(Alias Rick Blaine).
I grew up in Glasbury on Wye, Radnorshire. After going to the local primary school, I went to Llandrindod Wells grammar. Although I was in the ‘A’ stream, I was a rebel and failed miserably at exams; this attitude continued and dogged almost everything I did until the age of 40.
After a brief stint in the Hereford Police (2 years), where I trained in Bridgend, in 1965 I moved to London: it was the swinging sixties and I joined in.
In business I quickly rose in sales and management to become a consultant, running my own company. I joined prestigious clubs, played tennis, squash, bridge at decent levels and skied. But all the time I was descending into chronic prescription drug addiction and alcoholism.
Aged 40 I was introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous. I have not taken a drug, or drunk alcohol since. My career went from my business going into liquidation, to becoming a stockbroker, to a business development adviser to the pharmaceutical industry, where again I started my own business; this time successfully.
My dream had always been to write books. In 2008 my autobiography, Surviving Addictions was published by Chipmunka using the pseudonym, Jack Llewellyn.
After several visits to Morocco, spread over 36 years, in January 2017 I went to live there to start Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous to help their 1,000,000 alcoholics and drug addicts. As a consequence of this, and my past experience, I wrote Drug Clouds Over Morocco – Casablanca Revisited. Also, last year, I published Millions of Miracles, a history of Alcoholics Anonymous and the influence it’s had helping millions of alcoholics, drug addicts, their families and others with addiction and psychological issues all over the world, except Morocco and other countries in North Africa.