Carole Boss Watson: TikTok Sober Queen, 45 Years in Addiction, Gangster Dad and Sobriety

Welcome And Carol’s Background

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is a renew original recording. Hello and welcome to season 3 of Believe in People, the British podcast award-winning series exploring addiction, recovery, and the stigma that surrounds them. I'm Matthew Butler, your host, or as I like to say, your facilitator. Today's guest is Carol, and her story is one of the most extraordinary we've had on this series. After 45 years of addiction, prison, violence, crime and survival, she joins us to talk about where it all began, how chaos became normal, and why recovery only came when everything finally caught up. We explore childless substance use, family dysfunction, self-worth, domestic abuse, and the long road from feel-seeking and destruction to finally choosing a different way. This is a conversation about trauma, endurance, and learning to stay alive long enough to change.

Glue At Ten And Early Escapes

SPEAKER_00 0:46

I begin today's conversation by talking to Carol about her first interaction with substances. Shockingly, I was ten.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Ten? Ten. Wow. And I was skipping school. I'd moved from the east end of London where we lived over to Kent. My mum thought I'd be a better human being if we did. And I was soon skipping school and I met up with these skinheads older than me. In Woolworths, snicking the glue and all that. And over the park, and they showed me how to glue sniff. That's shocking. Because my granddaughter's ten, you know what I mean? I mean, I was smoking cigarettes in school at seven and eight in the class, so I was a little bit naughty.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

What was what was the kind of reason that you that drew you two substances anyway? I mean, at that age, it's really weird because you don't know the consequences of these things anyway, don't you know?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Well, the thing is I didn't know what you know, I've had such a lot of sticker from my certain members of my family, well, all of them at some point, about uh why I chose this and you've effed your life up. But I didn't know I was effing my life up until it was too late because I started too young. So I liked being out of my head. People say, Oh, I did it because of this, I did it because of that. I like to be in high. I did. Looking back, there was definitely I didn't have the the the I didn't have a bad childhood, but my dad was a gangster. He used to beat my mum up. Sorry, dad. And my mum had me really late in life and wasn't as present as she should have been. Like she wasn't like the the talk my mum was, which was not great in certain aspects, but and then I just seemed to be drawn to the bad ones and I loved being the outrageous one. I was like that little kid out of this is England, you know. I just and I was daring. I've just been scaled up rapidly.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Is is there something about the I mean the the connections there? You know, we often talk about like adverse childhood experiences and how that can lead to substance misuse issues. But if you've got, you know, that going on at home, domestic abuse, you know, feeling like your mum isn't fully present, I think naturally there is going to be the need for some form of escapism.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Yeah, and I think maybe thrill seeking. Also, I had no confidence whatsoever. I was like a bistow kid. I had had a really bad accident running through a glass door when I was in in America when I was about nine. So I had 53 stitches down my face, bright red. I looked like a a little topper maker. And um I'd I'd my sister was like beautiful and women knee and feminine, and I was just like a boy with a cold sore and scabby knees. And I did outrageous things to be to seek a bit of admiration, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

You know, I was gonna say that's that's interesting, that because it is I think we do we we have sp I mean I've spoken about this before, but when you are a teenager, there is nothing more important than the admiration of your peers. You want your peers to look at you in a certain way, whether that's the life of the party, maybe they w you want them to think that you're you're the hard one, do you know what I mean? But there's something about how much you care about how people feel about you at that age, and I think that for some people, I mean for me especially, that that just disappeared over time. I remember getting to an age where I thought I genuinely couldn't care what my peers think of me anymore. But there's something about those years that that do force you to behave in a certain way, and I think it's a shame you don't realise it at the time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, definitely. I didn't feel like I had anything to offer. So to be that one, the outrageous one, the one always breaking rules. I was fighting, I was bunking off school, I was just I was uncontrollable committing crime really early on. Once I realised I could shoplift, yeah. I struggled throughout my life, even up until recently, to have to pay for things. It's it's one of the hardest things to give up.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

What did you find hard about it then? Was it just it was it kind of like I mean that's that's one thing to to look at, isn't it? What what did I find hard about? Just stopping shoplifting because I think for Money, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Who wants to pay £30 for a mascara when it fits in your bra?

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah, do you know what I mean? And when you've done that so long, it's a sort of a little bit of a natural thing.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

And then getting in trouble, jail and all that, that's like an occupational hazard. It just went with the territory and kind of liked it as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Where did it go from glue then? Can you remember how that escalated?

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, I met this boy who obviously my mum hated, tattooed up to the eyebrows, pieced, pierced and all that, who gave me used to give me these little blue tablets, little blues, like speed. Then we which I loved. Drink was always a massive part of it. I started drinking in primary school. I didn't drink out of the cupboard. My mum was gallivanting up the West End of the Cafe de Paris in a sequence and didn't really take much notice of what was going on. If more notice had been taken, my life would have been extremely different. My dad, even though he's very strict, was more angry about score. They were scoring points of each other.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

I just did what I had. You were just collateral damage, and that was like my mum believed everything I said. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

So it went from glue to pills, these speed pills to actual speed. Then I took my first trip when I was about 15. Acid trip, and I never wanted to come down ever again. I was completely without any fear of hurting myself or dying. I didn't really care. I didn't like myself very much. I didn't think like so. I spent my whole life thinking I was an idiot thick, because that's what I was called. I was I grew up being called name, referred to with names like how she's off her head. You know, if you tell some a kid someone something enough, they they kind of believe it. Well not even kids, women in abusive relationships, same you know, off your head, freaking nature, weirdo, nutcase. So I just acted accordingly. No, I got it. And it got me so now I'd say it got me views.

SPEAKER_03 7:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Do you know what I mean? And it kind of did. Because I didn't have anything else to offer. I wasn't one of the mean girls. I wasn't one of the in-girls. My mum wouldn't buy me Pringle jumpers and beats yard to have them for me Irish market. I wasn't allowed to have all the things that everyone else had. So I had to become part of the gang by being this

From Pills To Acid And Fearlessness

SPEAKER_01 7:40

outrageous person. Don't dare me to do anything, sort of thing. Yeah. Cause I will. Yeah. Still.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Tell me about obviously you mentioned your your dad being your dad being a gangster. What was actual gangster stuff?

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Walking down here was crazy. I'm thinking this is my dad's old stomping ground. Okay, real because we're from the East End. Yeah, yeah. He was like the craze guy, you know. I didn't know. He was always suited and booted, drove an E-type jag, cigar, girl pinky and all that. Looked the part, you know what I mean? Now but we had this big house in Stratford, me and my mate Lisa used to roller skate down in the basement, thought was great. Not until I was an adult, I found out that was an illegal drinking club down there. Overnight.

SPEAKER_02 8:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah. Because the interesting thing, even what the term gangster, I mean, I can tell obviously just you based on your accent. When you talk about, you know, your dad being a gangster, I know you mean your dad was a gangster. A proper gangster, yeah. Like where I'm from, if someone told me the dad was a gangster, I was like, your dad was just probably a screw off the estate, do you know what I mean? Like he wasn't a gangster. But just from the accent, I can tell you me.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I was a proper old school instant gangster. So on a Friday afternoon on a Friday afternoon, him and his associates would be in Scotland Yard drinking age-old whiskey with the head of police, chief of police. When did when did you realise then that he was? When I was an adult.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

He kept it from me so much so that so in ways he was a great dad. He shielded me from as much as he could. I thought he was working abroad. He's from Jer he was originally born in Jersey. And the way he was in jail, he would write to his daddy in Jersey, who would then re-post the letter to me, so that I would have the envelope with the Jersey postmark on it. And it's all this time it's from Wandsworth. Do you know what I mean? So I never found out any of that. I couldn't believe it. I knew he was saying a bit he was he had a little bit of something, strong as silent type, you know, like Parents' Evening was great, and that do you know what I mean? But there was no love coming in. There was no love going on.

SPEAKER_00 9:39

It's such an important part, and I think one thing that we've explored within just in training, we talk about like um there's a there's an old psychology model of like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and it talks about the basic needs of a of a child and like food, shelter, warmth, and love, do you know, is is the the very basics in order for them to actually go on to achieve some form of self-actualisation. But they're so important, and if you're not getting that I mean you can be protective all he likes, but if you're not receiving that love, then that isn't gonna help you develop, is it? And I think if you're not shown love, it's hard to love yourself, show appreciation.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

It's really hard to love. It was so I've only just started to really like myself. But he was he was brought up in a really hot in a that orphanage in Jersey, so he was brutal. He had the uh birch when he was which was during the war, the Germans were occupying the the orphanage horrific, horrific. So my mum used to say he doesn't know how to show love. The first time I realised he loved me was my first jail sentence. And he used to travel from Heathrow to Hollywood, Hollywood. Holloway, every day for a 15-minute visit. And that's when I re and there was letters and there was money and there was trainers, and that was his way of showing me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

He used to stop at Selfridge's and bring me a salt beef sandwich. It was lovely. So yeah, again, it's it's hard to it's hard to show that love if you've never been shown it yourself as well, do you know? We've often seen all parents, don't we, trying to unpick like, you know, the way that they treat us, and then it's almost like breaking the cycle because in the you wonder how was they treat as well in some way. It was extremely hard.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Well his dad, his mum died in an illegal abortion, and he the dad just put him and his two brothers, they were like um two three two, four and six in the orphanage, and that was that. Yeah, so he had no he was never shown any love. So his way was to do certain things. Like if I was in trouble, if I needed someone sorting out could do all that bit for you, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

What about your mum then? So you mentioned about your dad coming to visit you in prison, that's how he should be able to get it. Oh my mummy.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

What happened with mum? So my mum would have been great on you. Yeah. What a leg. She was smoking weed up until she was 91. Oh, really? Yeah. She's just hilarious. Driving a convertible Sabor or a Merc, whatever. She always had these fabulous cars. A Dolly bird, she was so she was like a gangster as well. It's really weird because it's like talking about a book. Yeah, well, this is it.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

As you're describing these, I'm almost like creating them as characters in my head. I've got like these visualisations of them. It is really painting a picture of like that.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

It must pass on because when I was in jail the first time and nobody knew my name and they were all too scared to ask me, apparently, not the first time, but a few times later, they'd nicknamed me Martina Cole. Yeah. Because I looked like I was straight out of one of her books. Brilliant. But yeah, my mum, she was amazing. She thought she was a coward, but she definitely wasn't. She was a little short, sexy, bleach blonde, dollybird. Work, she even worked in a hostess club that my dad was the doorman. But she was a good time girl. She liked going out. Once she'd got away from my dad,

Gangster Dad Domestic Abuse And Love

SPEAKER_01 12:55

which wasn't easy.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

She was out a lot a lot. And she just believed everything I said, so she just thought I was okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

You you mentioned briefly about the domestic abuse between your mum and dad. What impact did that have?

SPEAKER_01 13:08

So I didn't know that was really going on. I think I didn't, but I must have. She used to call me aimlessly all the time. Carol! And I ran along. She didn't even want me. Apparently he wouldn't hit her in front of me.

unknown 13:18

Why?

SPEAKER_01 13:19

So it was this endless being called for pointless reasons. But he had a really weird sense of humour. So his favourite thing, he used to hold me over the banisters and drop me and catch me by my ankles. And he thought that that's the kind of guy he was. He would my mum said, he done it over the Thames as well. Yeah. Done it over the Thames. Yeah, he did. Yeah, I know. That's incredible. Just I mean, he was really strong. He was this he'd take me over park, and he was the guy that did the parallel bars and all that. He was really strong, a powerful guy. But yeah, he was scary, and what his idea of fun was, definitely not mine. But he brutalised my mum, but not on the same level that I was brutalised by her own admissions. And back then nobody helped today. She'd be screaming out the window, and the police would come and he'd say fuck off, and that was it, kick the door shut and he'd go away. Domestic. Um so when she got away from him, she probably went a bit like loopy-loo, getting out all the time because she'd been subjected to control.

SPEAKER_00 14:23

If you're living on them, sort of, or treading on those eggshells as as much as you are.

SPEAKER_01 14:27

Well, as soon as I were married, he made her dye her hair black, and she stopped wearing these leopard skin dolly bird clothes and pencil skirts, and she was wearing cashmere suits from ankle to neck. She wasn't allowed a mirror downstairs because it's vain. So she hid one on the inside of the kitchen cupboard, because he weren't much of a kitchen guy, and then he found it one day and ripped the whole cupboard off the wall, never mind the door. And she got she was bald at here where he used to drag her. She was she said she was scared, but how could she have been? She used to take us all abroad every year, she in drive to Spain for the six weeks, and but she t she wasn't allowed. But she so he she'd tell him we're going to Newcastle to see her sister. Come on, mum, we'd all come back brown as berries. We ain't been to Newcastle, mate. She don't get a ton like that in Newcastle, do you? So I think she was really brave. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? But I think that yeah And having me was just people say, oh, it's put her in an early grave, it never kept her on her toes, mate.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Well the reason why the reason why I ask is I think is in some way how we view our parents' relationships with one another, in some way, we kind of internalise that as how a relationship should be. So the reason why I ask is about the domestic abuse between your mum and dad is about how that's affected your relationships with men growing up.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

I've had terrible relationships with men. Terrible and because I've had no self-worth. Going back to what you said about needing to have certain things in order to go forward in life and achieve. Yeah. That's one of my strongest things I say. Because if I tell you the things I can do, you'd wonder why I'm not running the country. And I could do them. So I can speak fluent Spanish and read and write it, and have done since I was 17, self-taught. I can I can change the brake pads and the clutch cable, I can put the wardrobes together, I can wallpaper, I can change tyres, I can garden, I can I can sign anyone's name on a bit of paper. I write poetry. I've written a book, a children's grammar book. I thought I was thick. I'm not thick. I'm I need to I I'm not I'm not schooled. I left school, I was 14 because I thought it was all for tosses. I ain't going there. You know, I hated school both days that I went. So both days, yeah. The two days that I went to do it. But I did the the summary. So the relationships I had failed. Because I didn't maybe I tried to make them fail. I think I maybe self-sabotage. Definitely. Yeah. And then I ended up in the midst of the most violent, I'll say Britain's most violent boyfriend, and that's an understatement. So it part of me thought that I deserved it.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

I was gonna say that is that something as well as as as well as deserving it. Like when you don't know any different, there's almost and and a bit and again this way I talk about your your mum and dad. When you don't know any different, that domestically abusive relationship in some way you might view as normal because that's all you've known previously, and that's kind of what you saw as your parents' relationship.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Well there was definitely no good role models, and and you know, there was it was dysfunctional from the off. So it was normal to be a dis to have dysfunctionality around it, I don't know if that's a word, around me. And the whole because I wasn't shown like right, so the most important relationship for a girl w will never change is her dad.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

And if you're not daddy's princess, you ain't aiming high. You're going out with the local shotter. Yeah. Because you don't feel you can do any better. And honestly, I didn't felt like I deserved it because I'd been a bad E on my life, because I've been bad. I've been to jail a lot. I'd took the you know, been on dates with blokes, they go to the toilet and knit the car, take it down the site and sell it. You know, it's really bad.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Um I mean you're laughing, but it's interesting. Like, how how do you how do you view those things? Because what what a story to tell. Oh, yeah, I went on a date, he went to the toilet, and when he went to toilet, he came back, I was gone. I mean, if I was the person on that date, I'd be good that my date was gone, but to come out and find out she's robbed my car and well.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah, yeah. Brand new motor, straight on the site. Give me anything, get rid of it. Because I knew on the gypsy site it's gonna be gone, it'll vanish. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 18:57

But oh god. Can I just ask when you when you did those things? Was this an element of like I because the impression I'm getting is you didn't do it for the money. There was almost like it's it goes back to that thrill-seeking behaviour. A story to a story to tell, do you know?

SPEAKER_01 19:14

My brother disapproves of me so much, but 100% he's dined out on my stories so many times.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

I can I can imagine.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

I mean, my first jail sentence was yeah, but don't forget, I had to fund my habit as well. Of course, yeah. So I had to fund my habit, and then but I enjoyed so when I was kiting, checkbooking, loved it, I'd get right into character. I once went into the bank and had to be from South Africa, and I've come for my card and pin.

SPEAKER_04 19:40

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_01 19:41

So, and I'd get the whole go around that's really bad going in people's accounts. I was working with this Nigerian guy, and I'd get all the info, it'd be a friendly job, so there'd be someone who knew in there, and I'd be I'd have to know everything. And the thing is, I'll tell you all. If you go in a bank three times, I'd I'll go to a different branch, my house is being renovated, I need the card and the pin coming to branch. Once you've been there three times, when you go and make a withdrawal, the form says, Do you know this person? Discussion, you've only had to be in there three times and they'd tick the box. So obviously I need that. And I'll go and draw out thousands of pounds of papers in whatever accent, sometimes in a grey wig, I'd paint my tooth with Tip X and stuff, put different kind of lenses in. It was a right old game, really. And then the ri the result is massive amounts of money to go and get high.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Bringing it back to the addiction, then. Actually, first of all, you mentioned your sister being very feminine. That's what I'm quite interested in. Like, how what are the differences between the people? Well, the differences, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

She goes to me, Carol all the time. I still know, say her house last night. Yeah. And she's looking at me today and she's went, look at what you're wearing. She's older than me, but she's she's cool. She's really cool. She's completely opposite. She's very normal, she got married, didn't she got in the right order, you know, met a guy, got engaged, bought a house, got married. Had a first charge, I don't know that.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Not all up and down. I suppose that why why I why I mention her is because the one thing that truly fascinates me is if we look at your circumstances, which we could tie to to your do you know different lads they've got, by the way. Oh, okay. You and your you and your sister have different dads.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

And my brothers, they've got a different dad. Ah, okay, yeah. If that's where you were going.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I was just thinking, if you've grown up in the same environment with the same parents, why is it that you are the way you are?

SPEAKER_01 21:40

Because he hit them, he didn't hit me.

SPEAKER_00 21:41

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Well, I don't know if that's actually the answer, but there was a lot of discipline for them. He left when my mum got rid of him when I think I was about five, five or six.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

But it's interesting if they if they were subject to more discipline than you, that you was the one that because sometimes it's against like pushing against the No, but dis yeah, that when sister rebelled against him, but only

SPEAKER_01 22:00

As much as having her nails painted blue, not nicking people's cars, she's just really normal. My siblings are so normal, really normal. I

Crime Shoplifting And Bank Cons

SPEAKER_01 22:10

mean, they think I'm outrageous.

SPEAKER_02 22:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:13

I am. But I think that's gonna tie into when you when you said like you've only started to find love for yourself now. There's gonna be this element of surely you're looking at yourself and thinking, why am I like this when you're all quote unquote normal? Then and that creates resentment for self as well in some way, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 22:29

My daughter, who it's a shame she's not here you'd love her, she's a carbon copy of me. She's just younger, better looking, taller, browner. Do you know what I mean? Because my kids are mixed race, which my dad was a start racist, so that went down. Oh went down an absolute treat, that did. Yeah. So she would I've forgotten what I was saying now.

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Oh it's gone. Siblings, normality. It's gone. No, I don't apologise. Um did your quick question, did your daughter have a relationship with your dad then? At all? No.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

But is that because of well I'll tell you what, he never he didn't say it to them, but he's what he did he used to call me li Licorice Minge. Nice. You you made your bed.

unknown 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

No lay in it. What do you expect? If you go out of a black man, of course you can get beaten up and robbed. Hello. So my daughter had no. But they always got cards and presents off of him. But there was definitely no. Don't forget he wasn't loving anyway.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:30

I mean, my youngest, who was a little kid, he was quite he's he was fiery and used to kick him and tell him he's a crack granddad and run off and all that. I think my dad mildly appreciated that because he had a bit of backbone. But to be honest, my daughter's never had any man proper to love her like that, granddad or dad. Her dad was not great with her when she was a kid. Except for her little brother, now, my boy, he's 23 and he's the man now. Yeah. Can look after her, can look after herself.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Going back to the addiction. Yeah. Obviously, clue sniffing, how it escalates. Talk me through a little bit about that, and I guess when did you realise that you were in trouble now with this substance misuse? When did you realise?

SPEAKER_01 24:17

The other day, is all sort of thing. I didn't think I had a problem. I thought it was your problem if you don't like what I do. Okay. What's your problem? And I was always very honest, very badly, naughtily so. My mum says, Well, you've been, I say, out taking drugs, out of grafting. What we can do about it. I didn't think I had a problem. Until I learnt how to wash up coke into crack. Wow. That was boarish to say the very least. But the problem, the a so, right. I tell people it's nothing unusual about a teenager experiencing experimenting with drugs, it's actually very normal. It's an experiment. There's a very small percentage of us that are addicts, and that experiment won't be an experiment. It will turn into a lifelong habit. And that's me. So whatever I would have tried, it would have been. I took everything excessively too much. I would put trips in my eyes because you'd come up quicker. Stuff like that. But what in your eyes?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Trips. Microdots. Yeah. Oh, okay. I've never, never heard that. Yeah. For what for what reason then do you think? Because you come up like that, bang, instead of having to wait an hour. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

I know.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

I've never even had that.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

And it was outrageous. It was another outrageous thing. Yeah. You know, tongue piercings. I thought it would be great, it shaved my hair off, and I just had a little bit like that, like an Ari Krishna. Then went to the family party like it. Yeah. Purposely to piss them off, I think. Just as that. Because I didn't feel liked. I wasn't liked, so I thought if I'm not going to be, and I was so right, so my sister's beautiful. Naturally, perfect nose, full lips, big eyes, just everything a woman wants to be, a good figure, big boobs. I was just had that fuzzy bit at the back of my head still till I was about twenty. So I couldn't be compared to her. So to be completely different would mean there's no comparison.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

I was going to say, yeah, was that the reason there's it? Probably. I guess if you kind of presented as again, quote unquote, as normally as you could, and still felt unliked, that's gonna hurt more than you thinking, well tell you what, I'll I'll I'll do this to my hair, I'll do this. And then when they don't like me, I can internalise that as the reason why they don't like me is because of this and this, as opposed to not liking that for me, do you know?

SPEAKER_01 26:26

I've earned it.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Rather than the me trying to turn up into twin set and pearls and a pair of sling bags and still being cast aside. Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:35

So it's like that deflection, isn't it? Like I'll get it.

SPEAKER_01 26:37

But then I've I've responded really outrageously. I turned up a fancy dress, family fancy dress, knowing because it's not just my dad that's racist. But it's a lot of Schwarzer was a word used all the time. So we went as the Klu Klux Klan, me and the kids. And they were like, the kids didn't know what that was, obviously. I did. My brother just looked at me like something wrong with you. I know. I just did I do it maybe I did it for like I think actually what you just said sums it right up because then I haven't got a wonder. Yeah, I've got to wonder why. I know why. So and I just did what I wanted to do. For me, drugs it was escape, yeah, definitely. It was because I didn't I thought being in my head was good, it was so dull. And obviously from it, because of such a young age, I didn't had the time to develop properly. I didn't I'm just I didn't have a clue. I just you know, I'm that person seven drink driver. I'm alright to drive, you know. I'm just I don't know if it was give me brownie points or it was something desperately missing, and then the actual major the the I couldn't control the use of drugs came after the violence because I was allowed to have when he said that became my friend. Speak he said when you could and couldn't use drugs, he didn't use and because I'm so open when I met him, I was like, Oh yeah, so I smoke crack now and again, I take speed, it's no big deal, I don't need it. Boom. And then he would come around with a bit as big as that thing there and go test that for me. And then obviously I've said I don't need it, so I've got I'm salivating really in the kitchen, washing up, thinking, no, just leave it there for a while. Try it, I need to I'll do it and then get punched right up for it. Well you so he he would I'm just trying to get this right, he would bring drugs into the house. We'd bring crack and say, I need to know the quality of this, will you test it for me?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

So I would test it. But when I look round, so you've obviously smoked spoken to crackers before, it's a really paranoia,

Crack Violence And Control

SPEAKER_01 28:50

weird thing anyway. I'd turn around and he'd be looking at me around the side of the door, that's enough to make you go all like that, and he'd come over and you go, that what's that like? Is that good? And I couldn't speak because it was good. Then he'd just go bang, knock me clean out, out, unconscious. Why? He was the I don't know. Well, I suppose he must have been a bit schizophrenic. Why? Oh my god, there was some This man had me believe his name was a certain name. A year and a half into this relationship, I was love he was hurting me, but I was absolutely smitten. He's the first man that ever made me feel nice and sexy and attractive. And I had a tattoo of his name. Then I found out after a lot of something that happened, it's not even his name. It's just the name he used on the street. So I've presently got a tattoo of someone that doesn't even exist. He was I don't know why, controlling twisted. He got a real kick out of it. Like he'd turn all the lights off and get the old you know, the old phone chargers where the wires are attached and the plug was like that, and he'd wrap it round his hand and just swing it and so it would release each time once more. So he'd be sitting here, and then I don't know, I knew I know it's gonna hit me at some point, but I don't know when. Just keep doing that and in the pitch black, yeah. Until eventually it's like smack. I've had to sit with material over a tea tail over half my face for about ten days because I looked so scary to my middle boy. How did So that impacted me when I finally got away from him? I went in. I mean, I would not say I was smoking a lot, I was getting a cab around my mum's house. My mum financed a lot, right? So let me put a bit of make you understand this bit. Towards the end of me living in London, before I relocated, I was probably getting about £700 a week out of my mum. Okay. Can I be brutally honest? I don't even feel guilty. Yeah. My mum wasn't poor. Right, so she wasn't, it's not her pension and all that. She was wise woman, she had all rooms rented out, she's a landlady. She was doing it out of guilt, I know that, for a fact. Because she used to get a drink in her and go, Yeah, I think you were overlooked. And I go, Yeah, like Hello? Yes, most certainly. Because you say, You're really intelligent, aren't you? Like it was a shock.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

It's almost like she's just met you sort of thing, and just getting to know you, do you know? And the like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah. So it's that bad attention's better than no attention, I suppose, isn't it? All that stuff.

SPEAKER_00 31:30

And what and what was you what was you doing with that 700 partner? Was that just a was that just literally all crack? So I'd get a cab. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

So my mum's, it was a £40 cab fare there and back. Yeah. Get some cash, stop, get w all everything I'm gonna need for this sesh, which was right opposite the soak, where it was the score. And I'd get the foil, the bottles, the lighters, the lighter gas fags, booze, plenty of booze, special brew, hello, bottles of brandy. And sometimes she'd get you wouldn't have cash and she'd just give me a card. She'd because she said, I don't want you doing any skullduggery. Because I was always doing skullduggery. I mean, she came to call the first time I went to channel, it was for royal mail robbery.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Royal mail robbery?

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Yeah, I was a kid. Yeah. Well, I thought it was theft. Yeah. We used to nick my mum's car. I was very clever. I parked it in exactly the same place, put the seat back, put enough pet to in, she never glue. And we used to drive around at Crackerdome back when nothing was all postmen used to push around their things and we'd be in the posh areas and we'd nick the post bags and go, go and open them all. But back then there was things in there like loads of cash, checks. If you did the same round twice in a week, you've got the checkbook and the check card.

SPEAKER_00 32:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Yeah, there was money and jewellery and all stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

It's a much more serious offence, isn't it, if you steal from the Royal Mail as opposed to I only learnt that about a year or a year ago.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Well, I didn't think nothing of it. And when I found out that it was like Royal Mail robbery, I was I was like, whoa, this changes things. And then in the dock, I thought my mum was going to have her first heart attack. You heard her gasp. Because I was standing there, all these sovereigns, I was so disrespectful to the law, you know what I mean. Earrings that looked like butchies that should have been on them. At parrots, even. And then um he said, Did I have anything to say? And I said, Well, it said ER on the envelope. I thought they meant ER, mate, have it. And my mum, you heard her go, uh and he I got an extra year for that. Got an extra year for the glitch of that. And then I went to Holloway and fell in love. Yeah. Not with a person. Okay. With jail. Yeah. I love it. Why did you love jail? Obviously it's the same. Because I was normal there. Oh, okay, yeah. I weren't the black sheep. Yeah. I was relatively upgraded from most of the people that were in there. Because even when I was smoking six, seven days' sessions, so wired, I'm talking to the dude with sunglasses on at the window because I can't and my face like that, because I looked so but in there I was like important. I'd a little bit of status. You know, I started doing powerlifting. So I've come out instead of calling me Auntie Harold, the kids used to call me Auntie Harold.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Not Jack.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

I just I don't know. And then it was an occupational hazard anyway, so how many times had you been to prison?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Uh I've done 11 years. 11 years. Consecutively?

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah. No, different times, yeah. No, there was been lots of shit showering shaves, as my dad would call it. Um the drink drive on a drink drive ban and all stuff like that, so yeah, a little while. But I used to think I'd use it as a little detox sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah, I I've been I'm I'm not naive to it. I know you can get drugs in in prison. Yeah. Was you able to get drugs in prison?

SPEAKER_01 34:50

That's the first place I was offered herin. Oh really? Yeah. It's easier to get herin than it is bag sugar, to be honest. Sugar's more like cocaine in it, it's so hard to get it.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

Why is it so why is it so accessible? I I don't I mean, again, I I'm I'm naive to it, but because women and men have cavities. Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

So people come in star and things. Yeah. You know, so and then I'm right, so even though I'm a bit of a tear away, see, I still refer to myself as that at 59 years of age, I still think I'm Jack the Biscuit. And but I don't like a bully.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

And I distinctly remember this girl was getting bullied, she was getting a lot of gear brought into her, brown, and people were just taking it off her only little bird. She was always clucking, and I'm I'm seeing her on the visits, I'm going, How are you ill? I've just seen you take that parcel. Oh, when is it really? Right, we were still done that having all that. So I took her under my wing and I wouldn't let her do it. I wouldn't let anyone take it off her. So she was giving me gear. I didn't even know. First time I had it in the line, I had a line of heroin. I didn't know I was goofing out. I kept fought, I kept falling. I said to some girl, I kept falling asleep. She went, No, you never. You was goofing out. So he was trying to talk to me. I went and but heroin, I mean, I've gone over 11 times, maybe 12 on heroin because my body don't like it. But do you think that stopped me from doing it again? No. My daughter found me once, it was horrific. We were talking about it recently, actually. Because what happens is all the cracks gone, and all the gearheads have still got their brown. And I'm like, well now I've got no drugs. So I'll try that. And I don't like the taste, so I'll just put it straight in me out. Next thing I know, I've got the paramedics there and all that. Yeah. Luckily for me, heroin isn't I like uppers. They want to be lively, you know, speed and all that, stand away, tablespoons of it. Doug would go to bed in the purple room, wake up at a pink one, and redecorate it and all that and you know sleep. So luckily, so I never got a habit. Because then that recovery is a whole different game, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

That's based on all the all because we could be here for hours, by the way. Is there a days of the year? We may be. Is there a drug you haven't taken?

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Right, so I have took crystal meth accidentally.

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Accident you I uh there was this one time when I accidentally took crystal meth.

SPEAKER_01 37:24

I did. So I was my version of clean, which was means I wasn't smoking crack.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

Okay, okay, so as long as you're not smoking crack, you can't. I was taking speed. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

But for me, that was and I wasn't drinking, so I was kind of clean as over in my head. Okay. I was gone to this club at Vauxhall with this girl I'd recently met, who was well, she used to wear every colour of the rainbow, and it's sparkly and that, it's just a bit funny. So we've gone to this club and people are offering me stuff, and I was like, no, no, no, I don't want it. Then I've gone out into the garden, smokers a bit, and there's a bloke who was a friend sitting on the table with a glass tube and a bowl, and this smoke was I was hypnotised going around. I went, What's that? He said, Oh, it's legal high. Do

Prison Detoxes And Heroin Overdoses

SPEAKER_01 38:10

you want to try it? It's called Tina. I went, Give it that. So I've like that, and then she talked like but I had 36 hours, and then the girl, Emma, come out and she went, I never knew you smoked Crystal Meath. I said, I don't. She just thought you're smoking. Now I don't know if it's what she told me, or mate, I was so bad I was doing that thing like that boy out of in-between us. Yeah. I knocked all the drinks off the bar. I had blonde hair sprayed with red hair dye. I was sweating, so I must I looked like I'd been axed in the head because I'd all this red stuff running down my pocket. I was all like I got my hands in my pockets and the coat's going up like that. I thought I need to get out of here. He said broke, oh then I had GHB, is it? He would only have a little seat, I'd load him with drink, and then he said, Don't have any alcohol with it. I'm up the bar doing shambuka shots at five at a time and all that. I'm just such a show-off, you know what I mean. Is there is there a part of you now though? Oh, did it we just and then I got home that night took me hours to get home because I'm on the I'm at the train station. I think people are running after me, they're running for the train, obviously. I'm on the carriage, people are looking at me, of course I have. I look like I've got blood running down my face, and I can't keep my eyes still. So I get off the carriage and then on again, and this is how it went. I finally get to Plumstead, the cabby, well, the cab office won't take me. And that there's a big geese of the size of a door outside. He went, You can get him makeup if you like. I went, What's the matter with you? Why do you talk so funny? I was at me now, so he went, and blessing. I went, Oh yeah, me and all, I've had crystal method. He went, No, I am from Russia. It was so fun. I ended up taking him back to my house. And he paid and letting him pay me to sit and watch me smoke.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

What a strange request. Of course.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

Please do. That's insane. I just I'm just thinking that now. You must be looking back at your life and thinking, how am I still alive? Well, I do think that.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

And I also think I thought they're supposed to kill your brain cells. I was obviously rocket science material in the beginning. I just think of what you would have achieved as you're not doing that. That's not been running the country. Yeah. No, actually, you have to re-end it to do that, don't you? So I don't know, I'm still alive, but I do have there are consequences. So I've got quite bad COPD, but I will do because of all the poison off the foil. Yeah. I was too greedy to burn it off and and clean it, and I just straight to it.

SPEAKER_02 40:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Um, well, no, that's just age, but yeah, how am I still alive?

SPEAKER_00 40:43

But you look good when you said you were 59 as well, even that took me off. I was like, 'Cause you look great for 59. Do I?

SPEAKER_01 40:48

Yeah. Oh my god, I don't think so. I look my mum used to say, and I said to her, I can't believe I'm gonna be 15. She went, Well, how do you think I feel? Actually, my age, and you look in the mirror, and there's a little old lady looking at you, and you think, Who the fuck's that? Yeah. I don't think if you actually look at my face, I do look really old, but I think it's it's a it's a mind thing, isn't it? It's it's your attitude to life.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:10

I'll say it, and I know she's gonna watch it. Sorry, Lorraine, my sister. She was old before her time. Because she just allowed it to happen.

unknown 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 41:20

You've sort of fire everything.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Well, no, I just feel like I'm still 21. I'm if there's a problem, I'm that one go, come on in, give me 20 on, let's go and have it, let's go and have a tear up. I'll probably fall over. Do you know what I mean? But I don't know. And I'm like a late bloomer. I mean, I really was a late bloomer anyway. I was a late developer as a woman. I was just like a boy, really. It was the one thing my mum was never scared of. She was worried she'd get a phone call from the police, but she knew no one would ever be saying that I wouldn't be coming along and saying, Oh my pregnant.

SPEAKER_04 41:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:52

Well, because boys would have to be interested for that to happen.

SPEAKER_00 41:56

I suppose in in some way though. I don't know, because there's it's just obviously I I think what interests me is just how how full of life and and character you are still. I guess what what I'm looking at is when did you start to realise that the substance because by by all accounts you your life sounds really fun? There doesn't seem to there's a lot of obviously barring the domestic abuse, which obviously sounded horrific, it almost and we can laugh and joke about it in hindsight, but it's almost like the way you tell these stories, it was fun, it was okay, it was enjoyable. So after 45 years, what has what made you think, right? I need to stop this now because by all accounts I'm living life to the full.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Well, I wasn't really, was I and I was hurting my everybody, I was hurting everyone, and then I took the I did say it really bad. So what had happened is as I was getting older, oh yeah. Also, when I moved to the coast, I decided to not only had I drunk the equivalent of the Red Sea in Alcohol, I decided to become half-ton mum. So I was actually 28 and a half stone. People think the fattest, fatest crackhead you've ever seen in your life. Hold on, I'm buying an ounce of speed a week, and I'm like 28 and a half stone. Absolutely enormous, sitting up all night sticking gems on fingers because I can't move. Too fat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:21

So even that is horrific, but I'm thinking, you know, you've made life sound really fun. I was like, actually, no, maybe it's just the way you are telling these stories.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Well, so I'll I'll tell you another story then. So then I picked the kids up from school, we went home and I made Shepherd's Pie. So do you want to hear them stories? Exactly not. So obviously, it's got to be I like I'm a storyteller, I'm I'm just like that, it's my thing, isn't it? Yeah. So I missed my vocation in life, probably. Which wasn't running the country in the thing. Yeah, yeah. It was definitely stand up comedian, maybe. So, yeah, there was a lot of fun. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. There's a lot of darkness as well. I mean, some of the darkness, I mean, I suffer with I was diagnosed. With uh manic depression when I was about 17. We call it bipooler now, don't we? Yeah, so basically I get an idea in my head. I have to keep changing my email number because I applied to 57,000 universities I'm gonna do a degree and all that when I'm all up on and up, and then I think, oh god, leave me alone, you know. So there was a lot, a lot of fun because there was no rules, so there is fun. I mean I laugh about it, but it was really bad. I took my daughter I worked as a cleaner, me and my cousin got a cleaning job with his firm, and people would be out where we had the keys and that, go round to posh houses and all that. Anyway, we stopped working here. I found a set of keys months later, but I wonder if they fit. So on the way back from the school run, like you do, I popped along and had to look. And lo and behold, I could get in. So my then 11-year-old daughter, who was told to sit in the car and didn't, came in with me and helped me. I said, carry that penny jar, it was full of pound coins. It's disgusting, it's outrageous. And like when I'm trying to have a go to something, I go, Oh, you allowed the children too much freedom. She goes, Oh, well, I haven't talked one of these burglaries lately, so don't worry about it. Or another time the my mate's come round with a car, she nicked, he's come to deliver the food, left his car running. So she's had the motor. And so I thought, I'll let I'll drive that for a few days. And every time I police saw a police car, I was like, DAC to the children. Yeah. There was a lot of fun. I did funny stuff. I used to, at one point, because I'd have to reinvent myself to make money. So then obviously checkbooks and all that went out the window, and the floor limits became low, there was no really doing it. I mean, I've got caught what a couple of tons of shopping lists in my pocket like a div. Ticked

The “Fun” Stories With A Dark Edge

SPEAKER_01 45:55

off. Yeah. Curtains, got them, crystal decanters, got 'em, sort of thing. My sister's house was kitted out. My mum's all see my mum was buying stuff off me when I was 14. Bedding, curtains, towels. So and then so I was angry. It's why I didn't really have I don't regret those sort of yeah. Because come on. Your mum buying stolen goods off you, come on, mate. Or paying in five or six different checks into our different accounts and going, oh, it's not a great, it's not a great lesson for me to take notice of. So I think I'd I thrived off of it. I did. I thrived off of it. I mean I went through a phase where so because I'm a big spender I get a lot of credit. I used to get a lot of credit with dealers, because I would never spend less than £300. I'm not that sort of person that would go, oh, let's get high for a tenner or £20 because it's not going to do anything. It's just going to give me the hump. And it's going to make me think of wicked things to do to you. Not to you to get it. So I used to, I was on ametryptyline medication and I used to crush it up. Put them in their little lottery ticket things, like little wraps of coke, put them in my bra. So probably now while in the morning I've been smoking all day and now I want some more, and I've ticked up to the hilt with the dealer. My mum's asleep, there's no money out of her. So I'd go into Woolwich and go to the club, like the African club, where it was all late night drinking at five o'clock. And I used to just basically pull someone, go back to their house, and send them out. Stop at the all-night off licence we'd get brandy fangs and all that. Some of the cash point. Because I'd be masking as a brass. And then I'd get them to leave the room for whatever reason. It could be ice, a tissue, a glass of water, whatever, whatever. And then I'd put the amateurine into the brandy. Now I know. So first of all, it don't cloud. And secondly, the brandy's too strong, you won't taste it. But I know you're going to be asleep in about 20 minutes. And you wake up and all your stuff's gone. So I've done it once. I'm I'm a we've gone, we're in a sh over a shop and it's flat. I'm under the I've got the music on, I'm under the bed, I'm plugging Joe's, I've got two phones, I've got the laptop, I've got the watch off of his wrist. I've got the cash out of his pocket. I'm I'm away with the fairies, I'm thinking about how much I'm gonna get for all this. Go to get out the door, I can't get out. Just chubbed me in. So I'm looking for the keys. Can't find them in the kitchen, can't find them anywhere. I'm stuck because it was above a shop, I couldn't jump out the window. So I had to go and wake him up. Get up, you've locking me in your fingers. And he went like that, and there's nothing there, is there? So he went, eh. Looked across no laptop, he realised, he went, eh eh, where's my phone? Where's my laptop? And all that. And I went scan, just let me out. You are you are a few, you have a stolen. So I had a fake phone call to the police. I mean, this is African man, so I'm really scared. I'm locked in, I think they're gonna attack me. All that. And so he went, eh, he let me out. He went, You are a chief. I went, You're a British, isn't it? You're a foreign national working to Britain. I was really bad. The amount of people I recognised in Woolwich, I said to my daughter, look, I recognise that bloke so you probably nixed his laptop.

SPEAKER_03 49:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:02

That was a frequency because I had to have money.

SPEAKER_03 49:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

That was actually before my mum was giving me. It was right towards the end when she was just mind you, I've paid for it since I've got shafted out the wheel. They all got 89 grand, I've got enough. I've got 1,500.

SPEAKER_04 49:20

How come?

SPEAKER_01 49:22

Probably had quite a lot. Yeah, since was alive. Probably had your and the person who dislikes me most was in charge. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:28

So I'm going through going through all these, all the all the stories, all the all the chaos that you were dealing with. Where's the lowest moment or where you think, right, I need to get well now? And and the point where where you turn your life around.

SPEAKER_01 49:43

So what happened is oh that's how I got I digressed in nice. So I was this massive girl, so I couldn't do anything, really, apart from score and smoke. And I'd borrowed some money off my daughter for a new sofa. And she was going to taking her kids on holiday for the first time. So I said, Well, yeah, I've got saving money, you can borrow that. And I said, I'll give it to you every month. She went, No, just keep hold of it and give it to me. It'd be my spending money. Sweet. I was doing that. I was giving it at this point I wasn't smoking, I was doing them like mad binges. Giving it to my bo, giving you money saying, store that, store that, store that. And then I'd forgotten that I'd dipped it twice for the kids' birthdays, which was 50 quid each plus going out. Anyway, long story short, today for a holiday. I've drawn me money. I know I only got to add another one or to that, and that's already covered, so I've got about uh 800 quid. I think oh lovely jubbly, that's me for the weekend. You're bothering me, and he says, How much money do you think's there? So I said, so and he went, have you forgetting that you took nearly 300 out of there? And I went, Oh my god, I had forgotten. So I'd smoked it the day before she was going on holiday, her spending money. The first time she's going abroad, I tell you, I couldn't I felt like the scum of the earth, mainly because she didn't even go mad. She said, okay. Well, I wouldn't answer the phone to anyone. Voice notes, okay mum, it is what it is. Don't worry, don't do anything silly. Just sleep it off and we'll talk about it. And uh, don't worry, I'll get paid on Monday anyway. I felt the worst I'd ever felt. I don't know why that did that to me, because there was other times I took she was out shoplifting for me when she was 14 because I was barred from the shops. There was something about this two little children, plus I was ill. I'd been taken to hospital with a heart rate of 148. Or I didn't know it's only meant to be about 78 or 80, and they couldn't bring it down. I had the defibrillators, I'd just done a five-day search. I was saying, oh, I don't know, I wonder why. I'd have defibrillators and all that nothing. I was in there for four and a half, five weeks. I got bored, looked through my phone, realised I'm getting paid while I'm in there. Ring the dealer, pick me up from the hospital, leave a note on the bed. Oh, I've had to go to an urgent appointment, I'll be back soon. Go off. I'd only just got my flat and I had no curtains up and I wanted to get on with it. I'm on the ground floor, people are looking. So I've gone in the cupboard and found a tin of chrome spray paint, sprayed my windows, so nobody could see in. This was normality for me.

SPEAKER_03 52:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

Quite normal. Wetting myself because I don't want to leave the table and all the stuff. Even though I'm the only one in the house. So no one's gonna steal it. Because I'm in it and I'm I was so greedy. I wouldn't have been happy until I was having it. But the combination of I knew I was gonna die. I knew that I was gonna kill myself. I knew that my body couldn't handle it anymore. Plus, I'd been through seven and a half, eight years of the most horrific violence of breaks and and you know, stuff like that. My body just couldn't handle it anymore. And that thing that happened with Miguel, they were so just so understanding because at some point we did no more lies. Because you can't keep lying to someone who knows what you're doing. It's only so many times you've lost your purse. Do you know what I mean? So we did no more lies. So that I wasn't allowed to insulting your intelligence as well as abusing the system. Do you know what I mean? I didn't smoke and all that in front of him, but I didn't make it it was no secret. I used to tell my boy not to come round. Chub up the door. I used to sod off for days and days on end, switch off my phone. Oh, police looking for me, I'm clueless. But that was I was so ill and then I've been in the hospital two or three times. So now I'm on my heart meds. I can hardly breathe anyway. And I just the forgivingness of it and the way that children were ringing me from holiday, and she was if that would be my mum, she thinks I'd have been rang her from Egypt, no way, she can go fuck herself. I'd have she had was just too

Rock Bottom Health Scares And Shame

SPEAKER_01 54:10

kind to me, and I think it killed you. The kindness done me.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

You almost feel like you're I suppose in some way, because of the the childhood and and the domestic abuse, you're experiencing something that you don't feel like you deserve in it in a weird way because you've never had you've no one it goes back to it, no one's ever shown you that love and the kindness.

SPEAKER_01 54:27

Don't get me wrong, my mum showed love. I knew she hit me a lot, but then I was rude. She she made sure that I knew she loved me. She used to say you have to tell children that you love 'em, because they don't just know. People don't just know. No. You have to say, you know. So I knew I was loved by her. I just thought that uh but that kind of love and forgiveness was done me up, took me to a dark place. They came round and saw Leah, oh that's fine. Walked into my bedroom, called her brother, she went, come and have a look in here. And I had written, I am pointless up the length of the wall, in big letters like that. Because I was, I was pointless. And I planned, my plan, I could I didn't think I could ever stop. I didn't see this life ever being over because I didn't just decide to stop and stop successfully, obviously. Throughout my life, I've had loads of clean time. I worked with addiction services, I was going to be a peer mentor. I was doing so well, then I had a little screw up and I felt I felt like an imposter. I wouldn't go back, I didn't go back, I just felt bad. I thought I'm not a hypocrite. So, you know, I didn't use when I was pregnant or breastfeeding, you know, I've had loads of but I didn't the the longevity was never there. I know for a fact because nothing could make me go back. Nothing. Because since my recovery, not only if I've got shafted out of 89 grand, thank you guys, but found out something horrific had happened to my son, the one who was on RuPaul, in his childhood, he spoke about it on the show that knocked me, knocked as all sideways, and nothing throughout that made me want to go around the off licence because that's my problem, drink. Then the drink comes, and there's no such thing as one or two. I can't do that. Like you said, I can't, it's none. I wouldn't even buy one bottle of prosecco. There's no point.

SPEAKER_03 56:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

I'll have three bottles. Then I'm gonna get in the car on live, take you down to the petrol station where I buy more alcohol, and put the man on there, say hello, you're on TikTok.

unknown 56:31

My boy went mental.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

So you've just basically showed everybody where we live, what your local shop is, and that you're a drink driver. I was like, Oh yeah. And the drink will make me start looking for messages, looking for pet. I still get them funny messages sometimes. They don't do that to my stomach anymore, which they used to. But it was hard. I'm good at stuff straight away, it's sticking to stuff.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

So it was easy, I'd like it's easy I can do that.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

Just going into to to obviously the the detox process, because there's so many so many substances there, so much that can cause, you know, like a physical dependency. How does a detox even look for you? Between crack, between alcohol, between, you know, have a we sleep.

SPEAKER_01 57:19

So I take all my nightmares and I just sleep back to back, wake up, have a wee, drink ten gallons of liquid, not alcohol, take six more amatriptyline, a couple of trampol, a few codeines, go back to sleep. So kind of which is what I used to do in jail. I'd go to prison, no one would see me for the first ten days to two weeks. You just got your knob in a kid. Catching up, I've been awake for months. And that's what it basically is, and it you're awake, because the day uppers are always awake. So sleep, and my kids bought me a puppy, a little chihuahua, and I was just became obsessed. And then every time I fancied a drink, I did a live TikTok live. And I then I started to get all these followers, and it was not just so I would have not just let down me and the kids, all these people I'd have to stop, I would have to stop my TikToking because that's hypocrite, I'm not I don't do that, and that became a bit powerful for me, and I started to think about things my mum had told me, she was so wise. So, in between all of that, she really gave me a lot of clever stuff, you know, I've got from her. So Legalmo is one of them. I should patent that word really, which is let it go and move on, and it's true, and you fuck it bucket, which my niece gave me that one. Anything bad, negative, all those things, because they're no good hanging round your neck. That's what I tell people. If you if you're focusing on all that, you're not gonna move forward. If you're still seeing your mate who gets on it on a Friday, you can't start your new life if you're still attached to the old one. Yeah, it was hard, but I didn't do it the proper way and sort of minimal minimalised it. Alcohol would just go bang, cold turkey, bang. I'm a do I'm a I'm an either do or don't sort of person.

SPEAKER_00 59:11

It's one of the things where by by going cold turkey on a substance like that, of course, it can be very dangerous, but there's also this element when you've lived through what you've lived through, you've taken the substances you've taken, you've had the experiences that you've experienced. Surely your man's thinking, well, if if I can do all that, then I can go cold tech on a substance.

SPEAKER_01 59:30

Yeah. There's a bit of that that had to be used, like Carol Watson, mate, I can do this. Do you know what I mean? I can do this. I'd live with Britain's the most violent man. Yeah. So um, and don't forget, I'm of an age where jail for me was no tellies and phones and all that. It's just and couldn't even have you to have two little batteries, you couldn't even have FM on your radio, little wireless with some batteries on the radiator to try and get more power into them and all that. And I was frequently getting nicked on a Friday, there was no Saturday morning court, so I'd be until Monday. So I I was used to like a three-day no fags, no drink, no drugs, and I'd just literally go to sleep. Sleep's been, I'd tell you what, sleep's been my angel, to be honest. My daughter said, I said, I'm going on big brother. So she went, that'd be good because they'll go, it's dear 27, and Carol is still asleep.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:22

Slept you got voted out a week ago, but you're still there in bed. Brilliant. So it did help me. My followers helped me. I was about to say, what is it that has I suppose now because how long have you been at that? This at the point of recording this, how long have you been drug free? Well, in June the 15th, it'll be two years.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:40

I can't believe that. Wow, yeah, yeah. I cannot believe that. That's flown by. Yeah. I didn't realise. I made it look easy, I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:47

I made it look easy, but it wasn't.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:49

No, of course not.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:50

And it but I'll tell you what did help that I'd relocated. So if I didn't answer my

Detox Sleep Relocation TikTok Recovery

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

phone, I'm not no one's gonna know where I live, they can't pop round and entice me. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? I'm gonna go round and get some fags and bump into Joe Bloggs. Yeah. Who's just said it says come on fancy you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:06

Because relocation can be quite controversial in some some sense because some people say you're just taking the problem elsewhere because you are the problem. But it's also eliminating depending on how you look at it. As you've just said it, you're not gonna pop into people where those triggers and it's gotta be a combination, I think, of that what you're saying, just taking it with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

You've got if you've got because I didn't relocate to the where I live now, I did it in 2006, but it wasn't quite ready for me back then. Yeah. I took a dealer hostage. No, I didn't, sorry, I robbed a dealer, took two kitties, nitties, junkies, hostage for five hours. I was all over the newspapers. I looked like Mick McManus on the front page of the flipping Argus newspaper. I went to my mum, that guy just took a picture of me. She went, Oh shut up, who'd you think you are? Ronnie Biggs. Next day, front page. Looking like that. Jet black hair looking like a Mick McManus, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:01

Oh daddy of just McManus on the front of a paper at you. What advice obviously, I mean, yeah, I I I again I didn't I didn't know uh that you had like a TikTok profile or like a social media presence. If someone's listening to this and as a I mean, do you know what? Normally I'd would ask this question or a variation of this question. If anyone is listening to this and has been through what you've been through, I don't think there is anybody that has been through what you have been through. It is the most far removed from anything I think I've ever listened to. But if someone did listen to this and resonated with like your substance misuse, oh I suppose even your reasons for the the substance misuse habit that you that you had and the addiction. It was lonely, you know, wasn't it? What advice would you give what advice would you give them then?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:45

If it's loneliness, would you encourage them to connect or so don't wait for the time don't wait until the time is right. It's not a feeling. Whether it's whether we're talking heroin or or white powder and stuff, they're two different kinds of recovery. It's a decision. And your mind is the strongest organ of your body, and your body will follow. And it is literally one day a day, you know, you've only got to get through today, you've only got to get through today. You've got to change a number, block and delete. I didn't change my number because there was the relocation of people I didn't want to lose touch with. But the thing is, if you're in the system, they sell your number, your number just goes around, so it doesn't matter how many times you've got that number. Find something else, you've got to find throw yourself into something preferably not to say, which is what I was gonna do. It's so strange. I just I pray a lot. My mum and dad have definitely helped me through this. So and I say again, I say I feel pathetic saying that TikTok helped me, but it really did.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:56

I don't think it is pathetic because I think but I mean there's how you look at it, some people might say, oh, TikTok, but it's a it's a there's communities on there. I I know quite a few people who have found I mean if you're not someone who just scrolls from video after video, but if you know if you're someone who actually engages with a community on there, how is that any different to to go into a fellowship or a mutual aid group if you're getting support from other people on there you get exactly and you're getting encouragement from it? It's definitely but I think it does sound silly.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

And the messages I've I get are have me in tears sometimes. You've kept me sober for the whole of December and all stuff like that. You know, show my mum your page, she's been clean three months, things like that. I get a lot of that. Yeah, yeah. I get a lot of that. It is it is a community, and the thing is I've had more love and encouragement from complete strangers that I've ever had from my f family.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:53

I always found that to be the crazy part about recovery when people say they've had more love and support from strangers in a room than they ever had from their their own family.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:01

Because I think the family have had enough, haven't they? Of the antics, and I've just given you just a pinch of them. Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:07

Do you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean we've been here an hour, you've somewhere else 45 years in an hour. I'm sure we're on it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

So but they've had they've had enough, haven't they?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

But they shouldn't have had. They shouldn't have had. I always say my advice to people is don't throw them away. I I felt like I was thrown away. Because I I started going wrong from but the first time I saw a counsellor, my mum took me when I was five. So I was definitely saying wrong, right from the off. So I've been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, multiple personality disorder, and manic depression. Well combo.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:38

So the multiple personality, how you managed to get them checks from when I was from South Africa.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:47

Yeah, it's it is incredible what I get from um actually there's I've got a couple of people who seemingly adore me and buy me things and make jewellery for me, and there's a lady. In Bahrain, who had a Carol Boswatson themed party all my life, and they all had. Oh well, I didn't even do it. They've all had ironically bright pairs of glasses on. Yeah. Because this is part of my look. I've got 58 pairs of reading glasses. I have 58 pairs of reading glasses, and I've got them all on cases on the wall. Fabulous it is. Slightly spectaculars. Only better. Yeah. They all had them on bright nails, all this trashy, great big chunky jewellery, gally old stuff. And they had a Carol thing, but sober queen. She had all stuff made, party favours, and sent me a load. Bags, I've got it in my car, shopping bag. It's got a picture of me, a caricature, big pair of glasses. High on life.

unknown 1:06:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:52

Well, when I was on a live and there's all these Arabic words going, I said, Oh, sorry, I can't say anything. She said, Oh, that's someone from the Carol Carol Boss Swatson group. And I went, excuse me. Said, Yeah, yeah, we've started a group. And I'm looking, I said, Where? Said in Bahrain. I went, what? Yeah. Yeah. And then which she phoned me on flipping snap from the party, and everybody was there with these glasses on. And there's all these pictures of me around the caricatures around the wall and that. She even, and I swear to you, you can check my profile. She hired a dog or borrowed a dog, a chihuahua. I've got a long-haired chihuahua called Veronica, which is my mum's name. Okay. And she had a Veronica at the party. I've also now got a kitten called Bernie, which was my dad's name, so I've got Veronica and Bernie.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:43

I think the best part about this is like obviously the way I like to do this podcast, I like to uh very little about the people I'm speaking to. The only instruction I had from my producer was 45 years of addiction, and now I'm hearing all these stories, Camel Watson theme parties. I'm like, Jesus, it's amazing. It's amazing. It is, it's mad, isn't it? I do know what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

She sent me gifts and everything. The other day I had cakes sent from another girl. Okay. Beautiful cakes. I do loads of videos. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

I get free stuff like that. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna have to check it all out after this, to be fair. We'll get her.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:15

Oh yeah, there's some dances. I did that. Do you remember the one that was going round about Big Minge Energy? Do you remember that?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:21

Big minge energy.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:22

Do you not remember the old bird? She's real, she looked a bit like me. Blonde, old bird been around through the mill bit, yeah.

unknown 1:08:29

Through the mill.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

Is that how you describe yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:08:31

Someone's being a well, a bit rough round the edges, yeah. A bit rough, I am and I um I was married to a push bloke. I met and married him in six weeks. See, we really there's about a dozen of these we could do. I met and married him in six weeks, took a knee on my wedding day for a that was my present from my mate. I was skinning up on the top table, heckling my father-in-law, oh that was great. Then I was walking around in a full foot length fur coat with a phone that big, like a deal boy, on a yacht. We had a yacht in Chester Yacht base, and I had Porsche, which I basically bought only a shopping bag. Drunk one night.

Quickfire Questions And Farewell

SPEAKER_00 1:09:06

Alright, Carol, I'm just conscious of time, so I'm gonna wrap up. But I'd like to finish these podcasts with a series of questions that I asked all my guests. And my first question is, what's your favourite word? I don't know, I don't know. Pink. Least favourite word. Can't something that excites you. Jewelry. Something that doesn't excite you or drains your energy. What sound or noise do you love? Laughter. What sound or noise do you hear?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:39

Kids racking moining.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:43

What's your dream job? If any.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:50

So yeah, you had to add that because you could see I was a little bit down from I just like being doing what I'm doing, really. I just want to be happy.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:58

There you are, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:59

That's all I care about.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:00

Least favourite job, worst job you could imagine doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:03

Well, working in Daily Telegraph wasn't that great. Um cleaning toilets, pfft.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Yeah, cleaning other people's filth. And then lastly, what would you like to uh what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearl Dates? Told you I was ill. Told you I was ill. Carol, thank you so much for joining me on Believe in People. Thank you. And if you've enjoyed this episode of the Believe in People podcast, we'd love for you to share it with others who might find it meaningful. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Leaving a review will help us reach more people and continue challenging stigma around addiction and recovery. For additional resources, insights and updates, explore the links in this episode description. And to learn more about our mission and hear more incredible stories, you can visit us directly at believinpeoplepodcast.com.