From Piccadilly's Depths to a New Horizon: Steve's Journey on "The Long Road" Podcast

 

Steve's podcast

This episode of "The Unseen Roots" features host Sarah interviewing Steve, who shares his raw and powerful journey from rock bottom due to addiction and homelessness to finding sobriety and helping others.

Steve recounts waking up lost in London's Piccadilly Circus, his desperate search for alcohol leading him to scavenge in bins. A pivotal moment occurs when he's invited into a stranger's home on a freezing day, only to witness hard drug use firsthand. Despite being offered drugs, he refuses, sticking to alcohol, which marks a crucial boundary. The ultimate turning point comes the next morning when he sees human excrement smeared on the bathroom ceiling, a grotesque image that catalyzes his decision to change his life.

He resolves to seek help through Alcoholics Anonymous and eventually finds a new path as a lorry driver, embracing the open road as a "mobile prison and sanctuary" to escape temptation. He recounts a critical test of his sobriety at "The Traveller's Rest" pub, where the memory of the squalid flat helps him resist the urge to drink.

After ten years of driving, saving, and learning, Steve returns to college at fifty and eventually secures a job as an outreach worker for the very charity that once helped him. The head of the charity recognized his past as his "greatest qualification." In a poignant full circle moment, Steve revisits the tower block, finding Danny still trapped in despair, and leaves him his business card, understanding that he can only show the door, not force anyone through it.

Steve's story, also detailed in his book "The Headless Chicken," concludes with the lesson that life, like driving a lorry, involves wrong turns and breakdowns, but the important thing is learning to call for help, read the map, and be brave enough to try a different road.

If you like to you can purchase Steve's story:

The Unseen Roots