My name is Tam, and I’m a recovering addict. It’s good to be here. It’s good to be clean.
I was brought up in a dysfunctional family. I had two brothers, one older and one younger. I believe in middle child syndrome; I believe that the middle child becomes the scapegoat in the family because that’s what happened to me. I can remember being very young, only four or five, and getting the blame for stuff. It feels like I was always getting the blame; I didn’t feel loved, I felt like a square peg in a round hole because I didn’t fit in anywhere.
I didn’t feel loved, I felt like a square peg in a round hole because I didn’t fit in anywhere.
When I was young, we moved from Glasgow to a village just outside Edinburgh to be nearer my mother’s parents. I went to a small village school and because I had a Glasgow accent, so I got bullied quite quickly. At home, I was getting shouted at a lot of the time and I was an angry child. I lived in the constant fear of my mom saying to me, “Wait till your father comes home”. I used to go and hide under the bed and he’d come and drag me out. There were times when he’d give me a beating and then I’d run away from home but I always got brought back by the police – and every time I got back, I was beaten again by my father, a man everyone called a “pillar of the community”.
When I was about seven or eight, I was going to school one day and I met an old man on the road and I got talking to him, he made me a cup of tea in a tin can and I drank it. Soon I was seeing him before I went to school and on the way back from school sometimes and he started cuddling me. I thought this was the love I wasn’t getting at home and I liked it. I was wrong though and eventually he sexually abused me. He told me if I told anyone about it, he would hurt me so I never told anyone. I actually went back for more because he gave me money which I used to buy the kids at school sweets so that I wouldn’t get bullied but it didn’t work, the bullies just hurt me more.
My grandfather was an alcoholic. He was the one that looked after me quite a bit, and he had a lot of booze in his house. One day and I found it and I drunk it. I was about eight, and I felt something change, I finally felt that belonging. I woke up with a hangover, and I had to go back home where physical and mental abuse was still going on. The worst part was that my mother never tried to stop it, looking back, I think she was scared of my dad. I often got into trouble in the village and by the time I was eight or, nine the village bobby came round and took me to Edinburgh sheriff’s court. My parents said they didn’t want me anymore and that they couldn’t take care of me. I ended up in an “approved school”, which was like being in care, and it was a horrible place. The first night I was there, I felt like I had been abandoned, I was very frightened – I used to wet the bed. If you did that the teachers made you hang your sheets around your neck and spray you down with cold water. On top of that, there was abuse going on, mental, sexual, and physical. The teachers were sexually abusing the boys and the boys were physically and sexually abusing each other. Once I had to stay the night at the headmaster’s house. I was downstairs and the headmaster was upstairs, where his kids and family were sleeping. In the middle of the night, he came down and sexually abused me, in his own house. I just didn’t feel that anyone loved me. Eventually, I left the school and my parents let me come home. I was 12 and determined that nobody was ever going to hurt me again. I was emotionally shut down. I felt like I had no feelings. Nobody ever asked me what was wrong. Nobody ever said to me “see a psychiatrist”. I felt that nobody cared. Then I discovered my first drug. I smoked some weed and it felt wonderful. It took me to that feeling off finally belonging somewhere. I started to steal my mother’s “happy pills”, Valium and so on, from her handbag and take them. I was told all my life that I was no good, that I was a bad bastard, useless, and so I believed that stuff- the drugs helped me to escape those feelings.
I was emotionally shut down. I felt like I had no feelings. Nobody ever asked me what was wrong.
I had always wished my parents dead and when I turned 14, I finally got my wish. My mom and dad went out to a wedding on a Saturday and never came back, they were hit by a drunk driver, ironically. I went along to the hospital and my father and mother were announced dead. I remember that I stood there and said “I’m glad you’re dead, you passed and now the abuse will stop”. I was raging, I went along to these people’s funerals and I didn’t cry. I decided to run away and I got a job in the Adelphi hotel in Edinburgh. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t long before I got the sack for being pissed in the kitchen. After losing my job, I started to use drugs more and more. Mandrax, Purple Hearts, all the old ones that aren’t around anymore. I was on uppers and downers and I was injecting a lot of speed. I ended up stealing and getting my first three-month prison sentence. I was only 15 so I was sent to the Young Offender’s Institute. The three months were over quickly but when I came out nothing had changed because I wasn’t changing. I just went back into the same behaviours straightaway. Bang, back on drugs, back on drink, and I just couldn’t get a job.
Nothing had changed because I wasn’t changing.
Then I got nicked again and this time I got a borstal sentence. That was a horrific place, people were shouting at you all the time, it was just like being in a marine camp. I was in a dormitory and the top guy picked on me one day so I beat him up. A couple of hours later I was dragged out of my bed and attacked by six guys. I was badly beaten and raped. I was hurting, but worse, I felt dirty. I was so ashamed of myself. After a long 10 months, I came out of there and they gave me a discharge grant and a bag of new clothes. I still don’t know if they build off-licenses next to train stations or train stations next to off-licenses but when I got to the station, there was an off-license right there. I bought a few cans for the train to Edinburgh and when I arrived my mate handed me a big spliff. That was the start of it again, the whole cycle. I pawned the new clothes to get money to get drugs and it wasn’t long before I was locked up for the third time.
I came out of that sentence at 17 and moved to London where I met this other Scottish guy. We ended up being rent boys together, selling sex to get money for drugs. After another prison sentence and living in squats across London, I robbed someone I shouldn’t have outside Kings Cross Station and it didn’t go well for me. I suddenly needed to get out of the city and decided to go to Cornwall, hoping things would finally change. I kept thinking that if I went somewhere else, I’d be fine. But every time I went somewhere else, I took me with me. Every time I went somewhere else, the first place I went to was the park to find the people that were like me, the alcoholics and addicts. I bounced around the South-West after that. I was in and out of the Exeter prison off and on for years, I lived on park benches, I drunk aftershaves and white sprints… all sorts. I just became a mess. I had no self-esteem, no self-worth, I was living in squats, hanging out with the down and outs. Every time I got a discharge grant when I left prison, I went to score. I couldn’t maintain relationships, because I don’t have a relationship with myself. The only relationship I had was with a needle. I had acquaintances, but never friends.
The only relationship I had was with a needle. I had acquaintances, but never friends.
I moved to Falmouth in Cornwall and I ended up dealing cannabis. I got nicked and I was sitting in court looking at a five-year sentence. My solicitor said he was going to get me bail and I laughed in his face. Bail? I’ve never had bail in my life! But he did it, and for the first time in many years, I finally got bail. Instead of going to prison, I ended up in a hostel managed by a guy called John, who was an ex-priest. He was very gentle. He helped me to get a conditional sentence. There wasn’t that much help back then, he just told me my bail conditions- I was not to enter licensed premises. I got around that. I used to go to the back of the pub and sent somebody in to get my booze because if I didn’t go inside the place, I technically wouldn’t break the conditions. I would come back drunk, which I wasn’t supposed to, and just go to bed. The staff knew, but they didn’t want to see me go back to jail. John got me a place at the hostel, but one of the conditions for that was that I see the local drugs team which was a new service. He saw beyond that front I was putting on and saw a little a bit of good in me, a little flame, and he knew I needed help, so I became the fifth client of the drugs team. I didn’t take it seriously though; the team’s doctor gave me a prescription and I just manipulated that man for a few months, “losing” my prescription over and over again so I could just take more drugs.
He saw beyond that front I was putting on and saw a little a bit of good in me, a little flame, and he knew I needed help
I was still living in the hostel, taking my prescriptions and going to the post office to get my benefits, but one day, instead of leaving the post office and turning right to go back uphill, I turned left and then into the first pub I saw. A few hours later I had taken all sorts of pills and had a lot to drink. I got in a taxi back to the hostel to make my curfew and on the way, I wet myself and soiled myself in the back of this cab. I cried to the hostel staff, “I need to stop this. I need your help”. They called a psychiatrist and it was that same doctor who eventually sectioned me to a mental hospital.
Hospital levelled me out, l even say it was good for me. When I came back to the hostel John told me I had to go to into treatment and he showed me his big mansion in the country in Wiltshire called Clouds House. I agreed to go to rehab because I thought I would just go to Clouds House, play croquet on the lawn and go swimming in the swimming pool. It’d be like a health club! I remember I didn’t take it seriously because I smoked a few joints on the train on my way there. I also know I was very scared; I didn’t want to be there. Somehow, I ended up doing my six weeks in treatment. Cloud’s House was the first place I ever talked about my sexual abuse and my childhood. It was the first place I ever felt safe. I “did the work” as they say, but not enough because I faked it to make it really. I couldn’t get my head around step two, the god thing, and so I lied about my progress. When I came out, I went back to the hostel and went to a meeting that night, but afterwards, I went to the pub and started drinking.
Within a week of leaving Clouds, I got a bed-sit not far from the pub. I also ended up using. After that point, I never went back to meetings and never connected with anybody. I felt guilt and shame about going to Clouds and spending all that money and not being able to stay sober. After a few days I was back on the speed heavily and drinking. I locked myself away in that bedsit, I was psychotic, I was paranoid, and I was full of fear. I had a guy deliver me drugs in tin cans and someone dropped alcohol at my door. I was still on probation and one day the Probation Officer broke down my door and came up to my room. He found me in a state. There was all sorts of paraphernalia all over the place, I was seeing faces in the sink, the mattress was soaking wet with pee, and the rest of the room was empty- I’d sold everything. They called the doctor again and he came out and looked at me and sectioned me for a second time. I felt stuck, that trip to the hospital changed nothing, I came out of there and they just put me in another bedsit. I used again, but this time I was saving the drugs up because I knew on that Friday that I was going to have a relapse on the coming Tuesday. I planned it. I swallowed 157 tablets. I wanted to finish it. The police found me and saved my life, I died twice in the ambulance on the way to the local hospital. That was on the 12th of May, 30 years ago. I have never touched a drink or a drug since that day.
I felt guilt and shame about going to Clouds and spending all that money and not being able to stay sober.
My life changed. I decided I wanted to do some volunteer work with the probation service so I started running programs in their 12-step programmes, I was volunteer of the year. I got my first flat, and when I opened the front door- I’ve never had a front door key before, I burst into tears next to my sponsor. I furnished that flat without stealing anything, everything was kosher. I even started working with the police as part of the first multi-agency team in the country. I was going into schools and giving talks at schools and doing drugs talks to policemen. For the first time in a long time, I felt valued.
For the first time in a long time, I felt valued.
Then I got into a relationship with a girl who had just come out of treatment. That was a bad plan. She got pregnant and she moved into my flat but she started using so I had to ask her to leave because my recovery came first whether she was pregnant or not. I didn’t want her to be alone, I wanted to help her, so I got her a little place to stay. I was there when the baby was born by caesarean section, I remember holding the little bundle in my arms. Our baby was born an addict, it was sad, and she was going through withdrawal. When the nurses gave her to me and I held her, after my recovery, that was the best feeling I had ever had in my life.
After my daughter was born, her mum (my ex-partner) used again and I so started fighting for custody. I fought for a year for the right to be a parent. One day I was working, painting a little chapel, and I felt somebody speak to me; “Get down on your knees and pray and everything’s going to be okay”. I looked around and all of a sudden, I felt this overwhelming presence come over me. I had tears in my eyes. I got down on my knees and prayed for the first time in my life, and that’s when I came to believe in a power greater than myself. I still have the same God today. I don’t preach it, It’s my God. My personal God. A week later, I watched a miracle happen the day that the magistrate said, Mr Jordan, you have custody. I managed to keep my daughter.
I’m 60 years of age and I’ve been clean for 30 years. I have never reoffended.
I decided that I wanted to come back to Cornwall. I managed to get us a little cottage in Penzance where I was juggling this baby and then a degree in counselling, and I was quite happy with myself. I ended up working for the drugs team and the probation services that put me into treatment. I met my wife there and we got married in 2008. I have a nice house; my daughter is now 27. She has had her problems with drink and drugs, but she’s clean now. I’m 69 years of age and I’ve been clean for 30 years. I have never reoffended. I have a good relationship with the local police and I have been an advocate of Clouds House for 30 years. I hope to always be an advocate for Clouds House because that’s where I started. That’s where I started and look at me today, I’m quite happily a recovering addict. I do agility with my dogs, I go down to the beach every day, I live in a beautiful place and I’m a spiritual person, I’m still doing the fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. I want to say to you, reading this, if you can just take that first step out of the darkness, take that first step and keep going forward one day at a time because it works.
I’m an advocate for talking about men’s sexual abuse issues and so if anyone wants to contact me, please contact me through The Forward Trust.