Dalla sofferenza e dalla dipendenza a un nuovo approccio al trauma | Araminta Jonsson

By the age of 15, I was thrown out of home. I was drinking from a young age, got into a relationship with a Colombian rock star. I moved to Colombia. All the guards would deliver the cocaine to my house and I didn't leave my bed. I couldn't walk. I was taking at that point maybe seven grams of coke a day. I managed to wean myself off down to about one gram. But when I got back to the UK, I was in a really bad state. Ran into the doctor's surgery, I said, I'm a drug addict. I can't stop taking cocaine. I need help. I got pregnant. I stopped. I stopped everything, stopped drinking, stopped using, stopped smoking. So I met a crack addict in rehab, then started using crack cocaine.

And then that relationship was extremely abusive. That said, you know, I've become the person I am now because of those experiences and that journey. We started doing delivering creative writing classes in prisons with addictive prisoners. For me, that was my turning point of all of my life and my recovery. Our main flagship event is obviously Oxford, but we also run Esther Perel's event in New York.

How do you feel today with what you have achieved?

Proud, really proud.

Welcome to the Living a Life and Balance podcast. My name is Abdullah Boulad. I'm the founder and CEO of the Balance Rehab Clinic. My guest today is Araminta Johnson. She's the founder and CEO of Masters Events, organizer of Europe's largest trauma conference at the University of Oxford and other conferences across America. She's a key figure of bringing the world's leading specialists in the field of trauma and addiction together. I hope you will enjoy.

My life in general motivated me to do what I do today. And like I had a quite difficult childhood. No, I don't think I that's not quite fair. I had a probably quite a happy young childhood, and then I had quite a difficult adolescent period. Um I realized in later life I've been diagnosed recently with, you know, autism and ADHD. And so I think the neurodiversity as an adolescent was really difficult for me, but also for my family.

For my parents, they didn't know how to deal with it. My siblings didn't know how to deal with it. And so by the age of 15, I was thrown out of home. Um and because I was a for them, I was just a rebellious child who who um was constantly doing things that they found hurtful, really, my parents. Um, and they had two other children and it was just too much for them to kind of deal with. And nowadays I think we have a lot more understanding of neurodiversity, and specifically um what I think I ha had was pathological demand avoidance, which meant essentially that means not doing anything anyone tells you to.

And as a child, you know, people are you can't behave like that. So my parents would ask me to do something and I would just not do it. Therefore, it became it became uh just an issue. They just said enough's enough, and um, and kick and threw me out of home. So it was traumatic, it definitely was traumatic that kind of experience, just having that feeling like I wasn't loved at home, but also just feeling so angry when I was at home, I think. Um 15 IK went left home and moved into a I was at a boarding school, but the boarding school no longer um my parents weren't paying for it anymore.

So uh they but they let me stay until I finished my GCSEs because um I think you can't leave school until you're 16 anyway in the UK. I think it's illegal. Um, so but I think I was very much a fantasist, so um I imagined that I would be able to marry Josh Hartnett and so at the age of well, because I was leaving living um in Monmouth, which is where my school was, and I was working at Little Chef 35 hours a week to pay my rent, and I was also saving up money, so I was eating at school, having dinner at Little Chef.

I saved up enough money by the time I'd finished my GCSEs to find out where Josh Hartnett lived, number one, which I did online. I found out that he was uh a bowl, he used to bowl in this bowling alley in Minneapolis, and I so he was a member of this club in Minneapolis, so I actually flew to America to try and find him and marry him was my plan, and that would say that would solve all my problems, is what I I thought at that age. So I flew to Miami and uh ended up. I remember landing in Miami and being like, um, well, I didn't have anywhere to go, I didn't have uh anywhere to stay, I didn't I knew that I had to get to Minneapolis, but I hadn't planned no other plans yet.

No, nothing more than that. So I and I remember getting in a taxi and being like, and he was saying, Where do you want to go? And I said, I don't know. I'm uh 16 years old, have no idea what I'm doing. So he was like, I'm not taking you to downtown Miami, I'll take you to a hostel on South Beach. So I ended up in this hostel on South Beach where I met immediately that first night an Argentine uh man called Bruno, who was 26 or 10 years older than me, and I immediately transferred my love to that person, right? So my love of Josh Hartnett kind of I forgot a bit about that, and and anyway, um fell in love with um this this Argentine guy called Bruno, and that was fun for a while um until we ran out we ran out of money, ended up on the streets for a bit.

Um he got he lost his job, he was a pot washer, he was illegal in in Miami, he was working as a in a restaurant as a pot washer, and he he lost his job. I ran out of money, we ended up on the streets, but we were with a community of Latin Americans who were just lovely, really, really kind. Um and now when I look back at it, I think I was actually in Miami recently, and it was brought up a lot. I've never been back since then, but I was a few weeks ago, and it brought up a lot of funny emotions, actually, which I didn't expect. At 16, I think I thought I was invincible, you know, so I didn't think anything, there wasn't the danger, and it was dangerous.

Like, I mean, especially, you know, the beach, sleepy on the beach and stuff, people would try and steal our stuff, but we were not that I had much to be honest, but we were in a big group of people, and for the first time I felt like I belonged. I'd felt so out and such an outsider at home. Um, constant at school and in it all of my life, and in this group of Latin Americans on the streets or in Miami, suddenly no one asked me, you know, what does your daddy do? What school did you go to? What you know, who are like all of these things that weren't anything to do with that.

Yeah, nothing to do with me as a human being. On the streets, I had nothing, nothing to give anyone, nothing to prove to anyone, nothing to be. And people just accepted me. And I think that for the first time was a a lesson that I learned there, which was beautiful. And I think maybe I'm looking back with rose tinted glasses now because maybe it wasn't as easy as that. But it that I it wasn't as horrendous or scary as some people might think it, you know, it is living on the streets. And anyway, very quickly, Bruno found a job, I found a job, and we managed to move into a little studio disgusting, lice-infested apartment or studio apartment thing in South Beach, um, until I left Miami.

And then I I came back. The relationship, he was anyway, he became a little bit jealous and abusive, so I left eventually. Um and um when I came back, I knew that I wanted to finish my studies. I was always one of the things, even despite being neurodiverse, one of the things I always knew I could count on was my intellect. So I but all my peers now were a year ahead of me, so I um uh decided to do my A levels and my AS levels because we had A levels and AS levels then in the UK um in a year, which meant I had to do my AS levels when I got back.

I started, I went to the local comp because it was the only school that would accept me to do that. Um, and I uh did started my AS levels in September and finished them in December. So I did the exams in December, and then I did my A levels from January and I did the exams in May.

You were living by yourself at that time?

Yeah, so I was, and then I my some friends of mine did an intervention with my mother and me, and then in January, so when I was doing my A levels, so after my AS levels, I then moved back, and I was pretty low at that time. Like I coming back from Miami, I was really hit with a lot of um mental health stuff, like a lot of depression, really. I think um then and struggling. And so my parents they could understand depression in a way that they couldn't understand the neurodiversity, I think, because depression was just me being sad and not and and and lethargic, you know, not um before I was very antagonistic or angry or but when you're depressed, you're kind of you don't really respond much, and they could they could they could deal with that.

Like and and I think my parents wanted to help, they just didn't know how, and they could they didn't have the tools or the resources to do it. So I came back home then for a bit, so from January until I finished my A levels, and then I then I went to university.

At the age when when you were kicked out, like 15 you mentioned, uh, did you realize something is different with you?

No, not at 15.

And not your parents either.

No, I I just thought I don't I hate my parents and they hate me. That's that's all I at 15 that's all I thought. It hasn't it wasn't until honestly three or four years ago that I realized there was more than just m us not getting along.

When did you figure that out that you you were neurodivergent?

I think start I mean, my addiction treatment journey started about um or my journey of recovery, I suppose you could call it, uh 10 years ago, maybe 11 years ago now. Um and I think you start to be around people who, again, almost like your tribe, people who you feel have similar stories or at least similar have gone through similar emotional experiences. And there I started hearing stories of people who had you know, like from neurodivergent people or um experiences that they'd had growing up, and I realized that you know they resonated specifically resonated with me, and so I started to talk to those people, um, learn more about trauma and neurodivergence, um, do my own healing, get on my own recovery journey, and then I finally did the um like formal diagnosis only a couple of years ago, you know.

So much, much later.

Yeah.

So imagine your parents and you would have had the information and the resources needed at that early stage.

Well, exactly. Yeah, I mean, and and that when I first found out or thought about this, it made me really sad to think that, you know, I didn't have that, and all of the experiences I've had and all of the difficulties I've had have been because my parents didn't have that knowledge, and I didn't have that knowledge at that age. That said, you know, I've become the person I am now because of those experiences and that journey. And I also wonder what does, you know. I was still, even with the diagnosis, even with a label of neurodivergent child or autism or ADHD, it didn't wouldn't have changed who who I still was a pain in the ass for my parents, you know.

I don't I don't know that I don't know that it would have changed anything. I hope it would, but I also don't want to regret that it wouldn't.

Yeah. I mean, we are who we are, and this is how this is our uh probably uh how we see ourselves, how all our life, but at some point you get a diagnosis. How how was this feeling for you to to be diagnosed?

Well, I mean, it was I you know, it was there was a it was just like, okay, yes, of course. You know, I knew that that was it. Everything that my uh, you know, I work in this space now, so everything I how I am and how I respond to the world around me, you know, I know now is uh like because of my neurodivergence. So it wasn't a surprise or a shock. And and when the you know the psychiatrist who diagnosed me was like, you know, this is no surprise. Like, here we are, we've gone through hours of testing, which is ridiculous. But anyway, hours and hours of testing and and the results are very clear.

Um, so it wasn't a surprise, it wasn't a shock, it wasn't even a relief, it was just I guess validation, I suppose, is something I knew. Um I wonder and I do wonder if it's allowed me to be more lean more into my neurodivergence, which I hadn't, you know, before I mean I still mask all the time, but there are moments and times now when I respond in ways that people say, I can't believe you've just done that. And I'm like, Well, because it's almost like a oh well, I I that's my how I am authentically am being.

I allow myself to be more authentic in certain situations, I think, because of that diagnosis.

Did a diagnosis change anything?

Other than that, no.

Is it helpful for some people?

And it's great. You if I wear my um sunflower or whatever it is, thingy lanyard, I get in the queues in the estates, they just let me straight through. Wonderful.

And uh there is an advantage. Yeah, 100%.

And I went to Orlando with my son the other day, and uh I got to skip all of the lines of the on the theme park. So it's brilliant for that reason.

That makes me think now. I might need uh diagnosis too.

Exactly for that.

Can you can you explain to me how you got into the the addiction side of um and what substances were your uh choice?

So I actually didn't so I didn't start using until um university um using any sort of drugs. I was I drinking from a young age and again quite rebelliously, I think. Um, but I think my first addiction was food. So if I start backing and and food and the control around food. So as a really young child, like restricting young child, like 12 to 14, real restriction. And then when the kind of came back from Miami and the depression kicked in, there was a lot of binge eating, and that kind of, and again, now working in the space, I know that it kind of this does the same thing in my brain as cocaine.

So first it was binge eating, so sugar, and then at university it moved into cocaine, was my first addiction, and that was cocaine and then and then men as well. So I'd like you, you know, and and but because of that, because I could switch between food, men, cocaine, it never, you know, the actual addiction I didn't realize because it was never one thing for a prolonged period of time. It was multiple things for periods of time. So I'd get into a relationship and I wouldn't need food and I wouldn't need cocaine because I'd be for a while, six months or something, I'd be happily full of dopamine from my relationship.

Um, and then the relationship wouldn't work, and I'd then move to perhaps sugar again, and then that would stop working, and I'd move into you know, using cocaine. And cocaine became a so after my undergraduate degree, I then went to a moved to broke up with a relationship, moved to Barcelona, got into another relationship, broke that broke up, then I fell into quite heavy use. I started a master's where so I lived in Barcelona, um, and I was doing my masters in the evening, working at school in the daytime. And so in order to kind of I wrote everything in English, but then I translated it into Spanish.

So I was working all night to do that, and um saying the cocaine was and I think as a you know someone with ADHD, I think the cocaine was helping me focus and get through the for sort of at the start, it was a tool that enabled me to achieve what I needed to achieve, and then obviously that just took over. Um, I helpfully got into a relationship with a Colombian rock star, actually, which I didn't know about at the time that he was a rock star, but i he was, and then I moved to Colombia to live with him.

When I arrived there, he was then on tour continuously, left me at home, so I used to just use, I used to get cocaine delivered to our. We lived in this crazy house that was on a compound, so the all the guards would deliver the cocaine to my house. There was no one anywhere near us, and uh I just I ended up there for about seven months, but by the end of it, I couldn't even, I didn't leave my bed, I couldn't walk, I couldn't, I would drag myself to the bathroom when I went, I'd sleep for take coke all day for days and then sleep for days. So got really scared.

I tried to get home from there at one point, ended up with I was just carrying so many drugs on me to try and I wouldn't leave the drugs. I got to the airport um and uh I collapsed at the airport because I was just so unwell. Woke up in an airport like side room, which was like a not quite a hospital, but you know, in Bogota, attached to a drip full of cocaine, like I had coke everywhere, all over, like in like in my body. Luckily, there were no dogs and I hadn't got, you know, arrested. Um I remember waking up in this panic being like, I need to get on my flight, I need to get on my flight, and they were like, that was two days ago.

So I'd been there on this drip in this thing, in this hospital room. So I got back and then I actually phoned my parents and I said I I need to get home. I've I was like, I need to get back and I need help. So they kind of helped me, got me up. They didn't know at this point that I was uh using, but they got me a flight like a couple of weeks later, and I'd managed I'd managed to wean myself off. So I was I was taking at that point maybe seven grams of coke a day. I managed to wean myself off down to about one gram. And I flew back with and I didn't carry anything on me.

But when I got back to the UK, I was in a really bad state. Um and uh really not in a good way. And I tried to live at home for about that lasted about three days, but I just couldn't. I was in I was obviously detoxing and and my whole system was completely out of whack in a bad yeah. So I my pair again, my mum, I can't remember if she threw me out or I just left. I can't remember that how that happened, but I went and lived in London um on my friend's couch. Um and then then um the my bank phoned me up and said at this point I had didn't really have any money.

I'd left the my life and everything, I left everything in Columbia, like all my clothes, my everything, my whole life. Um was living on this thing, and then the bank phones me and says, Would you like a loan? We can offer you anything up to £20,000.

Oh no.

I know and I was like great, wonderful, this is exactly what I need. And I had in London, I was going to the local drug and alcohol services. I I went to my first 12-step meeting um because I was desperate for some help. And I what age was that? I was about 27 then, no, maybe 26, because I had Rory at 27. So um, so I went to my first and my first 12-step meeting was a disaster. Like all I could hear was people talking about heroin and crack, and I was like, that sounds amazing. I'm just I don't know why I'm doing just taking coke. So that was I knew that that was not for me then.

But what what brought you to get in contact with uh with the therapeutic side?

I was so scared. I thought I was gonna die. In Colombia, I was like, I couldn't get myself to the toilet, like I was using so many drugs and so and alcohol, and I also started having seizures, like mini ones. So I would take these anti um uh I can't remember what they were called, basically anti-seizure medication that you could get over the counter, which would then make me hallucinate. So I'd have these crazy hallucinations. I was really scared in Columbia. I was really scared, I wasn't well. Um, and I knew I needed to get help. And I went actually when I got home to Wales, where my parents lived, I went to the doctor because I was so unwell, and I said, This is the doctor that I'd had, my family doctor that I'd had all of my life since I was growing up, who I'd gone to when I was 16, who I'd gone to again when I was 18, and she had said, It's just teenage angst at those age, at that age.

I went back at 26 after, you know, and I went in with my mum. My mum came to the doctor and sat in the thing with me, and I just said, I've got a stomach. I think I must because I c I told her I collapsed at the airport. I think I have a parasite. It made up some crap, obviously, and I said, I've got a parasite in my stomach. Stomach and I think it made me collapse. Yeah, that was when my mum sat in the room with me. We left. The doctor was a bit confused. We left and I ran in saying, protect said to my mum, I think I've forgotten something in the in the doctor surgery. So I ran back, ran into the doctor's surgery. I said, I'm lying. I'm I'm a drug addict. I've I can't stop taking cocaine. I need help to the doctor.

And she said, Well, she said, okay, she gave me some numbers, then she phoned me a few days later and she actually said, I just want to apologize to you. And she apologised to me from all of those years that you know it was my because she was my family doctor. And she had kind of not realized, I think, how uh much my mental health had been an issue for me over these years, and then anyway, accumulating in you know, to age 26, a serious coke addiction. Um anyway, so then I was in London, um, got this loan, which didn't help, enabled me to keep using in London not as much.

I was only using one or two grams a day then. Um, but I thought I don't, I was, you know, the local drug and alcohol service, they did auricular acupuncture, some Indian head massage, and I, you know, there was not it was they were not very helpful. I mean, it wasn't I needed something quite intense or serious to help at that point. Um, but they they they just didn't. So I decided to do a PhD uh uh in addiction, well, in psychology, specializing in addiction um studies at LSBU. So I had to do a conversion course. So I started that.

Um, I mean that I was in active addiction at the time, so it wasn't really, but I thought, you know, I'll intellectualise my way out of this problem, I'll figure out I'll be want to understand I'll become the professional, exactly, and fix myself. Um so I started that and got in a relationship, which again we know that was helpful sometimes in certainly in in giving me the dopamine I needed and reducing the use that I was the cocaine use, didn't do that much. And anyway, I got pregnant. Um and so I halfway through my starting my PhD, I I dropped out.

Um, and I as soon as I found out I was pregnant, I was using heavily before that. Soon as I found out I was pregnant, I stopped, stopped everything, stopped drinking, stopped using, stopped smoking. Everything was day one to day nine. Well, it was at that time, and it was hard. I remember I didn't go to 12-step meetings, I didn't do anything. It was literally just find out pregnant and stop. And I used to say, you know, I remember finding out I was pregnant and being horrified, being like, oh no, I'm not gonna be the I'm not gonna be able to take drugs anymore or drink or smoke or anything. Um and then I did a a second test.

No, and then I went to the doctor and did a test, and um, she the test came back negative. So I was like, but I've just done a home test and it was positive, and I and I knew I I felt like I was pregnant, I knew I was pregnant. But we did, I did three tests at the GP surgery, and all of them came back negative. So I was like, Oh, I could I can use. But then I was like, no, I'm just gonna, and I walked, I remember I walked from the GP um in Harangay all the way to the Whittington, which is the hostel, because they said the only way you can check for certain is if you go to the hospital, the hostel will do whatever test they'll do. So I walked all the way, and as I was walking, I was like, if I'm not pregnant, I'll be able to use it later tonight.

If I'm not pregnant, I was gonna had that mantra in my head, so I was like, you'll get there anyway. I'll get to the hostel and I'm pregnant. So that I didn't I wasn't I didn't use that night, but every day I said, it's okay, I'll use on Saturday. I'll use on Saturday, and it was always like next Saturday, I will I will just use. But every week that I had gave me another week of of clean time, and that just gave me by you know, I don't know, three months down the line I didn't even think about using anymore. It just kind of went out of my brain until I had Rory, and then um I had a trust from money from my grandma, and I bought a house when Rory was about three months old, because at the time I was living in a shared house with you know six of my friends and a little baby, and uh that was uh it was fun, but not really the right thing.

Anyway, I had a trust. I bought this big house in London um and but had a bottle of champagne to celebrate. I hadn't been drinking, obviously I had been pregnant and not drinking, so I had a bottle of champagne to celebrate. Um, and I think maybe three or four months after that I started using again with Rorya. Rory's breastfeeding. And I mean I can tell you all the horrible stories around what happened then for the next few years, and um, but it wasn't great until I ended up in rehab. Um but then it just got worse because I met a crack addict in rehab who I fell in love with, fell in love with um and didn't you know did everything we shouldn't do in in treatment, which is get in a relationship and um that was during rehab time.

Yeah. So I left rehab, immediately moved in with this guy. Um we lasted about six months, I think, sober, and then um then used cra started using crack cocaine and descended into pretty much the depths of um you know what crack cocaine addiction does to you. Um and then that relationship was extremely abusive. Um, you know, police were called and it ended the whole thing, accumulated in one morning we'd been using all weekend. Um Rory was playing on the floor, my son was then two, maybe not quite two, playing on the floor uh in our bedroom.

And I was trying to wake this person up saying we've got to go get Rory to nursery, and he just flipped and he was beating lit literally beating me. Um and Rory was screaming, get off mummy, get off mummy, and he, the guy was just like, No, okay, stop. I'm going back into rehab. This whole thing needs to end. And that's uh he went into rehab and then is doing really well now, like really, really well. Same as you know, same amount of clean time as me. Um but I wouldn't have stopped at that point. Like I was so deeply entrenched in the what was then love addiction, rather more than you know, crack cocaine addiction, it was definitely love addiction that I was struggling with.

Um and crack addiction, obviously. Um yeah, and I would have given up everything, including my son at that point for that, I think.

Thank you for sharing that. I think it's a it's an incredible story and um which combines different uh different areas of mental health and addiction. How long were you in rehab there? Three months. Three months. And your child was during that time?

With my his dad's parents.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, my parents wouldn't have him.

And after the three months, have you had any aftercare, ongoing support, how AA meetings? What what type of uh therapy did you get?

Um I'm sure there were I mean I will move I did everything wrong in rehab. I got into a relationship and moved straight in with this guy. So I mean there was I I'm sure there was aftercare, I'm sure there was um I think we went to the fellowship, I think we I think I did some meetings for a while, but I was in this relationship, so I think everything was just wrong from the from the get-go, you know. I just wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. Um and then when I when eventually it all exploded, um I got clean properly by going to meetings was well started off as like, you know, I knew that I needed um something that would fill my time as much as using did, which was 24-7, you know, really.

So and you can't have therapy 24-7. I mean, you can go to rehab and that's 24-7. So, but I didn't have uh basically the social services told me if I went, if I left my son again, they would take him off me. So I couldn't go back into no, I didn't have the resources, my parents weren't going to pay for me to go to rehab. The m house, the other thing, the house I had in London that I bought that I could have sold to go back to rehab, I gave to my parents um because well, they would just have thought I would use it for drugs. So and I didn't want I was just like, you just have it, you know, take it, put it back in the trust. I don't want to, I didn't want to use it for drugs either.

Um I well I went to 12 step meetings and I we in Wales where I was, there weren't many. Um I went to, I think we had three a week, and I went to as many as I could and I started going to my local drug and alcohol services, and what happened was just so lucky. I um had this dream of running a magazine and starting a magazine and that had had an idea to to to start it with a load of other people in either active addiction or in recovery and try and create humour out of um the situation we were all in.

And I was talking to a commissioner uh for my local council in Wales about this idea, and she said, I don't know how it happened, it must have been just before at the end of the year, and she had a pot of money left over, and she said, I can fund this, I'll fund this magazine for you. So she funded me to spend a year creating a magazine with other addicted people or people in recovery, and we did, and we called it pipe down, and and we then started taking it into prisons. Yeah, but what was this magazine about? So it was about addiction, but it it was looking at so we had people writing their own stories, we had poems, but we also looked at we it was a humorous look in a lot of ways.

Like we did like uh tasting notes of so instead of tasting doing wine tasting, we did tasting of energy drinks and like we just and taking the piss essentially.

Why why did you do it? What what was your motivation uh of doing it?

Um my masters had been in creative writing and journalism. I'd always I'd always wanted to mag to create a magazine and write a m in a magazine. You could have done it about gyms and uh protein drinks, but you did it about addiction and surrounding because that that was the world I was in at that point, you know, and I think um that was that was my life. I mean, addiction and recovery, especially in the early days, wasn't everything that I was I felt, I guess I would felt like I was an expert in that, you know, so I could write about it. Okay. Um and then we took it into prisons and we started doing delivering creative writing classes in prisons with addicted prisoners, and it was that I think was the most that was for me, that was my turning point of all of my life and my recovery, was because um I remember going into the first session that we did in a prison in Bridge End, and all these they're all men and they were scary men who'd done whatever they'd done, and they just were like, What the fuck are you doing here?

Well, you know, what I don't they could some of them couldn't write. Um some of them could barely read, and they would like, and I was sitting there saying, you know, you gotta write an article or write something for this magazine, and they um just uh at first were so unreceptive, and then I don't know how I we won them around, and by the time we'd kind of delivered 10 sessions, we only had 10, we had each prison we had 10 sessions of funding for 10 sessions. And I remember when the funding was running out, or the sessions were running out, they said they are they they were so engaged and they loved it so much that they said that they wanted to put their money that they had from the government or whatever it was to pay for us to continue to to deliver the classes, which was just and that gave me a sense of real purpose, I think.

Rund you know, and connection and feel like I was giving back and helping and service and it was amazing, it was amazing. And I did that for probably a year and a half and created maybe six different editions of the magazine um with the prisoners. A lot of the prisoners were writing articles for it. Um, and I had a group we had a group of people, so suddenly you had a community and a tribe of people that we were working towards a common goal and a shared purpose, and it was, you know, and that changed my life from there. And the magazine actually got seen by what was then iCAD, well, iCAD as it was, um, you know, Sam Quinlan and that.

And so they asked me, so they contacted me. Um, I think they thought the magazine was much bigger than it actually was, and they asked me if I wanted to exhibit at first. I was like, there's no, there's no way we're I'm gonna be able to exhibit, but got in contact with Matt and Sam, and that's how I started um working in the event space.

So iCAD, addiction, events. Um how many iCADs have there been?

I don't know how many there have been. I did quite a few. I think I probably did about four. Um, but then they we also did smaller events in so four like of the big annual ones, and then we did smaller ones in different countries um and on different themes um throughout the year, too.

So and that's something you you enjoyed, you like? What was uh um what was enjoyable about it and giving you I think events as someone with neurodieto, I mean I really don't like people, so I don't know why I do events, honestly.

I really don't like being around people.

You don't like people or you don't like to be exposed to I don't like lots of people.

I don't mind one-to-one kind of interactions or small groups of people or people I feel safe with, but I really dislike large groups of people. So I don't know what I'm doing in that as a career. Honestly, I think I think I also think living on my edges where I feel a bit unsafe feels normal, I think, if I have to psychoanalyse myself. Um to feel a little bit in fear constantly is normal. Um and it put it I I'm someone who needs to feel something to feel to be alive, and so feeling even if it's fear or oh my god, all these people, it's it's good for me.

It makes me feel something. So, but yeah, no, I don't like lots of people. I try and hide from lots of people.

Yeah, um, yeah, but every conference you're doing today has thousands of people.

It does, yeah, exactly that. Yeah, I don't know why. Um, I think it's a it as I said, living on my edges. I I am an addict, right? And especially a cocaine addict, a dopamine addict. So it's it pushes a cortisol spikes when I have to do this stuff. So it's what I I enjoy.

And how did you move from uh organizing uh addiction um events, conferences to to trauma? Um was there anything in between also?

Yeah, so I was working with iCAD and um I've always been well in recovery, um, I've always been ambitious, I think, um, and motivated to make change and succeed in ways that kind of that I feel is successful. Um and iCAD wasn't able to pay me very much money, which was fine, but I was like, I as I was working for iCAD, you start to meet other people, sponsors, exhibitors, and and they are started asking me who's writing the content for this, who's doing the um websites, etc.

And I was I said I so spoke to iCAD and I said, Look, I've been asked by a number of different people to work for them. Is it possible that I take you guys on as a client? Because you are I asked iCAD first, can you pay me some more money? They said no, they couldn't, they couldn't afford it. So I said, that's fine. How about we do it like this? I'll take, have you, I'll set up a company, you can be a client, I'll still do exactly the same work as I'm doing for you now, and you won't lose any quality or or effectiveness, but I will take on other clients and therefore be able to substitute, you know, the the lack of money here and in and bring in more revenue.

So they said yes. So I started working with other other clients, and then and I started a company, and and obviously I had too much work. Well, not obviously, I became I suddenly got too much work and I was able to start employing people to help me. Um and then COVID hit. And when COVID hit, obviously everyone was a bit, I was a bit, everyone was a bit panicked about what's gonna happen, where are we gonna go? Um, but I got a phone call from a client of mine um who said, I have a friend who has an event, and he the event uh is like quite long-standing event, and he doesn't want to cancel it because of COVID.

And I sort of was like, you do realize that COVID has shut the world down and events are not happening. Like ICAD's not, you know, we're not having the events cannot happen. And he was like, Yeah, I know, but this guy's pretty stubborn and he's pretty determined to do the event. Um, and I anyway, I've told him that you'll do it for him. And I was like, What at the point? I didn't have any experience running events. I'd done ICAD's content and like some marketing badly. Um and I said, Well, okay, tell me some more about the event. And he was like, Well, they haven't got any speakers yet, uh, they haven't got any website, they don't really, you know, the company that was supposed to be running it was PESI, but PESI have got so many other events that they're scrambling around trying to turn them into virtual um offerings.

You need to uh uh so you need to create something virtually, obviously, for this for this event. And I was like, Okay, well, they had nothing. And they I said, when is the event? This was now we were in March when COVID hit, and I got this phone call, and they were like, Well, it's the event's in May, so you've got about nine weeks, and there was nothing. I had absolutely nothing, and so I was like, Um, okay, who's the event for? And he said, Oh, it's for Bessel Vanderkock, you might have heard of him, and I was like, uh shit, okay. So I had zero experience of running virtual events, zero experience of doing anything. And anyway, suddenly I was trying, but it because obviously this event, TR at Trauma Research Foundation's event, had been going for at that point like 30 years, so it was in a well-established COVID was such a big, you know, trauma was a buzzword around in COVID times.

Like people were panicking, but everyone was at home. And we were able to make the event, all of the speakers said they would do it for for nothing because everyone was just at home doing nothing. We, I mean, it was so we threw it up on a website within two weeks. We we put it on Zoom. It was really not the most professional, you know, we had cameras up people's noses, and it was just not a professional look at all. But we managed to get something up, and within two weeks of of launching the website and doing the marketing, we had over a thousand people signed up. By the time the conference happened, we had 7,000 people and made over a million dollars in profit for for TRF.

So it was 7,000 people joining online for the first event.

Yeah that's amazing. Yeah, I know. It was crazy, it was absolutely crazy. So, and I'd that we had you know zero experience, and luckily TRF were just like, and my client gave me the the the trust to do it, um, and we just ran with it and and and it was super successful, and that has what has been opened every door for me in the trauma world. It's also what made me kind of really immerse myself in the trauma world, and that's actually what has kind of accelerated my own healing, you know, it's being learning from all these incredible people. I've been so fortunate to that to have happened to me.

The power of information in the end, which moves people, yeah, exactly. As you I didn't know that, uh that's quite the story, and and you could have just continued organizing uh the the research uh trauma research foundation events, yeah. But why did you start uh the master series and now Oxford? Uh what was your motivation there?

So once we'd done the first event for TRF, um you know, I started doing that. We became there, I think back in those days they called me the marketing director. I'm not really sure what, but anyway, that's what it was. Um, and I said to Bessel, I said, Can we do an event in the UK? Let's take TRF over to the UK and do it there. And Bessel said, No, I hate London, I'm not gonna do an event in London. I was like, okay. So I said, How about we do an event in Oxford University? And Bessel's like, oh yes, Oxford University. I've always wanted to speak at Oxford University. I was surprised they haven't invited me before. And I was like, Great, let's go to Oxford then. And he said, Yeah, okay, so he didn't want to do it through TRF.

So I said, Okay, I'm gonna set up a company and do it, and and will you invite basically, you know, everyone else? And so he said, Yes. Um, and Bessel inviting other people just made them say yes to coming, and so it was just it was just luck, and I owe everything, you know, to to Bessel, to TRF, to to that kind of fortuitous to COVID, you know, to all of the kind of things that fell into place for me.

And uh out out of out of a problematic situation in the world, good things can rise.

100%. There we are. That's the story of many addicts, I think. You know.

So, how many events have you have you done so far uh uh in Oxford?

So in Oxford, so now Masters Events is a is a global event company, so we don't just do events, uh our own events. Our main flagship event is obviously Oxford um and Transform Tourment in Oxford, and we've done this year will be the fourth. And it started off the first year we had 750 people in person and about just under 2,000 online. The second year, I think we had 1,500 in person, and all right, just over 2,000 online. Last year we had 3,300 people in person and over 2,500 online. And this year we're planning it uh four and a half thousand people in person. Um so we've kind of exponentially grown.

It's been a yeah, it's really been great to see the kind of reception of it, the people, um it's what people really want. I think they could we're feeling as a society, I think, and since COVID, you know, that we have been so disparate and separated, and the need for community and the calling for community is so important. So I think Oxford gives people that, and I think the events we run are special and different. Um but so Oxford is is our flagship. Um, but we also run Esther Perel's event in New York, done that for two years now.

Um, Sessions Live, which is amazing and incredible, different again because it's you know it's in this uh art, old art warehouse, yeah, beautiful location in Brooklyn. Um really interesting and different content um to Oxford, and then we put on so this is the first year we've taken over. Well, I became the executive director of TRF last year, um, and now Master Events, the company, has um taken over running this event in Boston and um Pessy no longer no longer works on it, and we're now moving it, although I'm you know I'm a little bit scared of that, we're moving it to New York next year.

Um, and we also run a conference in San Diego called Integrative Medicine for Mental Health, which is IMMH. Um, and we're setting up a new event, taking essentially translating what the experiences in Oxford to Mexico into Loom next February. So we run a number of different events now uh around the world uh through Masters Events Company. Um and it all started from yeah, Oxford.

And and the focus on trauma because of the connection with Basel.

Well, yes, that was where it started for sure. And then my own starting to, as you say, this knowledge that I kind of gained from doing uh the work with TRF healed me in ways that I, you know, could never even imagine. Just the kind of information that I like, you know, the addiction world and the the addiction treatment is really important as a as a grounding for people, I think. But they're the trauma knowledge to build on that first foundation of of healing is is well for me was imperative for my own kind of recovery and and and well-being, um, for sure.

Um, and it's simple, like trauma healing is simple, so simple, you know, it's like it can be just feeling safe in your body. What makes you to understand what makes me feel safe and to learn that and then be able to give myself that, not put myself in situations which as an addict, like I say, living on my edges is something that was so normal for me. I constantly felt in fear, and that felt fine and normal, but that's not well-being. That's not, you know, okay, yes, I do the events, so I have to do it sometimes, but I try to make myself feel safe constantly.

And I do that by I live in nature, live somewhere where, you know, I don't feel safe in cities. I know that don't feel safe around lots of people. So I live somewhere where I am quite isolated and can recharge and be alone in green spaces. I um make sure I move my body and go for walks and hear birds singing. Someone I heard the other day, um, someone saying that evolutionarily to hear birds sing innately makes us feel safe because it means there are no predators around. It means like in the wild, it may means that there is not a lion there, you know, because birds are singing.

So that's what kind of restores that sense of safety physiologically in my body. So knowing these kind of things allows me to feel safe and allows my system to breathe.

Um so information by itself is a therapeutic process, also. So the more we learn about what trauma is, what addiction is, what moves us, what moves uh human in general is a healing process. And I think that's the powerful uh that's the power you're bringing into the world, uh connecting all this together. Yeah, but with all the specialists you you you you have in these events, how do you get to them? I mean, that's not an an easy, easy thing to manage, also.

I think I've been lucky to be able to build relationships. I I am again living on my edges. I don't love people building relationships, but I have a an ability. I think maybe my my magic is that when I am able to get with people, people I like like me. People want to be there, so they uh respect the vision that I have. Um, I think there is no, there's not an my agenda is like honest and true, I think. So they want to be part of what I have have envisioned envisioned.

It's it's it's a great initiative in the first place. What have you learned from all the presentations you have listened to and and the specialists? To what would you break it down?

Uh well, as I've just said, feeling safe in my body, feeling safe in our bodies is the number one thing that I've learned from all the trauma work that I've done. Moving my body um again is like is so important. Um nervous system regulation, you know, the fact that there's so much I've learned so much. Like, you know, being in community as someone who doesn't like to be around people, to know that I also have to be, like, whether that's you know, working in a team of people where you're both, where you're all kind of working towards the same goal, that's kind of your systems are this co-regulation that we need as as human beings, like as tribal beings, um, is so important.

Um, you know, singing together, laughing with people, um, community, community, connection, purpose um probably are the top three things I've learned from from trauma and and feel and finding ways to feel safe, however, you can do that.

Yeah, that's that's that's beautiful. You mentioned singing, but that's not something you you do yourself.

No, but I when I do it with other people around and I'm so terrible, but people will laugh, so therefore we're like have joint laughing moments of laughter. But I will sing, you know, if there's a group of people singing and you're at like in live music, for example, you sing that freedom of just being able to let yourself go. Again, you can't do that unless you feel safe. So it's making yourself putting yourself in mo yeah.

That's true, that's true. Safety in any kind of context is what we need if we are a child growing up or in a therapeutic environment uh everywhere. That's that's a key word, I believe. Uh how do you feel today with what you have achieved?

Proud, really proud. Um I'm yeah, you know, if I look back on it, I think I feel emotional as well. I think, you know, just um especially as that young kind of 16-year-old who literally was so lost and had no idea where they were gonna go. Or you know, I've always known there's a part it's I've always been at war with myself. I've always known that I could achieve certain things, um, but held myself back. And allowing myself to to achieve, but also do it in a way that feels so purposeful.

So it's not just, of course, it is about me, and there is there are selfish reasons I do everything that I do, but it's also knowing I'm doing stuff that's helping, you know, the greater good. And like I think I said to you when we were stuck before we started this recording, like being here at this conference has made me, I've got a fire again in my belly to know that I want to do something like around activism. I want to go out and do something more to help the world, and I know that what I'm doing is already really great, but I've got every time I do something like this, a c an event like this, and I hear from all these incredible speakers and incredible people doing amazing things in the world, it gives me more fire to do more and and and and grow more so that and I think you know, we measure in the the world that we live in, we measure success by you know finances or uh you know status, but and that's that's the way it is.

But like I mean, my success is is that too, but it's also the impact that I'm able to have and what I'm able to do in the world and for the world, and I I know there's so much more to be done. I've got so much more that I want to do.

I think we we only leave behind the impact what we live um in other people's lives. That's the only thing which matters at the end.

Yeah, 100%.

What how how would these initiatives look like? Yeah, this motivation, this this uh purposeful next step in your life. How how could this look like?

Well, I mean, this is so new. It's only been kind of a seed as we well, I think the seed has been there for a while, but it's really sprouted at this event. I was listening to V Um Ensler the other day, and she I mean she has done incredible things for just women in general, but she set up this um place in the Congo with a doctor in a hospital who basically was sewing up all um women who'd had been mutilated, uh their genitals had their genitals mutilated, and she'd create she what she's done there, and she's built something called the City of Joy there.

And I don't know if that's what what I want to do exactly because activism is, you know, I in my idealistic mind, it's like great, I can just go out and go on the front lines and and fight for something that I really feel that I need to do. But sh Stacy kind of I think will try help train and coach people that about how to be a well a good activist and how to actually do something with positive impact. Um, and then she can pair you up with causes that you feel really inspired to support. So I'm gonna probably do something with her and Dick Schwartz over the summer and see where that goes.

Um, in terms of the the work that we do, it's taking the events that we we already have to um other countries and other places so that more people can access this information and this knowledge. We're also running a retreat in Mexico next year, and we're gonna pay for all of the faculty to come to the so the will, the the faculty will, some of the faculty will teach the attendees at the retreat, but I'm also gonna invite all of the faculty and pay for them to come and so that they can do their own workshops together. Because I think collaboration between the least leaders in the field, these kind of uh people who are doing incredible work, you know, they only see each other at these conferences.

They don't necessarily bring their research, bring their, you know, and and say, how can we help? How can we collaborate and join the dots between the work that we're doing? So I'm going to create workshops and and things specifically for them at the retreat so that they we can start to build a community of of faculty that can then hopefully come to you know all of the events and we build on that and we create uh that's I think how we move the field kind of forward.

I like that. Could be also resulting to a kind of a think tank which interacts a little bit more together.

Yeah, that's exactly the hope.

Beautiful. Um thank you. How how do you in your daily life, if there is not an event happening, manage manage yourself to stay in balance? What type of activities, sports, movement?

Getting a dog was really important for me, I think, because uh, you know, walking, her being having that kind of companionship that's not human is uh you know lovely, but it's also getting outside and being in for me is being in nature. Like I I travel a lot, um, so I need to remember that I have to try and get home to Wales and have five consecutive days, where I at least um every time I'm trying after I'm traveling. Um, my son, like I have a such a great relationship with him now, and that fills me, you know, he is the one person I don't have to mask around.

He's the one person who I really I know it just he's just a and he's a wonderful, totally neurotypical, totally different to me human being, which is you know, I'm just really fortunate to have him. Um yeah, movement like exercise, you know, we I work a lot, I work hard, so and I can be I could be at my desk all day, but I've got put a walking pad under my desk so I'm in meetings and I'm walking. Yeah, so that's really important.

What would you recommend to anyone who's listening uh today?

I think the biggest things early on for me that changed the move the needle. Well, number one, I went to a functional medicine doctor who said eat protein as the first thing you eat in the morning, and that kind of releases tryptophan in your brain and stop it like so it enables you to have like serotonin. I don't exactly know the chemical, whatever it might be, but uh doing that had a huge impact on my mood and my so and that's easy, like no one, you know, daylight that's another reason I want to move the conference. Make sure you get outside and have you know 10 minutes at least in the morning of daylight, um, moving your body, getting to bed at a good time, um, as much as you might not like it, being social sometimes, but listening to your body when you don't want to be social, you don't have to be.

But if you notice that you're spending, if I notice that I'm spending more than five days alone, try and reach out to someone and and and because I could just spend like if I if I didn't have work, you know, and so work I have to, because I've got work, I'm then forced to be social and go out. If I didn't have that, I would very easily just disappear and no one would know where I was, and I'd be, you know. So make sure that you know, you can listen to your body and give yourself that downtime when you need it, but also don't allow it to go on for too long. Reach out and and be social sometimes. Yeah, listen to like if you listen to your body, if you don't feel safe or comfortable in a situation, don't do it.

Well, we don't need to do, we don't need to put ourselves in stressful, difficult situations um all the time. Sometimes you will need to listen to yourself. Yeah, 100%. But we've got intuition for a reason. I think we are very, very highly intelligent beings, you know. Um and it's important that we are able to tune into what we need because we all know what we need ultimately.

Beautiful. Alamita, thank you for your time. Um, I enjoyed very much your your story, your life story, but but also I admire the work you do. Um, I really do, uh, I think bringing all these big minds together and sharing wisdom which is available today and historically is uh so powerful and is moving lives beyond what uh probably you think today. So thank you for everything you do and uh thank you for being here.

Pleasure, thank you very much for having me.