to realize that you know what it’s time to put closure on that it’s time to move forward and realize that okay that was me

[00:48:06:13 – 00:48:52:13]before i knew what i knew today yeah correct okay 100 but i’ve got a better question for you if you look forward into the future just changing the psychodynamic of this for a moment if you look forward into the future let’s say a year from now harry just go out a year from now see your son a year older a year of your mrs perhaps you’re married because i catch saying on one of the things the other day your video is asking about are we going to get married and she said and then you said would you ask me and she said i caught that the other day so imagine a year from now where you’re at imagine seeing yourself a year from now you have the life you want you’re clean you’re fresh and imagine turning around and looking back all the way to today tell me what’s different in your life

[00:48:55:11 – 00:49:00:08]christ that’s that’s a deep heavy question

[00:49:05:22 – 00:49:46:15]i don’t know i’m just trying to no no no you’re already there imagine yourself a year already there i’m trying to picture it now what’s different i’m even more proud of who i am i’m even more proud looking back and i feel proud today i’ve got no fucking place well i didn’t think i had any place being here with you today i’m a drug addict you know i don’t think there’s opportunities like this coming on channels like this you know people with your reach i didn’t realize that i’d help as many people as i have in the last 13 and a bit months and i’m proud of of who i am today

[00:49:48:11 – 00:51:21:11]so i guess i’d want to be i guess looking back i’m i’m i’m in a position where i’m even more proud and i’m even more stable the thoughts of using have subsided more because i don’t think they’ll ever go what would it take for them to go so whilst i was trying all these different methods one of the people that i come across told me that one day you will be able to drink successfully one day you might be able to cut the cheeky lines and go home okay and i said right and the therapist actually i’ll come back to the answer that in a minute the counselor that i had at the time scouse guy i won’t name him i remember being in one of the sessions i said look i’m snorting like a gram a day he said have you tried cutting down early have you tried doing half a gram instead of a gram so my brain went he just told me to try half a gram he said try doing half a gram instead of a gram so i tried to cut down that don’t work i’ve got the disease of addiction once too many of thousands never enough i took his advice or his comment as a as a you know a go go get it card yeah that’s what i’m saying let’s go get it let’s get it go get it stay cheetie yeah i saw it as as a green light so i did and i couldn’t control my using and so yeah i found a way my belief now if you like i’m not i don’t preach but i believe i’ve got a disease an incurable one that tells me that i haven’t got a disease right and i believe that if i

[00:51:22:16 – 00:52:14:19]use today i’m going to cause harm so i work a program it’s a daily program and i’m just trying to better myself through a 12-step program that’s helped other people and i could have took his advice and i could have tried to keep going to his little groups on a wednesday afternoon and then said you know started drinking at the football days and i tried that earlier when i come out of rehab 67 days after my mrs felicity and i we both met in rehab both with a drinking drug problem but not actually a drinking drug problem sorry an inside problem yeah i don’t have a drug or alcohol i got a me problem right that’s what i’m using to change the way i feel because i’m not happy i decided to relapse i decided to use i said i i think we should try it and we did and that and that chaos ensued even fucking worse than what it was before for another four and a half years four and a half years of which i wasn’t in my son’s life four and a half years of which multiple suicide attempts multiple hospital intake visits yeah

[00:52:16:13 – 00:52:20:23]so what i’m trying to say is going back to where i started because i diverse

[00:52:22:22 – 00:59:57:22]the what the way i’m living my life now is working i don’t know where i’ll be in a year’s time and if i do get married to flis at some point in the next year we might have a drink at the wedding but that’s not today and i feel like when he was telling me this advice this guy over here saying i still drink i had a problem with charlie yeah i used to i couldn’t stop and now i’ll go football we have a couple of points and go home i was like that’s fucking confusing because these are the saying you can’t take anything you can’t smoke you know the the the puff you can’t smoke whatever yeah you can’t snort that you can’t drink you can’t um gamble and i was like i like the idea of that because what happens if i stick with his so i didn’t take his advice and what i’m doing now is working but there is no cure this is how i see it yeah i don’t feel like there’s a cure for it i think i’m gonna have this for the rest of my life and i hope in a year’s time i can look back even more proud than i am today because i am proud today but also with a slight less of a of a dis-ease inside of me that dis-ease that sometimes tells me go on harry one more time let’s go back to your guy who told you you might be able to have a drink that perhaps you could cut down that led you to thinking about perhaps you could use and you asked me a question before we got on here and you said something about you asked me you said am i free what how did you put it let’s say again go on harry am i am i you asked me am i you said to me are you free of all substance that’s right i said are you sorry are you in recovery and then you said what’s recovery and i said clean and you said what’s clean i said clean and and serene from all mind altering mood changing substances are you no what no i am not and no i don’t agree with that what so it were clean being that i don’t okay so i don’t so my philosophy is going to be against everything that you’ve ever heard okay and i’ll explain why so every every method that you have been through so you went through rehab that’s the 12 steps yeah you went through recovery that’s the 12 steps and you went through the 12 step model okay so let’s let’s let’s talk about that for a moment to let people understand the reason why i don’t necessarily agree with this and the logic behind it so firstly do i drink alcohol occasionally yeah if i was on holiday and i was out well i wasn’t holiday i was away for nine weeks working and abroad in spain can i just stop you are you an addict yeah oh yeah 15 year daily okay how did you work that one out so i used the packet every single day for 15 years whilst appearing on tv whilst being resident psychologist on itv bbc world bbc too itv sky living sky news while i wrote a book on stop smoking addiction now i’ve written a book on you know what addiction yeah so the answer is for 15 years daily okay so now let me explain this to you my brain’s thinking how can this give me the knowledge he’s got so i can do it successfully of course so let me explain and i’ll explain that for you because first of all let’s take my philosophy i don’t believe there is a one-size-fits-all no so there’s no point in me saying this is what i did and i still drink alcohol occasionally come and drink alcohol occasionally you have to look at each individual person so for me i was always a dry sniffer alcohol was never ever an issue for me i could leave it take it doesn’t bother me and when i do have a drink which is very occasionally might be a girly little cocktail because i’m on holiday like a margarita i might have one or two okay or maybe three over a whole day if i was by the pool and it was a beautiful all-inclusive can i just ask you a quick question yeah do you think alcohol is a drug yeah okay do you not agree that in order to be fully recovered or in recovery recovering that you must abstain from all of those no do you not believe that alcohol is a gateway because for a lot of people it is is it not alcohol it’s for a percentage of people it is i was a gateway so you we’ve got to be careful are we not by telling people this i’m not not challenging you well maybe i’ll answer that i’ll answer that for you because it i’m thinking right now if this guy can fucking enable me to have a cup of beers and not get mad that’s not what i said no but that’s how i’m thinking because i’ve got this disease that kind of tries to listen carefully so listen carefully what i’m saying is every person is individual you have to look at an individual i have many patients that alcohol is not an issue for they have never drank alcohol and used the packet okay they’re always dry sniffers usually successful people who run companies or busy or productive might use during the day as we were saying and don’t use alcohol with their using of the packet it’s not a gateway for them just quickly if they did combine the two together they then gone or can they come back from that hold on a minute so if someone starts someone’s never yeah if someone’s a dry sniffer never used alcohol with it you feel that they can successfully drink or just have a couple and it’s fine because that wasn’t their issue but if they did at one time combine the two together could that then become a problem so what you’re now talking about is sdlmb state dependent alert memory behavior so you’re accessing a psychological state and tying two things together so if alcohol was clearly the gateway if they went through years of conditioning of going to the pub having four five six points and then calling it on you’ve conditioned yourself that is an automated cue a stimuli that when you do x plus y you’re going to use the likelihood of that person using is extremely high that person should not drink alcohol even if you want to stop using charlie i suggest highly for the first three months alcohol dissipates no alcohol whatsoever okay now those people that alcohol was not an issue for for someone like me who might drink two three times a year one or two drinks that does not lead to the packet there’s no reason why i shouldn’t be able to drink but you drink tea is this illness not progressive hang on one question at a time do you drink tea no coffee is that not a mind-watering substance if i was being technical the answer is yes if you’re being technical yes but it’s not in a sense that it doesn’t destroy everything around me in my whole life you what was the word you used me yeah thank you yeah and that’s why i said it’s individually dependent so there are many people who don’t use alcohol as a gateway and then sniff but this is those people can drink but because let’s look at let’s not forget right i was using the charlie to change the way i felt that was what i was that was what was my coping mechanism sorry were you using the alcohol to change how you felt i wasn’t how did you know that because so what i’m trying to say is no no how did you say you just said to me you two mind-watering substance yeah okay so i’m just saying if you don’t have a problem with alcohol could someone hang on answer the question you said i didn’t use alcohol to change my emotions i used cocaine change how do you know

[01:00:01:17 – 01:08:10:05]what i’m thinking is how do you know i am not trying to avoid it i’m just struggling to answer and yeah i’ll tell you why so let me fully explain can you not hold on could alcohol not become problem because i never started off with a fucking eight for gear yeah i started off with a couple of lines cut the bumps keys and then it progressed so what i’m sort of like a little bit like wow what’s this guy saying is i’m open-minded don’t get me wrong then let me let me know like harry the beers could progress harry let me answer the question and then you’ll have the answer okay wait till i finish okay when i put my hand up yeah that means i’ve finished all right ready okay here’s the difference alcohol is a physical dependency okay what that means is this once you become an alcoholic you have a requirement of the alcohol to function normally yeah without that alcohol you cannot function normally you’ll get the shakes you’ll get the tremors and you’ll get convulsions in 1939 because this is what we’re talking about i’m glad we’ve come on to this bill wilson yeah was an alcoholic the big book the big book let’s tell you the story of the big carrie and anyone listening because this is interesting in 1939 bill wilson wrote the 12 steps okay now bill wilson lived in a town in america with 500 people with three shops when he was born remember okay in the 1919 1920 there was no internet no mobile phones no dealers hanging out on street quarters for sure right so he was born in a very small town and his father abandoned him and he moved to new york and he became a stockbroker and he was part of the oxford church group a very very religious group okay and remember this is a time in the 1920s when spiritualism and morality were the biggest things to you know you have to do the right thing and they’re very godlike and he went to church and he was a very religious man and he found in church the bible and the 10 commandments and he thought a lot of people go to church and follow the 10 commandments and i’ve started drinking alcohol and i drink more alcohol than i require and i’m an alcoholic and i want to do something about it so he thinks as he comes out of church one day and he meets with the oxford church group i’m gonna write 12 rules yeah that become the big book 12 rules okay so he writes the 12 guidelines for alcohol yes he’s an alcoholic now remember alcohol is a physical dependency and the first thing to do with the physical dependency is to titrate to lower the amount of alcohol your body is consuming okay okay then you give up your surrendering yourself because that’s what had to happen in order to titrate your alcohol to something higher okay makes sense and what happened was he then went around printed his big book and the way that he made money as he went to church and sold his 12 step book he then met a guy and we’ll call this guy mr aa mr aa bumps into bill wilson and he says i love your book can i sell your book and bill wilson says of course you can sell my book so mr aa goes around the world setting up free groups because you know what the law of reciprocity is you know what that is harry no the law of reciprocity is if i give you something today you’re going to give me something back that is worth more i remember when i was a kid once and i was in london i got stopped by harry krishna and i was about 17 and he asked he gave me this book and i said sorry and then he gave me the he said no it’s a president president president in the end he gave me the book and ended up giving him a fiber way more than the book was worth at that time that’s the law of reciprocity okay so mr bill wilson sets up all these meeting groups all over of course these meeting groups have the book right i can see where this is going wait slowly harry i’ve got my hand back and this all goes swimmingly well there are aa groups around the world everything’s fine because it’s for alcohol alcohol requires titration okay it is a physical dependency it requires surrendering let’s fast forward to 1980 reagan administration the war on drugs you know what happens they have an outbreak of cracker epidemic they have an outbreak of drugs around the world and you know what the the penal system do they put people in prison except what happens they suddenly find they do not have enough room in prison for people who are over the influence be it alcohol or be it another substance so a judge in america in the 1980s has a man come to court and he says don’t really have much room in the prisons i know i’ll send you on the 12-step program bang 90 meetings 90 days and he rubber stamped ca which had only just been open with not one single medical research not one single evidence backing it what they did is they took aa alcohol which is a titration and a requirement to deal with and they recovered the same book and they called it ca but let me explain this to you now whereas one is a physical addiction the other is a psychological hijack it let me ask you saying harry you used for a long time right nasal ingestion if you didn’t use for a day did you get the shakes the tremors no of course if you didn’t lose a little week did you get the shakes and tremors but if you were an alcoholic that would have happened correct you do know that you can get an injection for alcohol that you cannot get for nasal ingestion you know what you know why because metabolism in the liver in a different fashion and it makes you sick that’s why it cannot be for nasal ingestion if you know what so let’s get back on track the judge rubber stamped this yeah sent him to a 12 steps now it’s called ca judges all around the world did exactly the same thing not one single piece of peer-reviewed research let me tell you what happens when you use nasal ingestion of this it surges dopamine okay that dopamine is more than your synaptic clef can take which is what i explained to you it down regulates your own production of dopamine now you’re not producing the same quantity of dopamine the chemical that made you feel good let’s fast forward this now in your everyday life you don’t feel good and therefore you have a narrow progressive reduction of the things you do in life because you don’t enjoy doing the things that no longer bring you pleasure as much you have more time to use the substance you use that substance more you correct more connections after work feeling happy having an argument stress you know all of these things get a promotion get some money lose some money get a bill all of these stimuli are being attached remember this right they’re all in here it’s psychological you’re no longer producing the dopamine that makes you feel good remember that okay while that’s happening it is in your prefrontal cortex shrinking your gray matter your own ability to say no you don’t want to use in your prefrontal cortex the ability to take control of your impulsivity is being shrunk yes your ability to say no is being shrunk not by alcohol not by titration the by a psychological hijacker now you don’t have any dopamine being produced let’s fast forward this a year this is why it’s progressive this is why it slows why it took its time let’s fast forward this six months a year two years three years four years five years right what happened was this thing that was occasional social is now what you require in order to feel normal the things that you used to do to feel good and have fun about no longer are about and now you’re just using it as a functionality it is a completely different substance than alcoholism and therefore requires a completely different strategy

[01:08:11:06 – 01:09:23:02]if the 12 steps were to be to be effective do you know how many times how many different things that the 12 steps are used for these days okay let’s list them ready go on heroin cocaine metamfetamine ketamine anxiety OCD porn shopping gambling anxiety gambling so sorry you don’t even have to be a psychologist to sit there and think hang on a minute this thing that was almost a hundred years ago at the same time froid was given his depressed patients cocaine as a methodology for treatment they wrote the 12 steps a hundred years ago before ADHD before PTSD before trauma now not one single thing is in place with ca to deal with ADHD PTSD trauma because all of those things have a psychological different way of looking at them we can pray as much as we like and let’s just step into that because in the in the book god has mentioned 200 times in the big book that’s once every paragraph is it that much yes it is i say this on a podcast have you been going google and check yeah that’s good it’s good

[01:09:24:06 – 01:09:43:00]so tell me now you understand this and you understand that it is an actual physical impossibility that the same application can work on a completely different substance now what do you think or you’re not yet yet it’s not about being there i think

[01:09:44:07 – 01:13:19:10]i don’t really need to know too much about what it is that i’m doing because whatever it is that i’m doing seems to be working and that’s brilliant so but i was answering your question yeah you were you did i wasn’t answering a question about you because i started this by saying it’s down to an individual basis there is no one side of it of course of the answer is this harry when i do with my patients the very first session that whole session the whole case history i build i go into their usage their frequency their background how they were brought up how they use when they use poly substance use their anxiety psychological triggers i do an adhd test a ptsd test a psychological emotional dysregulation test and only at that point with all that information and then i spend three hours collating that information do i understand what each individual patient i get even with the same substance requires because if you think about this what they’re saying is this one size fits all okay what about the person who uses every weekend compares the person uses daily what about the person like you said to me i might go on a binge every three weeks for three or four days in my mum’s garage back in the day that’s not the same you don’t require the same treatment for the person who uses weekends monthly quarterly do you get it having said that millions of people have got clean i love that harry walked straight in there because now let me just tell you this you made the classic response you made the classic 12 step response you said millions of people got clean now here’s my question to you harry yeah you’ve got a phone on you go google it right now i’ll wait and find me one single one single because i’m a scientist and a psychologist and i believe in research i don’t just believe in popping things out the sky millions of people is not scientific show me one one piece of scientific or medical or psychological research that is peer reviewed in other words it is checked and authenticated that shows me that ca has a success rate because i’ll tell you what that is well yeah haven’t finished i’ll tell you what it is volc that is the the source five to ten percent have ca and if you look on their official website you’re going to find it says the same that means it’s a 90 failure rate really yeah fact okay i’m in na by the way the same thing i have nothing against it what i’m saying is you ask me a direct question you ask me they have a philosophy that you have to be free from all mind-altering substance and what i’ve just explained to you is they also have a way of trying to deal with the addiction to nasal ingestion if you know what in the same way they deal with alcohol which is a physical dependency and harry let me just say this this isn’t a discussion no no no yeah i know i know i know because i’ve written a thesis on this harry okay no i i get what you’re saying this is the problem the problem is people who go and do the 12 steps yeah become so indoctrinated they don’t realize even when the research is in front of them yeah i could take you now and give you research paper i’ve been to one meeting a week for the last year 13 months yeah just over and early days when i found the fellowships 11 years ago i tried and i tried and i could see people getting clean and i thought i want a bit of that that’s working for them hang on let’s sorry just go back one sec i can see people getting clean let me just tell you this do you know how many sponsors i currently have as patients

[01:13:20:10 – 01:20:29:04]currently 2025 we’re in what september now yeah september currently how many patients do i have that are actual sponsors in the fellowships in the fellowships i don’t know how many patients you have right now 172 i don’t know maybe 15 of them it’s not it’s not uh actually but it’s around about 10 percent 10 percent of them do you not think 17 people who are actually sponsoring other people in the fellowships who are actually coming to see me because they have an addiction to nasally good luck to them i’m pleased for them but do you not think that when you say there are loads of people i saw get clean sorry how how do you know that so i saw what is your defining evidence okay here’s a question and clean is a year by the way how about someone seeing me you come to a meeting tonight yeah i’m at the top of the table and i share my story is that not seeing someone get clean no that’s me seeing you tell me that you’re clean turning my whole life around getting my kids back having a baby in recovery and i said to you clean is being 12 months clean correct and you are over 12 months clean i am now yes but i still have i believe i couldn’t successfully do anything because this is what i’ve been told it’s only what i’ve been told but like i said you just said you’re so you’re one week one you’re clean and i said to you how do you know and you said by people getting up and talking telling this okay and that is why i didn’t say to you it’s a hundred percent failure rate i said it is a 90 percent failure rate five to ten percent have to be successful and also let’s just remember this harry that person you saw get up and speak at a meeting do you see him in a week’s time in a month’s time in two months time because i’ve had people who have been through the fellowship on my podcast before who’ve just been across the press and i’m not going to run them down who keep pumping this out but keep relapsing because the fellowship is all about relapsing because it has a 90 success rate a nice bit of failure failure failure yeah they told me that in rehab when i was in there they said yeah it was 24 of you in the room here’s my question only two only two or three of you are going to get there only two or three are you going to stay clean and i remember looking around i don’t think well i’m going to relapse because i’m you know i’m full of ego i thought i’d stay clean anyway there was the people that i was pointing out saying he’s going to fail he’s going to fail he’s going to read out they all stay clean believe it or not but i know it’s but then i’m thinking how the fuck can these people charge 10 15 20 grand for 28 days if this if the failure rate is so high because how does that make sense i’ll tell you how it makes sense and and as much as what you’re saying is working at 170 people that you’ve got whatever it is i’m sure they’re fucking doing they’re they’re progressing and they’re getting what they feel like they need to get because you’re very knowledgeable you’re very fucking good at what you do i also do research but you can’t you do and i know these fellowships these are very old school rules is a 12 step program it probably does come from a geezer trying to sell a book it was five years ago but you’re only one person i guess and if there was loads of you correct doing these things it’d be it’d be amazing absolute you are you are hit the nail on the head would be through the fucking roof because your success rate is far far superior than just 10 percent of what you get in fellowships wow 300 people followed up for a year that’s incredible that’s a proper trial that is incredible and you’re very knowledgeable and you know your stuff and i’m not here to try to say but still n a listen n a is what you say what you say let me ask you a question it’s what works for you let me ask you a question okay a lot of people who have spoken to me about this and i’ve had lots of debates about this will say to me yes but it’s better than nothing el is it not whoa that’s where you were going that’s why i was going i know you do this we would go because i do this every day and i’ve done this for 30 years and i see at least 10 patients every single day monday to friday that’s 50 for one thing and one thing only so let’s remember that right i knew where you were going because let me ask you this something that has a 90 to 95 failure rate a five to ten percent success rate right 90 to 95 percent day you said isn’t it better than anything so would you go and buy a car i get what you’re saying i get what you’re saying harry let me answer would you buy a car that had a 90 to 95 breakdown rate no why not harry because it’s not gonna last so that’s my answer to your question and when people go it’s worth millions of let’s put it into context i am all for the 12 steps for aa it’s a great recipe for alcohol it is a titration of alcoholism it is a lowering of the dose it is getting to spirituality is given to your surrender they’re great for alcohol but it’s not a one thing fits every substance fits everybody and it does not and when people turn around and say yes but it works a million people know i’ll take my comment back research is it does five to ten percent success rate it’s a 90 to 95 failure rate you’re right put that on the table and also you only went once a week i have people that end up going four five and i did and what i say is haven’t you replaced one addictive habit for another and then they go home and use when they moment they leave you know do you know what the rate of people who you leave ca and use that night that night is i don’t know 62 percent according to professor dobs in his book people will go to a meeting and use after yeah according to him i don’t know how he got the research and i don’t know i’m eating my words i take back what i said i say that lightly it’s worth for millions of people it’s worked for a few people i’ve seen a few people that’s better do it and get clean and my sponsor is 20 years clean and he was 10 years clean when i first showed up he still goes to one or two meetings a week he sounds old he’s not he’s only he’s quite young actually he’s 20 years clean and 10 years clean no he’s 20 years clean he was 10 years when i met him oh i see so 10 years ago when i first come around he’s my sponsor now a very good friend of mine simon hello simon hello simon simon edwards he’s a really really knowledgeable guy he is taking me through these steps i’m only on step two listen i’m not i’m whatever i don’t want to knowledgeable enough to tell you how cocaine works he’s just showing me what someone showed for him that’s kept him 20 years clean i love that stop stop stop no no no no hurry you just hit the nail on the head again yes you just said he’s just showed me what worked for him now let’s go back to what i said i’m different what i said was this what you get people who use daily you get people who use weekend you get people who use binge and someone’s showing you what worked for them you’re quite right is what worked for them based on their upbringing their environment their ADHD their pdsd their trauma their lifestyle their values their beliefs their experiences their financial capacity their upbringing shall i carry on no right so you understand that every part of that has to be taken into account when you deal with someone to get an effective response that’s why i spend three hours doing a case history on every single person that’s why what you’re talking about is a scatter gun approach if i take a machine gun and i fire a scatter gun i’m gonna hit one or two things in the way you’re also gonna miss a hell of a lot of targets whereas if you have a laser you can repeat the laser on every single target

[01:20:30:05 – 01:21:42:03]anyway let’s carry on no it’s good it’s really very very very beneficial what you’re saying and i completely understand and i’m i’m neither disagreeing nor agreeing i i agree with what you’re saying 100 but what i’m also thinking is you can’t save the world as one person i cannot you are one of the most knowledgeable people about this whole thing and i’d love to have come across you before sooner and you know had my dad of fucking google jew and come up with you you know years ago instead of this scouse geezer that told me to snort half a gram instead of a tomorrow yeah and that’s the other thing things might have been different should i pick up on that what he just said to you think about this right dopamine your brain is is neuroplasticity your brain can remold itself okay it can rewire itself now once you stop using your dopamine will start to re-regulate itself okay and it takes around about three months before doubtful before dopamine begins to improve the amounts being released then six months this is in a three to six months but three months six months twelve months and fourteen months you’re back to full dopamine capacity based upon what you were prior right if you use during that period of time let’s say you’ve gone

[01:21:43:06 – 01:24:25:14]three months clean and you’re now producing a level of dopamine above and beyond what you were doing three months ago and you use you go all the way back to the beginning yeah your dopamine isn’t produced again okay does it stop it it stunts it straight away does it correct okay it’s down regulated your receptors immediately yeah i don’t want that that’s one of the reasons why you’ve got this far that’s one of the reasons why you’re going to keep going and one of the best things you’ve got going for you harry is accountability and the reason i like to share this information on this podcast and other things is because i don’t know anybody who is specific to the one addiction that i deal with there are many people who deal with addictions the problem is well that’s what there’s a lot of misunderstanding because that’s what n.a does of course they look at the the whole of that’s what they do individual substances that’s the disease of addiction that’s where it’s fought that’s where it’s fought that’s fine and alcohol you’re saying but now i’m thinking what am i doing fucking about with n.a because i’m i’m never i’m very easily led and i’m open-minded like i say now i believe what everything you’ve told me because it’s facts and i’m thinking well might as well fuck my sponsor off or fuck n.a off now i don’t know and start seeing you well you can’t see me i’m fully burnt well i feel lucky now i’ve had this fucking chance to talk to you because i’ve learned more in this than i have i wish i just wish that people were more knowledgeable and that’s what we’re trying to do here isn’t it is get the word out there is what it’s about yeah fact i’m not really putting down the fellowships what i’m saying is i think there’s a better way and what i would like to do eventually and this wasn’t about me but i’m going to bring up is give my time for free because in the next five years i intend to retire what i’d like to do is give my time to somewhere in ca and help tweak what they’re doing to get a better system because i do all these podcasts and i don’t monetize a single one of my channels none of this is i get paid for all of this i pay out my own money because i want to put something back and you saying go back then bill didn’t want that so bill bill when he wrote this book and started to sell it he wasn’t one of the people like you just wanted to do it because he cared about people i don’t know that that i don’t know i wasn’t around sounds like he was trying to fuck i will tell you this bug did you know this it makes sense now though because in meetings still now you got to a meeting tonight they said the big books are telling if you want to buy it funny that i think and where’s that going but hang on a minute what’s area man hang on a minute you do know what happened to bill don’t you yeah what happened to bill he died before bill died everyone dies bill moved to what do you think he changed from his treatment of the 12 steps and started using psychedelics

[01:24:26:17 – 01:31:39:06]only a couple years after because he didn’t find it was very effective and he used lsd and he used mushrooms and he used other things like this so where was he what was the word you used substance clean yeah clean sober sobriety but harry let’s run round now so you’re 409 days clean from the stuff that i used to do that i used to affect my life in a negative way and that’s brilliant thank you and then you launched harry’s ice bath let’s get ice bath harry sorry ice bath harry come on so 409 days ago yeah rehab come out relapsed four and a half years is carried on and the use in there was i don’t need to tell you it was bad like i said in and out of mental institutions i nearly got sectioned i ended up in hospital a couple times trying to take my own life um i i was just being picked up by ambulances my heart was on its last legs and i was still wanting to put more gear up my nose and i was just sick and tired of being sick and tired sick and tired of living like an animal and i wanted something to change and as i was doing my research i found a little bit about what you mentioned earlier yeah the receptors getting blocked and not firing off the dopamine like it should which i’m fucking lacking anyway because i made hd dopamine prevention reuptake because that was cool okay and i had heard that ice cold exposure yeah cold water exposure getting in ice cold water does set off the dopamine receptors it does adjust some of the stuff in your brain and your body makes you feel good other people have tried it and it’s worked for them i thought if it should work for them why don’t i give it a go and at the time i was on a bone of my arse i was on benefits i was getting paid every month spending all my money on drugs and having to borrow for the rest of the month to get by borrowing from peter to pay paul and i said i want to buy an ice bath but at the time if i had 80 quid in my pocket i was just going to buy another couple of grams or another couple of halves of of you know what so i sent an email out to a bunch of brands and i got a reply from one brand i sent an email out which said something along the lines of my name’s harry i’m a drug addict i want to get clean and i want an ice bath and i’m asking if you send me one for free so that i can start taking a nice bath every day and in exchange what i’ll do is i’ll do a few videos on my on my on my social media platforms and i sent it out to about four or five companies and with a day later i got a message back from a guy called mike at podorecovery and he said hi harry i’m happy to send you a tab for free good luck with the videos and i started my journey can i mention other platforms on it other social medias no so i started my platform i started on one of the platforms well we’re gonna put links below anyway okay all the links yeah i started one of the platforms and we very quickly got traction i posted my first video 410 days ago because i’m a day in front now yeah so what you see today goes out tomorrow give me a little bit of breathing room i love what i do and i don’t as much as i moan i do really love what i’ve what i’ve created in this last year right so yeah tub arrives i set it up in my garden i said i’m going to take a nice bath tomorrow and i’m going to film it because now i’ve got a fucking obligation because this guy’s sent me a tub for like 70 quid yeah i said i’d do a couple of videos i’m going to so i did and the first video did quite well a few people said welcome you know i’m gonna follow you to watch your journey and then i got up did day two six in the morning and i was you’ve only got to go back on my channel and have a look i was very unwell i looked very unwell if you can pop a picture up on this yeah there’ll be pictures do do put a picture up of me on day one i’m gone and the saddest part is i thought i looked well anyway i carried on and i just disciplined myself and i got up and i took a nice bath and i filmed it and i edited it and it was a bit shit and i put it on the internet and within 10 days no sorry within 16 days we did 10 000 followers and i haven’t stopped and over the last 409 days i’ve built a community of people who have followed in my footsteps who have supported my journey and who really enjoy watching me be transparent and honest and open and vulnerable yeah it takes a real man to surrender it takes a real man to get emotional and vulnerable and i come out and i wear my heart on my sleeve and yes it’s more susceptible to being broken but i’m true to myself and i feel like i’m being transparent there’s no smoke and mirrors what you see is what you get with me yeah i literally come out in the garden and i say hi i’m harry and today i’m 409 days clean and i feel all right today i’m gonna get in the ice bath i get in dopamine goes off i feel fucking great i get out i feel better i crack on with the day and i have a productive day and i try one day at a time not to hurt anyone hi i’m harry hi i’m harry and i’m an addict i’m harry and i’m an addict what did i say hi i’m harry and today i’m 409 days clean that’s what you said i did what you said was this say it again hi i’m harry and today i’m 409 days clean that’s what you said now you asked me something earlier on and i’m going to add to that okay why do i have a problem with the 12 steps at the meeting what do you say because that’s not what you say at the minute i say hi i’m harry and i’m an addict thank you and then i do that’s what you say and what you’re doing is you’re re-embedding the fact you’re an addict in your head what you say on screen is hi i’m harry and i’m 300 days clean hi i’m harry and 200 days clean hi that’s what you say and psychologically you’re summing a seed in your brain to an embedded suggestion because what you say is hi i’m an addict i’m reaffirming but thank you being an addict is that a bad thing what’s wrong with telling myself i’m an addict because that means that you have no choice you have no option but i do surrendering yourself i’m not i’m in control sorry does it not say surrender yourself it does if you that’s the very first thing it says okay did you get my point i do i do i do i for years the difference is it was built for alcohol not for cocaine no it wasn’t you’re right it was alcohol and then the dna and then the ca and then the sa and the ga all stemmed off the back of that i understand that years ago when i was having the therapy that for whatever reason didn’t work back then one of the people that i was speaking to i think it might have been cbt told me you’re not an addict you’ve got to drop that like you just did then that’s not what i didn’t say you’re not an addict don’t reinvent it no different so over this journey that i’ve been on over the last 11 years since trying to discover who i am and what makes me tick i’ve had a bit of ambivalence but look at this pull me push me yeah one minute i’m thinking this guy says i can do a little bit these lots that i can’t no you can’t do a little bit i’ve just explained to you yes you’ve always different i had one guy who told me you’re not an addict you used to be an addict he didn’t know not what you’ve done and how you have today which i’m fucking grateful for but over this this journey i’ve i’ve i’ve i’ve kind of gone this way and i’m not at the you know i’m not telling everyone go to n a go to n a go to 90 meetings and 90 days i’m saying look if sticking fucking rubik’s cubes up your ass keeps you clean stick as many as you can up there yeah what works for me i’d some people say some i’ll tell you i’m not going to name him but my old sponsor commented on one of my videos a little while ago and said ice baths won’t keep you clean harry

[01:31:40:12 – 01:32:26:02]oh he’s wrong shall i tell you why shall i tell you why it’s going to keep you clean harry get to the because you have accountability get to the meeting and i thought is this fucking geezer in the fellowship if he is why is he saying that what’s working for me is working for me is it different and and and i’m starting to see it i’m starting to see it if not every person no no single person is the same everyone needs like a tailored plan but how do you do that in the mass you can’t you know i’m doing a good job of what i’m doing online i’m showing people the answer the question is this harry how do you do that to the mass you cannot you cannot i can only see one person at a time to individualize something do you get it i do and that’s why it’s an appeal because this is a one-stop shop but it doesn’t work no

[01:32:26:02 – 01:32:28:08]definition of addiction is this

[01:32:30:13 – 01:32:38:09]addiction oh i think about it addiction is a

[01:32:39:17 – 01:32:52:12]compulsion an obsession to a substance or a behavior that seems to feel like it gives you a temporary relief that creates a negative consequence

[01:32:54:12 – 01:34:55:08]that will give you my definition of addiction so what i want is and there are many definitions of addiction and i’m not going to say one’s right or wrong what i want to see is this the competition is this in the youtube comments make up your own definition of addiction it can be clever it can be funny it can be whatever you want and then what i’m going to do is when this is released harry and i are going to chat together we’re going to decide which one was the best on whatever grounds that may be harry’s going to send you the large ice bath and i’m going to pay harry for the large ice bath love that love that you look good yeah that was a good one you like that get commenting okay so harry listen before we wrap up i just want to say um because i didn’t mention it i didn’t go into it i got a little bit emotional earlier um i’m not talking to my mom at the moment yes because she’s got her own issues and her own trauma that she’s not dealing with and i’ve said to her i can’t be a part of your life at the moment while you’re behaving the way you’re behaving i’m doing a lot of work on myself and this is a two-way street and i’m you know i’m doing a little a lot of work on myself over here and you’re not doing anything to hold yourself accountable you’re not doing you’re taking responsibility i said i can’t have you i can’t have that toxic you know stuff in my life so i’ve had to cut her out i do still live in a house now by the way travis’s mom and they moved down then i moved back in with felicity my partner and we’ve got a beautiful daughter called billy and i’m sure this if it stays up for years and years i’m sure one day she’ll watch it so hello billy hello felicity felicity also relapsed when we come out of rehab and we both got clean on the 21st of july so felicity and i are both 409 days clean today and i just want to say that i am incredibly proud of you babe and long may it continue whatever whatever we do and however we do it we’re gonna do it because yeah harry thank you i really appreciate your time thank you for coming clean with me thank you

[01:34:55:08 – 01:35:01:20]