39 - Interview with Jack W. Gregory (part 1)

[00:00:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. This is a podcast for male survivors of sexual abuse and assault, whether as a child or as an adult. Know that you are not alone in the abuse was not your fault.

[00:00:19] [SPEAKER_00]: My name is Mike Chapman, I'm a certified recovery life coach, and also a survivor. Let's find hope and healing together.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: And welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. I'm your host Mike Chapman. If you would like to be with me on future podcasts, we do have live audiences.

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to join us in the live audience for any future podcast episodes, you can find more about that at my website polarlifeconsulting.com slash live.

[00:00:55] [SPEAKER_00]: And with me today is a special guest. It's Jack W. Gregory, also known as the accidental journalist.

[00:01:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And he is a UK based author, consultant and actor among many things. He's a battle from being sexually trafficked with him the UK special school system,

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: doing with rejection fear mental illness addiction and criminality found himself homeless and addicted to crack cocaine at one point in 2014 got clean and sober and started to change his life.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_00]: In 2015 he had a mere death experience that changed his perspective on life and found the purpose and sobriety. And is now a Hollywood consultant actor poet journalist author award and festival selected filmmaker.

[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_00]: And he's written several books one of which is on survivors of human trafficking. He regularly consults for the national health service in the UK educating newly qualified doctors on how to deal with addicts.

[00:02:09] [SPEAKER_00]: He's also spoken to churches, schools and colleges about his life taking back our own stories and buying recovery through creativity something we talk about often on this podcast.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And so thrilled to have him here and as we start off most episodes we're going to begin with four questions.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Now it's time for four questions that part of the podcast when we get to know our guest a bit better by asking a few questions. Let's go.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_03]: So, Jack what is your favorite food memory food memory. I guess it would be having to with George Michael the Hilton hotel in Birmingham.

[00:02:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow and that's within the UK not for me to know about this. Yeah, Birmingham United Kingdom.

[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Right, okay. Wow. I would love to learn more and for those unfamiliar. T in Britain is a major thing it's not just a cup of tea. It's it's.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's it's definitely a very strong tradition. So how did you get to be with George Michael for tea time.

[00:03:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So I was away in Birmingham. I was called a community director so I was in Birmingham learning how to bring special measures into communities to help them bring more money in to help them be myself sustainable.

[00:03:51] [SPEAKER_03]: I was out one night with my guitar and then I came back and I sat in the the fly a of the hotel and I started playing and the Birmingham any sea which is a big sort of place where there are people play.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I was approached by one of the security and said what I like to go and have tea with George Michael.

[00:04:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Did you happen to play that because you knew he was there or was just coincident. Yeah, I knew it was the concert they were checking out it was around about I don't know 11 o'clock at night half past eleven at night. So it was pretty late.

[00:04:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess he's on a he was on a different time clock. So yes, it goes and things like that it was fine.

[00:04:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Right, so probably wanted to have that traditional tea time but scheduling when you have all that craziness.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sure yeah, you can't just drop everything at four o'clock.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_03]: Much far Christmas I wasn't until I met my wife. She's a big gift give her she's a big of Christmas fancy would start she's trying to get me to get the tree out at this very moment because she just lost Christmas so much.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_03]: And we're just about to hit summer and it's to it. But I guess my first Christmas where I was not in a shop doorway.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Not hungry, not homeless. I'd been homeless for two years so having someone there to just who spoiled me rotten. So that would have been Christmas 2014.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: So just coming out of homeless and your first Christmas. Yeah, I'm sure that is for you special.

[00:06:14] [SPEAKER_03]: The previous year I spent very ill in the doorway of HMV and I yeah, I nearly died that time as well.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I was battling early in farmer. I was homeless. I was going through treatment. It was snowing and it was absolutely awful. So we're in contrast from the year before it was absolutely heaven.

[00:06:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, yes. Wonderful now what is your favorite church or house of worship. My baptism.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_03]: And I will go into that a little bit more in a little while because that's a big part of my story but how old were you? Because I know different faiths do it different times.

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_03]: So this was 2015. Okay, so obviously as an adult.

[00:07:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I was an adult 2015. I gave my life to Christ in hospital. I've been healed in the 27th of June, 2014. I got sober. I woke up in a crackhouse and I haven't used a day since because God really did work on me when I was asleep.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_03]: I'll go into that as well. It was my baptism because I was baptized with the son of the man, the doctor, the specialist who saved my life in hospital just a few months before.

[00:07:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow, you know that made it extra special.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: You were able to share it with someone who's close to you and yeah, yeah, I remember my baptism was I was still in nice one.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, very good experience. For sure. Very memorandum. What is your favorite scripture or any inspirational quote that has helped you on your spiritual journey and what about it speaks to you Romans 12 of 20.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_03]: It's followed me around my whole life. Even before I became a Christian, even when I was double in with Islam, when I was double with all those sort of religions.

[00:08:18] [SPEAKER_03]: When I was homeless, when I was in criminality, this verse just kept following me around in his Romans 12 20 because I've always had a vengeful heart.

[00:08:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you really help? Do you memorize what that verse is?

[00:08:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, if you're enemy hungers feed him if he thirsts even the best wine for the Lord will rain down hot coes upon him.

[00:08:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And that speaks to me because I had enemies. I had a lot of enemies. People that wanted to see me hurt people I wanted to see hurt.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_03]: They helped me sort of move into learning about forgiveness. That and I desire 39.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_03]: It's 40s it, even the young, grow weary and weak they will rise on wings of Eagles.

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_03]: That verse that followed me around a lot when I was a kid who's a group in a what called a culture Christian community.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_00]: So it was church on a Sunday and some of the school and stuff. So yeah church on Sunday, even on Monday. Yes, there's a lot in the US, but I like that too.

[00:09:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they, they, they, they, they, they, they take it off and the rest of the week you couldn't tell the difference.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, that's so yeah, that's a lot of entries.

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_00]: So wonderful. So now, tell me about your story. I know you got a lot in there, but I know being traffic sounds like part of your story and abuse is part of your story as much as you're able and willing to tell

[00:10:05] [SPEAKER_00]: you don't have to get overly graphic, but whatever you feel like is important to know and then as you go and I know a lot of people will jump around in their stories. I know I do because of how things get uncovered and so forth. So however you want.

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_00]: But then lead into your healing journey as well and what things have worked for you to help with your healing and what things haven't worked for your healing.

[00:10:32] [SPEAKER_00]: As well, and then would love to hear more about what you're doing these days and it sounds like a lot.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Yes, so I guess I'll go back to the start really. It's probably the emotional place to go. So I was born in Scotland, Glasgow Scotland in 1977 and moved down to England when I was around about six months old. Of course this was unknown to me.

[00:11:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And I grew up in a small mining town that was surrounded by all the mining towns. And within those communities, they were market communities. So it was all they all thrived together.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_03]: They were all part of the same because the miners used the markets to market, it's made the money. They served the miners and the families.

[00:11:27] [SPEAKER_03]: Well I grew up in my dad was a railway man. So we weren't really affected by the strikes because in 1983, 1984, 1985, our Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in her, even though I would say, this side of the day it would be cheaper to buy coal from South Africa and France rather than the communities like Yorkshire and Northern England.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a hard place to go up. So the miners began to shut down. I was taken to school on the same bus that they would take the scabs into work, not that I liked that word but it's what they were called.

[00:12:09] [SPEAKER_03]: These were men trying to feed their families. I get it. There's still a lot of bitterness. A lot of these towns have still never recovered. 40 is later than never recovered. So I was like seven or eight when that happened.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_03]: I was always the Shikid, the weak kid, the weak kid, the weird kid. The other kids loved to tease. I liked films because I could lose myself in them.

[00:12:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I was emotionally challenged. Let's say, I had a word with neurodivergent in the days where no one knew what neurodivergent was.

[00:12:51] [SPEAKER_03]: ADHD wasn't a thing. Autism wasn't really a thing. Dislexive wasn't the thing I couldn't read or write properly. So I was seen as thick, stupid and I was treated as so.

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I was what we call mullicodd, spoiled. I was spoiled. I got what I wanted. So on my eighth birthday I had a really nice day. We had tea, proper high tea. This is a proper yark truffing as well.

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_03]: So it was like tea and cake and scones and biscuits. And all on these platters that were like different tears and pop soda and just really really nice.

[00:13:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I had bought me a wig wam for the back garden, you know, a place where I could go and be weird by myself. And I remember it quite vividly because that's the day that it went to act for me because, you know, I guess probably around six, seven o'clock times at a month's name.

[00:13:56] [SPEAKER_03]: My mum is a very staunch woman. She doesn't show her emotions freely. She's typical yark truffing house to me.

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And my dad was sitting on the sofa reading his paper looking over his glasses and I'm sat on my mum's name. She says, you know, we'll have you down here and I might want you.

[00:14:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And you're asking but you weren't your adopted. And what that means is that you are real. I'm couldn't look after it. Now I guess for most people when they're hearing this they would hear well, I've got a family now. You know, somebody that loves me. I didn't hear that all I heard was I wasn't wanted by somebody.

[00:14:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. And that's when the darkness really sort of setting for me. So here I am eight years old having this existential crisis because I didn't know who I was.

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. I fell into this fantasy world, this world of film, this world of television, this world of lies. I began to line, I began to lie very well.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And that set me up for a career as a hosla for a while on the long, on the long, on teams in the north of England.

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_00]: And okay, when you say just learn what exactly do you mean because I can have several connotations.

[00:15:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Con man. Okay. So I'm doing so.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Right. So trying to calm people out of money or whatever. Yeah. But this part of a team.

[00:15:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Okay. So if you've ever seen Hosla or anything like that, that's sort of thing. I was a bit part of player.

[00:15:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I was a quite a good actor which is I guess why I fell into acting like real life.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_03]: But I could hold a story for quite a long time.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I was still quite make mild. They sent me to a special school because I just, I couldn't do well.

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I managed grandma's school and then I managed to push my way through a year of high school.

[00:15:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And they went well. It's just is it's just to stupid to do this.

[00:15:59] [SPEAKER_03]: He is not going to get anywhere because I didn't yet know my way of learning.

[00:16:04] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. So I was pointing to the special school system.

[00:16:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And because I lied, I lied a lot and I lied about things about who I was or where I was going.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And it wasn't it was almost pathological but it was a trauma response.

[00:16:18] [SPEAKER_00]: I hear dogs.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_03]: That's my daughter's dog. Yeah. She got a piece and brings it on her way.

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_03]: He can. I do apologize. No problem.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I became a target. I became a target for the other kids. I became a target for unscrupulous adults.

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Within the system. I'm not saying teachers specifically. I'm saying people that were involved in the special school system.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_03]: What you would call, I guess, appropriate adults.

[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_03]: That's when the abuse began really. I liked to drink.

[00:16:53] [SPEAKER_03]: I liked to smoke cannabis at a young age.

[00:16:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I liked money. I was making money quite well.

[00:17:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I did two paper rounds. A mill crowd on a morning before school.

[00:17:09] [SPEAKER_03]: I had a good work ethic. I worked on Saturdays in a key cutting shop in the morning.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And in a plus to shopping the afternoon.

[00:17:19] [SPEAKER_03]: Making data rails.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_03]: I had money. I would work out how to pirate the HS.

[00:17:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I made money that way on the council of states.

[00:17:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess this would be your sort of sheltered housing, community housing projects.

[00:17:41] [SPEAKER_03]: That's what we call council of states.

[00:17:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I made money doing that.

[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Then there was these people. You're all I.

[00:17:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I never bought a NO. If you say anything, nobody is ever going to believe it anyway.

[00:17:54] [SPEAKER_03]: So you might as well make some money.

[00:17:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I do it more money.

[00:18:00] [SPEAKER_03]: By that time, I was probably making more money than my dad.

[00:18:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I was being passed around.

[00:18:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm a cry. I do a positive.

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a natural thing.

[00:18:11] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a natural path of who we become.

[00:18:15] [SPEAKER_00]: I call them here in New England here.

[00:18:17] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and it's love, really.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It comes from a place of love now because loving Christ.

[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I was passed around.

[00:18:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I was used sexually still to this day.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I kind of declare a station in the cupboard.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_03]: They would take me to parties.

[00:18:37] [SPEAKER_03]: They would do good things.

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_03]: This was a school that they didn't focus on education or they focused on the

[00:18:44] [SPEAKER_03]: physical.

[00:18:45] [SPEAKER_03]: So we would go away on the army youth team and we would spend a lot of time

[00:18:50] [SPEAKER_03]: some of the weekends in the North Yorkshire, more or under the

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_03]: more is it in the cave systems and we would go away hiking and

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_03]: camping and things like that.

[00:19:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And these were these people that were part of this.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Some of these adults and as I say, not teachers but some of these

[00:19:12] [SPEAKER_03]: adults that were around at that time they had their favorites and

[00:19:17] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah, it became normal.

[00:19:20] Right.

[00:19:21] [SPEAKER_03]: It became my guess part of me.

[00:19:26] [SPEAKER_03]: They were giving me drugs when I got to about 15, 16.

[00:19:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I was going to college on an eye.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I was doing acting lessons.

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It's a college.

[00:19:34] [SPEAKER_03]: They were allowed me to do that.

[00:19:36] [SPEAKER_03]: Community college.

[00:19:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I learned a few things about English and things like that.

[00:19:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I always had to have words.

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I always loved words but couldn't get them down on paper.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Right.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And this just carried on and it carried on into my early 20s.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:19:50] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's part of the grooming that they will give you things that you

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_00]: want or need in exchange.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Part of the grooming is to convince you that it is not abuse that you are somehow

[00:20:08] [SPEAKER_00]: going to be a good person.

[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_00]: And so many men, it takes them decades to even understand that what they experienced.

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, that was abuse and they might not use that term for the longest time until they

[00:20:27] [SPEAKER_00]: finally do.

[00:20:28] [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like a ton of bricks.

[00:20:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:20:34] [SPEAKER_00]: That was very wrong.

[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_00]: So yes, please continue.

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I always saw it as a fusion.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_03]: It was only in the past 10 years that I actually realized what it was, traffic in.

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I struggled with my sexuality.

[00:20:49] [SPEAKER_03]: Obviously, I thought for a time that I may be gay because I climaxed.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_03]: Which is a perfect natural thing but you don't realize that when you're that age.

[00:21:01] [SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Physiologically, the male body.

[00:21:05] [SPEAKER_00]: If you get stimulated, long enough.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_00]: And hard enough no matter what is the cause of this stimulation.

[00:21:11] [SPEAKER_00]: It will have a physiological response with an erection and eventually is ejaculation regardless

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_00]: of who is doing the same way.

[00:21:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:21:21] [SPEAKER_03]: Not gave me a, yeah.

[00:21:22] [SPEAKER_03]: That gave me a certain view of that I needed to have sex to feel loved.

[00:21:28] [SPEAKER_03]: So I became promiscuous.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I slept with a lot of women, open-sale, just before I met my new wife.

[00:21:37] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I cheated on my ex-wife.

[00:21:39] [SPEAKER_03]: No, there wasn't a good guy.

[00:21:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I wasn't a good guy.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I had some time sober.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_03]: And I just had fallen back into it.

[00:21:48] [SPEAKER_03]: It started with a drink and I got back into the gear.

[00:21:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was just I was masking it at home.

[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was I just led this double life.

[00:21:59] [SPEAKER_03]: Triple life.

[00:22:01] [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I know for a lot of male survivors, they will act out with women almost to try

[00:22:08] [SPEAKER_00]: to prove their heterosexuality to counteract to prove that they're really not gay.

[00:22:13] [SPEAKER_00]: And so they will act out in that way.

[00:22:16] [SPEAKER_00]: That's one common.

[00:22:17] [SPEAKER_00]: In my case, I did, I was very asexual.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to touch anyone or anything.

[00:22:23] [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, I did not really want physical aspect of relationship at all.

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Eventually, over in that,

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_00]: whereas others just completely pruneusky was.

[00:22:34] [SPEAKER_00]: And that kind of two sides of the same coin.

[00:22:36] [SPEAKER_00]: So do you think it was from that?

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you looked into that at all?

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I think it was partly that it was partly.

[00:22:44] [SPEAKER_03]: I had this high sex drive.

[00:22:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought I needed to be around women as many women.

[00:22:51] [SPEAKER_03]: Because I thought, well, if I had many women, that's my amy attractive.

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm wanted.

[00:22:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm loved.

[00:22:59] [SPEAKER_03]: It killed my marriage.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to lie.

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_03]: And the survivors were perfect.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Right.

[00:23:04] [SPEAKER_03]: We both had our individual problems.

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it took me to homelessness, which then led me back into drugs.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I was trying to launch a film career, the city that I lived in.

[00:23:20] [SPEAKER_03]: It's very connected to London in the fact that we have two film universities.

[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_03]: John Hert was the patron of one of them.

[00:23:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I was involved with students.

[00:23:32] [SPEAKER_03]: We were making films.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd written a film.

[00:23:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I was trying to sell it.

[00:23:36] [SPEAKER_03]: It was kind of based on my life when I, you know, don't drugs when I was younger.

[00:23:41] [SPEAKER_03]: And the stuff that I sold on the council of states and things.

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was just a bit of a walk into that.

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I had a few people in the main industry.

[00:23:49] [SPEAKER_03]: So if I walk around and go, yeah, we'll get this made.

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I ended up two, three, four different women at the same time.

[00:23:58] [SPEAKER_03]: And it, I came on stuck.

[00:23:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I got found out.

[00:24:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I was running off homeless.

[00:24:03] [SPEAKER_03]: I lost the film.

[00:24:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I was made to sign it away for four years.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_03]: I turned upon sets, smashed out my brain.

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And I don't really recognize that man anymore.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_03]: But I acknowledged that who he was.

[00:24:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I was just, I was a nightmare.

[00:24:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And I lost everything.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I lost everything.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_03]: What?

[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_03]: I was just trying to make sense of it.

[00:24:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and I actually really liked one of the women that I, I was seeing.

[00:24:35] [SPEAKER_03]: But I couldn't, not wait or I could not be someone else.

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't not wear this mask like, you know, this facade.

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Right?

[00:24:45] [SPEAKER_03]: So I thought I should be, you know, I, it was in hat.

[00:24:51] [SPEAKER_03]: And they saw through it.

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_03]: It sent me into a blivit and I found myself several suicide attempts.

[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_03]: The last one was on the 20th of June, 2014.

[00:25:04] [SPEAKER_03]: And I tried to decide several times before.

[00:25:06] [SPEAKER_03]: I knew I didn't want to go violently.

[00:25:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And so I wanted to go as peaceful as I could.

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd had a benacle fight the day before.

[00:25:17] [SPEAKER_03]: So I got some money in my bought a load of, uh, crack cocaine and heroin.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I made this, well, what should have been a lethal mix.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I had this suicide note in my pocket, a apologise into my daughter.

[00:25:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I apologize and to everybody that upset are offended or hurt.

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_03]: And I just, I wanted to die.

[00:25:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I spent so long trying to survive.

[00:25:45] [SPEAKER_03]: I just couldn't do anymore.

[00:25:48] [SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't do life anymore.

[00:25:50] [SPEAKER_03]: So I, you know, I'd have a shame.

[00:25:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I guess I was all around about eight stones.

[00:25:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not, not very heavy.

[00:25:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Eight stones would be not very heavy.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I was a macy. I didn't eat a lot or anything like that.

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_03]: But I claim myself a little, because I didn't want to be found looking,

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_03]: dogged, I didn't want that from, you know, I was.

[00:26:12] [SPEAKER_03]: I had it this, I guess this romanticized thing in my head.

[00:26:16] [SPEAKER_03]: How it was going to play out.

[00:26:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm sad that it's in a clock at night with just lethal concoction.

[00:26:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And I said, God, I can't do this anymore.

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_03]: Take my life or take away my hunger, my thirst for drugs.

[00:26:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd been in an hour of a day and a 30 odd year.

[00:26:34] [SPEAKER_03]: I went to my first meeting at 14, that's how it was.

[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Right. Right.

[00:26:39] [SPEAKER_03]: And it was, I said, I can't do this, God.

[00:26:43] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't even know if you exist.

[00:26:45] [SPEAKER_03]: Do it, look after me, daughter, and look after me, momentarily.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'd found my real mom, my real family as well.

[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I did a disappointment at them too.

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to be there anymore.

[00:26:58] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to be a burden.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_03]: So I said that prayer and I took with my daughter hit and drifted off the sleep.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And that should have been the end of it.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_03]: This is 10 o'clock at night.

[00:27:09] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I woke up at 4 minutes past midnight on the 27th of June,

[00:27:13] [SPEAKER_03]: 24th of June for the first time in years.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't have it in me to use.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I still had some left.

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to use it. I left it.

[00:27:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't use the rest of the night and then rest of the next day.

[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_03]: For I knew that I was a day clean two days clean three days clean.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And I started to rebuild my life from the ground up.

[00:27:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Rebuild these connections that I'd lost.

[00:27:42] [SPEAKER_03]: A few months before I got into a food bank, there was this food bank coffee morning on a Friday morning.

[00:27:49] [SPEAKER_03]: And a lot of homeless people like me would go in and coffee and biscuits and cake and stuff like that.

[00:27:57] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'd been going there for quite a while and I'd gone in there.

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_03]: And I got greeted by the smile that I'd never seen before.

[00:28:03] [SPEAKER_03]: It's lady and she was lovely.

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_03]: And she just had this different energy about her.

[00:28:10] [SPEAKER_03]: She spoke to me differently. She spoke to me because there were people like,

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah, just you know, like they'd be.

[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_03]: But the truth was that I was going to kill myself that day.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd had an out in my pocket and I'd gone in there and I was going to have something,

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_03]: you know, get some food and maybe tap a few cigarettes to get me through the day.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_03]: But this lady she was really nice Joanna Joe and I was and she just had a baby with her.

[00:28:38] [SPEAKER_03]: She wasn't very old. It was only a few weeks old.

[00:28:42] [SPEAKER_03]: She'd been living in a shelter and she was volunteering there and we got talking and just back

[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I've been told not to. She took me for a meal that day and she bought me to back home.

[00:28:55] [SPEAKER_03]: And she sent me away with a bag of food and I just thought, well, okay.

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not going to do it today but obviously a few months later.

[00:29:02] [SPEAKER_03]: It led me to that I'd been home earlier that month for a few hours.

[00:29:08] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd lost people. I'd been talking to the lady that I'd met on Facebook

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_03]: on the way back. I was drunk on the train but you know, we were talking.

[00:29:20] [SPEAKER_03]: And this was only sort of a week or so before I would attempt to take my life.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_03]: I knew of God. I didn't know God.

[00:29:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I knew of Jesus. I didn't know Jesus.

[00:29:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'd been healed miraculously.

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm thinking about it a bit here. You know, on that night I'd been healed miraculously.

[00:29:39] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to use which was alien to me.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_03]: Totally alien.

[00:29:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't. I loved God for that but I didn't want to accept Jesus into my heart because I knew I would have to do something.

[00:29:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And I still want a do option to be a little bit naughty.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't do that in, you know, with having Jesus.

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_03]: This is Arthur and this is not how it is.

[00:30:10] [SPEAKER_03]: But this is how I thought.

[00:30:11] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I met up with Joe and we got together in the, I guess, August September of that year.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was my first Christmas as described.

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And, um,

[00:30:26] [SPEAKER_00]: There's these who we're eventually you ended up marrying.

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.

[00:30:31] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that woman is now my wife.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, so that's the same. So Joanna, who was working in the homeless shop.

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow. Okay.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_03]: That woman is now my wife and was been married for five years.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'd start going to this church that was in a school,

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_03]: the local high school on a Sunday and the people went nice.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_03]: But I was, you know, I'd had this bit of success.

[00:30:59] [SPEAKER_03]: But I say, but I was still a dishonest person.

[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_03]: And I was saying, I'm going to be all these things.

[00:31:05] [SPEAKER_03]: And they're like, yeah, okay, okay.

[00:31:07] [SPEAKER_03]: We do.

[00:31:08] [SPEAKER_03]: We love you.

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_03]: We love you.

[00:31:10] [SPEAKER_03]: Keep coming.

[00:31:12] [SPEAKER_03]: We love you.

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I just started.

[00:31:15] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't start to put a bit of weight on.

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_03]: You know, I'll put a nice bit of timber on.

[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_03]: She was feeding me and, you know,

[00:31:23] [SPEAKER_03]: three meals a day, four meals a day and stuff like that.

[00:31:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I started to, I, the January,

[00:31:30] [SPEAKER_03]: I started to get ill.

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I started to lose a lot of weight every time I would breathe.

[00:31:34] [SPEAKER_03]: It felt like I had metal in my lungs.

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd gone down to about 75 pound, I guess.

[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_03]: There are pictures out there that you can see of me just totally amaciated February.

[00:31:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I was just getting ill, and iller, and iller.

[00:31:53] [SPEAKER_03]: And then the match, 25th dean, I picked my daughter up from her mom's,

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I have to go to being back to the house we live in a town about nine miles away from the city.

[00:32:06] [SPEAKER_03]: This town has been part of my making.

[00:32:08] [SPEAKER_03]: And this town has been a god of the town from a beautiful town called Windham, you know,

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_03]: the people and this town has just been absolutely amazing.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And I just got, I got, I picked it up and walked to 100 yards and every single bit

[00:32:22] [SPEAKER_03]: of breath came out of me.

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_03]: I couldn't breathe.

[00:32:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't want to scare my daughter.

[00:32:27] [SPEAKER_03]: She was only seven at the time, I guess.

[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_03]: Seven, eight, maybe.

[00:32:32] [SPEAKER_03]: I managed to compose myself.

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd not be able to eat properly for days.

[00:32:36] [SPEAKER_03]: I was surviving on prayer, paracet, mull and caffeine at night.

[00:32:40] [SPEAKER_03]: It would get so bad that I would shake.

[00:32:43] [SPEAKER_03]: So hard, I would go hot and cold inside.

[00:32:47] [SPEAKER_03]: Now I'd get these jitters and I would shake so hard.

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I would take off the bed.

[00:32:52] [SPEAKER_03]: The Saturday morning, I felt a bit better.

[00:32:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I took the kids, me five kids into, love the kids.

[00:33:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I would take them out on every Saturday for tea and cake.

[00:33:07] [SPEAKER_03]: Because that's a yard for things to do, even though we're in the offit.

[00:33:11] [SPEAKER_03]: I managed to bake in some way, January, I managed coffee and I felt better.

[00:33:16] [SPEAKER_03]: A to clock that night, I just deteriorated, more and more and more.

[00:33:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And I said to my Mrs. I said, I'm thinking I'm going to have to go to the hospital tomorrow.

[00:33:27] [SPEAKER_03]: If I don't feel any better.

[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_03]: I didn't sleep like night.

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I was just so bad.

[00:33:33] [SPEAKER_03]: I could barely breathe.

[00:33:35] [SPEAKER_03]: What? I know no to be the death rat.

[00:33:37] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, I was dying and I didn't know it.

[00:33:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I rang my ex-wife and I said,

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_03]: I said, I'd bring a back.

[00:33:44] [SPEAKER_03]: Can you please come and get her?

[00:33:46] [SPEAKER_03]: I really don't feel well.

[00:33:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to have to go to the hospital.

[00:33:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm going to have to ring an ambulance.

[00:33:50] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't remember.

[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_03]: Don't scare.

[00:33:53] [SPEAKER_03]: I will come and get you.

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I will take you to the hospital.

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_03]: Just give me an hour or so.

[00:34:01] [SPEAKER_03]: Because the way that she saw it, she wanted.

[00:34:04] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought I'd just see me get out of the car and tell her I was going to be okay.

[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_03]: That I was just going to go get checked out.

[00:34:13] [SPEAKER_03]: I got in there at half past four in the afternoon by half past seven.

[00:34:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I was dead.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_03]: I stopped breathing for four minutes.

[00:34:22] [SPEAKER_03]: I died. I died. I was shown help.

[00:34:27] [SPEAKER_03]: It wasn't a place of members and she was not a place.

[00:34:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It was a place that where I was just truly away from God

[00:34:38] [SPEAKER_03]: because that is hell.

[00:34:40] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not being able to hear God.

[00:34:42] [SPEAKER_03]: Because I'd learned to start hearing God and I could no longer hear Him.

[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_03]: It was like life would go darker and I was walking around this hospital.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_03]: It was empty and dark.

[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_03]: I walked the exact journey that I knew it to be from the wards to the outside and I got

[00:35:05] [SPEAKER_03]: outside and there was bodies just stacked on fire and they were screeching birds and I felt condemned.

[00:35:16] [SPEAKER_03]: And in between that I was seeing flashbacks of my life.

[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_03]: Everything that I'd ever done wrong.

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_03]: And then I had so much guilt and so much shame.

[00:35:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Everybody that I'd ever heard,

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd ever realized that I'd ever told and come back to heart me.

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_03]: Now I was only dead for four minutes but it felt like mulch.

[00:35:36] [SPEAKER_03]: And when I came back and they brought me back,

[00:35:41] [SPEAKER_03]: I was broken.

[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_03]: More broken than I'd ever been before.

[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_03]: I was sober but I was broken but the drugs they had me on,

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_03]: the anti-infection drugs,

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_03]: see I had to burlacate it because of the life that I'd lived.

[00:35:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I had Type II, Double New Monio, Type II, Long Failure.

[00:36:01] [SPEAKER_03]: I had Pluracy.

[00:36:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd had this environmental illness that they hadn't seen in about 30 years.

[00:36:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.

[00:36:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Any contact I had with anybody that they were in full contagion suits.

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_03]: And this is not fantasy, this is reality.

[00:36:17] [SPEAKER_03]: My partner refused, you know, she came,

[00:36:20] [SPEAKER_03]: the lead elder of our church.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_03]: New I was scared, didn't want to scare me, wouldn't even wear a mask.

[00:36:28] [SPEAKER_03]: This is pre-pandemic but I was convinced I became convinced that I caused

[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_03]: a pandemic of super-veral and tuberculosis.

[00:36:40] [SPEAKER_03]: And people were dying outside my hospital room.

[00:36:43] [SPEAKER_03]: My mind was broken, I was under so much spiritual attack.

[00:36:49] [SPEAKER_03]: The drugs they had me on were losing the genic but not only visually but

[00:36:54] [SPEAKER_03]: arguably.

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_03]: So there was no wonder I was broken.

[00:36:59] [SPEAKER_03]: I wouldn't be because I thought that I'd caused this sender.

[00:37:05] [SPEAKER_03]: The world I thought that they were replacing some of the people that died with these clones,

[00:37:11] [SPEAKER_03]: my daughter being one of them.

[00:37:14] [SPEAKER_03]: I was scared I wouldn't speak when I wanted to communicate.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_03]: I would scream, I would attack, I would lash out.

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_03]: But through it all there was this, there was groundly walkings who was early down, though you

[00:37:25] [SPEAKER_03]: would come in and he would pray for my soul.

[00:37:28] [SPEAKER_03]: They were told they were going to lose me again.

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_03]: And there was a doctor, a young female agent doctor.

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_03]: Now I know that in some of your hospitals you're allowed to pray

[00:37:40] [SPEAKER_03]: and your doctors are allowed to pray with you.

[00:37:44] [SPEAKER_03]: It does a legal room.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_03]: It gets you stuck off.

[00:37:49] [SPEAKER_03]: You cannot be a doctor or a nurse.

[00:37:52] [SPEAKER_03]: You can wear a cross or a symbol of faith.

[00:37:56] [SPEAKER_03]: It must be hidden at all times.

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_03]: And there was this young agent doctor and she would come in

[00:38:03] [SPEAKER_03]: and I would see her out of the corner of my eye.

[00:38:07] [SPEAKER_03]: And I couldn't really couldn't see her face but I could see this cross

[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_03]: which she would have hanging out and it should sprout me some comfort.

[00:38:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't know it felt different when she was in the room.

[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_03]: And then when there were before steps outside and somebody would become an inch you would

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_03]: with it away.

[00:38:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I was in what's called a negative pressure room which means

[00:38:31] [SPEAKER_03]: the room is kind of breathing for you.

[00:38:33] [SPEAKER_03]: It's pulling out all of the environmental bugs and pushing them through

[00:38:39] [SPEAKER_03]: out of the hospital and then a clean air is pumped in.

[00:38:44] [SPEAKER_03]: And that was like a prison cell. I was going to stay crazy.

[00:38:49] [SPEAKER_03]: By the end of it, I was about 68 pounds.

[00:38:54] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm not eating. I had autism myself.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd see if it's that to drop out.

[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_03]: My hair started to fall out by bed.

[00:39:05] [SPEAKER_03]: I had bed soars.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_03]: They'd give me this drug, this�, infection drugs that are given me this

[00:39:11] [SPEAKER_03]: really bad alert, particularly action and I had this rash from my neck to my torso.

[00:39:16] [SPEAKER_03]: Now I thought that when they moved me from one bed so another

[00:39:21] [SPEAKER_03]: that they were like police and they were trying to touch them.

[00:39:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'd ask it on it and this was when I thought it was a burn and I said burn.

[00:39:33] [SPEAKER_03]: And it hurt so bad. It's strong.

[00:39:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I had a doctor coming in and apologize to me because they didn't know I was allergic to it.

[00:39:43] [SPEAKER_03]: I asked if I was going to die again, they said they didn't know.

[00:39:45] [SPEAKER_00]: And just how long were you at at the hospital?

[00:39:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I was in hospital for about two months, while in a

[00:39:53] [SPEAKER_03]: near the two months, but weeks from weeks I was ill and having this episode.

[00:40:00] [SPEAKER_03]: A personal apocalypse I call it which is why I called my book that

[00:40:06] [SPEAKER_03]: because it was I'd cause a apocalypse and it was so personal to me.

[00:40:12] [SPEAKER_03]: And then the only other time I felt not condemned was there was this

[00:40:17] [SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was a doctor that was at the end of my bed and he thought kind of like this female doctor

[00:40:22] [SPEAKER_03]: and I said, we wouldn't leave. It was just that it wouldn't leave.

[00:40:26] [SPEAKER_03]: I was getting into a, you know, when a leave is saying this and really and I said,

[00:40:31] [SPEAKER_03]: I can't do this anymore. Who are you? So do you know who I am? What's my name?

[00:40:39] [SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, are you Jesus? Is like, yeah, what I've got to do but I can't do this anymore.

[00:40:44] [SPEAKER_03]: So take my life because I can't do this anymore. And I said,

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_03]: do you know what you've got to do? Stop going to do that.

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_03]: So you know what you've got to do. I don't want to do that.

[00:40:56] [SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to be a good person. I do not deserve to be a good person. You know what you've got to do.

[00:41:03] [SPEAKER_03]: Jesus, I take you into my life and he was gone. And the darkness that I saw,

[00:41:10] [SPEAKER_03]: it kind of fell from my eyes and I could see it was like looking in a badly lit room and then suddenly

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_03]: going to HD. Right. And I sat up in bed which was pretty impossible at the time.

[00:41:26] [SPEAKER_03]: And the nurse came in, bless her. She's a friend of mine to this day nurse Jackie.

[00:41:32] [SPEAKER_03]: She came in and she looked at me and I said, I feel dirty. You can have a wash please.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_03]: That's you've been running out of the room a couple of minutes later. She came in and these doctors

[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_03]: came in and I'm sat up and a bed and I feel dirty. Can I have a wash? Please.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_03]: I said this rash. It hurts. It's stinging and I just don't want to. I'd like to

[00:41:57] [SPEAKER_03]: be able to cool myself down. I'd like a cup of tea if that's possible. I don't know even drink tea.

[00:42:02] [SPEAKER_03]: I'd like coffee. But I'd like a cup of tea if that's possible. And I like, you know, just that morning

[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_03]: we were talking about it's shoving tubes in me and feeding tubes and things. They brought me

[00:42:15] [SPEAKER_03]: a cup of tea and they brought me in this bowl with a sponge and this sort of body wash.

[00:42:25] [SPEAKER_03]: And I'm sat up in the bed and this is no word of a lie. I dipped the sponge into the water and I put

[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_03]: on the body wash and I started to wash myself as I washed myself with this rash from chin to

[00:42:40] [SPEAKER_03]: car so I would just begin to peel away by the time I finished it was gone. The doctors were

[00:42:50] [SPEAKER_03]: mind blown. They were like, what is this? This is running about like headless chickens.

[00:42:59] [SPEAKER_03]: They didn't understand what it was and I told them that I'd met Jesus which was probably the most

[00:43:06] [SPEAKER_03]: same thing that I'd said to them in that few weeks. There were people from the church that I don't

[00:43:13] [SPEAKER_03]: even met lined up every day to come and see me in the room and bring me bottles of lukeside

[00:43:23] [SPEAKER_03]: because I ping lemonade. That's what you do when you're in English and you're in hospital. You take

[00:43:35] [SPEAKER_03]: you do when you pull it and it would bring me in sweets. I'd had a job before I got before

[00:43:42] [SPEAKER_03]: all this had happened and I got made redundant while I was in there to sort of injury but I

[00:43:49] [SPEAKER_03]: got a bit of a payout and the doctor said to me, I said can I go home and they weren't not like this.

[00:43:56] [SPEAKER_03]: We need to get you up to a health away so if you get up to eight stone in the next couple of weeks

[00:44:02] [SPEAKER_03]: you can go home. I said, right challenge upset. People were bringing me in sweets to bring

[00:44:12] [SPEAKER_03]: me in terms of spam. You've never smelled anything as glorious as nurses, cooking, spam fire

[00:44:21] [SPEAKER_03]: in their recroom because they're so happy that you're eating so they're grilling spam for you so

[00:44:27] [SPEAKER_00]: you can have a spam sandwich. I just looked at up eight stone is 112 pounds in the US.

[00:44:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm six foot one by the way. That's significant. I'm six two and at my light as was 165 in college

[00:44:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and I was very, very skinny. Yeah. Yeah. 165. So yeah. People were bringing me in sweets

[00:44:59] [SPEAKER_00]: which is 12 pounds. 12 pounds. So I was 12 pounds down at 62.

[00:45:05] [SPEAKER_03]: Yep. So they said that if I could get up to that I could leave so I said challenge upset.

[00:45:12] [SPEAKER_03]: So they were bringing me my breakfast. I was eating my breakfast and then I was eating like my

[00:45:18] [SPEAKER_03]: as bad as it. You call them milk your ways, we call them bad. Right. And then sweets and then

[00:45:27] [SPEAKER_03]: going downstairs to the canteen and having a full English breakfast. So two sausage, two bacon,

[00:45:36] [SPEAKER_03]: two egg beans, sauteed potatoes, mushrooms, fried bed and toast. And then I would come back up

[00:45:49] [SPEAKER_03]: and then I would just snack my way through to lunch and I would have lunch and then in

[00:45:56] [SPEAKER_03]: hour a cell later I would go down and I would have a second lunch on that dinner week. It's a

[00:46:05] [SPEAKER_03]: dinner and then tea time. I would do the same, I would have there and then I would

[00:46:15] [SPEAKER_03]: but I would wait a couple of hours till about seven o'clock until like visiting that was where

[00:46:22] [SPEAKER_03]: coming to an end and then there was a pizza shop just the other side of the state where the hospital

[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_03]: and they were doing two for one 12 inch pizzas from 9.99 so I would order two for one meat feasts

[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_03]: and I would eat one myself and I would give one to the nurses every day I was doing this

[00:46:47] [SPEAKER_03]: there were people coming in and praying with me I was getting spiritually well as well as physically

[00:46:53] [SPEAKER_03]: well. On my last night I ran out of money and nurse Jacky came in and she went we love you Jack

[00:47:02] [SPEAKER_03]: we love your star the way that you what you've been through what you've done

[00:47:07] [SPEAKER_03]: please allow us to pay for our pizza tonight and they pay for the pizza they got one but um

[00:47:14] [SPEAKER_03]: yeah and then I got out and within a few weeks I was being baptized.

[00:47:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Please come back next week or the second part of my interview with Jack W Gregory.

[00:47:29] [SPEAKER_00]: See you then!

[00:47:33] [SPEAKER_00]: If you would like to learn more about my coaching with Polar live consulting where I provide one

[00:47:38] [SPEAKER_00]: on one coaching and group coaching both with a focus on healing for male survivors reach out to me

[00:47:45] [SPEAKER_00]: that polar liveconsulting.com that is Polar spelled P-O-L-A-R I would love to hear from you

[00:47:53] [SPEAKER_00]: I want to hear your story if you'd like your story featured on this podcast contact me via my

[00:47:58] [SPEAKER_00]: website if you'd like this podcast please rate and review because that's how other people can

[00:48:04] [SPEAKER_00]: find me and I really want to spread this message of healing and hope to others and remember you are

[00:48:10] [SPEAKER_00]: not alone. Healing is possible and the abuse was not your fault. Love you repeat that,

[00:48:17] [SPEAKER_00]: the abuse was not your fault. See you next time on The Healing for Male Survivor Spockets