so I did my first line of cocaine at the
age of 20 I had always been a really big
drinker and I would be in strength to
the point of oblivion but for me that
first line at 22 changed everything at
the time I was a bit of a crossroads I
had just finished University and
long-term boyfriend had broken up with
me and I had to decide who I was going
to be without the safety net of
Education and of their relationship and
I just chose really badly I decided as
gonna be a party girl I got a job in
hospitality where drinking and drug
taking run rife and when someone offered
me that first line I took it because I
wanted to fit in but also because I
couldn’t maintain that kind of lifestyle
on drinking alone there’s this really
smart
Irish biblical scholar a guy called Alec
Matta and I’m gonna paraphrase something
he said he basically said making the
wrong decision starts when making the
right decision would have been easy but
we didn’t think it important and that
sums up my drug taking by the time I
realized just how important it was that
I made the right choices my ability to
do so on my own self-will was gone I was
lost so role on a couple of years and
I’m now drinking every day I am taking
drugs not just on the weekends now but
during the week and the people who first
introduced me to cocaine are telling me
like you need to calm down one of my
colleagues actually told me that every
day he saw me I look more and more like
a crackhead
so effectively after one particularly
harrowing incident where I woke up with
a black eye and only patchy memories of
what I’d done the night before with the
help of my friends and family I found a
support group for cocaine addicts and on
the 22nd of April 2014 I got clean and
yeah I am pretty loose about it um I
went to that group because I thought it
would be funny I thought it would be
entertaining I thought it would be like
a really good story to tell at the pub
but actually what I found were a group
of people who knew how I felt before I
even said anything out loud they
listened to me they didn’t judge me I
was accepted completely broken and I
found connection I found the connection
that Joanne Harry talks about in his
quite famous TED talk on addiction when
he said that the opposite of addiction
is not sobriety it’s connection but that
connection didn’t keep me sober what
kept me sober were the 12 steps of
recovery and that is a simple process
laid out it was originally written by
dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson the guys
who established Alcoholics Anonymous in
America in the 1930s and it basically
gives tools for living for people who
didn’t quite get how to live for people
who couldn’t handle strong emotions for
people who couldn’t handle difficult
situations and turn to things like drugs
and alcohol or any other kind of
addictive behavior instead I’m going to
talk you through what those 12 steps are
and how I worked them and what they did
for me so step one we admitted we were
powerless over our addiction that our
believes had become unmanageable
even in my skewed perception of life as
a drug addict I could see that my life
was unmanageable at the height of my
drinking enjoy taking I got floaters in
front of my eyes and numbness in my
thing fingers and toes nosebleeds as a
23 year old with extreme memory loss I
didn’t wash properly I didn’t open my
mail I also developed a really
unattractive facial twitch that would go
off at the most inconvenient moments all
in all I was a complete mess on the
occasional day
when I many
to do something for myself I would maybe
have a shower and I’d like moisturize my
skin and for that moment I would feel
like I had everything together just to
something as simple as that
made me feel like everything was going
to be okay
I probably moisturize twice a year so
steps 2 & 3 we came to believe that a
Power greater than ourselves could
restore us to sanity made a decision to
turn our will and our lives over to the
care of God as we understood him so this
was so liberating for me I always felt
like I was kind of the supreme ruler
like my decisions dictated everything
everything in my life everything the
lives the people around me and to
realize that actually I’m not that big
that I don’t have that kind of power
we’re so freeing it meant that I could
make wrong decisions and I gave myself
the grace to learn from them for me I’m
a Christian so I found that high power
in church but for other people it’s just
as simple as acknowledging that a group
of people gather together for a common
purpose and more powerful than one
person on their own so steps four and
five made a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves admitted to God
to ourselves and to another human being
the exact nature of our wrongs this is
hard work some people don’t even get to
the end of the 12 steps because they see
this is too big a hurdle so I did this
by writing for lists I wrote a list of
everything I was afraid of every time
I’d ever hurt another person in my life
every sexual encounter I’d ever had and
every resentment I was carrying and when
I saw those things on paper I couldn’t
believe how angry I was I couldn’t
believe I was drowning under the weight
of anger from situations that everyone
else had forgotten about years ago some
really clever guy Lewis Lewis B Smith’s
I think his name is said that when you
forgive you set a prisoner free and
realize that prisoner
was yourself and that’s how I felt also
sharing these things out loud telling
someone those shameful things that you
have thought or done that you never
thought you could say to another person
that you use as tools for health
self-hatred saying them to someone else
makes you realize that it’s not that bad
that you’re not that bad and that was
such a game changer for me
anyone in recovery will tell you that
there is a magic to sharing honestly at
that first recovery meeting that I went
to on the 22nd of April 2014 I went for
lunch with the women afterwards and
completely unprompted someone turned to
me and said do you know I’m moisturize
every day now now to virtually everyone
that would mean nothing but for me that
was everything that was the benchmark I
used to work out whether my life was
going okay and I did it two days a year
and she did it every single day I just
saw something in her I was so desperate
to fight for it was incredible it
inspired me to keep going with this
journey so steps six and seven we were
entirely ready to have God remove all
these defects of character humbly asked
him to remove our shortcomings so when I
had this stuff written out it became
apparent that there were themes that I
had gone wrong I was selfish I had put
drinking and drugs and numbing out life
above all my friends and family I miss
my best friend’s dad’s funeral because I
was too busy getting drunk and high and
when I dug even deeper it became
apparent that there was a common
denominator underneath all of these
character defects and that was fear I
was making all my decisions based on a
fear of being unpopular at being unliked
and being rejected fear of everything
and actually when I was aware of that I
was able to rein it in
and I’m not saying I’m perfect I don’t
have this down but I can see myself
doing it now I can say like Lauren
you’re exaggerating why aren’t you
telling that story as it was I can be
like okay you’re afraid that if you
represent yourself properly here they’re
not going to like you you know and then
I can stop and I can give people the
opportunity to see who I really am so
step 8 and 9 made a list of all persons
we had harmed and became willing to make
amends to them all made direct amends to
such people wherever possible except
when to do when to do so would injure
them or others yeah if you feel writing
those lists as hard to try going back to
someone you haven’t seen for 15 years
from school and telling them you’re
sorry for something you said that is not
a fun game guys but it is such a
spectacular process top of my list with
people like that friend who’s does
funeral I missed but also my friends and
family you don’t go through something
like addiction without hurting the
people who love you most when I was
actively in addiction I would sometimes
stay with my sister and she’d come up to
my room to invite me to breakfast and
often I wouldn’t be there because I’d
still be out drinking taking drugs
partying with strangers whatever so I
was then a year sober when I moved in
with her and for the first few days she
came up at 5 a.m. and push the door open
just to check that I was still in bed
because she was so afraid that I would
have relapsed and gone out on a bender
it’s that kind of fear anxiety and pain
that we have to make amends for so
that’s what I did some people accepted
my apologies and were so overwhelmingly
gracious and I just was blown away by
their responses it was spectacular other
people didn’t reply at all and some
people just weren’t ready to hear from
me and that’s fine it is not about the
reactions you get from other people it’s
the fact that I was cleaning my side of
the street that I had the humility to
make those amends meant that I was
becoming
the kind of person that I wanted to be
so steps 10 and 11 continue to take
personal inventory and when we were
wrong promptly admitted him sort through
prayer and meditation to approve improve
our conscious contact with God as we
understood him praying only for
knowledge of his will for us and for the
power to carry that out so I’m out check
in every day I will look at what I’ve
done that week I will make amends
promptly when I’ve been wrong which is a
lot easier than years later and also I
take time for myself I pray I meditate I
reflect I’ve learnt to do things to love
myself I moisturize every day now and
I’m so pleased that I get the
opportunity to do that step 12 last of
the steps having had a spiritual
awakening it was a result of these steps
we try to carry this message to
alcoholics or addicts and to practice
these principles in all our affairs so
the spiritual awakening they’re talking
about anyone who’s worked through these
twelve steps will tell you that there’s
something superhuman about it you just
can’t you can’t explain the way it
changes people’s lives it is like
nothing I’ve ever seen and with that in
mind and having experienced it and had
that amazing opportunity to experience
it for myself
a year and a half ago I set up a
recovery course for people who are
struggling with all kinds of addiction
it’s based from West London it’s a
16-week program based on these 12 steps
I didn’t write it
I just facilitate it’s actually run by
an amazing charity called recovery – and
seeing people walk in the door coming
from the same place of desperation that
I remember so clearly seeing them really
desperate really struggling and then
seeing them transform into some of the
most inspirational people I know who
then walk other people through that
journey is the proudest thing I’ve ever
done
it is both the hardest but most
rewarding
thing in my life there’s no doubt in my
mind that having done this program
having worked through these steps I’m a
better person that I would have been
possibly had I never even struggled with
addiction at all but you guys don’t need
to hit rock bottom or get a black eye or
do anything crazy to start incorporating
these kind of principles in your life
you can admit that you’re not completely
in control that you’re not the higher
power you can take stock of where life
has brought you and talk to somebody
about it honestly you can identify
character defects and you can work on
them you can apologize when you’ve been
wronged you can take time to pray to
meditate and you can go out there and
help other people and you will be
happier more fulfilled people if you do
that and I would so encourage you to and
one final point and definitely the most
important thing that I’m going to say
through this whole talk if you relate to
what I’ve just described of my journey
if you think that you may be struggling
with any kind of addiction whether that
be booze drugs gambling sex porn
compulsive skin picking shopping food I
say food love codependency anything then
you have to do something about it
it’s okay if you haven’t been able to
sort this out on your own I couldn’t
either you know and no one actually that
I know in recovery was able to we’re not
built that way we can’t deal with this
stuff it’s too big to do it on her own
but there are people up and down the
country there are charities there are
anonymous groups there are support
groups there are churches who want to
help you and all you have to do is help
yourself google them reach out to them
and connect with them and they will
support you in that journey these things
may or may not kill you but they will
stop you living and your life is too
important you are too precious to accept
anything other than complete freedom
thank you
[Applause] [Music]
age of 20 I had always been a really big
drinker and I would be in strength to
the point of oblivion but for me that
first line at 22 changed everything at
the time I was a bit of a crossroads I
had just finished University and
long-term boyfriend had broken up with
me and I had to decide who I was going
to be without the safety net of
Education and of their relationship and
I just chose really badly I decided as
gonna be a party girl I got a job in
hospitality where drinking and drug
taking run rife and when someone offered
me that first line I took it because I
wanted to fit in but also because I
couldn’t maintain that kind of lifestyle
on drinking alone there’s this really
smart
Irish biblical scholar a guy called Alec
Matta and I’m gonna paraphrase something
he said he basically said making the
wrong decision starts when making the
right decision would have been easy but
we didn’t think it important and that
sums up my drug taking by the time I
realized just how important it was that
I made the right choices my ability to
do so on my own self-will was gone I was
lost so role on a couple of years and
I’m now drinking every day I am taking
drugs not just on the weekends now but
during the week and the people who first
introduced me to cocaine are telling me
like you need to calm down one of my
colleagues actually told me that every
day he saw me I look more and more like
a crackhead
so effectively after one particularly
harrowing incident where I woke up with
a black eye and only patchy memories of
what I’d done the night before with the
help of my friends and family I found a
support group for cocaine addicts and on
the 22nd of April 2014 I got clean and
yeah I am pretty loose about it um I
went to that group because I thought it
would be funny I thought it would be
entertaining I thought it would be like
a really good story to tell at the pub
but actually what I found were a group
of people who knew how I felt before I
even said anything out loud they
listened to me they didn’t judge me I
was accepted completely broken and I
found connection I found the connection
that Joanne Harry talks about in his
quite famous TED talk on addiction when
he said that the opposite of addiction
is not sobriety it’s connection but that
connection didn’t keep me sober what
kept me sober were the 12 steps of
recovery and that is a simple process
laid out it was originally written by
dr. Bob Smith and Bill Wilson the guys
who established Alcoholics Anonymous in
America in the 1930s and it basically
gives tools for living for people who
didn’t quite get how to live for people
who couldn’t handle strong emotions for
people who couldn’t handle difficult
situations and turn to things like drugs
and alcohol or any other kind of
addictive behavior instead I’m going to
talk you through what those 12 steps are
and how I worked them and what they did
for me so step one we admitted we were
powerless over our addiction that our
believes had become unmanageable
even in my skewed perception of life as
a drug addict I could see that my life
was unmanageable at the height of my
drinking enjoy taking I got floaters in
front of my eyes and numbness in my
thing fingers and toes nosebleeds as a
23 year old with extreme memory loss I
didn’t wash properly I didn’t open my
mail I also developed a really
unattractive facial twitch that would go
off at the most inconvenient moments all
in all I was a complete mess on the
occasional day
when I many
to do something for myself I would maybe
have a shower and I’d like moisturize my
skin and for that moment I would feel
like I had everything together just to
something as simple as that
made me feel like everything was going
to be okay
I probably moisturize twice a year so
steps 2 & 3 we came to believe that a
Power greater than ourselves could
restore us to sanity made a decision to
turn our will and our lives over to the
care of God as we understood him so this
was so liberating for me I always felt
like I was kind of the supreme ruler
like my decisions dictated everything
everything in my life everything the
lives the people around me and to
realize that actually I’m not that big
that I don’t have that kind of power
we’re so freeing it meant that I could
make wrong decisions and I gave myself
the grace to learn from them for me I’m
a Christian so I found that high power
in church but for other people it’s just
as simple as acknowledging that a group
of people gather together for a common
purpose and more powerful than one
person on their own so steps four and
five made a searching and fearless moral
inventory of ourselves admitted to God
to ourselves and to another human being
the exact nature of our wrongs this is
hard work some people don’t even get to
the end of the 12 steps because they see
this is too big a hurdle so I did this
by writing for lists I wrote a list of
everything I was afraid of every time
I’d ever hurt another person in my life
every sexual encounter I’d ever had and
every resentment I was carrying and when
I saw those things on paper I couldn’t
believe how angry I was I couldn’t
believe I was drowning under the weight
of anger from situations that everyone
else had forgotten about years ago some
really clever guy Lewis Lewis B Smith’s
I think his name is said that when you
forgive you set a prisoner free and
realize that prisoner
was yourself and that’s how I felt also
sharing these things out loud telling
someone those shameful things that you
have thought or done that you never
thought you could say to another person
that you use as tools for health
self-hatred saying them to someone else
makes you realize that it’s not that bad
that you’re not that bad and that was
such a game changer for me
anyone in recovery will tell you that
there is a magic to sharing honestly at
that first recovery meeting that I went
to on the 22nd of April 2014 I went for
lunch with the women afterwards and
completely unprompted someone turned to
me and said do you know I’m moisturize
every day now now to virtually everyone
that would mean nothing but for me that
was everything that was the benchmark I
used to work out whether my life was
going okay and I did it two days a year
and she did it every single day I just
saw something in her I was so desperate
to fight for it was incredible it
inspired me to keep going with this
journey so steps six and seven we were
entirely ready to have God remove all
these defects of character humbly asked
him to remove our shortcomings so when I
had this stuff written out it became
apparent that there were themes that I
had gone wrong I was selfish I had put
drinking and drugs and numbing out life
above all my friends and family I miss
my best friend’s dad’s funeral because I
was too busy getting drunk and high and
when I dug even deeper it became
apparent that there was a common
denominator underneath all of these
character defects and that was fear I
was making all my decisions based on a
fear of being unpopular at being unliked
and being rejected fear of everything
and actually when I was aware of that I
was able to rein it in
and I’m not saying I’m perfect I don’t
have this down but I can see myself
doing it now I can say like Lauren
you’re exaggerating why aren’t you
telling that story as it was I can be
like okay you’re afraid that if you
represent yourself properly here they’re
not going to like you you know and then
I can stop and I can give people the
opportunity to see who I really am so
step 8 and 9 made a list of all persons
we had harmed and became willing to make
amends to them all made direct amends to
such people wherever possible except
when to do when to do so would injure
them or others yeah if you feel writing
those lists as hard to try going back to
someone you haven’t seen for 15 years
from school and telling them you’re
sorry for something you said that is not
a fun game guys but it is such a
spectacular process top of my list with
people like that friend who’s does
funeral I missed but also my friends and
family you don’t go through something
like addiction without hurting the
people who love you most when I was
actively in addiction I would sometimes
stay with my sister and she’d come up to
my room to invite me to breakfast and
often I wouldn’t be there because I’d
still be out drinking taking drugs
partying with strangers whatever so I
was then a year sober when I moved in
with her and for the first few days she
came up at 5 a.m. and push the door open
just to check that I was still in bed
because she was so afraid that I would
have relapsed and gone out on a bender
it’s that kind of fear anxiety and pain
that we have to make amends for so
that’s what I did some people accepted
my apologies and were so overwhelmingly
gracious and I just was blown away by
their responses it was spectacular other
people didn’t reply at all and some
people just weren’t ready to hear from
me and that’s fine it is not about the
reactions you get from other people it’s
the fact that I was cleaning my side of
the street that I had the humility to
make those amends meant that I was
becoming
the kind of person that I wanted to be
so steps 10 and 11 continue to take
personal inventory and when we were
wrong promptly admitted him sort through
prayer and meditation to approve improve
our conscious contact with God as we
understood him praying only for
knowledge of his will for us and for the
power to carry that out so I’m out check
in every day I will look at what I’ve
done that week I will make amends
promptly when I’ve been wrong which is a
lot easier than years later and also I
take time for myself I pray I meditate I
reflect I’ve learnt to do things to love
myself I moisturize every day now and
I’m so pleased that I get the
opportunity to do that step 12 last of
the steps having had a spiritual
awakening it was a result of these steps
we try to carry this message to
alcoholics or addicts and to practice
these principles in all our affairs so
the spiritual awakening they’re talking
about anyone who’s worked through these
twelve steps will tell you that there’s
something superhuman about it you just
can’t you can’t explain the way it
changes people’s lives it is like
nothing I’ve ever seen and with that in
mind and having experienced it and had
that amazing opportunity to experience
it for myself
a year and a half ago I set up a
recovery course for people who are
struggling with all kinds of addiction
it’s based from West London it’s a
16-week program based on these 12 steps
I didn’t write it
I just facilitate it’s actually run by
an amazing charity called recovery – and
seeing people walk in the door coming
from the same place of desperation that
I remember so clearly seeing them really
desperate really struggling and then
seeing them transform into some of the
most inspirational people I know who
then walk other people through that
journey is the proudest thing I’ve ever
done
it is both the hardest but most
rewarding
thing in my life there’s no doubt in my
mind that having done this program
having worked through these steps I’m a
better person that I would have been
possibly had I never even struggled with
addiction at all but you guys don’t need
to hit rock bottom or get a black eye or
do anything crazy to start incorporating
these kind of principles in your life
you can admit that you’re not completely
in control that you’re not the higher
power you can take stock of where life
has brought you and talk to somebody
about it honestly you can identify
character defects and you can work on
them you can apologize when you’ve been
wronged you can take time to pray to
meditate and you can go out there and
help other people and you will be
happier more fulfilled people if you do
that and I would so encourage you to and
one final point and definitely the most
important thing that I’m going to say
through this whole talk if you relate to
what I’ve just described of my journey
if you think that you may be struggling
with any kind of addiction whether that
be booze drugs gambling sex porn
compulsive skin picking shopping food I
say food love codependency anything then
you have to do something about it
it’s okay if you haven’t been able to
sort this out on your own I couldn’t
either you know and no one actually that
I know in recovery was able to we’re not
built that way we can’t deal with this
stuff it’s too big to do it on her own
but there are people up and down the
country there are charities there are
anonymous groups there are support
groups there are churches who want to
help you and all you have to do is help
yourself google them reach out to them
and connect with them and they will
support you in that journey these things
may or may not kill you but they will
stop you living and your life is too
important you are too precious to accept
anything other than complete freedom
thank you
[Applause] [Music]
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