Kaitlin Reeve: Motherhood, Cocaine, 12 Steps & How Mums Can Ask For Help Without Losing Their Children

Welcome To Believe In People

SPEAKER_05 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 Caitlin, and this episode tackles a subject we've not explored before: motherhood in addiction. We talk about the fear of asking for help, the double standards placed on women, and why so many mums stay stuck in addiction longer than they need to. We also explore childhood trauma, hiding substance use in plain sight, 12-step recovery, and what it means to rebuild yourself while still parenting every single day. This is a conversation about stigma, secrecy, and what it takes to choose recovery when everything is on the line.

Motherhood And The Fear Of Help

SPEAKER_05 0:44

I suppose I've got quite a new subject that I want to talk about with you today, and it's not something that I've explored in the series before, and that's primarily motherhood.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 0:53

And I think the thing that really interested me was a video that you'd posted on your Instagram. And when I saw that, I knew we'd been in talks to get you on anyway, but when I saw that, I was like, right, we really need to get her on this series. And I've got a quote here, you said, Mums don't want to be told to get sober, they want to know how to ask for help without losing their kids. That is a really poignant point to me because I think there's so many women, especially in the in the recovery service in which I work in, that took so long before making that step towards treatment, towards getting help, because of the stigma of addiction that their instant thought was I can't get help because I have children, they'll find about my drug habit, they'll find out my alcohol dependency, I'll have them removed. So what does that fear actually look like in reality, thinking of your your own experiences of it?

SPEAKER_00 1:46

I think when it comes to my experience, that was by far the biggest thing that was holding me back for asking for help. For years and years, I I was done, I was I did not want to be drinking, I didn't want to be taking drugs anymore. But I was like, I I don't know where to go, I don't know who to ask safely for help without losing my children. You know, mothers are judged far more harshly than dads, and that that is not me being against men or dads whatsoever, but it is the reality that mums are more harshly judged when they uh suffer with this illness of addiction, and so you know, if a dad stands up and says, I've got a problem, everyone's like, Okay, no worries, we'll help you go off to rehab, you can go and fall apart and you can have a break. A mum can't do that, so mums stay stuck in that cycle for so much longer than is necessary. I was stuck in that cycle, it was the shame, the guilt, the fear all holding me back because, like I said, it I didn't know where I could go to. I certainly wasn't gonna go to my GP because social services are gonna get involved. And although I wasn't the best mum in the world, I also wasn't the worst mum in the world, and I don't didn't think that I deserved to lose my kids. I didn't think my children deserved to lose me, even more so. But I desperately, desperately wanted to get sober for a really long time before I actually took the first step towards doing that.

Trauma, Escape, And Early Drinking

SPEAKER_05 3:22

Where did it start with you? Like addiction, substance misuse. There's often maybe an adverse childhood experience, perhaps a a trauma. What was it that drew you to those substances in the first place?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Uh well, I think the question before that is uh the the one that's asked quite a lot, isn't it? Is was I born this way, or was it the traumatic experiences that led me towards this? I think for me it was both. I think I was born with a predisposition to it because it is in my family. I think childhood traumatic experiences definitely exacerbated that. And I think, you know, scientifically it's proven that people who become addicts are biologically different. I've got friends who used and drank exactly the same as me, but they didn't turn out to be addicts. I'm person B, and I did. I started using substances really young. I mean, even before I picked up a drink and a drug, there were things like the food was a big one for me. Stealing, hiding, lying about food, codependent friendships. There was addictive behaviours in that. Disney films, fantasy. I would escape into the world of fantasy from a really young age. I was that kid at school that's like Caitlin could do better if she wasn't in fantasy land the whole time, she wasn't in daydream world. So I actually think that addiction showed up for me way before I even picked up a drink and a drug. And I actually think that finding drink and drugs at that age probably in some way saved me because I was never a happy child. There was trauma, there was neglect, it was wasn't a happy time, or you know, it wasn't a good time for me. And I can remember being nine years old, sitting on my bedroom windowsill, wanting to jump because I wanted to die. I was so unhappy. And I do often wonder if I hadn't found drink and drugs, would I still be here? But I think I was, well, not I think, I know, age ten, I started drinking. I was given little bits before that, and it sounds quite wild, but it was a different time back then.

SPEAKER_05 5:39

No, I how old are you? 14. Okay. I I remember when I was young, my dad said, Here, have a bit of this, and it was a little bit of stellar. Yeah. And I remember taking them out and just going, but it was quite a normal thing. I think most people that grew up in the late 80s, early 90s will have some pictures of them as a child, and there might be like a packet of fags and a bottle because your parents found that hilarious, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:04

Yeah, yeah, and I've got photos of my children holding a bottle of champagne.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

When I look at that now, I think, what was I doing? It's so inappropriate. And I would never let my children drink at the age of 10 now. But when I did it, okay, look, I'm not saying it was appropriate. I don't think my school friends were also drinking in their bedrooms age 10, but I was, I was allowed to. And I'd say the first time I got paralytic, I was about 13. And alcohol was not my favourite thing because I didn't like feeling sick.

SPEAKER_05 6:40

But it's the it goes back to that escape as somebody else.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

It changed the way that I felt, it gave me a bit of confidence because remember, I was a very depressed, very I was not very confident. I was always bullied at school. So when I found this thing that helped me like let loose a little bit and let go a bit and have a bit of fun, like I didn't forget that that existed. So as soon as I could, I grabbed hold of that. So I was out partying 15, 14, put partying, going to clubs and pubs and bars. You didn't need ID back then, so you could get away with it a lot more.

SPEAKER_05 7:14

Do you know what's what's always funny though, when I think back to my teenage years of that? Again, I've talked about this before, but that it's almost like a rite of passage in British culture to go drinking on a park as a teenager, and at the time you feel like you're old enough to do those things. But I have like nieces and nephews that are at that age, and I still see them as babies. And I know to think of what I was doing at that age, yeah. If they was doing a fraction, that'd be absolutely mortal. I know. So I'm like, no, you're you you you are babies still, you're so young.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

Your brains are not developed enough. They often say, don't they, once you start heavily using drink and drugs, that's when your your brain stops developing and you stop maturing. And I definitely felt that when I went into recovery at 36, I felt like I was 16 years old again. I had to r relearn life.

SPEAKER_05 8:04

Well, you pretend quite young. I don't I don't mean this insulting, but when I asked you urgently, you said you were 40. Voice in my head was like, fuck off.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Do you know it's yeah? That's the most important thing.

SPEAKER_05 8:16

Yeah, well, I I've had I've had this, but I've had this before. I got in trouble before when I said someone doesn't look 50, because there was like, what's a 50-year-old supposed to look like? And I was like, well, hang on, I was trying to do very tricky waters to navigate it, so I'm very conscious of when it when I told this. But yeah, it's it's it's maybe it's my perception of age as well. I still remember my mum's 40th birthday when I was 16, and like that seemed like she was a proper grown-up with her life together and she knew everything about everything, and now I'm you know 35, but I'm looking at you know that the idea of that being five years from now, I was like, nah, you were still you were still doing this all for the

Growing Up Late And Parenting Sober

SPEAKER_05 8:55

first time. Yeah. And I guess that comes back to yourself as well. You know, you said feeling like you're 16 again, you're having to relearn things. Talk me through, talk me through that a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Well, I was I was 15, 16 when I started using drink and drugs heavily, so I'd say that probably is about the the age I stopped maturing in a lot of ways. And when I came into recovery, you know, we have to have this whole moral psychic change to be able to change our thought pattern so that we don't need drink and drugs to deal with everyday life. So there would be situations arise, you know, within the family or grown-up, what I call grown-up shit that I didn't know how to handle properly. I didn't always know how to tell the truth properly. It certainly wasn't emotionally stable. Um, I would handle situations like I was 15 or 16. Parenting that's been a big that's been something I've really had to look at in recovery because the way that I parent's compar it's completely changed. My kids hate me for it sometimes. But being the adult in the household, because I wasn't, I was acting like a spoilt child for a really, really long time. It's very difficult sometimes when people ask me these kind of questions. I find I struggle to answer them because my recovery journey has been a really slow process, a day-by-day process. And it's only when I look back at a situation that I think, oh wow, I handled that completely differently, and I didn't make it all about me. I think that's the biggest key difference when I when situations come up that I have to handle is I wasn't my first thought. I was a situation like not that long ago where my my child was in hospital and all I cared about was them being okay a few years ago. If my child was in hospital, I thought, how am I gonna have a drink? How am I gonna have a spliff? This is gonna be 24 hours without a line, how am I gonna do me, me, me, how am I gonna do this? So that there's been a big shift in my priorities.

SPEAKER_05 11:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Really, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 11:20

Do you find because I often found that when I was younger and I would get stick from my parents, I remember thinking, when I have kids of my own, I'm gonna I'm gonna be the I'm gonna be the cool dad. I'm gonna be the best friend. I'm doing and you kind of realise, I mean, my daughter's only four, but you've bec you kind of become the fun police in it in a in a strange way as well. And you realise actually, no, my obligation here is for safety and and protection not to be liked. Definitely. And I think that is one thing that was a bit of a shock for me was I always thought my priority would be I want them to like me.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, I think when you're in active addiction, like you are just surviving on fear. I was so scared I was gonna lose my children, so scared to be taken away that other people would take them away from me, that I was just desperate for them to love me and to like me. Yeah, whereas today, yeah, look, I want them to love me and like me. Of course I do, but my role is to be your mum, and sometimes that means you're not gonna love me and like me, and that's okay because that will pass.

Why Mums Get Judged Harder

SPEAKER_05 12:18

Do you do you think society judges mothers with addiction differently to everyone else? You mentioned obviously do you know the difference that dads in the way that dads are threat? How how did you feel that personally?

SPEAKER_00 12:34

As the mum, society teaches us that we should have our shit together 24-7. We're the primary caregivers normally, we're normally the ones that run the home, we're the emotional support for the children. We've got to organise the school, we've got to do all the trips, we've got to run what the household. It's a hell of a job in itself for any mother. It's it's a it's a massive job. But when we are not performing on one of those scales, we're bad mums. When a dad is not performing on one of those scales, they're not judged in the same way. Me as a mother, you know, people would say things to me like, Don't you love your children enough? Aren't they enough for you to stop? You must be neglecting or harming your children because of what you're doing. And I don't think any of those were the case. But yeah, I think it it you know, it just it lands differently when a mum says I've got a problem with drugs. It's oh my god, how could you, how dare you? When a dad says I've got a problem with drugs, it lands differently. And I don't necessarily have all the answers for that. That's a s that's a question for society to answer.

SPEAKER_05 13:58

I think the the bar is set so low for society in some ways as well. I am the things you just mentioned, then I I I am a very hands-on dad, so she's currently going through the schooling application process, like I did all that. I saw a lot of the childcare out, and and that's not me doing more than my my my wife, that I think it's just a very much a 50-50 process. But the bar is set so low that when I would take my daughter, she's four now, but when I would take her to playgroups if I had the day off work, or I'd take her to the park. Yeah, I yeah, just getting clapped. I my I remember changing a nappy at my wife's grandparents' house, and a granddad couldn't speak highly uh highly enough of me, it's like, oh I never did that back. Oh, you're such a good dad. I'm like, the bar is set so astronomically low for men in comparison to women.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah. I think like when it comes to men as well, when you go into the rooms of recovering, you probably see it with with your services as well. There are so many more men than there are women. Yes. And I don't think that that's because more men are addicts than women are.

SPEAKER_05 15:03

And that is exactly why I'm I'm keen to talk to you today because I know that ratio of men to women, and I know 100% if I look at the the landscape in our in our city where our substance misuse service operates out of that there are so many women that just aren't engaged in services for for all the reasons that you're stating now.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yeah, I I think number one is fear you're gonna lose your children. You know, if a mum needs to go to rehab, well, actually, to be fair, I don't actually know very many mums who get the opportunity to go to rehab because who's gonna look after their children?

SPEAKER_01 15:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

If it had to go to their dad, everyone would rally around, everyone would help, everyone would look after them, but it's not the same way the other way around. I know plenty of dads that can go to rehab, that can go out to meetings three times a week, that can be on the phone to newcomers all the time, that can do all the service for the fellowship in the world. It is a hell of a lot trickier for a mum to fit recovery around looking after the children as well. You know, I certainly found when I first came into recovery that when I was going out to three meetings a week, it was why are you leaving us again? Where are you going? Don't you love us? Don't you want to be around us? And it's like I had that real pull between if I don't go, I can't be your mum. And if I go, you're gonna be upset with me. Yeah, which one do I do?

SPEAKER_05 16:24

It's a rock in a hard place, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:26

Yeah, it is. But you know, when I'm very much taught that anything I put before my recovery, I'm gonna lose, and I've seen that happen time and time again. And what I see with women as well in particular is when a woman loses her children, she loses her children. When a dad loses his kids, he's probably lost access to them for a little bit of time, and after a bit of recovery, he can get them back. Those are two different things. I think women have to work a hell of a lot

Hiding Addiction In Plain Sight

SPEAKER_00 16:54

harder.

SPEAKER_05 16:54

What sort of stigma and languages did did you face then? Because obviously you would have had social service involvement.

SPEAKER_03 17:02

Did you not have social service involvement? I did not, no. Oh wow. No. How did you how did you sort of get around that then?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Honestly, my life was exhausting. It was an absolute shit show, but I worked really, really hard to hide what I was doing. My children wouldn't have known that I was an addict if I hadn't have told them.

SPEAKER_05 17:23

Really?

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 17:24

How many children have you got?

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Three.

SPEAKER_05 17:25

How what are they the age range of?

SPEAKER_00 17:27

18, 14, and six.

SPEAKER_05 17:30

So the the way you communicate with all three of them is very different. You've got one who's an adult, one who is very much just in that coming of age transition, and then you've got a child.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

And one who's autistic, it's it's it can be really challenging. That one will say to me, I wish you still drank because you were more fun then.

SPEAKER_01 17:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

What they mean by that is I let them get away with everything, I let them have takeaways, I didn't put them to bed on time. I was a lazy parent. That's what they mean by that. But they can't see because they didn't know that actually I was really struggling with the illness of addiction. I think they by the by the end I s could see them starting to look at me like, why does her face look like that? What's going on with mummy? Why is she up drinking again? Why does she look like that in the morning? So they were starting to realise that something wasn't right. They didn't know I was struggling with addiction.

SPEAKER_05 18:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:23

I hid it really, really well.

SPEAKER_05 18:25

What about friends, family? Did how how aware was 'cause it's one of those things where I think if I had a family member who was struggling with addiction, I would want to well, I think I'd have a moral responsibility based on what I know from a safeguarding point of view of those children to make a referral to social services based on that. But that I I know that because of my professional background. How was that for your family and friends who knew you were struggling with addiction and knew you had children? I mean you can't say exactly how they felt, but how how was navigating that with them?

SPEAKER_00 18:59

I think when it comes to friends, most of my friends were doing what I was doing. So you surround yourself with well You surround yourself with like-minded people and I surrounded myself a lot of younger people as well, because that helped me justify my behaviour.

SPEAKER_05 19:12

Because they don't see it as not abnormal, I suppose, in some ways. Yeah, they don't see it as abnormal because they're doing the same thing. They're doing the same thing. And the difference is you're like 30 and they're 19, 20, do you know? Yeah, I get that completely.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

With regards to my family, I think they knew I smoked a lot of weed. I don't think they thought it was to the the level that was putting anybody in danger. I think they just all thought I was a bit mad. And to be fair, I was a bit mad. I you know, I wasn't a normal person. But I became a very, very good liar, a good manipulator. Even though if you'd asked me at the time if I was any of those things, I would have said, Fuck off, how very dare you. Um very dare. Yeah, with hindsight, I can see that I had become those those things that I didn't want to be. But yeah, like I said, I I I did hid it really, really well. I didn't look very well. I don't know how I hid it that well. It's a size four, I couldn't walk anymore, I was so ill. I was constantly had a crusty nose, couldn't breathe, and red eyes all the time, blue lips. I wasn't I wasn't a well person, but I isolated myself more and more as it got worse. I isolated myself and I didn't really go anywhere or see anybody for them to see how bad it was. And it was definitely at its worst when I was by myself, when my children weren't there. Now that's not I'm not gonna lie and pretend that I didn't do things whilst they were there because I did, but yeah, I did, I I hid it well. Oh, it's obviously having said that. And I was remember remember being in tears, crying, so upset, and saying, Look, I'm I'm really, really sorry, but I just can't stop taking coke and I don't want to be this person anymore. I'm gonna have to do something about it. I know you haven't really don't realise how bad it is, but it is really bad. And they went, Yeah, I know. Do you really think I didn't know? And I remember saying to my sponsor at the time, well, if they really loved me, why didn't they say something to me? Why didn't they try and save me? And she quite rightly said, What would you have done if they had? Oh, told them to fuck off, leave me alone, get out of my house, and then I would have lost my support network. Yeah. So I don't know if it is the right thing always to intervene. I think when it comes to drink and drugs and addiction, that person. Is not going to stop until they've had their internal snap. It doesn't matter what you say, you can't love somebody, you can't wish somebody sober, you can't even help somebody sober. It's got to come from that internal snap within them. And then you can support them, of course you can, but the only person that can get someone sober is themselves.

SPEAKER_05 22:19

Absolutely, yeah. And again, you can't point out that someone has a problem if they don't see it as a problem. No, you know, you you do really as as some as a loved one of that person, it really is playing that waiting game until the penny until the penny drops for them.

SPEAKER_00 22:33

And I'm in a similar position. There's somebody you know that I really love and they absolutely have a severe problem. But me telling them that that's not gonna help them. And that's really hard. Seeing it from the other side now is like, oh wow, okay, now I see where people who loved me were coming from.

Cocaine, Image, And The Money

SPEAKER_05 22:54

When did you first take cocaine then? Because obviously you started 16. What attracted you to it? Was there a was it just that continuism of escapism or was there something else that attracted you to it?

SPEAKER_00 23:06

I thought it was glamorous, if I'm honest.

SPEAKER_05 23:08

Is that because I I mean it's quite cocaine interesting enough, it's quite synonymous with like a lot of models and you know, Hollywood, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Well, yeah, and I mean when I was 16, I was working on High Street Kensington and the Kings Road, and that was very much the life I was submerging myself into. I started going to A-list clubs where there were Hollywood stars and models and musicians, and that came with it. I really thought I thought it was really glamorous. I thought it was really grown up, and that was a big thing for me. That taking drink and drugs is what grown-ups do. I was, like I said before, I was very, very unhappy. And I thought that once you grow up and you start taking drink and drugs, that's what drugs, that's what makes you happy. So I couldn't wait. I honestly couldn't wait. I can remember my first line. Um and even now, my head's like, wasn't that so nice? It fucking wasn't. That's that's actually a lie. At the beginning, I had loads of fun, and I'm not gonna ever sit here anywhere and pretend that it wasn't fun at the beginning. But that's how it gets you.

SPEAKER_05 24:13

Yeah, that's it. It starts as something enjoyable, otherwise, you wouldn't continue to do it with it.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah, yeah. And my first line, I didn't really think anything of it. It tasted like shit. That drip down the back. I was like, that's disgusting. What why is anyone doing that? I still did it a few days later again, and I did it until it stuck, and then when it stuck, it fucking stuck. And within a month or two, I was doing it at work, at home, it's shut in my bedroom. Obviously, when I was going out and I was out six, seven nights a week, so I was doing it pretty much daily, really quickly. And it's funny though, people because coke is the class A, I think they think that's the one that really, really gets you. And yeah, it did really get me. But I'm telling you without a doubt, weed was by far the hardest thing for me to quit out of all the drugs I've ever taken.

SPEAKER_05 25:05

I'm just gonna I'm gonna go back to cooking before before I export before I explore the cannabis with you, but because the the part that does interest me, and you're not the first person to say this. If I if I took something once and I didn't like it, I'm not having it again.

SPEAKER_00 25:19

That's because you're a normal person.

SPEAKER_05 25:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

You're person A.

SPEAKER_05 25:23

Yeah, I'm person A. I'm person B. That's it, yeah. But why would I guess I I'm just trying to get my head around the idea of why you would continue to do something that you just didn't like? Was it really to to kind of fit that you said about it being glamorous to to kind of present as that glamorous person? Why would you continue to do something when you've taken it and gone, that's it, it's like shit?

SPEAKER_00 25:44

It's just what everyone was doing. It was there, and like I said, I was trying to become somebody that I wasn't, and part of that lifestyle was doing coke. The other thing is that I definitely have had an undiagnosed eating disorder throughout from my childhood going through cocaine kept me skinny.

SPEAKER_03 26:04

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

That was definitely for me a benefit of that. But yeah, and like I said, it was really quick before it didn't take long for it to become really tasty. Like for me, I was it gave me a lot of confidence and I needed that. I was I was shy. Um I'd would call myself an introvert extrovert. I'm one or the other, and I was yeah.

SPEAKER_05 26:31

I I do have to check myself there a little bit because if I think back to the first time I had alcohol, I remember thinking this is disgusting. My taste buds adjusted to a point where now I I really do enjoy. But I again I've said this before, and again, talking to the to person a they don't understand when I say I just like to have one. Well, I don't get that.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

What's the point of that? Exactly.

SPEAKER_05 26:56

But for me, the only way I can describe it is if I like I like a can of Coke now and then.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:02

But once I've had the can of Coke, I don't go to the fridge and get another can of Coke.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, your pal's name, and exactly.

SPEAKER_05 27:07

So once I have the beer, I've had the taste of it, I enjoy it, and that's me done. But person B can't get the riddle on that. But I think the reason why I mentioned that is because I have to think when I first had alcohol, especially specifically lager, hated it. But then your palate changes. So I suppose in some way cocaine that can be a similar thing. Yeah. How much money did you spend on cocaine? Like I I mean, there's a lifetime amount, of course, and then there's like a daily, a weekly amount.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

I've tried not to think about it too much. I mean, at what at what point are we talking? I supp what would you be using weekly? Uh but I mean at what point in my addiction? Are we talking about younger? Are we talking towards the end?

SPEAKER_05 27:44

Let's let's talk about the height of it. So the height of addiction, how much were you spending roughly daily weekly?

SPEAKER_00 27:50

Anything between 50 and 150 a day. Fuck. Yeah. How do you fund that? And that was oh, I had two jobs. Okay, yeah. Yeah, I worked really hard. I worked really hard to fund my addiction.

SPEAKER_03 28:08

Really was grafting.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

I was, yeah. I worked for my cocaine, thank you very much. So people ask me that a lot. They're like, how did you how did you afford it? Well, that's not always gets. I mean, I barely worked. And I wondered why nobody liked me at work. It's like no wonder, Kate, you're either turning up like hungover, high on a come down, and you need to find a new job. Oh, I wonder why. Yeah. But yeah, no, I did. I I I worked from the age of 13. I was a grafter.

SPEAKER_05 28:38

Yeah. It must make you. I think someone said about there's an app that you can get where you connect it to your banking basically. Like I could click on McDonald's and see how much I've spent on McDonald's over the years. And if I ever did that, it'd probably be a grotesque amount of money. That'd probably make me feel sick about the amount of money I've spent on just like fast food and stuff like that. But I imagine if you were to do that for a specific substance, like if you could, you know, tie your bank to the substance of cocaine, the lifetime amount would make you sick.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

I know someone who quit drinking and drugs, I think it was 1500 days ago, and they bought themselves a McLaren with the money they spent.

unknown 29:19

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 29:20

I was like, wow. Yeah. So just pocketing it every day.

SPEAKER_00 29:24

Fucking home, McLaren, are you mad?

SPEAKER_04 29:27

You're thinking, what could I abort?

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah, I know. But then, you know, there there would be there would be days when I didn't do any. You know, but I always smoked weed.

SPEAKER_05 29:39

Yeah. So that was a non-negotiable.

Cannabis, Balancing Drugs, And Control

SPEAKER_05 29:42

Talk to me about uh cannabis because I the the very the two very different substances. Cocaine being very much a stimulant. I suppose cannabis fits in a lot of categories, but for a lot of people found it maybe a bit of a depressant, is a way to relax. Two very different ends of the spectrum there with those substances.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:58

How would how did that work for you?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

I mean, like I said, I'm an introvert extrovert.

SPEAKER_05 30:02

So the two I say this, and people don't know what I mean, but you said that and I know exactly what you mean by that. I'm an introverted extrovert.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

They both so they both suited me. There's there's two sides of me. I mean, there's also the side of me that I love still love a glamorous lifestyle, but there's another side of me that wants to like go and live in a hut on a beach and survive off the land. And these two sides of me constantly clash, and it was the same when I was taking drugs, you know. Half of me thought I was a Rasta, and half of me thought I was Kate Moss.

SPEAKER_02 30:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:34

And it was a yeah, it was a constant battle of trying to find the balance. And and another thing, you know, I say that those were my main drugs of choice, but I was also taking other things to try and balance everything out. So, you know, we there's the saying in recovery, like we've become our own chemists, and that was absolutely what I did. Because, you know, I would also try a bit of MDMA to try and level me out a little bit, or Valium, those are that Xanax. I could buy those, those were I loved those, those were really useful for me because when my heart's going and I think I'm gonna die at night. The first, the, the, the easiest way to try and bring my heart back down so I don't die overnight is another substance. It was a constant balancing act of of all the different substances put together. But I loved weed. The first time I smoked weed, I think honestly, it was probably one of the happiest days of my life. Bar having my children, that that was when there's a saying in it, in because I'm in 12-step fellowship, right? So, our book, there's a someone in our book and they say, I have arrived. My I have arrived moment was that first time I smoked a joint, and again, I can remember that moment, and you know, I still think of it really fondly, which is a bit fucked up considering where it led me to, but it goes back to that two sides, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_05 32:00

So, what was it about it that you did like tots?

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Um it made me laugh. Yeah, I felt happy. I hadn't laughed, I don't think I ever remember laughing as much as I did that first time I smoked that spliff. And I was with a boy who I wanted to impress as well. That helped because you know I was fat, minging as a young girl. I wasn't very attractive, and you know, there was also a lot of stuff going on at home that made me feel really, really unhappy. But weed made me happy, and I yeah, I remember that that time I smoked it, but that was in the Easter holidays, and I still had to finish my GCSEs, so I didn't touch anything. What I touched, I drank alcohol, didn't touch anything until that very last day of my GCSEs. I remember I went to school in South Kensington for that last year of school, went to Hyde Park, smoked a joint after my last exam, went back to school, had a massive whitey in school, left school, picked up, bought alcohol, and started there, and I never stopped smoking weed since that day. It was my best friend.

SPEAKER_05 33:15

I've heard that before, people say that about substances, they they become that best friend.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

They were, they were my best friend, they were my secret, they were the only thing that was by my side, they never failed me until the paranoia, the psychosis, the consequences start coming in.

SPEAKER_05 33:35

When did it let if we if we think if we think about when alcohol, cocaine, cannabis, and it it all kind of like it's almost like a melting pot that you that you've created there. Where's the lowest moment? Because obviously these are substances that by all accounts have given you nothing but highs that you're talking

Rock Bottoms And The Internal Snap

SPEAKER_05 33:57

about here. At what point does it give you your lowest of low? Where's the where's the rock bottom? Where's the lowest moment where you think I've got to make some changes and I need to I need to get rid of these substances?

SPEAKER_00 34:09

I think apart from the word craving, rock bottom is probably one of the most misunderstood sayings by people outside of recovery. I had many rock bottoms. I didn't always know that that's what they were. Even when I was 18, I was kidnapped when I was 18 by drug dealers, and I didn't see that as anything that wild at the time. When I look back and I think, my god, that's the same as my daughter. She got drug kidnapped by drug dealers, like it would be horrific. So a normal person would consider that to be a rock bottom. A normal c person might consider, you know, I was taken and and people uh men forced themselves upon me at times, and again I I didn't attribute any of those things to the fact that I was a cokehead or a stoner. I didn't think all you know, this wannabe party girl, I didn't think it was anything to do with any of that, I just accepted it and moved on. You know, there was a time when I'd done so much about coke that I'd gone blue and I still went back and did more. But to most normal people, that would be a rock bottom. It wasn't one rock bottom moment for me, it was a culmination of of all of them. It was almost a year of trying, really seriously trying to moderate. That was part of what got me to the end. It was a moment of clarity. I think I'd started my my moderation was I'd have what I would call an off-month and an on-month, and an an on month meant I could do coke and drink and smoke or do whatever I wanted to. An off month meant I didn't drink or do coke, but I could still smoke green. And what I found was my green just went through the roof.

SPEAKER_01 36:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

And I was starting to dread it coming to the end of an off month. Because I knew what was going to happen. I knew I couldn't trust myself anymore. The amount, you know, the amounts of nights I'd laid in my bed, feeling like I was gonna die, praying to something I didn't even know what I was praying to, but playing praying like, please, I promise I'll never do it again. If you keep me alive, don't let my children find me dead. Not for this reason. They can't, not for this. And I really meant it. If you'd lie to tested me, I would have fucking passed it. I really fucking meant it, but I obviously had these, I was having these more moments of clarity of I can't trust my own bullshit anymore, I can't moderate, I can't do this by myself. I've been trying, I was trying for a good seven years to try and stop by myself before I did. I'd started to think about well, what's next? What what comes after these drugs? Because these aren't working, and that scared me quite a lot. I knew I was at a tipping point of I'm either gonna completely fucking lose control and I will lose everything and I'll probably die, or I'm gonna have to put on my big girl pants and do the scariest thing ever and admit I've got a problem here and I need some help. Because although there was that massive fear of losing my children, I would have lost them if I'd carried on the way I was going. So I was at a point where I was like, if that happens, I'll it's gonna have to happen because I've got to get sober. I can't, I just can't let them feel like they weren't enough. And I say that, but for a long time they weren't, you know, I wish they were, and I desperately wanted them to be enough. When I was when I was a little girl, you know how like girls when they they grow up and they want to be princesses, or I just wanted to be a mum, and I just wanted to be a good mum, and I was failing at that, I wasn't the person that I wanted to be, and these moments of clarity just sort of kept happening, and I was in my garden smoking a joint, ironically, but it was like this is it, Caitlin. You're done. It was like someone else made that decision for me. You're done, it's time. I couldn't do it anymore. I was I was exhausted, I was broken. Oh, I was killing myself. I just couldn't do it anymore.

SPEAKER_05 38:45

Just done.

Choosing 12 Steps For Safety

SPEAKER_05 38:46

How does it look to ask for help with those substances?

SPEAKER_00 38:50

For me, and I can only look, I can only talk from my own experience. The way I did it isn't for everybody. I personally would never have gone to my GP. Yeah. Unless if mums send me messages, I still don't advise doing that. I went to a 12-step fellowship. I had Googled six years before I went into recovery what to do if you're doing too much cocaine and you can't stop. And 12 steps came up, and I looked at it and thought, fuck that, I can't do that. Firstly, there's the word God. I can't be dealing with that. It's God's squad, they're gonna judge me. And some of the steps I looked at and I thought, oh my god, I can't do that. I can't tell, I can't tell someone what a terrible mother I am, what a bad person I am. I'm the worst of the worst. They're gonna take my kids away from me. I can't do that. But like I said, by the time I'd got to this, I've had it, I can't I can't do it anymore. I was willing to do that stuff, and I think that's the difference I see between people who are really, really serious and really want to get sober, and the vast majority of people that I speak to is because the vast majority I've speaked to, they might say, I've had enough, I'm not I'm done. They're not willing to go to any lengths. I was willing to go to any lengths, so I re-re-googled what I'd googled before and found the closest meeting to me, and that was a few days after that moment in the garden, and I went to that meeting in secret, and you know, I just told my boyfriend I was going out and I went to it and I went like full on makeup, hat on, I dress really well so you all don't think I've got a problem. I know I'm definitely better than you lot. I thought addicts were like waste people on park benches, and I rocked up at this meeting and I was like, Where are all the drug addicts? Like they were just normal people who didn't want to keep doing what they were doing, wanted to get better. Yeah, I went, sat there. Hi, Caitlin. Don't know if I really need to be here, just come to see what it's all about.

SPEAKER_04 40:51

I wonder what people thought in that circle. And you said, I don't know if I need to be instable.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yeah, the same as what I think when other people come in and say that. I'm like, just you wait, just you wait, just listen. By the end of the meeting, I'm Caitlin, I'm an addict. I'm gonna come back next week and get a sponsor. And I did. That's exactly what I did. I went out and had a final blowout, it was horrible. But I went back that following Monday, I got a sponsor the next day, and I've been sober for 1300 and something days.

SPEAKER_05 41:26

Is it you know if you if you could if you knew the exact date, I'd have been very impressed with that because there's almost something there.

SPEAKER_00 41:33

I actually do know how many numbers it is. I've just forgotten because I'm sitting here. I do count it every day. I was gonna say, is is that important to count every day? For me, it is. You get uh a lot of people don't agree with that. A lot of people say, you know, this is saying make the days count, not don't count the days. Well, do you know what? I'm proud of every single day I've got clean and sober. I've worked fucking hard to get where I am today, and every sober day is a miracle and it's worth celebrating for me. So yeah, I'm gonna keep counting the days for as long as I feel like I want to.

SPEAKER_05 42:01

Yeah. There's a lot of people that that listen to this series that aren't necessarily engaging in substance misuse services that that maybe are in that position that that you were in in the garden that day that haven't ever been to a meeting. Talk me through a little bit more that first day of a of a fellowship meeting. What was that like for you? Did it kind of hit any of the preconceptions that you had about it? Was it completely different?

SPEAKER_00 42:27

It was completely different to the misconceptions that I'd had about it. It was the most freeing experience probably of my life. I've never felt hope like it. When I heard, I sat down and and I started listening to the readings that are read out before the main person starts speaking, and I was like, fucking hell, this is me. Alright, I get this. And then the guy at the front spoke for 20 minutes, and I was like, Whoa, oh my god, these people are saying this out loud. Like, aren't they scared that the police are watching or so social services are waiting outside? And it was really important to me that when I first turned up at that meeting, there was a female newcomer greeter, and she came up to me and she was like, Oh, okay, so where are your kids when you're doing this and da da da? And I was thinking, Fucking hell, like you can't ask me questions like that. And she was like, No, no, this is a safe place, and that is exactly what what I have found from it. It's 100% been a safe place for me. Without that, I have no doubt that I would be dead now. There's no doubt in my mind about that. But for me, I that anonymity was essential. There being no so social services there was essential for me personally as a mum.

Higher Power Doubts And Spirituality

SPEAKER_05 43:44

How did you adjust to the element of God? You know, you said earlier, you know, I had the babble, bashing, whatever it may be, God bother us, whatever whatever term people use for it. And I've heard it all for the fellowship. How do you adjust to someone who's maybe not of that belief and then going into that environment of Of accepting your powerlessness and handing yourself over to a higher power?

SPEAKER_00 44:05

Well, look, I can only talk from my own experience, and I really try and do it just talk from my experience rather than speak for anyone else. But the steps are in a in an order for a reason. You don't have to go in at step one and believe in God. That's not what it's about. You're not expected to either. You that that first step is about admitting you're powerless, right? Well, yeah, that's really fucking easy. If you've turned up a meeting for 12-step fellowship, you're probably pretty powerless over your substance of choice, right? Nobody grows up thinking, oh, I can't wait to go and sit in a circle every Saturday night and admit I'm a drug addict. That's that is not what we like. You've got there, you've got a fucking problem, haven't you? Like, but people, the thing about addicts, right, is we have massive egos and we don't believe anything you tell me. I need to find out for myself. I had to surrender to the programme, I had to surrender to my sponsor, to the rooms, to the people who knew who had been there before me and come out the other the other side. I was so fucking willing by then.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Yeah. So um, I'd always considered myself to be a spiritual person. I went to Thailand once, came back a Buddhist. I went to Jamaica and came back a Rasta. I didn't have a problem with God. I had a problem with religion. But 12-step fellowships are not religious, they are spiritual. So your higher power can be whatever you want it to be. My higher power is whatever powers nature, because that is more powerful than me. So many things go on day to day that are way beyond my control, way beyond my power. All these coincidences that happen to me, that's that is that power. So yeah, I yeah, like I said, I thought it was spiritual until I realised that like spiritual people aren't cokeheads. So it's like shit, okay. Maybe I've got a bit of work to do.

SPEAKER_05 46:10

What does what what does early recovery actually look like when you when you're still parenting every day? Because obviously I think there's that you need time when you're a parent, you don't have time. You wake up, they're there first thing in the morning, they're there at the the last thing at night. And I don't know what your your support network is like, but regardless of if you have a vast support network or no support network, you are still the parent, it's still your responsibility. How does recovery look like when you're trying to wear these hats?

SPEAKER_00 46:45

It was I'm not gonna lie, it was really, really fucking difficult. Yeah, it's it's not an easy target, it's not an easy process to target. I don't know why I said that, it's not an easy process whatsoever. But it ultimately it comes down to how desperate you are to get clean and sober. Where there's a will, there's a way. If you'd asked me before I was in recovery to find you a bag of coke, I would have done everything I fucking could to find that bag of coke. So I've got to do exactly the same for my recovery. And you know, especially with mums, like I hear because obviously my DMs are full of mums saying, How do I do it? What am I gonna do? I can't get out because I've got kids. Well, do you know how many online meetings there are every day? Yeah, there's tons of them. I called in a lot of favours so that I could get out to meetings. I did book work on Zoom. I took my kids to meetings, I took my kids to book work.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

The kids like welcome at meetings, yeah. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

I never knew that. Yeah, 100%. I I still take my son, my son loves it because he gets biscuits and donuts. So he loves it. And actually, he he asks me now, he says, Can I can I come to your meeting? And I was like, Yeah, like why do you want to come? He's because everyone's so nice, and it's really important for me for my children to grow up knowing that addicts are not bad people. Yeah, like if we're judged like it's some kind of like moral failure to be an addict, and it's not, it's a chronic and deadly illness that's killing people all the time. Like yeah, and do you know what's funny? It's that question, like, why did you start in the first place? And I'm like, have you ever had a glass of wine? Have you ever had a beer? Because that's all I did.

SPEAKER_05 48:22

Yeah, that's it, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 48:25

That is all I did as a child.

SPEAKER_05 48:29

Oh, I get

Recovery Pressure And Repairing With Kids

SPEAKER_05 48:30

it.

SPEAKER_00 48:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 48:30

Do you feel do you feel more pressure having children in terms of like maintaining recovery, sobriety? Does it come with as a mother, does it come with more pressure? Because again, it goes back to this as a as again that reliance on you. What pressure does what pressure does recovery and and motherhood kind of come with? Where does it all coincide with with each other?

SPEAKER_00 48:57

Well, look, I am the primary caregiver of my children. You know, if I fall apart, everything falls. I'm also trying to show them how to be the best. If me being the best version of myself is the best lesson that I can give my children. Even with a lot of the stuff I do, speaking out publicly like this, and people will say, Oh, aren't you worried your kids are gonna see this? Or aren't you worried about they're gonna get charged? And it's like, no, do you know what? Do you know what I'm showing them by standing up and doing this and trying to help people and admitting, do you know what? I fucked up, man. I really fucked up. But I'm gonna look at myself, I'm gonna do the hard work, I'm gonna do everything it takes to make it up to those kids. But that that can be a lot of extra pressure, yeah. Because mums, we're supposed to have our shit together anyway. But a mum in recovery, like that's a whole different ball game. We are expected to really fucking be on point. We're either expected to be on point or we're expected to fail. We can't be trusted. There's there's just so many like dimensions to it. There's there's there's two sides of everything in this. There's you know, there's that side of me that feels I I still do carry whether I should or not, I carry guilt and shame.

SPEAKER_05 50:15

Yeah. I think that's important to uh to acknowledge that though, because I think the the misconceptions of addiction, I often think so many people think, and I was glad that what you when you said about it being almost like a transition, because I think people see that the day of sobriety sometimes, or people who are still in addiction will look at sobriety in two halves of prior to the addiction and then after the addiction, and it's almost like it's just a solid black line between the two, but it's not, it very much merges.

SPEAKER_00 50:46

I I'm still I still consider my I'm like what three and a half years in, I'm still a baby in recovery, I'm still very much learning, I'm still fucking up, I'm still having to say stories like last week. I really upset my son, and my first my first reaction was defense. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't do anything wrong, and I went away. I sat in my car for an hour, had a cry, spoke to another woman, and I was like, shit. I'm gonna go back to him and say, I'm so sorry. I I was wrong, I shouldn't have done that. I knew I was gonna upset you, and I still did it. That was really wrong of me. Do you know how much my children will learn from me doing that? Yeah, they're like there's learning in my mistakes. I think that's alright. And do you know what a lot of parents could never do that?

SPEAKER_05 51:30

Yeah, the one the one thing, I mean, again, my daughter's four, but the one thing I will do is whenever I make mistakes, I I I will talk to her like like she's a bit older than she is, and I'll say, look, daddy is sorry, daddy got a bit upset, daddy got a bit angry. And I have to remember sometimes that as frustrating as a situation can be, she's four, and I'm the adult in this situation. And I think if I can't regulate my emotions at times, how am I expecting this of a of a four-year-old child to do that? So it's interesting in the sense of in in some way, it goes back to what I was saying about my mum turning 40, you know, thinking shed everything together. I'm still a child in my head. I th I don't think I I don't think from now until I'm 70 I'll feel any different. Do you know what I mean? I think this is just who I am now, this is me as a person, and this is the way that I view things, and and again it is about that responsibility, but I think there's something very powerful in in the fact that you because you wouldn't have done that in addiction, would you? You wouldn't have apologizing.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

No, no, no, no, no. I would have been on the defence and I would have fought and fought and fought and fought until you just gave in.

SPEAKER_05 52:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:33

I had to be right.

SPEAKER_05 52:34

And even when you know you're wrong, you still try to admit that admit that you're right.

SPEAKER_00 52:38

Yeah, recovery really teaches you a lot of humility.

Cravings, Obsessive Thoughts, And Relapse

SPEAKER_05 52:42

Do you still get cravings of any kind for any of the substances?

SPEAKER_00 52:46

I hate that word. Cravings. It's so misunderstood.

SPEAKER_05 52:49

Tell talk talk to me about that then.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Right. Unless you are physically dependent on something, you're not having a craving. You're having an obsessive thought about it.

SPEAKER_02 52:59

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:00

So, okay, alcohol and benzos, for example, and heroin to a degree. Once you've detoxed from that, you're not having a craving.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Yeah. You're having an obsessive thing.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

But the whole time you're telling yourself, you're having a craving, you think, oh, that's in me, that's in me, it's calling me, it's crazy.

SPEAKER_05 53:16

It's giving it more power, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 53:17

It's so much more power. And it is no, it's not the right. Sorry.

SPEAKER_05 53:22

No, no, no, no. Well this is what it is. This is what we're this is why we're here. We're learning. Is that word? Do you still have obsessive thoughts about sports?

SPEAKER_00 53:30

Occasionally, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and I defy anyone who says they don't ever think about it. But when I have, I wouldn't say they're obsessive thoughts, no. They they pass through my mind. Occasionally, it my head will go, wouldn't it be really nice to have a nice cozy glass of red wine with a roast dinner in the pub on a Sunday? But then my second thought comes in, and that's what recovery's given me that opportunity for the second thought to come in to remind me that it was never fucking like that. I never had one glass of red wine with a roast dinner on a Sunday. I romanticize it, my head romanticises it, but I've got a defence now. I didn't have defence before recovery. Yeah, so yeah, and and again, it's it's weed that normally gets me, and I don't even like the smell of it anymore, which makes it even because I never thought I'd be that person that doesn't like the smell of green because it's my favourite.

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Yeah, I am.

SPEAKER_00 54:23

But it will still be like, Well, you well, actually, you do you still like the smell of hash, so what about a joint? Everything, and yeah, look, I I was on Wimbledon Common the other day, and I was the first thing my head thought of was, I wonder how many joints I've smoked here because there'll be a fucking ton of them. And I did think it would be really nice to be able to sit here and enjoy spliff, but I know it would never just be one. It won't be that I'll ruin everything and I I can't ruin everything I've done.

SPEAKER_05 54:54

Just talk to me on that, because obviously it's it's not a craving, because like you say, you don't have the dependency to it. How do you know then if it's not a craving? How do you know that having that glass of red wine with a Sunday dinner would fuck everything up for you?

SPEAKER_00 55:10

Because I understand the illness and the disease of addiction. What I have that makes me different to other people is that once I put one in me, I have a physical reaction that is different to other people. Once I put one in me, I'll have that's a craving.

SPEAKER_04 55:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

But if I haven't had one in me for ages, that's an obsessive thought. Yeah. And I think people really forget that your mind can make you feel away physically. I mean, you only have to watch something like really nice on the TV, you'll get goosebumps. So don't tell me that thinking about drink or drugs can't do the same to you, yeah, you know, physically. And I hear a lot of people come to me and say, I need to go to I need to go to medical detox. And I'm like, I know you, you don't need to go to medical detox. It's the obsessive thought that's getting you rather than the physical craving.

SPEAKER_05 56:01

And then the differences I think sometimes between lapses and relapses as well. Like, talk to me about so you talk about the physical craving for for some people. If someone has as goes back to their primary substance for a short period of time, it won't necessarily create the physical dependence to it in a very short period of time. It doesn't become a relapse until that physical dependency is back. Alcohol, I'll use as an example. If you just have a pan and you think I've had the pan, I want another one, I've reached out to my sponsor, I'm getting help, that's it, I'm done. I've just had that one. I have fucked up, but that is just the one. That's a lapse. Because it's not going to create the you can't just have one pan and your body become physically dependent to the substance again. That's just not possible.

SPEAKER_00 56:47

But but being dependent on something, no, it's it's so okay, so to me, that's a relapse because it's the thinking that led up to that drink that caused you to have that drink.

SPEAKER_05 56:58

You you would put the lapse before yeah, because I've heard of the lapse before the relapse being a thing as well.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:05

And it's a relapse in mentality as well.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

Okay, having one beer doesn't make me physically append dependent. Well, I wasn't physically dependent on anything, but I was an addict.

SPEAKER_05 57:15

So I yeah, I just you didn't experience withdrawal symptoms.

SPEAKER_00 57:20

I did with with experience withdrawal symptoms, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 57:22

Like but then that would be a physical dependency, wouldn't it, if there's withdrawal symptoms?

SPEAKER_00 57:26

No, because your head can make that happen. Like the placebo.

SPEAKER_05 57:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:31

Yeah. Because is cocaine physically addictive? Is weed physically addictive? It's not, but I felt it physically when I stopped taking them. Yeah, absolutely. But it wasn't life-threatening.

SPEAKER_05 57:42

Yeah. The difference is aren't there?

SPEAKER_00 57:44

Alcohol and benzos are the life-threatening ones, right? Even heroin, you might feel like you're gonna die, but you're not gonna die of detoxin'.

SPEAKER_05 57:50

Yeah, that was the thing that always used to blow my mind that someone can't die from a heroin withdrawal, but they can from an alcohol withdrawal. That used to be like so confusing.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

Alcohol blows my mind, right? Because I hear a lot of people do it. This really blows my mind. People saying they're in recovery from addiction, but they drink.

SPEAKER_05 58:09

That is I know a lot of I know a lot of people like that.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

Yeah, alcohol is a drug. Alcohol's the most dangerous drug.

SPEAKER_05 58:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 58:16

But you're in recovery.

SPEAKER_05 58:18

But it's because that's not the primary substance that caused the problems. Yeah. There's always the yet, isn't there?

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Because I mean, I wouldn't start doing mushrooms now. I wouldn't start doing heroin now.

SPEAKER_05 58:33

Yeah, because that wasn't the problem. So now we're not. Yeah, but that's but down to proportionality as well, because more people drink alcohol than they do. But yeah, again, when someone throws the stats at you, my mind's just like, what really? And I know this because I've obviously delivered like training on on those topics as

Making Systems Safer For Mums

SPEAKER_05 58:51

well. Just going back to back to motherhood, if you could change one thing about how systems respond to mums struggling with addiction, what would it be? Whether that be policy, attitude, communication.

SPEAKER_00 59:05

It would be that organisations take on board more learning from lived experience than from books and degrees, because I don't think that anyone can truly understand the mind of the alcoholic addict unless they have been there and done that. Whenever it comes to the mum thing, for me, that's safety. I think they need to be given a chance before it's taken further. Like me, I if I'd been given that one chance, I could have gone through the proper routes because I did it, I was fucking serious. If people are not serious and they're gonna keep relapsing, then yeah, maybe there should be some kind of intervention. But that's not for me to judge. So that's a that's a difficult question to answer.

SPEAKER_05 59:53

Obviously, you mentioned the trial, but what would make it safer for mums to come forward?

SPEAKER_00 59:57

To be able to be honest.

SPEAKER_05 59:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:00

That's what saved me that that safe place to be honest and to not be judged.

Quickfire Questions And Final Words

SPEAKER_05 1:00:07

And lastly, Caitlin, I like to finish all my podcasts with a series of ten quick fighter questions.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:13

Alright, go for it.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:14

What's your favourite word?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:16

Fuck.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:16

Least favourite word craving. Tell me something that excites you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

Mm.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:21

Something that doesn't excite you.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:25

The Olympics.

unknown 1:00:27

I love the Olympics.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:28

Oh, it's so boring.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:29

What sound or noise do you love?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:32

My when my three children are together laughing together. That's my best sound.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:37

What sound or noise do you hear?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:38

Chamming. Chamming? You know when people would chamm it.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:41

Oh, I'm terribly glad. I didn't even know that was a word.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:47

Slap your lips when you're eating your cereal. I'm trying to job. What's your dream job?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:56

To be an actress.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:58

Worst job you could imagine doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:00

Oh, Sainsbury's because it's so cold in there.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:03

Even in the summer?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:04

Oh, actually, yeah, I No, I don't want to be cold in the summer. Are you mad? I love the sun.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:09

Yeah, even I used to work in Asda, and I remember one time there was a period of time where I was having to work on the freezer aisle.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:15

It was like it's just so cold in there. It doesn't need to be that cold, man.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:21

And then lastly, if heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearlie Gates?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:27

Your children love you, and they know you they know you did your best and they're proud of you.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:31

Caitlin, thank you so much for joining me on Believe in People.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:34

Thanks for

Subscribe, Share, And Resources

SPEAKER_00 1:01:35

having me.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:35

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