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| RUNNING WITH THE HERD |
| Although I came from a loving family, looking back I can see from about the time I was eight I never really felt good about myself. There was a lot going on in my life and I felt very much alone. From the age of twelve I missed two years of school due to operations on my feet, I was confined to the house for much of that time and was given no home tutoring. On returning to school I was two years behind everyone else, I felt stupid and couldn�t cope so I started truanting and hanging around with quite a rough crowed. We would drink regularly and steal to pay for our drinking; I became the most prolific thief to make a name for myself. My mother would wait up till two in the morning crying and praying, hoping there wouldn�t be another phone call to say id been nicked again. At fifteen I was kicked out of school with no qualifications, though I did have a severe drink problem. Relationships; I first got married at seventeen after getting my girlfriend pregnant; we divorced when I was nineteen. I�ve met some wonderful women over the last twenty years and had some great times, but as relationships got serious so did my drinking. Fear would creep in, �If they saw the flaws in my character, the weakness and insecurities, not the big strong man the perceived me to be would they still want me?� I didn�t think so. So I would drink more and ruin the relationship anyway. Some people I knew would laugh, �Clive�s� moving again!� they�d see me with bin bags in my hands I would always have my clothes in bin bags. I would laugh with them; inside I would be broken hatred full of self hate and suicidal. Health; I've lost count of the times I�ve had my face kicked in. At fifteen I was going to Millwall football club and fighting grown men. I didn�t want to fight, it wasn�t who I was, it was a sick way of trying to build self-esteem. I�m six foot one and people would say, �He�s hard,� or �watch him!� Inside I felt like a scared little boy. But I fought anyway, if I felt scared rage would over take it and I either won or lost. I sometimes lost quite badly and would wake up hours later with my face in stitches; it�s been that way most of my life. At the age of twenty seven I had a breakdown which lasted two years. Police and prison; I�ve been to prison about ten times, each time it�s been drink related. I would wake up in a cell screaming inside, � Not again!!� in court as they read out the charges they had me labelled �scum� before they had even finished reading. The last time I was in prison they had to put me on medication as I had finally lost the plot and would have killed someone or myself. While I was there one of the nurses Marlene who I consider a true angel, gave me an information pack for a rehab named Yeldall Manor. So on leaving prison I filled out the forms and another angel Ruth found the funding to put me through the eleven month programme. I didn�t know there was help available I thank God there was. At rehab; as I found out more and more about myself, and why I behaved so insanely I gradually found I was being liberated. That�s what it felt like freedom. Recovery is always ongoing, even participating in this project has held a mirror up to me which has caused me to make changes. But what has really sustained me over a quarter of a century of shear horror? Its persistent love, from my family, from people working in prisons, selfless love from people who could earn far more than working in a rehab, from my wife and three children and ultimately Gods love. I�m not trying to be profound. You see those addicts or alcoholics on the street all begging they are people�s children, could be your child, try and show them a little love. |
| Clive's Story |
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