Ed Edwards: The Political History of Smack and Crack

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is a renewed 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 I'm with Ed Edwards, award-winning playwright and author of the political history of Smack and Crack, his powerful play exploring addiction, recovery, love, factorism, and Britain's heroin epidemic. Drawing on his own experiences of addiction, prison, the hierarchy of drug use, and long-term recovery, Ed helps us understand why addiction is never just personal, it's also shaped by politics, poverty, stigma, and the communities people come from. I begin today's conversation by asking Ed about the central characters in his play, Mandy and Neil, and how much all of that story comes from Ed's own journey, and why fear became the vehicle to tell it.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Obviously, I've sat in NA meetings. I think when I re written that, I'd probably sat in it going on for 25 years, I'd been in it, you know, but I did have a relapse in the middle of my recovery, so it isn't continuous recovery, but you know, I got into recovery in 92 probably. But I'd been a political activist before that. And there was always that question of, you know, in politics of what is the relationship between the individual and society and all that. Plus, I'd seen a lot of dramas over the years about drugs which never cover the political side of it. You know, it's the same. Oh I'm gonna get distracted talking about politics now, but but you know, I'd never seen anything which like Christiana F, for example, you know, it's all about the degradation of of using and where it takes you, how gloomy it is, basketball diaries, pretty similar, you know, there's two minutes at the end about recovery, and he sort of miraculously gets clean. And I wanted, obviously, with my experience of getting clean, to write something about recovery as well as the stuff about addiction. But I was always interested in the politics too, and the idea I think there's an art there's a line in the play where uh which is which is a verbatim line, which I heard in jail myself because uh we'll come on to this later, but I I I got busted and did three and a half years in jail. So in jail I met absolutely loads of addicts, you know, and I also met addicts who were kind of better off in jail, you know, because I bumped into the the guys in jail, they'd been like buff, you know, down the gym every day, not touching drugs. Even the ones who were touching drugs weren't in anything like the trouble they'd be outside. I mean, you get into a bit of trouble, you might get a little bit of a beating or whatever, but it's not the same as being absolutely strung out on gear or cracked. So in jail, there was a lot, and I'd bump into people late, you know, six months after I got out, or a year after I got out, guys who'd been, you know, really fit, clean living, happy in the way you can be in jail, you know, if you're not in trouble. And they were on the streets, sweating, strung out, absolutely wrecked, and you just knew that they were living back in that life. Yeah. So, anyway, while I was in jail, there was this scouser, and one day it was like, you know, I can't remember how it even came up in conversation about the riots that had happened in 1981. You know, you're probably too young to even remember that.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

I was born in '91, so that if that gives you some context.

Prison Lessons And The 1981 Riots

SPEAKER_01 3:42

But uh ten years before you were born, every major city in England burned. There was an uprising against the the the basically police brutality which came in. Obviously, it had always been there in the black communities, inner city communities, but since Thatcher had been there and unemployment had skyrocketed, there was a massive crackdown on the black population and the working class populations in the inner cities. And in 1981, massive uprisings in Liverpool, Leeds, North London, South London, in other words, Tottenham and Brixton, Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, all those cities, major uprisings. And there was this Scouser on the landing, and he said, I'll tell you what, I'm not going to do a particularly good Liverpool accent. Tell you what, we're taking Liverpool that night. You know, the police had to fight their way back into Liverpool. Two years later, I'm jumping over the offie, I'm jumping over the counter in an offie trying to feed a habit, you work it out. And I was like, Oh, yeah, do you know what I mean? And I'd been a political activist in the 80s, after the the riots, and I'd really noticed, because I used to go out and score weed at that time, and then one time I went down to this was it must have been about 85, you know, and I'd come to Manchester in 83 probably, and you know, if you couldn't get weed from a deal, you'd go to this the middle of Moss side to score, and you'd score a like a one-pound drawer in the be in the in the in the betting office there, and they'd have the they'd have the weed wraps in the you know where your betting slips are, and you'd you know just go and score if there was nothing else. And I went down there, I must have run out of places to score, I couldn't get any weed, you know what it's like. And then I'd sort of gone down to the place, the Mothside Centre, which doesn't exist anymore, and seen a guy recognised, you know, have you got anything to smoke? And he goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just wait there. Comes back, and I was expecting a five-pound draw, you know, and he was like, he had all these bags of heroin. And I was like, Oh, I said, Oh, I wanted a weed. It's oh you can't get weed here now, and it's just all it's all brown, you know. I was like, Oh fuck. This is before I got into any hard drugs at all, just smoking weed all the time, really addictively, but hadn't got gone down any of those roads yet. And I was just, I just really thought, fucking, oh, that's that's a big change, you know. Didn't really register it properly, but at that time we were involved in a political campaign in the middle of Hume Moss Side, which were the sort of mixed mixed race areas, really, trying to stop a guy getting deported back to Sri Lanka. And he was a communist, and he sort of introduced me to communist politics. And in the wake of the riots, this guy's theory was that the police wouldn't he he'd taken sanctuary in a church in Manchester to stop being deported to Sri Lanka, and he was a communist, so in Sri Lanka he was in danger from the right-wing government there, who were having a war with the it's a complicated situation, but they were at at war with the Tamils at that time, and he was a supporter of the Tamils. If he got back, you know, he was a target. Anyway, so the church, which was a Church of England church, had given him sanctuary, and we were involved in this campaign. And basically, he thought that if the police came in and raided a church in the middle of Hume a few years after the riots, local people, you know, that they wouldn't dare do it because of what had happened, and and those areas were you know notorious for standing up to the police. And of course, this was 1985 by now, but it was it was definitely not a political hotbed in that area then. And you'd started to notice the depoliticization of that area, and it was only when I heard that guy in jail going, you know, uh uh I'm jumping over the counter and off of you working out when they've been sort of they'd cleared Liverpool of the police and taken it over. And I I started to put two and two together and think, you know, is there a connection between this wave of heroin that's come in just after the uprisings against Thatcher? And thought, well, that's something I could look into. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, so I had that as a project, you know, how as a writer or you often have ideas on the back burner sort of thing. And years later I was teaching a class, you know, I was clean by now. Well, I was clean in jail, actually, but we'll come to that. But I was teaching a class, and you know, politics had sort of died by by the middle of the 90s, really, in in Britain. And you know, w the the the sort of tide of politics had had been driven back sin and I think it was after the hunger strike, hunger strikers in Ireland had been defeated, and that the riots had happened, and then the mining miners' strikes came and went, and the miners had been defeated, and then the Berlin Wall comes down and the communism is driven back, and politics sort of disappeared off the face of the earth in in Britain. But by the middle of the 90s, I was teaching in in a in a drama school, and I'd actually got too many hours on this physical theatre course. And the students were and I said, Look, what we could do is every so often I could fill in a bit of time by giving you a a a lecture on politics, you know, because you're actors, you're gonna need to know what's going on in the world. Are you interested? And they said, Oh, yeah, definitely. And I'd I'd sensed there was a bit more interest in politics again. So I put a load of titles on the board of what we could we could cover, and one of them literally off the top of my head said the political history of smack and crack. And they went, Oh, yes, that one.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Had you been open about your recovery to the students at that time, or so or did it I wasn't secret, no.

When Heroin Flooded The Streets

SPEAKER_01 9:32

No, okay. I wasn't secret, no. But I mean I didn't sort of openly talk about it, but I wouldn't have covered it up, you know, if if anybody that, you know, and obviously you can see some students sometimes uh more you know, you can see students who are struggling with drugs and stuff, yeah. So you might just say, you know, if you need help, there's narcotics anonymous, you know what I mean? But so when they say the political history of smack and crack, I thought that that was a really good introduction to politics because you'd get the whole idea of Thatcher, but then you also had because smack and crack basically come from Afghanistan and Colombia, which is the Nicaraguan Revolution was destroyed by people who were funded through drugs, and the Afghan Revolution was destroyed through people who were funded by drugs. So in Afghanistan it was heroin who was that was funding the the the opposition to the the the Afghan revolution at that time, and it was cocaine that was being used to fund the people who were opposing the Nicaraguan Revolution, and then that was being turned into crack in America, and of course the heroin was flooding Europe at that time, which was only something I discovered later when after I I told you that I'd um it's going up round in circles here, but I told you uh I'd gone to score, the guide said that's what I was going to ask you.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

So I wanted to come back to that actually. Did you did you follow it up with the with the brown then at the time or no?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

I won't you know that was that was later.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

I didn't I didn't sort of oh yeah, I'll have that instead of yeah well that that's kind of how with the way you said it at first, it was almost like, yeah, that'll do, didn't I? I'll I'll take that instead, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

No, well this was this this well, we'll come on to this addiction thing. So so this will be the personal story. So anyway, there was this big superstructure of of of heroin and crack which which I later found out was to do with the Afghan Revolution and the Nicaraguan Revolution, and I was interested in all that from politics. But then after politics went away in Britain, I did start to get far more into drugs, you know, having smoked weed addictively completely for years, and we can talk about that when we come on to the sort of addiction stuff. Weed is a very good way of staying in denial about addiction, you know, because there's plenty of people who smoke weed all day, every day, like I did, literally from the moment I woke up. I was I just lived on it. I was I was never sober, really.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

You can sort of say, Oh, it's not addictive. Well, that's what I was gonna say, just to quickly jump in on that. I found that funny, John, when you talk about the the hierarchy of addiction as well. Exactly. People who I know people who smoke weed every day but still take a negative view on those who've gotten other people. That was me.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

I used to think, well, you think the negative view was it's actually denial because you can say if you're if you're smoking weed all day, every day, and and and avoiding smack like the plague to think fucking hell look at the look what I'm like with weed. I know that I knew that I was addicted to weed, but at the same time it's not addictive, so I was telling myself I wasn't addicted because it's not heroin or it's not crack. You know, you thought if it takes smack and crack, I am absolutely finished because I know what I'm like. At the same time, I'm telling myself I'm not an addict because I'm smoking weed, so it completely makes no sense. And I always had this horrible feeling that I was I was addicted, and yet I could tell myself that I wasn't. This is the strange thing about denial, isn't it? That we're always looking for some way to say I'm not an addict or I'm not as bad as so and so. And I'm sure you you know you get don't steal handbags, don't inject in their go into whatever. So I've never taken heroin, it was always the thing I was never gonna do, and actually I never did. Everything else I did, and and this all happened after politics went away, and I just drifted off into I felt I was really lost, you know. And and I actually put that down to not that I was already an addict, but letting go of the side of the swimming pool if if you like, and ending up smoking crack is only happened after we were defeated. Before that, it was just weed, and you know, in the same way that other people would go to the pub, I would just be but except it was it was all the time. And in fact, I that's the thing about weed is you can actually do without it if you have to. You know, it's not like with heroin and crack, but you sort of have to do it. With weed, you can, if you need to, not do it. The fact that I didn't, unless I absolutely had to not do it, it was all part of the denial.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Yeah.

Weed Denial And Drug Hierarchies

SPEAKER_01 13:58

So let's just go back to your original question, which was so so there was I was a political activist and I could sort of see what was going on, and then I did jail, and then I really saw the impact of of of heroin on the community. You know, it was it was all the the the most daring and in some ways the cleverest guys were in jail. You know, they were you know, I remember standing in the lunch queue one day looking at these characters, thinking, these are incredible guys. Do you know what I mean? That these are because it was a jail for fours and overs. I was I I got three and a half, my sentence was three and a half years, but they burned down Wymot, which was a a jail you went to for four fours and unders. So I was in the fours and overs jail. So I was with people who have got long sentences, and they you know, you don't get a long sentence unless you're out there really taking risks, you know, and obviously jail's full of failed criminals at the same time. There they were pretty out there guys, you know, and pretty bright guys, and there they are all in jail when in other parts of the world people like that are fighting revolutions and yeah. See what I'm saying? And I started to have this feeling that what was it that you got busted for? It was for importing cannabis by the by the half kilo. Well, it's a funny story in itself, and it's in my play that follows up from one of my later plays. I I've just writ written a play set in a gel and based on my story, which is that we were importing half kilos of cannabis from Spain, disguised as chocolate bars, and they really look they were actually chocolate bars. They were covered in chocolate, and the guy in Spain had found these.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

I'm laughing, but you know, I did get three and a half years from this is it though, but it's it's one of the things where you I suppose if you don't laugh, you're crying it, sort of thing. But it's just the idea of these half kilos of cannabis being covered in chocolate.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

I know, and he dipped it in wax first, uh so the sniffing dogs would couldn't detect it. And then he found these, you know, there was in Spain they sold these half kilo. Well they're half kilos, you could get two nine bars. Half kilos of two quarter pound, uh two quarter, yeah, what was it quarter? Anyway, two nine bars basically, it looked exactly like it. So you could even open it up and look at it and you'd go, Oh yeah, it's chocolate. And it weighed the same because it was, you know, half kilo. Anyway, so this guy had found it, and and so of course, you know, over time we we just got away with it for ages. But over time you get sloppy and you know complacent. And then and then w when they came, I thought, well, there's there's no evidence. It wasn't even keeping the stuff in the house, do you know what I mean? And we thought we were well organised. But there was evidence everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

I mean, we absolutely have the arrogance of it that we did, you know, when you think untouchable.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

This this was the irony as well, but because I'd been a political activist and you come up against the police all the time and you realise how incompetent they are, and you know, you sort of you do lose your respect for the law as a criminal, don't you? You know, you you know you know how it works. So anyway, so there was a bit of a toxic combination of losing your fear of the police and uh getting lazy and you know, using drugs, of course, at the same time. So things were falling apart anyway. Right, so we've lost track of where we were going back to my original plan. Yes, okay. So the personal stories, yeah. So, you know, I'd for years as a political activist, see and and a drug user, seen plays about drugs with with no political content, you know, and I was starting to find out where you're gonna used to frustrate me, you know. And I thought that I wanted to write a play. What when my students sort of said, Oh yeah, we're interested in that, and then you know, I was telling them about the Nicaraguan Revolution, the Afghan Revolution, how the drugs, and I'd started to research and I'd come across this book which was recommended to me by Oliver Stone, not in person, obviously, but he he in a documentary film, he's there's this film called, I mean, there's this book which Oliver Stone mentions in one of the documents, you know, he's sort of quite well interviewed, isn't he? And he makes quite big political films. And somewhere in all that, he he recommends this book called what was it called? Let me get this right, the title right, was The Politics of Heroin, the CIA and International Drug Smuggling, you know, politics of heroin, the CIA and international drug smuggling, something like that. And I was thinking, Blimey, what that's interesting. And it, you know, of course, he's not saying that all international drug dealing is done by the CIA. But dot dot dot when you look at it, they you you can't really have drug dealing on the scale that you've got, a whole country being flooded with heroin after the early 90s in the wake of Thatcherism and all that violence, and the the violence against the working class communities, and then the uprising by the working class communities against the police. You can't have a heroin epidemic on that scale without it political protection. You just can't. And in this book, that the the the CIA and in I can't remember the exact title, I'm really sorry. No, it's okay, you can put it in the show notes. I'll tell you after we look it up. But but anyway, the CIA drug dealing epic Bible by this guy who uh spent his life, he's a really well-known professor, M WM McCoy his name is, and he goes out into the mountains of Vietnam, Laos, and eventually ends up in Nicaraguan. But mainly he's he's it's the heroine side of things. And he interviews all the dealers, he introduces all the generals, and the you know, the f the French army was flying tons of opium from the hills to into Vietnam. Well well that because it gives Vietnam War was first against the French and then against the Americans, and both the French and the Americans were involved in huge amounts of drug dealing. The French were doing it directly, using their own military planes to fly it into Vietnam from the the mountains to the to Vietnam where it was refined, and the Americans were just protecting people. So the difference difference was the the French were doing it themselves, and the the Americans were just pr providing political cover and and guns, etc., to the people who were doing it, providing planes and cover and banking. And and the more, you know, the more you read this book, and I you know it's a really big, fat, detailed book, the more you read it, the more you realise it's impossible to do that sort of drug dealing without you know, without governments. It's a it's a government.

SPEAKER_00 20:49

It's a bold argument, isn't it? So that the the heroin epidemic wasn't accidental. Did it take you a while to sort of put these things together? It was when I read that book.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

Yeah. And and you know, it it this guy is not saying the CIA did all the drug.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

No, okay, but it's just saying that it couldn't happen without without the political backing of huge international political networks.

Getting Busted And Doing Time

SPEAKER_01 21:12

So that uh and we we you know we've done a podcast about about this, which you could get online, call the political history of smack and crack if you're interested in, knowing more, and we'll put the you know the the book in the show notes. But there was a there was a case study during the course of his investigations of of of an independent so so on the same scale that the protected dealers were operating, a a freelance dealer was doing the same sort of thing, and he lasted about eighteen months before he was busted. You know. It failed, you know. Some people would think that's some form of conspiracy theory, though. Well, exactly, you know, that's that's This is the thing about conspiracy theories, isn't it? Where there's always a little bit of truth to them, isn't there? Well, yes, there is. Totally. Not always. But but the the point is there's a whole this is a whole new p thing you've raised there. Oh no. You know, there's the whole Steve Bannon thing that, you know, there's an argument to say that they I mean Steve Bannon's slogan, Steve Bannon being the right-wing American who who was backing who who sort of masterminded Trump's camp first campaign. So he's a right-wing podcaster slash billionaire-backed political hack, and he was connected to the lot who got Johnson elected in in Britain. He was he has this slogan about conspiracy theories where the idea is to and this is a quote, flood the zone with shit. So if you pump out conspiracy theories, everything that is you know, and and then you comp so so W. M. McCoy, this uh scholar who's spent his life studying this and documenting it exactly and and really researching something properly, just sounds like a conspiracy theory because of all the shit that's out there pumped out by these right wing organizations who know full well that what they're saying is shit, but then everything sounds like a conspiracy theory. So any political analysis done, any serious analysis, is just gonna sound like one of those right-wing conspiracy theories. This is not a conspiracy theory, this is incredibly well-documented stuff that a lot of it comes out of congressional hearings that the American government themselves carried out ten years after it all happened, into the Nicaraguan stuff, uh the crack epidemic, basically. So, yeah, it does sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's not a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory is, oh yes, Margaret Thatcher, and this is this would be a conspiracy theory. You say, Oh yes, Margaret Thatcher organised all the drug dealing and organised the heroin epidemic in Britain to put down the riots. That is not what happened. And the play never meant makes that accusation. And of course, the spectator magazine's review of the play is oh yes, exactly. They they immediately pick up on, oh yeah, this is a ridiculous statement. Margaret Thatcher didn't organise heroin epidemic, and of course, I go enormously out of my way to make sure we never say that. Yeah. And to be really clear about what the facts are in the play. But the play is not about that, the play is about two addicts trying to get clean, having a relationship when you should never have a relationship, you know, in the first year of recovery. Everyone says, do not have a relationship in your first year because you will be using each other like drugs, you know, etc. So it's so it's it's a messy love story about two people who try to rescue each other in the first year of addiction and all the mistakes you make when you first get clean. That is what the play is about. And I tried to get all the stuff about the CIA into the play. You can't do it. A drama has to be about emotions, about characters, about conflict, all that stuff, personal stuff. So that's why it's a both to come back to your original point. The play is both a love story, and mainly a love story, a fucked up love story. Yeah. That's what it is.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Well, this this is it, because I I mean it but it balances that the the harsh realities, shall we say, of like crime, uh obviously prostitution, relapse survival, but it it's done with with with humour, with love. Why was it essential for you to show addiction in in all its humanity rather than just reducing it to like pure despair, which is what people often think, don't they? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

I know. Well, this is because like we go back to we were saying about the basketball diaries and those sorts of films about dealing in about drugs, is they are generally about the despair and the gloom. And you know when you hear a share at a at a convention and someone's been to the bottom, it's really powerful to hear them saying all that stuff. But largely the best shares are when they start getting clean and the struggles, you know, the room sort of goes really quiet, then everyone's going, Oh, yeah, I've been there, or that's a bit like me. Oh god, glad I never did that. This guy's amazing because he's been there and done it. But the bit where you can hear a pin drop is when they start talking about getting clean, you know, and and the challenges of getting clean. And i i should we just talk about how is that is that what you're doing? Yeah, absolutely, yeah. So so yeah, and and you know my first seven years of recovery, I would say looking back now, I was bonkers. Absolutely bonkers because I used drugs to to stay sane, you know, without drugs, an addict, I was absolutely fucking bonkers. Bonkers. Could not you know, that's why I use drugs every day, all day, every day, because I didn't know how to live without them. So it took me, it took, you know, se I mean it took me seven years before I felt probably although I was gonna say before I felt like a human being. But did I and do I still you know, it's only when I go to a meeting now, and of course being a long time clean now, I go to less meetings than I should because you you get a life, and you know, yeah, you know, there's all the things that you have to do, like ill parents and you know, yeah, kids, etc. etc. So you get less and less time. But sometimes I just go to a meeting and sit in the chair and you go, but there's this like sort of sigh of relief where you go, Oh yeah, this is where I belong, and I don't feel as mad just because against normal people, I hope you don't use that word, you know, I hate to use that term, but there's a certain definitely normal people who don't get why we do what we do. And you know, it's uh like I say, when I took the drugs away, I was bonkers, you know. I was sort of more more dangerous than than I was when I was using in some ways, because I could I found it harder to control my feelings and and uh you know acting out on your feelings as opposed to just suppressing them or changing them through drugs, which is quite simple, really.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

Well, this is the whole thing that that fascinates me. You said, you know, putting yourself against normal people they don't understand. I I I mean I'm not lived experience myself, but it it fascinates me when I hear people's stories because again, I like you said, not to use the term normal, but I will hear stories and think that that first thing there would have been enough for me to sort my sort myself out. But there's that first thing, then there's the next thing, and the next thing, and it just goes. And I'm thinking, how did this continue? Do you know? So that the frame of mind though that you're in, it it it does it does fascinate me.

CIA Claims And Conspiracy Noise

SPEAKER_01 29:02

Yeah, well, again, you know, I've got a sister who's quite sensible, she's very sensible, and me and my mum and my other sister are not sensible, you know. My mum was brought up by an alcoholic, and I think it's affected me and my my other sister for some reason, but not my other sister, who's really you know, very sensible, yeah. And she just does not get us, you know. Yeah, she doesn't get us. Not I mean she she she loves us, but she does not get us. Why don't you just why don't you just anything? Well, yeah, why don't I just? And it's this is where the self-loathing comes in, isn't it? You you this is why addiction is is is a spiral downwards because I'm got an interesting thought about why it's a spiral upwards being in recovery, but it's a spiral downwards because you say tomorrow, or I don't know how many days I didn't say tomorrow I'm not gonna use and and in some ways the period when I was just using weird, I say just using mean I meant all day, every day. Yeah, apart from when I didn't need to, which again helped with my denial because oh yeah, see, I didn't didn't use till the evening that day. Do you know what I mean? It's like bad denial, always that, but but the worst the worst thing about you know if you're using heroin, you can at least go, it's addictive, I've got to do this. There's a sort of a justification. I'm an addict, and you blame the drugs, you don't go, um you know, most people are going, it's because of the drugs. The common wisdom of heroin is that a heroin addict you needs to use drugs, otherwise they're because of the physical dependency, the withdrawal. There's a sort of a justification of what you're doing. If you're using a non-addictive drug and you do it every day and you tell yourself you're not going to do it, and you still do it, that's pretty terrible for your self-esteem, because you've got no excuse. So why why did you keep using it then? There's the question. It's because I'm an addict. Whereas when I first came round, if you'd have asked me that, I'd have said because I'm a dickhead, because I'm a twat, because I've got no self-control, because I'm an idiot, because I'm lazy, because whatever. You know, you you've got no, you can't you literally don't understand it. And this is where recovery comes in, because you walk into that room, and everybody in that room except you understands why you do that. It's because you're an addict, not because you're a wanker.

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Did you did you experience a hierarchy within those circles where people will be looking at you when you talk about a cannabis addiction, looking at you going, it's only cannabis, mate.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

Whilst they've got a full blown-up addiction. I was going to say that because when Robbie told me that, you know, part of what you look at is stigma. Yeah. When I first came around, this was early 90s. Most of the people were proper smack heads, you know, and you know, had such incredible horror stories. And I'd be thinking, oh shit, I can't tell, you know. I mean, I had smoked crack, yeah, but not hadn't not it just hadn't gone down as far as they had. You know, I mean, I'd done jail, a lot of them had not done jail, like I had done three and a half years in jail, but still, you know, oh, most of my using was was cannabis.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

It's like oh bless him.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

Oh, I can't really, I can't really so you know, and and you know, they say, Oh, do you want to come and do your tell your story in jail? I'm thinking those guys are just gonna look at me and go, you dickhead. Yeah. So I didn't do that stuff, you know. It's just ridiculous to expect me to sit in a room in a jail with a bunch of people, you know, in who are still in denial, probably. Yeah. It's only later that anyway, so so yeah, you're exactly right that you know, in those early days you'd think and and strangely enough, it was I didn't even use alcohol. Do you know what I mean? I I drank when I didn't have drugs. That was the only time I drank. I didn't like alcohol. Partly because my granddad died of it, you know, and my mum was brought up by him, etc. So alcohol was this horror story for me to be avoided with heroin and crack because I thought I know what I'm like, if I get out of that, I'm done.

SPEAKER_00 33:07

So yeah, so it's interesting to have that awareness of it though, and and also to be able to kind of label yourself as an addict without the the physical dependency because you're looking at it as like a.

SPEAKER_01 33:16

I didn't label myself as an addict, but I did think I had you know, I thought if I take smack, you know, this is the denial. You see, you can't you did it didn't have the tools to understand what I was going through. So so like you say, it's interesting that I would think of myself as an addict without going, oh, I'm an an addict, without understanding what addiction is, yeah, which is that you can't use drugs successfully in any form without it doing making you do things that normal people don't do, to use that phrase again.

SPEAKER_00 33:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Which I'm sure you can relate to.

SPEAKER_00 33:50

Oh, absolutely, yeah. So so how important do you think it is to especially with with with the play as well, to challenge the stereotypes around people who use drugs? Because you don't necessarily fit into that stereotype, I don't but kind of, kind of not.

SPEAKER_01 34:04

Yeah, I think I do. Oh, yeah, I was just telling you, so so I never touched alcohol, I only yet drank when I when I didn't have drugs because I needed something, you know, to have something. And so it was my relapse after 13 years of sobriety, not a single drug had passed my lips for 13 years, I had a I had a tequila.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:27

And four years later, three years, three and a half, I can't even remember now, about three and a half years later, I'm drinking, I'm drinking with everybody else. So, you know, you go out to the pub, drink with people, uh a normal amount of drunkenness, and then go home and I'd have a bot bottle of vodka and a bottle of whiskey, which would last two uh three days, you know, on top of all the other drinking. And that was a you know, I had a sort of a honeymoon period with alcohol because I'd never really done it in my relapse. So for a time, oh so here's the other thing. So over those 13 years, I gradually doing less meetings, getting a life, I was a professional writer, all sorts of stuff like that. I'd you know, the normal things you get when you when you get clean and yeah, yeah. So I'd got all that stuff together, and but I'd not been in recovery for a while. I I I now realise, you know, and I've been sitting in meetings. This is a symptom of relapse for me now. Symptom of a pending relapse is you're sitting in meetings going, if that fucking dickhead shares that again, I am gonna go crazy. Oh my god, why are they doing this? I hate meetings, they're really doing my head, you know. And I'm sitting there going, I'm coming away from a meeting. Oh, I'm just knocking my mic so I'm coming away from meetings going, oh, this meeting's doing my head in. And I didn't resolve that. So I just do less meetings, and sometimes they're going, sometimes they'll be good, sometimes they'll, but you know, there's always that niggling thing of, oh, they're reading the traditions again, why do they have to read the traditions every meeting? You know, starting to irritate me. Not understanding why. And gradually pulling back from meetings, living a quote, normal life, and then starting to drink. But because I was not in recovery, I was only not drinking and smoking, you know, I was not drinking, taking drugs, so I was uh white knuckling it is the is the term. So I I was doing other things to fix my feelings other than taking drugs. So that when I when I did relapse to begin with, it did solve my problems. And I had a honeyboon period where I was really fucking enjoying drinking, yeah, and it was helping because I had all these things that would normally be solved through going to meetings or whatever, yeah, recovery, feeling uncomfortable, and drinks drink fixed that. And that was, you know, it it took a while before it really hit me, you know. And I'd drink weekends, and then the weekends would get longer, and then I'd be drinking every night, and then it was you know, earlier and earlier, and and then it was just absolutely hit me like a ton of bricks. That was actually much worse, the alcohol, than any of the drug taking I ever did.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Is that because the physical dependency that comes of alcohol, or was it kind of circumstantial around the way life was at that time? Good question.

Early Recovery And Feeling Bonkers

SPEAKER_01 37:19

It was just the sheer desire to drink and the amount I could drink, you know, I built up such a tolerance, like I say. And I was shocked. And I hadn't had enough either. I came back to recovery before I'd had enough. I came back for the benefit of some, you know, taking someone else to a meeting again, which is what I did to begin with. I was, you know, I found NA through trying to help a heroin addict who I thought was an addict, and I kind of was just a normal drug taker, yeah. You know, usual matters. Took them to a meeting and they started telling me you're an addict, and I was like, What? And then eventually went to a meeting and thought, Oh bloody hell, I am. So again, so let me just go back. So that was when I identified what it was like going to a meeting and saying, Oh, we're treating the traditions again, off that guy shit. I was straight back into that. Yeah. You know, not enjoying meetings again. And so I said to someone, I shared about it, and someone came up to me afterwards and said, Ed, why don't you, instead of thinking, what am I gonna get out of this meeting, think, what can I put into this meeting? So you give something to the meeting rather than going to a meeting thinking it's gonna be like a joke, make me feel better, go home, phew, fixed. No, sit there in the meeting and listen to other people. Is there anything, any bit experience you've got that can help that person then think I'm gonna go and speak to them afterwards? And it's just like snaps your fingers, it made all the difference. Yeah, so my advice to anyone who's in a meeting going, I've fucking dickheads, she has that again, I'm gonna go mad. Just drop that and think, I'm not here to get something from the meeting. Is there something I can give to this meeting? Not even if you even if you don't share, think of someone who's suffering and you you've got some experience, don't try and fix them, but share your experience, strength, and hope with them at the end of the meeting. And it that is the thing that made the difference. So now when I see myself in a meeting, thinking those thoughts, I'll share something about this being a symptom of my relapse was me, or one of the things that made me think if that's a relapse.

SPEAKER_00 39:18

I I I have heard it people say before the there's always the relapse before the relapse. And kind of what you're explaining then, that sounds like what that was, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:28

Yeah, exactly. I was fixing myself through other pleasures, yeah. Well before and and that led to discomfort, you know. I was just back in my way of running, not being not dealing with my feelings or whatever positively. It was a neg it's that negative cycle. So that then when I did relapse, it actually worked for a while because I needed drugs again. Yeah, yeah. Because I was mad.

SPEAKER_00 39:52

Okay. I I want to go back to something that you said earlier. Do you know when we talked about the the the I suppose the drug crisis and and back to the rights uh of 1981, the the collapse of the inner city communities. Looking at more modern day, do you think society still fails to understand addiction as a as a structural issue rather than simply an individual failing?

SPEAKER_01 40:14

Yeah, yeah. Obviously, you can only fix it as an individual. Yeah. But I do think that that addiction and Well, consumer society. Well, you know, what are you expected to do? You're expected to consume and be, you know. My dad's generation were expect you know, this is a there's a funny theory about the sort of the period pre-war, post immediate post-war and pre-war period, post-Second World War I'm talking about, and and later consumer society. But those were producing societies where we were expected to put off our pleasures for later, save for the future, build a career, have a job for life, you know, and eventually buy a home or look after your family or live for the you know, you're building something. Whereas now we're expected to spend, spend, spend, have it now, do it, just do it, you know, and everything's about consuming, and there's no saving and nothing. And so and and you know, the the theory is that whereas pre-war people suffered if your mental health problems are supposed to be a a sort of a gauge of why does this so an individual mental health problem is really a sort of little taste of what the whole society is doing, is a little mirror to the whole of the rest of society. Pre-war society, you had psych you had what's it called, where you're repressing your feelings and and you get little obsessions that that Freud talked about. Oh, I've forgotten the name of it now.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Um I I I yeah, I I understand what you mean though, but the consumerism element is interesting because not I think as well, if I think of the the change in the last 10-15 years, you know, if we look at the consumerism back in like the the nineties and and early 2000s, but now the consumerism is is not just spend, spend, spend, but it's also the way we consume media. No, I know. Like it's cut on our phones, scrolling through content, everything has to be the instant gratification, and I mean, even the the way we we shop, it's instant. I order something at 11 pm on the night, and I wake up in the morning, it's been posted through the door within eight hours. I'm like, how the hell did that happen? But it is it's obviously there's the spending element of it, but it's the way we consume media. Yeah, reels on on Instagram, etc. Well, this is it. I think the interesting thing now is looking at how everyone is competing for our attention. Yeah, that's what it is. That's the selling that that's what people are trying to buy, and that's what people are trying to gain. Is that is is your attention? Because there's no terrifying, there's no collective now. Me and me and uh my producer Robbie spoke about this. Back in the day, I mean we had um we had Kevin Kennedy on this podcast who uh do you know he was uh played Kelly Watts in Coronation Street, and he I remember him talking about him and Raquel's wedding was like one of the most cons uh one of the most watched events, I think, do you know, on television. The ratings was astronomical. You'll never get those shared collectives now, other than other than the World Cup or a big Spartan event. Because everyone now what I'm watching tonight on Netflix is different to what you're watching. There's no shared experience anymore. So everyone's you know competing for that.

SPEAKER_01 43:19

This is a retention. The fellowships are so brilliant because you know, you literally uh you know, you walk into a meeting and you feel like you belong.

SPEAKER_00 43:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:28

You know, and that is a a massive collective all over the world. You can walk into a meeting in Spain and sit there, even if you don't speak the language, and you'll hear what you know what people are talking about, mm-hmm and you can feel that sense of collective belonging. So NA is actually I'm not saying it's a political solution, but you know, personally it's it's a really big advantage over almost everybody else in society, apart from churchgoers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:55

Well, I often say this. I mean, I I see people from um the fellowship and and and and That collective sort of gathering and and the the the brotherhood element of it is God I'd love that in my life. I'm genuinely jealous of people you I mean if I was struggling at eleven o'clock at the night, I thought I won't be able to ring anybody. I'd sorry, I'm just gonna have to talk to someone tomorrow. Where is that? It's like ring me at any time. Do you know it's it's just this collective again? Like you say, that that brotherhood, that sisterhood element of it. It's it's just to be.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Let's just talk about that. You know, you know, if you sort of think how does NA work? Well, like I said, when I walked into that room, all that madness I'm saying, you know, uh I the stupid things thinking, oh, you know, you could be you could be a just say if you just only ever smoke pot.

SPEAKER_02 44:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

And so you're using a non-addictive drug, but you're addicted to it, and you keep telling you yourself you're not gonna do it. And when I walk into that room, everybody in that room knows what that is, and I don't. I they I've got no idea. I walk in, I I know I've got a problem, but I don't know what that problem is. All that all I know is that someone's told me I'm an addict, I should come to a meeting or whatever, or if you're a smack head, it's bloody obvious you've got a problem, but you think it's the smack. Everyone else in that room knows that it's because you can't live without drugs, and that they know how, if you take the drugs away, to teach you how to live without drugs, and you don't know that. So that's a higher power. Yeah. I I'm an atheist, and yet I walk in that room, and there is a higher power there that I can identify really clearly, which is that they know more about me than I know about myself, yeah. Because they are me to a certain extent.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

Because some people really get caught up on the religious aspect, the higher power element of it, but what you've just said then, I think that's the nil on the atheist, and it's still a higher power because they know better than you.

Relapse Before The Relapse

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Yeah, it's really easy to know that because you go, Oh yeah, yeah. Someone says, I'm not a twat. Well, you might still be a twat, but I'm a twat who's an addict. But you go, Oh yeah, it's not because I'm a dickhead, it's because I'm an addict, which a lot of people go, Oh, that's just an excuse. But it really helped me. Yeah. Because oh yeah, so let's talk about that spiral thing again. So you spiral it's a spiral up, I'm not gonna do it. And if it's a non-addictive drug you're doing and you still do it, that in some ways is gonna affect your self-worth m worse than if you got an excuse of oh, I've got to do it because I'm an addict, you know, because I'm addicted to an addictive substance. I've got to do this. I had no excuse like that. It was definitely non-addictive sub well, it's known as a non-addictive substance. Anyway, so then I I walk into the meeting, they tell me I'm an addict, and I tell you what, I had not had a day since my teenage years when I hadn't used drugs. I think there was one, and I had a can of beer there just in case, you know, and I think it got and then I went absolutely much worse on drugs after that. That was you know, starting to get into ecstasy, all that stuff. Eventually end up smoking crack. But that first day, I actually got a whole day and I still had some weed at home just in case, and I didn't use it, and then I got one day clean and went to a meeting the next day, or did it might be in the day after, because in those days there wasn't a meeting every day. But I went to a meeting the next day and it was like two days, and people were getting standing up to get their 30-day keyring, and I was like, Oh my god, that's like a lifetime 30 days without drugs, could not believe it. And I was thinking, oh my god, that's three days, and I started to feel proud of myself quite quickly and thinking, Oh my god, this is an incredible achievement. So immediately myself worth started to come back, and also I could tell myself it was because I was an addict that I'd done, you know, obviously I can look back and say, Well, also, because you were a bit dickhead, but it was a really quick way, a quick win of getting four, five, six, seven days without drugs, absolutely unbelievable. I think I might have actually got rid of the weed in my cupboard at that point, you know, thinking, Oh, I actually can do this, but I'm gonna get rid of it, you know. And then 30 days, that first 30-day keying, there's nothing like it. You know, you can get a year, you could 10 years or whatever, nothing like the first 30-day keying, absolute miracle, and felt like an enormous achievement. And I was an amazing person that I could do that because I was surrounded by people who knew how amazing it was. You tell other people you've gone 30 days with Turk still go, Oh, well done. No, you don't get it, you don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

Impossible. Yeah. What sort of benefits did you see in your own life then? When you obviously you say the free days, the fade. I mean, how does life improve?

SPEAKER_01 48:28

Instantly. So I'd sat round, right? You know, because writing's quite a good thing to do when you're off your head. Yeah. You know, because you can disappear into this other world really easily. And I used to think I couldn't do anything without fucking drugs.

SPEAKER_00 48:40

Yeah, well, that's what I was gonna say, because a lot of people tie their creative uh creativity to drug use. I mean, and that's based on you think of artists like you know, one of the greatest guitar players of all time, Jimi Hendrix, was known for being a drug user sort of thing. So people think like, oh, that's how you be creative.

SPEAKER_01 48:56

Yeah, I mean the Beatles, you know, you take you take substances, yeah. Yeah, and loads of writers, loads of them.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Was you worried your creativity was going to be a little bit more.

SPEAKER_01 49:03

I could never get beyond the first draft, you know, because you can it's all you can sit there off your head, writing away, making anything up, really complicated, mad ideas, which you enjoy while you're writing them, but you could never sit down and do a second draft because you're off your head. Yeah, you know, you need clarity for that. So I I'd always been a writer, but obviously writing shit. Yeah, I think it might have started out okay. But oh, it felt okay, I think. I'd had a few things earlier on, like I went to university and and put stuff on there which was coherent enough, or maybe it was because it was funny that people thought I could write, and then I thought I could write. Yeah. And I would write stuff that was okay, but you never thought it was gonna be any anyway. So quite quickly I started writing coherent scripts, yeah. You know, and started learning the lessons you need to learn for a second draft, third draft, you know, and doing stuff that made sense and had the ability to do something about it. So very quickly I started to get ahead, as it were, with with writing and ended up working for television, you know, writing scripts for for the Bill Holby, stuff like that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

So so go, I mean, I mentioned this earlier, I don't think we we we touched on it. For for the political history of smack and crack, based on the I mean the the landscape of media, why why was why was theatre chosen as the model of the world?

SPEAKER_01 50:32

I did a degree in drama, had a great time. And I was still in the early days of my addiction then, so it hadn't really thrown me you know you know it's a strange one, isn't it? Because with with weed you can do almost nothing for years, but you don't notice that you're not progressing. Yeah. But and so in the early days I still had enough energy and creativity to to get into theatre and do it. And and then I did a a a sort of a circus show afterwards, and you know, I could stay we we'd do it in the day, so I could stay sober long enough to do all that. Learn some real lessons. And so theatre was kind of my first love, but there's no money in theatre.

SPEAKER_00 51:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:12

There's no money in writing novels. You have to write television if you're gonna make any money. Or as I do now, I teach three days a week and top up my income with theatre, which you can earn a bit of money on, but you're very hard to earn a living as a theatre writer.

SPEAKER_00 51:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:28

There's hardly anyone who's gonna do that. So it's a bit like and I really enjoy teaching because as a writer you can end up sat in a room on your own forever, never meeting anybody. Yeah. So you're gonna what you're gonna write about? So teaching gets you out of the house, as does going to meetings. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:44

Well obviously you you you you know, you are you are a writer, do you know you you you're you're a storyteller. Do you see story you mentioned obviously the the activism. Do you see storytelling as as like a form of activism, especially particularly when it comes to like challenging stigma and uh and exposing the uncomfortable truths, shall we say?

SPEAKER_01 52:02

Good question, yeah. So I don't think unfortunately writing a play is gonna change the world like the way I'd like it to do. You know, you'd want it to be like uh what's the word? A hang grenade. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? And it would you know, or a machine gun. It's not that, you know, eventually capitalism is gonna have to be overthrown, and and theatre can help people who are doing that field better, probably. And I I I write it as if it's gonna change the world and sort of have that it's an interesting starting point, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 52:34

So you don't downplay the the what you are putting on.

Consumer Culture And Lost Belonging

SPEAKER_01 52:39

But I'm I'm realistic enough politically to know that it isn't gonna actually do that.

SPEAKER_00 52:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

But that's better because I think in I I find it easier to write now that I know that and I can just do it for because I I do love it.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:56

And I think it has got a play. And you know, once I go too far down that thought of, oh, what's the point of this? Yeah, it all falls apart. So I sort of think, yeah, art is important, yeah. Even though it reaches possibly it doesn't, you know, it sort of is it just middle middle class stick heads who go to the theatre? Or is it you know, so but as soon as I start thinking all that, I just think, well, why bother? And yeah, but but I do love it, I absolutely love it. Do you do the need to do it?

SPEAKER_00 53:23

Do you believe that art can shift public attitudes though?

SPEAKER_01 53:28

Pro there was a long pause, wasn't it? Time to think about your answer, yeah. Rubbing my chin. I think probably it can. Yeah. And obviously it does, you know, that that that that post office drama recently, you know. It yeah, of course it of course it does. Not as much as a communist revolutionary would like it to. Of course, yeah. But of course it does, yeah. And and and I think it's even more important, for example, in early recovery, if you get involved in an arts project and it keeps you from thinking about taking drugs for a couple of days, that's great, you know, and it gets you out there and you've got something other than I mean it's really important to do your recovery and go to your meetings, etc. But you do need other stuff to do to keep you off the streets, as it were. Do you know what I mean? And I think it's great for that. All those things, it's got a really but you can't overstate its role. Yeah. You know, what changes the world is political action, yeah. And everything else is a bonus and helps helps do do all that.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Have you seen obviously but with with with Fiat, have you seen audience reactions that made you realise the player was changing people's perspectives? I've had really nice responses.

SPEAKER_01 54:40

And it's a solidarity thing, I think, as much as oh yeah, that was I you know, I feel less alone. Do you know what I mean? I felt like that was me, or you know, oh I didn't know that. Yeah. But but I think what people really they do love the politics in the political history of smack and crack, but they really love Neil and Mandy and their their characters and the that's what people love. Yeah. And you have to remember that.

SPEAKER_00 55:03

Just got going into this a little bit more than so for audience coming to see see your performances. What do you what do you hope, you know, that they they leave understanding, not just about addiction, but about Britain policy and and the communities that are still living with you know these consequences to today as well.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

Yeah. There's a big question. There's two aspects to it. Obviously, there's a sort of propagandistic side of it. You know, I want people to know that the the this the heroin was coming into the country where it was coming from, but there's only a few lines in the play. But what I really want in this play, it's that in 1981, you know, you could reduce it down to a couple of lines, really. So it's Police Close Smack and Crack, you'd say before the riots in 1981, you couldn't really buy brown heroin. You couldn't, well, brown heroin wasn't really a thing then, but you couldn't really buy heroin on the streets, it was just students, rock bands, those sort of people, ex-students, you know, and a few hippies who'd been to Afghanistan or whatever. They they were the people who would the the the smackheads. There was 3,000 addicts in Britain basically at the end of the 70s. By 1985, there's 30,000 addicts, you know, and then the most of the ones before that were middle class, and now they're all working class. That's the big thing I want to get across, and people can make of that what they want. I will help them with a few other facts about the politics of it. But I'd want addicts to go, oh yeah, that's me. Look, there's Nina and Mandy having their fucked up relationship. God, I love Mandy, and I to cry at the end because there's a bit of a reverse, you know, she starts clean, and I don't want to give too many spoilers. So there's a there's a lot of drama type stuff of this love story, but also to go, do you know what? They're bastards, you know, we need to do something about this, don't we? That little thought there as well. That would be good enough for me, I think.

SPEAKER_00 56:56

Now, Ed, thank you so much for for joining me on Believe in People. I like to finish all our podcasts with a series of quickfire questions just to change the mood a little bit. And my first one is, what's your favourite word? My fav my favourite word.

Creativity After Getting Clean

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Oh, I had a good one the other day. I was thinking my favourite word. I did have a one I really liked the other day. There's a few and turquoise.

SPEAKER_00 57:19

Turquoise is an yeah, that is off the tongue a little bit as well, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 57:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:24

Least favourite word.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

Oh you know things like I don't even want to say it. Yeah, okay. Least favourite word of that's a respectable word. Oh yeah, it's gonna be something like team. Team. You know, like at work. Oh we're a team, yeah, team meeting thing. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 57:49

I I I've always hated the narrative of we're not a team, we're a family. Oh, that's even one. Can't do that, cannot do that. And if that happened to you, I think I'd be out the door of a side. I've not heard that one yet. It hasn't reached me. Well, it hasn't happened here so far. I think that's why I've worked here for 11 years, maybe. That's probably why I've done well here. Yeah. Tell me something that excites you.

SPEAKER_01 58:09

Actually, at the moment, Manchester United for the first time for a long time.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

I was gonna say that will be the first time for a very long time, won't it? Tell me something that bores you or drains your energy that isn't Manchester United. Bores you or drains your energy.

SPEAKER_01 58:22

Yeah, cool, good question. Rubbish TV. Yeah. Understandable. And there's a lot of out there.

SPEAKER_00 58:28

A lot of you look on Netflix, God, there's how many things you want to watch on Netflix? This is it, this is what I mean about cons cons you know the consumerism that the Who writes that stuff? Exactly. That's my question. A sound or noise that you love.

SPEAKER_01 58:40

Oh, got a song thrush or a curlew or the C. Oh, my favourite sound is there's a certain type of fir tree, the one with the big the big pine, no, not the big uh needles, and the wind goes through that. That is my base.

SPEAKER_00 58:58

I think I yeah, I think I I recognise that one. What sound on eyes do you hate?

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Yeah, I can't say the first thing that comes into my mind there, but yeah. Ooh, you've got me there. Is it something like a Labour politician?

SPEAKER_00 59:16

I had a feel it was gonna be something about Starmer actually, but streeting anything that he says. Yeah, interesting. When do you feel uh most like yourself?

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Not in the morning, first thing. Don't like the mornings, and then I'm not too keen on the afternoons.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

You've just got a sweet spot between like 10 and 10 and not an evening or 1 pm. My entire day is just misery.

Quickfire Questions And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 59:43

It's early, sort of mid-morning. I start to feel like a human being. Yeah, yeah. I can get a few things done.

SPEAKER_00 59:50

I I get that. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt? Oh.

SPEAKER_01 59:55

You mean as in and be good at what if I could be anything. Anything a gymnast or a singer. Gymnast would be a good one. Yeah, but that then it's a really limited, you know, by the time you're 27. Whereas your singer, you could always sing. Yeah. And I'm not a good singer, so I've always thought singing is the best thing to be.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:11

I've often said if I had three wishes from a genie, one of them would be to sing. I'd just love to, I'd love to be able to sing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

What profession would you not like to do?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

Labour politician. Any any of those parliamentary.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

And lastly, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you are out at the Pearley Gates? You took your time. Brilliant. Ed, thank you for joining me on Believe in People. Oh, you're very welcome. It's been fun, 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. And 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 believingpeoplepodcast.com.