The Crucible:Conversations for the Curious

Hamish (00:49)
Today we've got Grant with us. He has come to share us his story, tell us about his awakening and how that transformed his life. So hi Grant, how are you doing?

Grant (00:59)
Hey, good afternoon. Thank you and thanks for having me.

Hamish (01:01)
Can you please tell us a little bit about your story?

Grant (01:05)
yes, my struggle specifically comes with the background of alcohol. I'm an alcoholic and it's taken me 53 years to become a grateful

You know, if I had to step back through the decades, I think one of the pinnacle moments started when a few people died one evening.

One of them were my brother. I was a youngster at that stage. I just got my first job, finished the army. But I was in complete control at that stage because I had my coping mechanism. My coping mechanism at that stage, being in my early twenties, was already a beer or a few beers or a whiskey or a bottle of whiskey. My drinking started fairly early in life.

The family Braai's the family get-togethers. Every party was always a party with booze around. I was exposed to booze, not in a negative way. I wouldn't say, definitely not in my immediate family. My father had no alcoholic tendencies or anything. As a matter of fact, he was a very restrained drinker. I guess I was always a little bit of a rebel at heart. And I had to really start drinking.

in school. At that stage, that particular night, my brother had just come home from the military service. He had a pass, weekend pass, and I was already, as I said, working in an insurance company. I was a big deal at that stage. I was a young man with a three -piece suit to work, all the tie pins and all the paraphernalia and working in the corporate world and making a big difference and making money.

We were out partying, I took him out on the town for the night, we were supposed to take him home. The arrangement was always to come back to the pub where we started off.

later on and we always had to get there just before closing time. Because those are the good old days if you get to the pub before closing times they close the doors and you get locked in. And then the real party starts or the second party and sunrise is something to see when you go home. Yeah, I never made it. He never made it back. I carried on. I went back home, smoked joint, played pool, watched the stars. I got woken up the next morning by a friend that I was sharing the house with.

And he shook me and said, did you hear what happened to Darnie? Darnie was another guy that we were sharing the house with. There were five of us sharing a house. Anyhow, Darnie's dead. And there was some other guy in the car with him. Nobody knows who it was. And I sat both upright with, that's my brother. Because they went home together. And...

us drunken hangover, haze or so. I had some contacts in the police force. I convinced them to open up the mortuary for me because there was no way that I was going to go back home to my parents' house to go and tell them that my brother was dead because, unless I was 100 % sure. And I went to go and make sure it was him, indeed. And...

Hamish (04:12)
Mm -hmm.

Grant (04:16)
Went home to have a shower and as I was leaving the house, my father stormed in the door and he was very upset because he had never made it home that night and asked me what had happened and he was rather, rather aggressive. Anyhow, it was mine. It ended up in a blue eye, mine, and it wasn't the first time. And the words that he hit there were, well, you better hurry up and get home and tell your mother because there's no way I'm telling her that. And that should have been...

rock bottom in my life. Yes, it was a rock bottom point. Should have been an awakening moment. But I was in control. I was in control and I had my trusty beers with me and I was facetious, arrogant and full of rubbish. Anyhow, years went by and throughout my life, working at different jobs, messing up some of those jobs as well.

Alcohol was just always present in my life. It was happy moments, alcohol was there. In the sad moments, alcohol was there. Sometimes when I was bored,

when I was bored, alcohol was always there as well. What to do? Let's go and have a drink. Let's go and have six drinks. Let's go and have twelve drinks. And I would sometimes later on in life get to the point where you start thinking, okay, maybe there is a problem here.

My grandfather was a dried up alcoholic. I never knew him as an alcoholic. And he was always very tolerant of alcohol in the house, especially with my family circumstances. It was always fun. And I think that always carried through with me. You know all the jokes, all the sayings. If you actually meet a lot of people 20 years ago, 10 years ago, heck, even today.

If you don't drink, you're actually looked at with oddball. What's wrong with you? Why don't you drink? Can't you handle your drink? And we got to have throughout all those decades, I was often one of those making jokes as well, you know, alcoholics. What's the difference between an alcoholic and a dipsomaniac? Dipsomaniac is somebody who just loves alcohol. And I was a dipsomaniac, self -labeled dipsomaniac. And...

Hamish (06:12)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Grant (06:35)
I think one of the strongest things that kept me carrying on was I could always function. I could work. Yeah, sure, I missed a couple of days. There was a day or two where I got sent home by a sympathetic boss because I was under the weather with booze. And sometimes I'd stop for a while. Relationships came and went. Throughout my life, I got married rather late.

Hamish (06:56)
Mm.

Grant (07:04)
And I messed up a couple of really good relationships because of just wanting to drink all the time, because every party was a drinking party. As much as I sort of made money, I never had any money because it was always being spent. But somehow, money for booze was always there. The worst thing is sometimes manipulation for booze was there. Remember when I gave you a lift? You know?

You owe me two beers and people would reciprocate. I met a lot of drinking buddies and I still have a lot of drinking buddies because those friendships are real and they are formed. Unfortunately, throughout my life, there was always this underlying anchor of alcohol. The alcohol was always present. The death of my brother wasn't my rock bottom point.

It wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to me. Along the lines, I can elaborate with countless war stories, car accidents. I actually bought my first car when my father walked into the hospital and asked me if I was okay. When I said yes, he said, well, congratulations, you've just bought yourself a car. So, it was a tough upbringing. I bought the car that I'd pranked the night before. I still had glass in my eye, which was taken out with stitches.

Hamish (08:04)
and

Grant (08:24)
And, you know, so, yeah, touch on the upbringing, I had a good, happy childhood. Everything was always provided for. There were a couple of tense moments. There were always fights and arguments. But as soon as I could, I got out of the house and I went to go make my fortune and change the world and make money at...

Hamish (08:40)
Mm -hmm.

Grant (08:47)
When I left the insurance business, I got involved in a buy and sell import export organization. And at one stage we made we made terrible kinds of money for my age. I was young and I had first fools of money in cash to spend every single day. I moved down from Joburg to Cape Town and Cape Town the the experimentation with drugs started as well. So you come.

go out for a couple of drinks and you always end up with a bag of weed, a little bit of coke, rocks and we tried all sorts of different things because that was living and everybody else seemed to live that way and when you when you arrived you can do a couple of grams of coke or have a couple of grams of coke for people and you become the the man of the party, the party man, the happy man, the person who's always somebody

recognizable, hey, yes, Grant, hey, welcome, Grant, you know. So I became validated through that kind of debauched supplier sometimes. Just being a fun guy as well, I'm happy to say I was a fun drunk. Very little aggression ever came out, you know, I couldn't believe how some people get aggressive when they drink or drink the wrong things.

And yeah, so the drink was just ever -present. The warning signs were there and sometimes I'd stop for a week or a month. There were times with one particular girlfriend that I stopped drinking for a year. And when I went back, I would always drink more. I would drink more frequently. And...

The real turning point or the rock bottom came just a few years ago when my wife told me, you've become nothing more than a drunk. And it's funny names have been called, I've called myself names. You talk a little bit about emotional states as well. I used to vacillate from being on the top of the world to the bottom of the world.

Suicidal thoughts came my way and I was in control. The booze would always help or the booze would numb the pain and I actually just numb the pain. In retrospect, I'd say they were probably a good decade or so where I was just completely numb in a haze of day -to -day drinking. And it got bad. Daytime drinking was always frowned upon and then daytime drinking became a thing.

Hamish (11:02)
Hmm.

Grant (11:25)
and it was the drinking fitness. I think you've all heard the jokes. We've all said the jokes. We've all participated in the jokes and that. But yeah, when I was riding motorbikes with friends, we used to joke how we got our night ratings. So like a pilot gets their night rating to fly a plane, we were experienced enough to drink and get on a motorbike. The fact that I'm not dead should have been another fantastic wake up. But...

It wasn't, not even being ripped out of my car by police as I passed out in a library parking lot two blocks away from my house one night. And I was just laughing at these police in the drunken haze because at that stage the mindset was one of almost invincibility. You know, I can do anything, I've got my night rating, nothing's gonna happen. And it's just crazy.

Hamish (12:12)
Hmm.

Grant (12:18)
You see people dying in accidents. I've experienced people dying in alcohol related accidents and that didn't quite connect the dots for me that I was going down the slippery slope and it was just getting worse and worse and worse.

Hamish (12:32)
See, you didn't really, there was no particular moment where you suddenly realized something has got to give. There wasn't a dark night of the soul or something that said, I really have to change. It was just watching that process going down and down and down and down over the years.

Grant (12:52)
Yes, I think the lows would always get lower. And there was a time that I did think of going to go and get some professional help and all that. And I actually read up a little bit about alcoholics and anonymous because remember the mindset is such that it's got this funny grip on you that you're in control and you make all things happen. If it's meant to be, it's up to me. And maybe I don't need help. I'll get help if I want to.

I'd already made peace with the fact that I was damned many years before. So, you know, what's different? And there's no way I want to start with religion. I've seen some people mess up religion for me, my perception of them as well. So that whole talk about getting soulful and getting spiritual or connecting to a higher power or anything, it didn't resonate with me as a matter of fact, it actually turned me away even more because...

I was still in control. The series of rock bottoms, you know, I had kids and I was looking at my kid's computer trying to help her with some software program. Being the type of person that I was and maybe a parent, she was a young tween at that time, 12 or 13 years old. I looked at her laptop and came across her history and the...

The history was how to help an alcoholic who doesn't want help. That shattered me. And at that stage, it shattered me enough to make me think about it, but not enough to make me do something about it. Because I'd stop for a week and it'll be fine. And then I'd be off to the pub again just for one or two drinks. And then Friday just morphs into Saturday. You know.

Seven days later, I find myself hiding away in my bedroom, not wanting to go into the house where my wife and kids are because I know I've got to explain something or I've got to apologize and I've got to apologize yet again. And I just got so tired of apologizing and saying, I'm never going to do that again. As much as I could stop for a year or two in years before, it just kept on getting worse and worse and worse. Some of those would get lower.

and there weren't high points in my life anymore. Life was just spiling out of control financially, work -wise. The whole world was against me, and everything was going bad. one night when my wife actually, I'd lost my keys or she had locked the door, I can't quite recall, but it was after a rugby match, and it was the last time I actually had a drink, was ...

She said to me, you've become nothing but a drunk. And as I said, I've been called many other names by her before and by other people. But that, something happened. Something happened that shot through me like nothing else, like no other low point had shot through me of, you know, waking up at the hangover and say, yeah, I'm never going to do that again. Or, well, what happened? Did somebody get hurt last night? Or...

Hamish (15:30)
Mm -hmm.

Grant (15:58)
None of those hurt me or thankfully got to me as much as that did. And that was, I'd say that was my complete turning point. It took me two days to actually go and join a meeting in that. But I spent two days in my bedroom not going out after that. And...

Hamish (16:00)
Hmm.

Grant (16:23)
I think I knew that was probably the last time because if I had to do that ever again, I wouldn't have a wife and kids anymore. Thankfully, I do. And the only reason I did that was I took the next step. I took the next step to get over all of my messed up perceptions of my life, messed up perceptions of other things, and thankfully, the AA, Alcoholics Anonymous.

I had a couple of Zoom meetings and it was all OK. And I felt a bit of a shift and I felt a bit of a change. And it was that they talk about connecting to a higher power, your own perception of a higher power. And that gave me the freedom to release myself from my previous perceptions of God, Jesus and the church and all that kind of thing. And that was that.

Hamish (17:12)
Mm.

Grant (17:14)
That allowed me to actually connect to what I still call God, but in a different way and in a more personal way and in a life -changing way. So much so that I'm still alive today. I'm certainly sure that had I carried on drinking the way I was, I wouldn't be talking. I would be severely sick or dead or in jail. That was my route.

it became very clear to me. it was also that first time that I actually stepped into a physical meeting.

and it is very powerful and it is hitting. But when you actually tell other people that I'm an alcoholic, it's very difficult to do. It was one of the hardest things I had to do and I did some pretty difficult things in my life before.

And I think it's that whole combination of realizing that it's just totally out of my control. I need to do something different now because I'm not in control. And that was the thing. We're not in control. We need to connect, converse and trust some higher power that we connect to somehow.

Otherwise we toast. It took me 35 years to get there. not hard drinking, regular drinking. Regular drinking. There were a couple of very serious and hard nights. We all go on crazy benders and that. But yeah, 35 years of constant drinking to get to that point of, you know what, this isn't good enough anymore. This isn't you. This isn't...

the way I want to be, it's never the way I imagined my life to be. And how did it get here? Suddenly from being sort of OK -ish and manageable and all that to this point where you're actually locked out of your own house. Yeah, for the how many of time. I mean, I've slept in cars, I've slept in my car in the driveway because I couldn't get out, couldn't get home.

Woken up in the front of my car on the driveway floor, cold, shivering, shaking in a puddle of pee because that's where I ended up. So just absolutely crazy. Absolutely crazy. So thankful to be alive. I'm on a different path and

And it's only through personal experience that I can definitely say it is all of that, but it's so much more as well. And you've got, you know, yeah, what can I say?

That's been my journey and my experiences. I can only speak of mine. And the stories that I heard there as well were just, you know, as much as I was a complete mess in my life, there was somebody else who was worse and who was doing way better than I could ever hope to imagine to be. And...

Hamish (20:14)
Yeah.

Grant (20:18)
So that was it, walking through, well, at that stage it was clicking a couple of buttons and getting onto a Zoom meeting to talk about me being an alcoholic. That was it, that's how I'm here.

Hamish (20:28)
Cool.

That's an incredible story It's difficult to come back to those memories and the shame and find that point where you had to make that decision. But obviously you're eternally grateful for it. But why? What?

tip that balance? You were drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking. What tip the balance to say, I'm

made the pain less?

Grant (20:52)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, for me was was that complete release, you know, when when I went to that first little virtual meeting on AA, I think I was lucky. I really think I was lucky in that I met the right people at the right time. You know, there was one of them that spent is actually in the UK. I'm in South Africa, by the way.

He's in the UK, he's an ex -South African. And when I saw his face, I actually went cold because he sort of looked like my older brother. Right? And he was same age group and all that kind of thing. It was just, my eyes must have looked like this on the screen on my first meeting because there was this guy being anonymous. I won't mention names. And he actually asked me for my number.

The first time I introduced myself, because we spent three and a half hours on the phone, on a WhatsApp call, and he wouldn't speak to me just on phone. He wanted a video call so he could see me. And it was that recognition that...

I think that I got through the groups and everything else, that I am still a person. Because I may be giving up on myself a long time ago and I wasn't a person. And he was someone that took hours out of his day to answer the longest call that I've ever had on a phone. Unless it was a sales call, you know. And so I was seen. I was a person again. I was welcomed. I was...

I didn't have to have a couple of drinks to be seen, respected, noticed, loved, all of those kind of things. And I wanted more of that. It was that kind of thing that I wanted more. And I got it through the groups and through the meetings. And it was, it took a long time. It took a long time for me to actually let everything out and talk about my...

my resentments and you know, but those first three steps was like swimming a fresh pool. I think that was my tipping point. I was finally seen just for who I am, not having to be anything else or anything else. I said anything else to us, but I didn't have to validate myself with something that I've done or accomplished or.

money in the bank or anything like that. And I hadn't been like that for so many years before because of my own head, my own head space that you're not worthy, you're never going to make it, you haven't made anything. All that, and that's just noise in your head, which messes everything up if you listen to them. And so I'd say...

just getting help. Yeah, I wanted some of that life. I wanted to live like that every single day to feel okay. I just felt okay for a couple of days. And I wasn't drinking. I felt okay. I didn't feel like jumping off the rocks. Where I had, there was a stage a couple of weeks before that where one night I was actually, I had time, the waves.

Hamish (24:04)
Mm -hmm.

Grant (24:16)
how I would jump and land with my head on a rock as the waves would go out. You know, being there a few times, not necessarily on rocks, but I could see myself, yeah, suicidal thoughts. I was completely there a few times in my life before as well. And I wasn't feeling like that right then at that moment. And that was what, three days in. I put a bit of work into it. I shut everything off. I shut everybody else off. I wasn't answering phone calls.

Literally, yeah, I didn't get out of my bedroom for a couple of days, barring going to the loo and stealing some food when my wife was sleeping because I was hiding away from her. And a couple of weeks later or so, when we were having a little, having supper or something, one of my daughter, one of my kids, my daughter said to me,

You okay, Dad? Because you're looking different.

Hamish (25:12)
Mm -hmm.

Grant (25:13)
And yes, I wanted to be different. And since then, it's been different days all the time. And every day, in every way, I'm getting a little bit stronger and a little bit better. And I am being that different. I have been for a while. Yeah, to be there for my kids instead of having them see me in a box. So, yeah, it was that...

I want to change, as happened many times before in my life. I can change, I've proven that to myself many times before when I stopped drinking or cut down on drinking or only weekends or only beer, you know, no brandies, the jokes we tell ourselves that we're okay because I only drink beer. I had done all of that before. And that change in a couple of conversations and...

maybe that sort of connection on a spiritual level became, I had to change. I no longer want to change, I have to change because if I don't, it's, you think you've been rock bottom before, real rock bottom is on its way, buddy. That was my wake up call. No matter how bad you think you've been, you're still alive, you're still breathing, you still have responsibilities, you.

that can get so much worse. So I wanted more of that. I wanted to be one of those people that instilled hope in other people where they felt hopeless. And I suppose that's the way I got hopeless enough to do something about it instead of just living with it. That I had to get. I mean, there were people that mentioned, hey, maybe you should get help. Hey, maybe you should look at yourself. Those things always come through my life in many different places.

Hamish (26:48)
Hmm?

Grant (27:01)
And I think my sense of humor always made it into a joke, always turned it around into a joke. Meantime, every time, in those dark moments when you wake up with a hangover, you know how bad you've been. And yeah, I just had enough of that. So I haven't touched a drink since then. And you know, the...

the support and the love and the non -judgment I've got from some people. My younger brother, I only actually told them that I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous about four months, four months down the line when I was pretty certain that, and that's very facetious of me to say pretty certain, but...

I could feel a change and I was happier for not drinking anymore. And I told him about it. And it was about a year later that he asked me, he says, so how's that non drinking thing of yours coming along? The way it sort of asked my my reaction to that in previous years would have escalated into a big fight about how condescending is and all that kind of thing. There I could just say, I'm doing OK. I'm still I'm still on it. I'm still carrying on. We'll see tomorrow.

Hamish (28:11)
You know.

Grant (28:21)
You know, it's a day by day thing that I'm about to with every day. And I said to him, we'll see tomorrow. And he actually acknowledged and said, you know, that's a bit of a different response than I was expecting because he had known me for most of his life. With a beer in my kind of thing, you know, so how would that why would you think anything different to it? And he's also heard promises and he's heard and seen those things of, I'm never going to drink like that again or I'm not going to do that.

So.

Our relationships are better. You know, what's happened after that? I suppose that's probably the next question. What's happened after that? Not everything's hunky -dory. Not everything's hunky -dory. Day by day, we go through the same struggles. My business that I started, that's petered out. I've failed with that yet again. Another business got in there. But I'm still surviving. I'm still doing okay. I still have different ventures going.

Hamish (28:58)
Absolutely. Yeah. No.

Grant (29:19)
Most importantly though, my relationships and my honesty with more myself than anybody else. I can actually be more honest with myself on a daily basis about things that I do wrong, things that I wish I'd done differently and about how I feel. I think I only got to know myself in the last three years. I'd never known myself before. I was always just a version of myself in different scenarios.

and the cool version was always driven by alcohol and in retrospect he wasn't such a cool guy after all but he had his moments he had his moments he wasn't all bad either but my wife and kids either and to to get some intimacy back in the entire relationship after years of no intimacy.

Hamish (30:01)
No, of course not.

Grant (30:13)
is, I just call it a miracle. It's lovely. We can talk and we're actually talk about more deeper things because I'm honest as well. We actually talk more than I can remember my parents and I ever talking. Sure, my mom and I, we have some real deep conversations now as well.

And it's not all rosy, but it's good. We'd always had this dream, and we were working on moving into the country and getting a little piece of land or a house with a little piece of land and getting off grid and all that kind of thing. In the last two years, we've done that. So I find myself in Bathurst in the Eastern Cape. We've got no bond. We've got vegetables growing. We've got water from the roof.

We're busy working on solar panels next kind of thing and to live that sufficient self -sustaining active life, we're getting there. It's all still a work in progress. We are getting there. And it takes a little bit of work every single day and that connection to my higher power.

Hamish (31:19)
Hmm.

Grant (31:21)
through one of the motorcycle trips in that I saw a t -shirt with one of the bikers that's saying, I'd rather be on my bike thinking about God than sitting in a church thinking about my motorcycle. That was the funny joke, you know? A real joke that goes past the kind of thing. But it's actually true. If you actually can connect with God in your own terms without that people...

I wasn't going to, but maybe I should. Family members of mine were in the church, was a minister, very respected minister, ended up having a fair, forsaking his children. That had the impact. I took that as, okay, well, church people are actually very bad, so I wouldn't want to be part of the church. And for decades, that pushed me away from any kind of spirituality.

in a silly way because I let other people influence it. So, yeah, here I am today, alive, fairly well, and carrying on. And I do sometimes have flashbacks of those feelings of no hope, total despair, total give up. And I can't imagine I ever felt that way. To be...

Hamish (32:21)
Mm.

Grant (32:40)
so low that you think your best option and you'd actually do everybody else a favor, put a bullet in the brain so that everybody else will be happy. That's how bad it gets. And unfortunately, few people have taken that route. And I think this is part of your outreach and all that, no matter how bad it is.

Hamish (33:00)
Hmm.

Grant (33:06)
There is a way out. You just got to hold on. You got to find that something that keeps you going. You do have to do a little bit of work. It doesn't come easy. You know, one thing I said to a friend of mine as well, I said, okay, so you're never going to drink again. No, I'm not. I don't have to anymore because I had to drink. I had to drink to feel alive, to be a person, to be somebody or just to cope with.

the noise in my head. I don't need that anymore, so I don't need to drink anymore and I won't just for fun either. Of course, I still are drunk.

Hamish (33:48)
Ha ha.

Grant (33:49)
You see that's a stupid sense of humor coming through.

Hamish (33:51)
Wow, Grant, you've got to have a sense of humor. It's absolutely important in life. I think that's that is quite remarkable because you've you've you've looked, you've understood, you've made choices. You've made choices. I think that's what it comes down to. You decided that you had to change. Something impacted your life so profoundly you had to and that's what you've done. It's interesting what you say about

Grant (33:58)
Yeah.

Yes.

something I read a while ago as well is if you're not living your life then life is living you.

And if you don't make, yeah, it took me a long time to realize that as well. If you don't make choices, life goes on and day by day goes on. And it can be, I still battle with that sometimes. I do think, OK, what did I actually do this week? What did I constructively do? And there's all little things in that, but you didn't do the big fundamental things. You don't you don't always have to either. But if you're not making choices, then life is going to live you. And if your influences are just going to take over or your habit.

your habit, it'll run you. It'll run you on autopilot. And all of a sudden, 10 years go by, and you're still drinking regularly. So yeah, choices, choices.

Hamish (35:10)
I like that, that, yeah, if you don't run life, life will run you. It's absolutely true. It really, really is. When I look back when I was drinking and it was just reaction, reaction, reaction, reaction. And as you said, it was to numb, to isolate and all those things. And it's just existing. And there has to come that point where something changes. And I think it's quite remarkable that as if...

Grant (35:16)
Yeah.

Hamish (35:38)
you like me, we didn't end up under a tree or you know, crashed into a tree or under a bus or something like that from drink driving and, and living that that.

Grant (35:44)
No, I've done that. That car accident was the glass in my eye. It was my dad's car at that stage that I bought. I bought a municipal tree and a telephone pole. He paid for it and I had to pay him back. Yes, fun stories. Fun stories. But yeah. It's...

Hamish (36:08)
But they are fun stories and I mean the sad fact is alcohol works, drugs work, they do keep you safe, they do keep you feeling like a million dollars and things like that. But you're leaning on a crutch so much it can break at any time.

Grant (36:14)
Yeah.

V. Yeah.

When you come down from that, you're in a lower space, and you need to get higher, then you get lower. That was my... That's fascinating. Top of the world to bottom of the dumps. It was never an in -between or anything. It was either or. There we go. Yeah, indeed. Indeed.

Hamish (36:28)
Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah, just like that. Yeah, just like that. Yeah. So have you presumably it's a fairly silly question, but you've presumably you found that living sober that your experience of life has improved and your relationship with friends, family, obviously your your your wife and your children, relationships become more three dimensional, three dimensional and more enriched.

Grant (37:07)
Absolutely, absolutely. I've got so much more patience than I've ever had for other people's everything. The biggest thing, I'll say love. Love is that one word that just comes. I have love for myself, people around me, things around me.

I've dabbled with photography on and off throughout my life as well. It's just when you see that something wow and you get that picture of it and you capture that wow picture, landscape, nature, people, portrait, whatever it is, when you get that wow picture, I get that feeling all the time because everything is just about wow. You know, the...

The gratitude for waking up in the morning, that's where it starts. I'm more thankful. It comes from love again as well. I think that will be the fundamental. I've just got a lot more love and it starts with a little bit of love for yourself as well. When you've got that, I think you can share it a lot more with all sorts of other people and any other situation as well. You talk about reactions and all that. It was always me against the world.

Me against the world. There was always some fight and something bad happening and I'm going to change it. Yeah, love. A lot more love for everything and everyone around me. That's certainly been a change because it definitely wasn't so in the past. I think I'm asked a lot of sarcasm with humor, but I was actually a very nasty person and I could say terrible things to people disguised as a joke.

where I do judge and shame and yeah, not spreading love. Not spreading love.

Hamish (38:54)
It is, isn't it? It's life. Life is simple. It is. It is love. It has to be. And what is, what is lovely, what I'm experiencing from having these conversations is people like you, people, other people I've spoken to who are, are willing to use love and just say it's about love. You know, it's not a particularly manly thing to bring it into a conversation with people, but that is the magic. It is that connection and it's, it is so powerful.

Grant (39:16)
Yes.

Hamish (39:22)
and it's completely unquantifiable, but with that love, you've stopped drinking, you've listened to your children, you've listened to your wife, you're present for them, and that's just remarkable. That is utterly remarkable.

Grant (39:35)
It does feel a lot better, you know.

The amount of times I've walked down a street or walked around a shop where I've suddenly taken a quick turn to duck from someone who's going to see me or say hello or ask me something or something like that. I don't walk with that fear anymore. I don't need to. That is just so liberating. It's so nice. I'm just me. I'm just me. And by no means perfect. There's so much that I still have to fix.

Hamish (39:58)
Mm.

Grant (40:07)
repair and financial situation, all that kind of thing. It's still, I still have the same kind of struggles. It's no, by no way is it a utopia or everything. But I can face all of those things with myself and with my higher power and with the guidance I feel from some other entity that's stronger and bigger than I could ever possibly be.

no matter how big I get. That is... Yeah, it's nice. It's wonderful.

Hamish (40:41)
Well, Grant, I think this has been an absolutely incredible conversation. You've been very vulnerable and shared stuff that, I mean, I could feel it. There was such a rawness there. So thank you ever so much for that. Where can people find you if they want to find out a little bit more or say, hey, Grant, this resonates with me? Where can people find you?

Grant (41:02)
Yeah, sure. You're welcome to hit me up on Facebook. That's probably the best. I don't want to give out a telephone number at the moment or anything like that. It could just get a little bit too busy. But I am there. I'm happy to schedule. I'm happy to chat to anybody. I think if there is somebody listening right now who thinks that they want to embark on a similar journey, I'm more than happy to help you get started.

There's no ways, I can tell you this, there's no ways you can do it by yourself. You've got to get involved with other people. You've got to seek help. I think, you know, after my brother's death, there were so many people that said, you should actually go and get some help, go and do some trauma counseling, go and see a psychologist or something like that. You talk about not mentioning the word love as a man and all that. I was in control. Why must I go and seek help from everybody else? Because I can manage it.

It's fine. It's totally stupid. So if there's anybody out there that is feeling a twinge of wanting to do something different or had enough of those low moments or anything, yeah, do reach out to anyone. And if you need to, if you want to have a chat to me, you're more than welcome. It's Grant Webb on Facebook. I'm sure you can put a link on the podcast. Yeah.

Hamish (42:24)
Absolutely. Yeah. Wow, Grant, thank you for that. Now that's that's brilliant. And then

Grant (42:26)
Did I just say yes?

All right, sure. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And it's, yeah, I've done all the talking. I feel like I've sort of jumped on a monologue and all of that. But it's been an absolute pleasure. And you know, every time I do do something like this, because I do share and talk to other people as well, it is, it's always...

the back of my mind thinking maybe that is just what somebody needs to hear. So I'm thankful, grateful to be here and if it can help anybody, sure, power to love, let's go full power. Go and do that, get in touch. Okay.

Hamish (43:14)
And one last question for you. What superpower did you get from your awakening, from your your life around?

Grant (43:21)
Yeah.

So I find myself doing some strange things at times, helping other people without thinking of what's it going to do for me, how am I going to benefit from it. And you can help other people regardless of what they're going to do with it. And that would probably be from my superpower, my higher power, my higher power resonating through me. So.

Sometimes things do manifest, but it's not me anymore. It's not me anymore. It comes from a higher place. I've come back with one word, eh? A little bit more love. Love comes out there. So that's about it.

Hamish (44:09)
Brilliant. That was the word that sprung to my mind as well from our conversation, your super power being love. But that is fabulous. Yeah. No, thank you very, very much.

Grant (44:14)
Yeah.

If you told me 10 years ago, five years ago, that I'd be talking like this, honestly to strangers, no way buddy. I had too many secrets to hide. I had too many shields up. I had too many masks on. It would never ever have happened without my...

I suppose. You know, sometimes they say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I still battle with that one because I'm definitely not stronger than I've ever been. But I certainly am still alive and there comes that whole thing again. I think if one person listening to this gets empowered or motivated to make...

a change in their life if they're in a desperate situation. Against all odds. If you're against all odds, up against that wall and you're motivated to do something different, gosh, do it. Do something different, because it's time. That took me a lot of time to realize I need to do something different, to actually do something different. Because you can think about it, talk about it, it's only when you do it that it makes a change. Action. There's another word.

a little bit of different action, different result. You know, we all know that. Yeah, I was insane for many years just doing the same thing over and over and over, thinking it'll get better.

Hamish (45:44)
Yep. Well, Grant, thank you ever so much for your time today. I've enjoyed listening to you. I feel very honoured that you're willing and able to share what you did. It's been wonderful. Thank you ever so much for your time.

Grant (45:45)
to.

Awesome. Good luck on your journey and thanks for what you're doing as well. It's power to you too. I hope it goes far. I hope it goes far. The world needs more of this. Go for