April 10, 2025
#65 - Woody Albrow: Recovery Through Connection, Butane Gas & Hallucinogens, Family Breakdown, Alcohol Dependency, Spiritual Recovery, Peer Mentoring, Stigma in Professional Settings & Leading with Lived Experience
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Matt speaks with Woody, the National Connecting Communities Lead at Change Grow Live, who shares a candid account of his journey through addiction, recovery, and professional development. Woody reflects on the early signs of substance use in his teens and the emotional undercurrents that led him to rely on substances as a coping mechanism. He discusses his progression through various drugs, including butane gas, cannabis, hallucinogens, and ultimately alcohol, which became his most destructive dependency.
Woody describes the personal impact of addiction on his life, including strained family relationships, disconnection from his children, and the loss of his physical and emotional wellbeing. He talks about hitting rock bottom, including a significant turning point involving arrest and hospitalisation, which prompted him to seek detox and begin a new phase of recovery. Woody speaks with honesty about the shame, isolation, and denial that often accompany substance misuse.
A significant part of Woody’s recovery has been grounded in spirituality, nature, and meaningful connection with others. He shares how his introduction to a spiritual philosophy helped replace his dependency on substances with a sense of purpose and guidance. He also emphasises the vital role of the recovery community and the importance of peer support in sustaining long-term wellbeing.
Now in a leadership position, Woody explores the challenges and opportunities of being open about lived experience within professional settings. He reflects on stigma, disclosure, and the need to shift organisational cultures to recognise the value of lived experience as an asset. This episode offers insight into personal growth, systemic change, and the power of recovery to transform lives.
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Believe in People explores addiction, recovery and stigma.
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We'd like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Christopher Tait of the band Belle Ghoul & Electric Six for allowing us to use the track Jonathan Tortoise. Thank you, Chris, for being a part of this journey with us.
00:00 - Introduction to Woody's Journey
05:56 - Early Substance Use and Hidden Emotions
10:26 - Rock Bottom Moments and Life Turning Points
18:07 - Spirituality as a Recovery Foundation
28:43 - From Volunteer to National Lead
40:55 - Community Connection and Reducing Stigma
57:54 - Rapid-Fire Personal Questions
WEBVTT
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This is a Renew Original Recording.
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Hello and welcome to Believe in People, a British podcast award-winning series about all things addiction recovery and stigma.
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My name is Matthew Butler and I'm your host, or, as I like to say, your facilitator.
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In this episode, I'm joined by Woody Albrough, who shares his compelling story of addiction recovery and transformation.
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From early substance use in his teens, beginning with butane gas, progressing through cannabis, hallucinogens and MDMA, woody eventually found himself gripped by alcohol dependency.
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Despite once dismissing alcohol as rudimentary, it became the substance that brought him to his lowest point, affecting his health, relationships and sense of self.
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A turning point came after a drink driving arrest and a deep period of isolation.
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Reconnecting with his father and entering detox marked the beginning of meaningful recovery, with spirituality becoming a central pillar in maintaining abstinence.
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Woody speaks candidly about the importance of lived experience and the tension between professional identity and personal history in the treatment field.
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Now National Connecting Communities Lead at Change, grow Live.
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Woody champions the role of community connection and purpose in long-term recovery.
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His journey from volunteer to national leader highlights the power of authenticity and the need to reduce stigma in both services and society.
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I start my conversation today with Woody by diving straight in at the deep end and exploring where his addiction started.
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It's an interesting one because on the way over here I was obviously thinking about the questions you'd be asking and I wasn't sure.
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And obviously addiction is a big part of my life and I was thinking about when it actually when I started noticing sort of behavior which you could call addictive and for me it happened very early on.
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It was probably the age of sort of 13, 12, 13.
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I was using butane gas as a means to sort of numb myself.
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And it's funny because when I reflect back on that I was thinking you know one, I just think that's so incredibly dangerous, but for me at the time it was a sort of a normal thing.
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Um it, yeah, it's quite scary.
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I find it sort of like oh my god, you know, I was doing butane gas and it was like and it's funny because I don't I don't sort of relate it to, um, as being abnormal, but only when I'm reflecting on it.
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I just see that as having children myself and the thought of them doing something like that would be sort of horrific.
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So I had a long sort of period in my early years of sort of numbing myself, and butane gas was one of them, and then it was um cannabis.
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For many years cannabis was the thing that um was the sort of staple thing which I did.
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Um alcohol not so much alcohol was always sort of seen as a bit crude and a bit sort of like.
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I used to be sick a lot on alcohol.
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So, alcohol was in the background but um and then it turned into um.
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I grew up.
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I grew up in Cardiff and Cardiff is um.
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Living in Cardiff had access to magic mushrooms, so psilocybin was sort of like you could go up to the to the valleys access to magic mushrooms, so psilocybin was sort of like you could go up to the valleys and pick magic mushrooms.
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So I had a lot of time using magic mushrooms and sort of going into a different reality.
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I think the interesting part there is out of all those things, the one that is the most socially acceptable is alcohol.
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Yet you, in your experience, found that to be the one that was was quite, quite crude.
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What was the reason for it then?
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I guess, looking back at your own childhood, you know you talked about numbing yourself on and that escapism that comes with that.
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What was the reason for wanting to have that feeling?
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And I think that's a really difficult one to answer, because I mean, there was various things going on at home, but nothing which I'd sort of Considered to be a trauma or something.
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Well, I think there was stuff going on and I think, you know, I suppose trauma is so personal, isn't it?
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You know?
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I think you know, I think I suppose trauma is so personal isn't it.
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You know, I think everyone's experienced, but I didn't looking back, I didn't really have the means to manage my emotions.
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You know, so what I used to do is I used to sort of, I used to get really angry, I'd get really angry.
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It was just frustration.
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My mum and dad split up and at the time that was just, and my mum moved out and there was a lot of there was a lot of shame attached to that so my generation there was a lot of men left the house but not many women, so there was a sort of there was something about that and I remember never telling anyone about it, never telling any of my friends, and people used to come around the house and go where's your mum?
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And it'd be like she's out you know, there were certain things which I just didn't deal with.
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I didn't have the means to sort of like talk about them and I and I so I think what I did was sort of those feelings.
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I, I, I relieved those feelings of frustration and anger through through other substances, and it was my environment, was a lot of people who were doing these things, you know sort of gas.
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You know there was sort of things like a lot of people were doing glue, sniffing glue, and a lot of people were dying.
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But I was sort of I prided myself in of not sniffing glue.
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You know because that was a bit dirty yeah, it's almost a moral high ground sort of thing, like it's not as bad as that.
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Absolutely the hierarchy of sort of like yeah, we're not glue sniffers yeah, yeah glue sniffers look really messy and you get it all over your stuff, and so there was a bit more slick with a can of butane gas.
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But, um, yeah, so there was.
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Yeah, so there was there was things going on, but but I don't, you know, I had a relatively good upbringing.
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Do you know what I mean I had, but I still had the sense of not feeling, not feeling sort of able in myself to express myself, in a way and and I would internalize all these things, and and and drugs became the, the means to sort of to cope with sort of life.
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Yeah, you know, and it was effective for many years where did it move to?
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then you talk about, obviously, that to the cannabis and stuff.
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Where did that eventually go?
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well.
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So I sort of I talk when I when I sort of reflect, I talk about sort of me having sort of two rock bottoms when, um, in my life and one was very early on and one was when I was about 17 I I got to the stage where I was, I was doing, I was tripping most days for a period of about a year and I got incredibly unwell.
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Basically, I left.
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I left home when I was 16, I think.
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The day after my birthday I managed to leave and at that age we could it was me and my mates could manage to get some housing benefit, rent a house or move in and we were like freedom, you know, party.
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I had no idea, you know, I had no idea about what you needed to do to live.
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So it was like sort of 24 hour party, 24 hour tripping, 24 hour just getting off your face.
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And it was 24-hour tripping, 24-hour, just getting off your face.
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And it was fun at the beginning, you know, but after the year sort of took its course, I got very unwell.
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I was like malnourished.
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I was just, I was incredibly thin.
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I weighed about seven stone.
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I wasn't really eating.
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We were sort of stealing pints of milk from the street to sort of like have any sort of anything to eat.
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We were just yeah, just, there was no sort of there was no healthy living involved in it, it was just excess and it was just parting and the wheels fell off and I remember my mum coming to visit me and she was just like horrified how I looked, what I was doing, and I was just and she said, you come and live with me.
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She was at the time was living in Forest of Dean in this, you know, in the forest which was sort of somewhere which, for me, enabled me to have this sort of period of recovery and a period of sort of removing me from the sort of chaos I was in.
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Did that bring up any resentment?
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To have you, your mother, leave the family home and then here you are, you know, living this less than desirable lifestyle.
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And for then, for her to then say, oh, come live with me yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, you know I, I had a.
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I had a long period where I didn't speak to my mother you know I, I took it all out on her.
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You know part of the sort of thing.
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I was very stubborn, I was a very stubborn kid, I sort of like I would shut people out.
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Um, so yeah, absolutely there was resentment um but it.
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But you know, what was funny is she reached out to me when I really needed her and it enabled us to start a really fantastic relationship, and I still have a fantastic relationship with my mother from that, that she really helped me when I needed and I could understand that she really helped me when I needed and I could understand.
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I think at 13, 14, you don't really understand the complexities of a relationship you know, and you know.
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So I got a lot more understanding of that and I think we restarted a relationship on a much more sort of open sort of terms.
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It wasn't so sort of yeah, it was different and it was really appreciated, yeah.
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How did you find that your addiction impacted the people that was around you, and can you kind of give a bit of an insight into that as well?
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We always say no one goes into addiction alone.
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I think so many people kind of underestimate the impact that addiction can have on others.
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I guess that's kind of what we're trying to explore is how does it affect those that are around you?
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no, absolutely no, and and it's a lot, you know, as soon as you say that, you know, I, I can feel that sort of pit in my stomach sort of going.
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You know, oh my God, you know, because I, I, I had a huge impact.
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It impacted my, my family, uh so much, but the real impact was when, um, much later in my life, um, I became, I was sort of cocaine dependent and then alcohol dependent, and that period of time I was in a relationship, I had two children and that basically just everything fell apart because of that behavior.
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So I lost the relationship.
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I was unable to see my children for over a year.
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Nobody really wanted to be around me because I was just not a nice person.
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I suppose, in a sense of it, it was like the addiction became so powerful that the obsession of just drinking to oblivion was so great that everything else just went out the window.
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So it would be, that was my priority, it was just to get out of it.
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Um, and it was just a really scary dark period.
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So the people around me suffered incredibly.
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You know, and I, you know, and that and that's, you know, I I sort of live with that, um, that feeling of you know I I try and turn it around to to sort of you know how I live my life now, but absolutely I I really impacted my relationship to everyone thinking about when you're in that, because we see it a lot in services people using substances where from a third person perspective, it looks like they have, I guess, a complete disregard or they just don't care about how it's impacting others.
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When you're going through that, when you're at the heights of cocaine and alcohol addiction and you're not able to see your children and and be honest in this are you thinking about them?
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Are you thinking or are you really just focusing on yourself and your own individual needs?
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Because I found that when people achieve recovery, you can say, oh god, I was so selfish.
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In hindsight.
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What was that?
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You know what was I doing, but in that time did you even care?
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Is what I'm asking for and I get that?
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That's the truth.
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Do you care or is it just about you and your own needs and your own addictions?
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it's.
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No, it's an interesting one because I think, like, like you said, I think there's a lot of stigma around it as as sort of like that uncaring behavior, and I think I think it's.
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It is complex because I think anyone who'd say this obsession is so great that you don't have the ability to behave in a way of showing that care but, deep down.
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You're ripped apart by knowing what the right thing to do is but not not being able to do it, do you know?
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I mean, and I think that is the real wrench, the real sort of that's, that's sort of where the pain is in addiction, because I think you know the ability to act in the right way is just sort of taken away from you because of the addiction.
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And I think that's not, I don't think that's avoiding responsibility, but I think there's just an inability to be responsible when you're in addiction.
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Yeah.
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You know because you know I always.
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You know I managed to stop addictive drugs.
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You know ecstasy was a big part of it.
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I managed to stop that.
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You know cocaine incredibly addictive, but I managed to stop that.
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Managed to stop that.
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You know cocaine incredibly addictive, but I managed to stop that.
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The the one I needed help with and to go into a detox unit and rehab was was alcohol you know, alcohol was just brought me completely to my knees and that took everything away and and that was just I had no idea of, of the obsession, uh, of, you know, physically and mentally obsessed with just getting that drink.
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You know, the only the only time you could sort of relax was when you had enough drink to actually pass out, you know, and it's just a hideous state.
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So I, I think, I think it's just it's almost like impossible to to to do, to do responsible things when you're in addiction.
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It's very difficult.
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You know what I mean, and I think there's different degrees, you know.
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I think there's sort of like levels of addiction.
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You know A lot of people can have sort of mild addictions and manage to sort of do things.
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But I think where it took me was a point for for for quite a long time, where where I couldn't function normally and I couldn't hold my responsibilities and I I lost everything as a result and and um, yeah, that's.
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yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of sadness and regret about that, but there's also a sort of an acknowledgement is, that is part of my life and that is part of who I am now.
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You know, I see a lot of the impetus for who I am now comes from that.
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You know it's what they say.
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Is that you know pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth?
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What they say is that pain is the touchstone of spiritual growth.
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It's a key part of my growth is having endured that pain and that experience.
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It's interesting to look at starting using substances at such a young age and I guess going from gas into cannabis, to hallucinatory drugs like mushrooms to cannabis, to MDinate drugs like mushrooms to cannabis, to mdma, to alcohol, was the.
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I guess it's almost like the definition of madness is repeating the same behaviors but with different substances.
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Was it kind of like a ladder of progression where you move from one thing to the other, or was it just almost like a a cocktail of all these things was happening at once?
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yeah, it's an interesting I.
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I think that you know there was.
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There was subtle things which I suppose attracted me to a certain thing.
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You know, I think hallucinogenics were just was just incredible.
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You know I mean it was just that experience was so, was just incredible, you know, I mean, it was just that experience was so attractive and it and I suppose this is you know, growing up in the 80s there was a lot of sort of cultural influences, things you know I used to just love sort of watching song remains the same sort of led zeppelin videos.
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You know jimmy hendrix who's like my brothers were into all of that.
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It was sort of there was a romantic sort of element of that and I think generational sort of things like.
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You know the club scenes, you know ecstasy and you know all of that that was the thing which was going on.
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So I think there's sort of I keyed into certain trends, I suppose, but um, yeah, and I think there was just there were certain things which were available at different times.
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So I I don't, I I don't know really what, um it didn't feel like I was going for something harder.
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It was something different, different, yeah because I think going through again, as you said quite early on, going to move with your mother after experiencing this, it almost sounds like, right, I've got over, got over this thing and then doing something else and again going back to the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
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And that's kind of what it sounded like at first.
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It's like, right, well, I've got off this, but now I'm going to move on to this.
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Got off this, now I'm going to move on to this.
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But alcohol is the thing that again, as you said, has brought you to your knees.
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And it's interesting because the first thing you said in this podcast when you was very young was alcohol seemed quite crude, do you know what I mean and that was the thing that got you in the end.
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Yeah, and and I meet lots of people who have that similar, similar experience is that sort of you know, and for that reason I think they don't identify alcohol as being a problem yeah, because it was always a bit like and I remember in detox I sort of I same sort of similar thing to to cannabis.
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I'd left a bit of, I left a bit of hash at home and it was like, oh, you know, at least I'll come back to that after I've detoxed, you know.
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Yeah, and then in treatment it was like someone said you know, do you think that's a good idea?
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You know what I mean?
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And it was like what?
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It's just cannabis.
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You know what I mean.
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It's just like and that's the same with alcohol, I think a lot of people I know sort of put down, you know, the heavier drugs but leave the alcohol and then, if things aren't addressed, you know the alcohol can become the problem.
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And I think it's yeah, it is hideous, you know.
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I mean alcohol dependency and all that it brings is just a sort of it's.
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It's just such a horrible, horrible experience and I think people don't don't really get that, you know.
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I think generally people just, you know, treat it as a decision, you know, a choice and I think it goes back to you know, we're all wired very differently but, like I myself, I can.
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I can drink and I can stop.
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And I think that's the thing with alcohol.
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The reason why people don't understand alcoholism is because not everyone has used heroin.
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Not everyone has used mdma, uh, hallucinogenic, you know drugs like mushrooms.
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I would say, 99 of the people I will ever talk to at some point I've drank alcohol in their life and I've stopped drinking alcohol.
00:21:49.509 --> 00:21:57.669
So when they see someone with an alcohol dependency, they was like well, it didn't affect me that way, I never got addicted, so therefore it can't possibly be an addictive substance.
00:21:57.669 --> 00:22:07.410
And that's where the lack of understanding comes in, whereas for me, someone who's never used mushrooms, for instance, I would be like oh well, maybe that maybe is an addictive substance because I've never used it.
00:22:07.680 --> 00:22:11.290
So, I can only hypothesise how it might make me feel or what it could do.
00:22:11.290 --> 00:22:16.211
But everyone again 99% of people have used alcohol in some way.
00:22:16.211 --> 00:22:23.269
So they look at the addiction and go well, it's not that addictive, because it never affected me in that way, because they've got that direct experience of it.
00:22:23.269 --> 00:22:28.844
You went to detox for alcohol.
00:22:28.844 --> 00:22:32.811
Was there a moment, or was there a series of events that that led up to that moment?
00:22:32.811 --> 00:22:34.824
I thought, right, I need to nip this in the bud now.
00:22:34.824 --> 00:22:36.327
I need to get clean.
00:22:36.829 --> 00:22:41.798
Yeah, you said about you've had a couple of rock bottom moments Was this one of them?
00:22:41.798 --> 00:22:42.140
I guess?
00:22:42.140 --> 00:22:43.403
No, absolutely, absolutely.
00:22:43.403 --> 00:23:00.784
My second rock bottom was basically I got arrested for drink driving, you know which I'm incredibly ashamed at the time and still you know element of shame around it.
00:23:00.784 --> 00:23:08.635
I mean, yeah, yeah, I got arrested and and I was alcohol dependent.
00:23:08.635 --> 00:23:16.698
So you know, I no part of my day was I was sober you know it was just from from every waking hour.
00:23:16.778 --> 00:23:18.098
I was drinking, you know.
00:23:18.098 --> 00:23:18.859
So it was.
00:23:18.859 --> 00:23:30.021
I was, um, arrested, put in the cells and then told to come back to you know a hearing, and I just didn't turn up, I couldn't.
00:23:30.021 --> 00:23:51.566
I was sort of barricaded into a sort of basement room in my flat, just paranoid, just sort of surrounded by just cans and debris and just sort of like you know, it was just, it was just hell, it was a hole, it was like you know curtains closed.
00:23:51.606 --> 00:24:05.791
I was just you know every knock at the door it was like you know, and then the fear of the police are coming, until one day they did, and they, um they, they broke down the door, which it seemed like a bit excessive.
00:24:05.791 --> 00:24:07.115
Do you know what I mean.
00:24:07.115 --> 00:24:13.984
It was like sort of you know a thing, and I laugh now, but you know, at the time it was just hell.
00:24:14.375 --> 00:24:19.278
But, you know it was the sort of paranoid that someone's going to knock on the door and then you're getting.
00:24:19.278 --> 00:24:31.867
It's like there was about three vans, two cars, there was about 12 police, all in sort of gear, barricade, you know, smashing the door down, coming in, arresting me, you know, dragging me out.
00:24:31.867 --> 00:24:34.842
The whole street was out.
00:24:34.842 --> 00:24:37.167
The shame was just like.
00:24:37.167 --> 00:24:48.589
But what came out of that it was a neighbor actually phoned my ex and said you, you know, woody's just been arrested, he's been taken away.
00:24:48.589 --> 00:25:00.125
So my ex contacted my dad and then my dad found out where I was and then I was held in cells overnight and taken to court in the morning.
00:25:00.125 --> 00:25:13.122
And when I was appeared in court I looked over and I saw my dad, who I hadn't seen for a long time, and he and then it was like the game's up.
00:25:13.122 --> 00:25:15.026
You know, it was like I need help.
00:25:15.046 --> 00:25:20.842
This, this is, this is sort of like apparent, you know, because the denial before and they're just you know.
00:25:20.842 --> 00:25:26.778
So then it just felt like actually I, you know, I I do need some help and he was incredible.
00:25:26.778 --> 00:25:48.942
Uh, you know, um he he sort of you know, he listened to me and he, he helped me, he supported me, and I was very ill at the time as well because I was, uh, I'm type 1 diabetic, so you know alcohol and and diabetes are really not a good mix, you know.
00:25:49.042 --> 00:25:50.226
And alcohol dependency.
00:25:50.226 --> 00:26:20.039
So I was, I was again, I was very, I was very ill, I was very thin, I was very, just yeah, yeah, hideous, hideous time, um, and he was able to help me and he was there and then, and then, in some way, by being so ill, it enabled me to to sort of fast track into a detox you know, and get the help I needed, um, and that was just.
00:26:20.039 --> 00:26:24.125
Yeah, it was was a great.
00:26:24.125 --> 00:26:28.391
It was a sort of you know, the cliche was to sort of start my new life.
00:26:28.835 --> 00:26:29.355
It was a sort of.
00:26:29.395 --> 00:26:37.670
You know, it was a time where I'd sort of really realized that I can't just keep on doing this stuff.
00:26:37.670 --> 00:26:45.308
You know, I need to sort of do a 180 turnaround and I need to sort of have a new way.
00:26:48.736 --> 00:27:12.740
And something I haven't mentioned but which is key in my story is the sort of is the spiritual aspect, my philosophy of, of thinking of um connecting to a higher power or a you know I like to call it a higher power or you know god.
00:27:12.740 --> 00:27:30.458
Spiritual sort of view, uh, is that if, if, if I am connected to my higher power or a higher power, I'm I'm less likely to do things that will uh blur that connection do you?
00:27:30.478 --> 00:27:42.163
know what I mean and I think that connection for me creates a sort of I suppose a sort of makes me adhere to certain values.
00:27:42.163 --> 00:27:48.442
You values of sort of doing the next right thing, being a good person, being kind, being.
00:27:48.442 --> 00:27:50.319
You know things which are sort of.
00:27:50.319 --> 00:27:56.490
I feel most people know internally what is right.
00:27:56.634 --> 00:27:59.784
Yeah, a moral compass of what's right and what's wrong.
00:27:59.784 --> 00:28:00.926
Yeah, Exactly.
00:28:02.156 --> 00:28:32.365
So I attribute that, in a sense, to a spiritual, a higher power, and that allows me, you know, that feeling of sort of if I take a drink or a drug, I blur that connection and therefore I'm likely to, you know, go off the path you know and not kind of follow the moral compass in which you would normally follow.
00:28:32.694 --> 00:28:33.559
Because you're not yourself.
00:28:33.559 --> 00:28:35.189
Are you when you're under the influence of substances?
00:28:35.189 --> 00:28:38.904
You act in a way that can be very unlike you, and so forth.
00:28:38.944 --> 00:28:57.531
Yeah, and for me that's a sort of, I suppose, because I didn't, I've had that twice in my life, in a sense of sort of you know, going to that rock bottom, jumping off place and sort of you know, coming back from it.
00:28:57.531 --> 00:29:09.270
For me I need to stay plugged in, you know, and that allows me to have a, to have a good life, you know.
00:29:09.270 --> 00:29:15.490
So it's sort of, um, yeah, you know so, so why go back there?
00:29:15.490 --> 00:29:19.278
So that that's why, for me personally, abstinence is the way I.
00:29:19.419 --> 00:29:24.057
I do that yeah and it's a sort of a personal choice that I don't you know.
00:29:24.057 --> 00:29:27.098
Why would I jeopardize that by picking up any drink or drug?
00:29:27.720 --> 00:29:28.260
well, was it?
00:29:28.260 --> 00:29:38.723
Was it quite easy to kind of follow or, I guess, accept the possibility of a higher power?
00:29:38.723 --> 00:29:45.500
Because I think when some people especially when I'm talking early recovery here now, I imagine it's a lot easier.
00:29:45.500 --> 00:29:57.262
But early recovery, when you first start introducing those concepts to people, it can either be rejected or just, you know, oh, that sounds like a lot of bollocks sort of thing.
00:29:57.262 --> 00:30:00.295
And you know some people really need convincing.
00:30:00.295 --> 00:30:11.060
You know, I've seen people who you know, I've seen people looking like they're on death's door and eventually come round and are now doing really good things with their life after achieving recovery.
00:30:11.060 --> 00:30:18.001
Was the notion of a higher power a hard sell to you, or was it something where when you heard it you went, fuck, that makes sense.
00:30:19.922 --> 00:30:21.335
How was that in those early days?
00:30:21.335 --> 00:30:37.587
So when I was at my sort of first rock bottom, when I was sort of about 15, 16, I met this guy who was equally a sort of a hedonist.
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