We’re proud to welcome Addiction Recovery Worker, Geraldine Tumulty, to a brand new role in our community, using her lived experience to support and guide companions towards an addiction-free lifestyle. This is a new role and support pathway for Emmaus Village Carlton and may be rolled out into other Emmaus communities after the pilot.
Geraldine is a professional artist who has hosted successful solo ‘talking’ art exhibitions aimed at people with addiction, using her creativity to depict her battle with alcoholism and how she overcame her addiction 25 years ago.
As well as her Europe-wide exhibitions, Geraldine has worked with drug, alcohol and homelessness projects, including the Westminster Drug and Alcohol Project, CAN, the YMCA and the Amicus Trust. She has also worked as an Addiction Recovery Worker for the NHS and in private clinics, delivering the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) twelve-step addiction programme, as well as being an international AA speaker.
I’m excited to be the first recovery worker for Emmaus in this brand new role and I’m hoping it will be rolled out to more communities. I’ve actually had lived experience of addiction, I’ve been in recovery myself and have been sober since 1999. I’ve worked in this field now for 23 years.
Childhood challenges
My challenges started at 13 when I was a teenager and I went through the care home system, residing in children’s homes, which was when I had my first experience of homelessness as a child. I used to run away from the children’s homes and sleep in derelict buildings, I also slept on the concrete steps of the 12th floor of some high rise flats in Luton. I thought no one would walk up or down the fire escape if I slept there and I curled up in a ball with a bottle of cider to help me sleep.
Recovery took me a long time because I was completely broken. My dad was addicted to alcohol and physically abusive. For my own safety I went through the care home system, but I experienced bullying and was desperate to fit in. I went out one day and I had my first drink and I felt so powerful, I didn’t care about fitting in; what alcohol gave me was what I now know today as an altered ego, but by the time I was 14 this alter ego became my dominant persona.
The real Geraldine was pushed so far away and I was controlled by fear, so I used my alter ego for my survival. After hitting rock bottom, and getting help, my alter ego finally broke away from me. By this time, I was 31 years of age and in a hospital and I suddenly went back to being a 13-year-old again. It felt like I had been living on another planet, I wasn’t connected to life. I didn’t have any life skills or social skills such as how to properly engage in conversation with anyone. My reading and writing age was that of an eight-year-old. It was like I’d woken up from a coma, I had to learn from scratch as everything was new to me – I’d never been on a driving lesson or to a restaurant or hairdresser. I was feeling fragile and felt terrified of the unknown and so the beginning of my journey was all about self-awareness and building a relationship with myself. It was all about identifying my feelings because alcohol had anaesthetised every emotion within me. I got in touch with a huge soft side of me and was a child again, needing to experience what children go through.
I stayed in a psychiatric hospital for a year, I went there daily for occupational therapy, my children were living with their dad at the time. After a year. I knew I could move on, so I decided to go to college and do my English and maths GCSEs. From there I stayed and studied for seven years and achieved a Batchelors Honours Degree in Fine Art. I then became a professional artist, touring solo exhibitions and I was inviting addiction, alcohol and homelessness projects to get involved such as Westminster Drug and Alcohol Project, CAN and the YMCA.
Stages of addiction
The first stage of addiction is denial – not knowing that you actually have a problem. Everything else is the problem and everyone else is to blame. You’re the victim and blaming life’s circumstances, not knowing how to take responsibility.
I spent years needing help, going into rehabilitation and seeing a lot of therapists, doctors and had lots of stays in hospitals. My first breakthrough moment came at the age of 24 when I admitted to myself that I was an alcoholic and I needed help, but it wasn’t until I was 31 that I actually hit rock bottom; I was actually on my death bed, so there weren’t any more rock bottoms to sink to. At that point I realised that I didn’t want to die and would work to build a new life for myself.
Even though I wasn’t sober, I’d gained an awareness of addiction and realised what was wrong, so I threw myself into AA and the 12-step programme, and I still live that way of life today. It’s designed for you to live a life by spiritual principles and it’s also designed in a way that you go on a journey into your past and clear away the wreckage. Applying the principles to your life is all about taking personal responsibility.
Helping others achieve awareness
I’ve had so much experience behind me to understand that no one drinks in the same way and no-one’s recovery is the same. Alcoholics Anonymous is really good for some people but not everyone.
Alcohol makes people feel superior rather than inferior. It makes them feel good about themselves, it takes all the worries, fear and insecurities away and gives them courage and then it becomes a dependency.
With the people affected by addiction at Emmaus Village Carlton, I work to help them to understand this. The major challenge is denial; I’m not really talking to them, I’m talking to the person with the addiction. My job is to try to reach past this to find the real person behind it.
Another obstacle is that people are very protective of their addiction, they’ll defend it to the death and make any excuse for it, which is an obstacle in providing them with support. However, the positive progress the companions are making is quite phenomenal, even in the space of three months. The companions I am supporting are being quite open-minded and open to change, open to looking at life from a different perspective. They are listening which means they’re teachable and if they’re teachable, they’re learning, and they’re learning to change. I talk a lot about going against the grain, so for an alcoholic or an addict to go one day without a drink or drug is going against the grain. But coming to see me is the first massive step towards going against the grain because it is asking for help, and the day someone asks for help, you’ve made a huge step. Addiction does not ask for help because addiction is a disease of denial that tells you that you don’t need any help because you haven’t got a problem – everyone else is the problem.
I want to give a big thanks to Becky (Rebecca Bateman, Support Manager) who recognised what the companions needed and moved forward to push for this new role. It’s an exciting new service which will make a huge difference to the lives of the companions requiring this support and I hope will be rolled out to many other communities.
Embracing an addiction-free life
When I became addiction-free, my children came home which was phenomenal. I‘ve got four children. The oldest is 39 now and I’ve got 12 grandchildren. I also met a wonderful partner and we will be married for 15 years in April. My husband is a biker who rides Harley Davidsons and I always rode on the back until I was 54 when I got my own 1200 sportster Harley Davidson, which I love.
I’m an international speaker for AA and have spoken in nearly every country in Europe. My art is autobiographical and symbolic, it’s telling a story using symbols. For one of my recent art shows I rented out the Abbey Theatre in St Albans, and I got all my paintings on stage with me. I had a full house and took the audience on a journey of every single painting. At the end of it all I thought to myself, it wasn’t about paintings, at the end of the day everything that I did boils down to one thing, one word that I delivered that night and it was “hope”. If you were to sum me up, I believe that that is what I do, I give people, hope.
I’m currently halfway through writing my autobiography/art book/love story which is my future dream. I’m hoping my book will reach more people and share my art with a wider audience. My ultimate goal is to open my own spiritual retreat for anyone who has lost hope.
Pic cap: Spreading hope – Geraldine is pictured with a selection of her artworks
