The great outdoors Is the best therapy
Coach and counsellor takes freezing dips in the Clyde on a daily basis
Even though he’ll talk freely about how he found his way into alcohol and substance misuse at the age of 14, the word ‘addict’ doesn’t sit comfortably with Lanarkshire man Ross Hyslop.
A coach and counsellor who dips into the icy waters of the River Clyde at 6am every day to deliver his vlogs and “dump dead adrenaline,” Ross’s goal in setting up his new business venture, Scout and About, is to work with people in early recovery from drugs and alcohol.
But he’s not interested in the substances they’ve taken, be they cannabis or cocaine. He’s interested in trauma. Because, the way Ross Hyslop sees it, not every person who’s experienced trauma goes on to abuse drugs or hit the bottle. But everyone who is dependent on alcohol or substances has endured trauma, he insists. And that’s why the label ‘addict’ is one he doesn’t like.
“When I was 16, the rave culture in the central belt of Scotland was like a meteorite,” recalls Ross, who says he didn’t need to go “robbing, stealing or gambling, or getting into trouble with the police” to fund his magic mushrooms or ecstasy fix.
Among today’s young people, says Ross, the availability and expense of drugs is on a much higher scale – and the severity of the harm substances cause to the developing teenage brain is just as concerning as it was in his adolescence.
His relationship with substances and drink lasted seven years until he entered into therapy shortly before his 21st birthday.
It was after three years of receiving therapy that Ross began to explore how he could help others – and, unknowingly, to further help himself.
He embarked on counselling and Buddhist studies at Strathclyde University in 1994, before taking a job as a drugs worker with the Scottish Drugs Forum.
“When I got into drugs work at the beginning – and I can only say this now – I thought I was doing it for the greater good,” said Ross.
“But looking back to 1994/5, I wanted to change the world. I wanted everybody to get it. I went into drugs work as part of my own recovery. I went to my old high school and said: ‘I am doing drugs work and I would like to do talks to young people.’ And they said: ‘Absolutely not. Get out.’
“I did not have the capacity to understand that. If they had let me in, then they would have been accepting there was a drugs problem in the school. Now, drugs workers are going in [to schools]. But still teachers stand with their closed mindset and think this is all a load of rubbish.”
Ross set out on the travelling circuit, finding karma through meditation and an ashram in India, where he spent his 24th and 25th birthdays.
It was then on to Australia, where he grafted as a labourer for a refrigeration company, and returned to Scotland with enough savings to set himself up in property, having up to seven houses and flats in his portfolio at any one time.
“After I gave up drugs and alcohol, I found myself in the whole personal development world, but I didn’t realise that at the time,” said Ross.
“I went from drugs and alcohol, to now – self exploration, looking for a place to belong.”
He returned to academia to gain a diploma in massage – a skill he acquired to satisfy a personal interest rather than to become a professional practitioner.
His attainment of a counselling qualification coincided with the start of the property crash. Ross clung on for two years, before admitting defeat and closing his property business in 2010 to become a full-time counsellor.
Always hungry for knowledge, he became fascinated by the methods practised by Dutch extreme athlete Wim Hof, known as The Iceman for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures and swim under ice.
In February 2019, Ross enlisted for Hof’s training course in London to learn about his simple but powerful method, based on the foundation of three pillars: breathing, cold therapy and commitment. It inspired Ross to take “a daily dook” in the River Clyde – a ritual he has performed for two years.
Although the vlogs he started on March 31 last year were originally transmitted on social media from Ross’s home office in Lanark, he decided to combine their filming with his eccentric custom of starting his day by getting up to his neck in the free flowing water of the Clyde.
“At the risk of sounding selfish, I go in the water because my time is pretty precious. When I get home I’m on the computer from 9am to late afternoon,” he explained.
“I go in the Clyde anyway, and I have been doing it for two years. It builds your resilience. Every part of your body is saying: ‘Don’t do this.’ It increases brown fat – something in the body that allows you to stay warm when you get cold. It dumps dead adrenaline. If you do not utilise that adrenaline, it can stay in the body and become toxic. It puts the body into shock, into a survival state. It’s just another way to manage stress. It’s less about the cold water, and more about me taking time out for myself.
“I like to eat well. If I am not managing my stress, my stress starts managing me. I’ll spend the evening eating Doritos and ice-cream, using food to manage my stress.”
“At the beginning of lockdown, I had time to think. I will be 48 this year. How do I start slowing things down? I find solace in the hills and hillwalking. I want to marry therapy with the outdoors, and so my new venture, Scout and About, was born.”
The business, which is not yet operational due to Covid restrictions, is described as “a green space approach to counselling and coaching, offering walk and talk retreats in a number of scenic locales throughout Scotland”.
“My goal is to work with people in early recovery from drugs and alcohol. It’s also for corporate clients – people looking for digital detox,” explained Ross, whose aim is to help people become unstuck from a negative relationship with a partner, with food, drugs or alcohol.
“It’s less about a psychotherapeutic model, and more about people wanting to go and have adventures, camp in the hills and valleys of Scotland, light fires together, tell stories together and use the outdoors instead of doing it in an office setting.”
Also, in response to lockdown, Ross established the Change group – a collection of six people who meet online for three weeks.
One of its members, who lives and works alone, says that not only did her involvement break her feeling of isolation, it also led to an introduction to Ross that could have saved the life of one of her closest friends – a 59-year-old man who had been misusing drugs and alcohol since the age of 14.
After a 90-minute session with Ross, during which the man spoke of the trauma of his father abandoning his family overnight, he was persuaded for the first time in his life to seek rehab – and to pick up the phone to his GP and Addaction in his only heart-felt plea for help.
“I’m not interested in substances. I am interested in trauma,” said Ross, whose own parents divorced when he was in his teens.
“I have not met anyone on this planet who has not had trauma. Alcohol and drugs are not the problem. It’s the loss of a parent, it’s poverty, violence, the death of your gran, moving house, the divorce – all of these are the problem. The only way the human mind knows how to fix that, or give it temporary relief, is overeating, over-drinking.
“Per head of population, Scotland was until 18 months ago the cocaine capital of the world. There’s a mental health pandemic. We are failing our young people. Societally, nobody has the balls to ease the suffering, the isolation, the pain.
“Cocaine is an anaesthetic used in dentistry for pain. Not all people who have been traumatised are addicts, but all addicts have been traumatised. I do not think we are doing service to trauma. Children of 13 are self-harming. In South Lanarkshire, there are suicides happening
“There is something going on, and I think it’s disconnection. We are living in a disconnected society.”
Asked if his unorthodox approach may be seen by some as evangelical, Ross points to acupuncture – once seen “as the work of the devil,” and now prescribed on the NHS. He also cites the work of complementary therapist, Jan de Vries, whose “woo-woo” natural therapies – once viewed with scepticism – are now in the medicine cabinets of many households.
A member of his Change group said: “Ross has an open, honest and authentic approach that sets the tone for everyone to do the same. I think that is uncomfortable for some people, but it doesn’t make Ross wrong. He was an addict and he has worked with addiction.
“He talks about coming from a broken home. A lot of it is universal. And that’s the reason why people connect to him so well.
“He has switched being addicted to drugs to being addicted to nature – the morning dooks and the mountains. He is passionate about helping people and he is very impressive when you see him in action.
“All of that, and coming from a place of knowing all the bulls**t that addicts hide behind. He is well educated and smart – and constantly working on himself.”