Begin Again with Davina McCall - Begin Again Moments: Hitting Rock Bottom And What Comes Next

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

In this episode of Begin Again Moments, two powerful conversations explore what happens when you hit rock bottom and how you begin to rebuild your life. Sarah Hiscox and Trinny Woodall open up about their experiences of addiction, the moments they realised their lives had become unmanageable and what it really took to choose recovery. Sarah reflects on losing her marriage and children as her heroin addiction took hold, while Trinny shares her experience of rehab, relapse, and finally reaching the point where she was ready to get sober. Together, they explore why hitting rock bottom can look different for everyone, why you have to be ready to change and the difficult journey of rebuilding your life after addiction. To hear the full conversations, watch the complete episodes on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaia and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll.

So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. I remember waking up in an ambulance and the paramedic saying to me, who's the prime minister, who's the prime, how many fingers am I holding up, who's a prime minister? And I didn't know what had happened to me and told me you've overdosed. And this fear gripped me of, oh my God, am I going to die? Like, because I had no control now. I'd take in the drug.

I didn't know how it worked. Like, am I going to die now? and they took me on a stretcher into a room where I think I was injected with adrenaline or something and the doctor there was quite harsh with me I was wasting their time. Yeah. Like there were people who are really sick and need them

and here was I, some stupid junkie, overdosed and they were having to, that's how I felt. I remember saying I'm sorry to him, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. And I was crying because I was frightened. I was crying because I was frightened. And I thought, how have I let it get to it? How has it got to this? Like how? Like nobody else is doing this. Nobody else is making me do these things. I'm doing this. Couldn't understand how I'd let it get this far. And he was very sweet and said, do you really want to stop? Yes, I really want to stop. You know, he gave me some pamphlets or something. And it came out of the hospital. And I remember sitting on a bench. and just feeling so utterly hopeless, looking at the pamphlets, thinking it's too late,

you know, that it's just too late. And then going off and scoring again. I mean, the insanity arc, the absolute insanity. But it did give me a fright. And, you know, a couple of other things happened. But I'd sort of come to a decision. Even, I can't really explain it. I didn't have this epiphany.

I didn't fall to my knees and have some spiritual awakening where I thought, I've, I've given up, you know, I'm, I've stopped. No, I never had that. But I think you just don't stop trying. I didn't stop trying. Yeah. Even though there were times of hopelessness. Yes. There was still, I always think of it as like I was on this merry-go,

or it was like a misery go round, around and round, on the misery round. And these exit signs flash up. And you either take them. Yes. Or you don't. But you don't know when the next one's coming. Right. Or if the next one's coming.

Oh, my God. That's a very, very good visualization. And I kept missing those exit signs, being seeing them, but just missing them. them and I just took one and I stopped and one day turned into, I didn't go to treatment. I did go to meetings. I did go to no meetings and at that point if somebody had said to me, you need to stand in the corner. I was the same. Upside down in a bucket of pigs will for 48 hours to stay clean.

I'll be like, yeah, okay, I'm doing it. That's whatever it takes. It's the same. Yeah. When I was ready. When you were ready. I'd have done anything. But what's so weird if is why I was ready then and not earlier.

Yeah. I don't know. I just don't know. But I do know if you just keep trying. Keep trying. Never give up. It does work. So what happened then?

Because you obviously had had no contact with the kids. No. Went sure had given up on you. Wrench you're giving up on me. So how did you start to rebuild? the trust with rent shall. Primarily from staying clean. Yeah.

And like you said, you know when somebody's clean or that. You know. And I was allowed to come and say goodnight to the children and read them a story when I was three months clean. And when I got to that three month stage, I was allowed to come and read the children a story. Sometimes I'd stay for supper. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, like, wow.

So the love was still there. but there was the trust needed to be damaged. It was damaged, exactly. And then it slightly changed because then they were allowed after, I can't remember how many months, six or nine months, they were then allowed to stay with me. So he would come around and read them a story. Now, bear in mind, I hadn't been out for about three years.

You know, my going out involved going to a meeting. And somebody had called me up and said, did I want to go to some kind of sprauncy event at the VNA? And I said, yes, terrified, terrified. And I remember getting all dressed up. I didn't know, I hadn't dressed up for so long, I didn't know what to wear. I didn't even know what I liked anymore.

I was like, oh God, I look ridiculous. And he came around to say goodnight and read the children's story to my flat, and I opened the door and I was all doled up. And he was like, bloody hell, where are you going? I said, well, I'm going to this, you know, spawning event. And he said, as you know, he loves motorbikes. And he said, do you want me to take you on the bike?

Because it will be a nightmare of the traffic, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I remember thinking, oh, God. Oh, my God. Huge part of the story I missed. The day before the Decree Absolute had come through. Yes. I remember calling you saying, oh, my God, the absolutes come through. That's it.

It's over. That's it. So, bear it divorced. The divorce was done. It was dusted. Yesterday. Today, that's why I went out. I thought I cannot sit in my flat being miserable.

I've got to try and start pulling a life back together that doesn't involve wrench for myself. So he comes around. Do you want to lift the VNA? Yes, okay. And we walked in and I just remember being met by this kind of sea of glamour. And I just thought, I can't.

I just cannot deal with this. I'm not ready for this yet. So I said, I can't do it, Wrench, I can't do it. And he said, let's go out for dinner. I was like, why would we do that? And he said to celebrate the end of our marriage, to celebrate the divorce. And I was like, oh, I don't know if I can do that. But I just wanted to be with him.

So I was like, I feel a bit weird about it, but okay. And he went to this restaurant that we had a relationship with, But, you know, birthdays, anniversaries, we would go to this restaurant. So we walked into the restaurant, sat down. I felt very sad, you know, because I wanted to be with this man. And here we were celebrating our divorce. And he said something I need to tell you. And I was like, oh, my God, he's met someone else, you know, some like supermodel.

You know, still those old messages, you're not good enough. You're not good enough. I thought, oh God, here we go. I don't know if I can cope with this. And he said, do you want to try again? And I was like, what? And he said, do you want to try again? And I said, yes.

Absolutely yes. But I said also, do you think that we'll be able to? There's so much has happened. And there's so much from water under the bridge. Can you forgive me? You know, can we forgive each other in some instances? And he was like, well, let's try. Yes, Redshaw.

Yes. Oh, my God. So that's what we did. Being self-employed is convenient when you have a drug problem because you kind of don't always get up at 8 a.m. to go to an office. And so, you know, in those, in a few of those times, you know, my using effect of things, and I wasn't consistent. And it was slowly eroding my ambition. When I was about 16, I was quite ambitious.

Yes. And I had been really bad at school. And then my parents said I could go to America if I came from 23 out of 24 in the top 10, so I came third. So I knew a little bit was focus and attention. Yes. And it was in me and I felt it was in me. and then from 16 I started using intermittently and then by the time I was 20 I was using fully

and then 26 I stopped. So I had 10 years where I was sort of habitual use. At what point did it become really unmanageable? I think a few things happen. I think it depends what people use. Friends of mine who used smack, you kind of, you know, you can't sit in a chair and not look like.

like you're using. Yeah, and you look different. You sound different. And you're blurry and, you know, everything. We know that. We have friends who've been in that position. And also, you can die. And quite a few of our friends died and overdosed.

With Coke, it's different because you sort of think, I'll just use at the weekends. It's recreational. You start in a recreational use. Then your weekend comes a Thursday to a Monday. And then the rest of the time is just you're trying to recover so you can use again. So that was my using. I had a few years of that, but I felt I presented as a together person. And it was still important for me to look nice and to put on makeup and to make an effort.

I had very bad acne, but I still, you know, there was really like what you present to the world and how you feel inside. And we know this thing of fitting in your own skin. You know, my skin and my body were so far apart. And you wouldn't necessarily see it. But then my parents began to notice. And then my dad was like, what's happened to you? You just changed. And then one day I just thought it's going to be easy for me just to say, look, I use.

It was just, it was actually a release to say it. And I remember exactly when I said it. And I was probably 21. And we were sitting around the kitchen table in my parents' flat. And my brother was there because I remember my dad said, now you've told me you can stop. And I remember my brother saying, like that was the biggest deal. And I remember my brother saying, I think it's going to be harder than that, Daddy.

I think she'll have to do, you know, go to rehab or do something. You were 21 at this point, right? Yeah, 21, 22, maybe 22. So then I went to rehab. But I wasn't ready. And we talked a bit before about this sense of what a rock bottom is. And how much has to be removed from your life for you to. to think I will do anything to change my life, you know.

And there's a lot of damage that's done. There's a lot of things that happen. But you have to have had enough of that old life and want to let it go to be able to successfully get clean. And that first time, I came back to London after a few months. And I remember going to meetings. And I remember when I went to meetings, I would arrive late. I'd sit at the back I wouldn't get to know people

and then I felt because I wasn't finding a grounding there that my old life was appealing because it made me feel less lonely and one night I was out with friends and somebody said do you want a line I thought why the fuck not there wasn't that barrier of look what's going to happen if I do again

you couldn't pull it forward so then I relapsed and then that time of relapse is when and anyone listening who has or been through this, knows this one. When you know there's a solution, the joy of using it disappears. So I had three or four years of just very knowing

this was never going to go anywhere, seeing at this stage friends not making it, and just thinking at some stage, I will not be able to do this anymore. And then it got to that stage. And then that time I was 26 and I really knew I had to do it for me. There is something where,

if everyone helps you or puts you, I remember my parents sold a table at auction to pay for my rehab and I heard about that table for two years. You know, they would always talk about that table they'd had to sell. And I just, it was a good table. But I knew I would have to,

so I sold, I had some jewelry I'd inherited and I sold the jewelry and I paid for my own rehab. I think what happened to me, age 26, is I thought, because I felt I'd lived a whole fucking life, okay? You had. You know, and I felt I have to, for the first time, take responsibility of myself and do this for me. So that first step was doing it.

And I spent a year in rehab. You know, I did seven months at farm place and six months in Western Superfucking Nightmare. It's quite funny. We're just going to explain that people in recovery that go to Western Supermare, call it Western Super Nightmare. Yeah, Western Super Nightmare. I'm so sorry. I really apologize for people who live in what might be now a glorious Western Superman. It is a gorgeous place if you're not in treatment.

But I was in treatment and it was just, I remember I think I lived on 13 pounds a week and that went on cigarettes. And then I worked in a garden centre in January outside. Just like I remember always just being freezing and it's you got the wind and the sea and just, you know, and then I worked a bit in an old people's home. And it was very, I then came back to London and it was that feeling and we needed. know this conversation when you feel everything has been stripped back from you so much and you have to build it up again. You have to really for the first time age 27 by now discover who am I and who do I want to be? And I think if I wind this movie forward for a second to the Trini Tribe on Facebook and Instagram, it's the biggest thing. Can I just quickly ask you

something? So this is your community? Yeah. How many people are in there now? A few hundred thousand. I mean, yeah. But this is this thing that's amazing. That is so important to me is to ask ourselves as women, who do we want to be today for ourselves? Not who does our mother, sister, daughter, husband, partner want us to be. And I spent so many years trying to be what all. all these people in my life felt I should be, or I felt they felt I should be. And so to have that choice and to develop that in myself of,

who do I actually want to be was something I felt when we, you know, all these people start this community separately. But there is this, I think the premise for me, the most important thing for a woman is to figure out, how can I decide who I want to be for myself today. And so that plays, especially during COVID, when people felt they were living in family environments and feeling so lonely, is how could I actually have a place where, you know, get online, Trinney's having a chat.

Sorry, I hate to talk about myself in third person. I'm chatting with these ladies, but we're talking about these subjects. We're talking about who do you want to be today? And that does then transmit in get dressed, wear color, put on makeup, do your hair, decide to look after your body, think about what menopause might be for you. How do you, I don't want to grow all fucking gracefully. I want to have so much energy in my life. You know, these are things I want for me.

And I really, the passion that probably drives me every single day is to, I spent many years in my life, Davina, compromising and being something for other people. And I don't anymore. Like, I don't, for one millimeter, even to the extent where some family relationships couldn't get their head around it, you know. And it's the most freeing thing I have done for myself. Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad?

I get it. I'm Siyaya and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem.