Beating bankers’ habits

A two-month stint in rehab is too long for some City of London workers. Carol Lewis meets the unlikely guru helping bankers and brokers in their lunch hours. ‘‘You’re more looked down on here for smoking a cigarette than for doing a line of gear. It’s eas

t’s ego. It’s fine wine, Champagne, cocaine. It’s all about alpha males and excess up here,’’ Richard Kingdon says. ‘‘Third week of January is a killer. It’s a classic: on New Year’s Eve they say: ‘Right, this is my last binge. Next year I’m going to sort myself out, sort out my debts, maybe try for a family.’ Then third week in January, when they get paid, they’re off again because the resolve has gone and because they ain’t got no tools.’’

Helping City of London workers to gain the ‘‘tools’’ – or life skills – to be able to give up binge drinking, cocaine or sex addiction is Mr Kingdon’s speciality. ‘‘People think it’s about willpower, that you’ve just got to say no,’’ he says. ‘‘As if it’s that easy. That’s nonsense. Of course it ain’t.’’

Suited and booted, a larger-thanlife character with a confident manner, he could pass for a City broker himself. It is only the tattoos glimpsed beneath his shirt sleeves that hint at a more colourful past.

Sitting in a small, nondescript office in an unmarked serviced block just a stone’s throw from the Bank of England, he explains how his own drug and alcohol addictions led to him becoming sought-after by those with addiction problems in the Square Mile.

‘‘Right now they’re using alcohol and drugs more as an anaesthetic,’’ he says in a broad southeast London accent. ‘‘Before, it was Ferraris and Lamborghinis – you know, all ‘Charlie Big Potatoes’, ‘loads-a-money’, whereas now everyone is terrified.

‘‘I work with some senior people up here and there is a massive fear. We’re in uncertain times and no-one knows what to do. People are scared of losing their jobs, losing all their investments.’’

His clients tend to be workers in their late 20s and 30s who typically turn to him for help after 10 to 15 years of alcohol and drug misuse. ‘‘At the end of that, it’s costing you more than money,’’ he says.

‘‘It’s costing you your home life, your career, your kids, your health. The four Ls – liver, lover, livelihood or law.’’

Many of the City high-fliers who learn of Mr Kingdon’s services by word of mouth have ‘‘a whole package’’ of addictions, including alcohol, cocaine, gambling and sex. Heroin use, though, is ‘‘very, very rare’’.

Mr Kingdon founded the addiction counselling service City Beacon with the backing of a City professional whom he helped to overcome his demons 21⁄ years ago. He says it was obvious that there was a growing alcohol and cocaine problem, and no services where people could seek one-toone help while continuing to work.

‘‘It’s great doing role-plays and all that in a rehab setting but it’s nothing like real life, which is what I do – I’m here with the clients and we are dealing with real life, not what might possibly happen when you leave treatment.’’

‘‘I’ll go out with clients to bars. They know they’re safe, they know there is someone right here, right in the middle of the City,’’ he says. Clients pay £135 – about NZ$270 – for an hour-long one-onone session with him, and £500 a day if they want him to go away with them. He will see them in the middle of the night if necessary, and won’t charge them for ‘‘emergency calls’’. Clients might telephone for help from black-tie events at the Grosvenor, he explains, or entertaining business associates at a lap-dancing club.

Mr Kingdon, 42, who describes himself as an addiction specialist, uses many of the techniques that helped him to overcome ‘‘years of alcoholism, drug addiction and criminality’’ which began at the age of 12. At 26 he had a breakdown: ‘‘I knew it was do or die. It was a crossroads.’’

After years of rehabilitation and therapy, he decided to dedicate his life to helping other addicts. He worked in drug and alcohol prevention for 10 years, and is a member of the Federation of Drug and Alcohol Professionals who has helped addicts in maximum security prisons and rehabilitation centres. He acts as a private consultant to musicians, City workers and people on the council estate where he grew up.

‘‘Why was I saved when others died? I’m thinking maybe it was because I needed to do what I do.’’

His background helps people to trust him. ‘‘They realise I come from a non-judgmental place. It’s about empathy.’’

He sees clients personally, helps them to recognise their high-risk situations and triggers, and teaches them relapse prevention.

Some also need to learn time management and how to take care of their emotional wellbeing.

‘‘I want to empower people, give them the tools so they can get on with their lives. It’s really about raising people’s self-awareness – that’s what people did for me. They got me to look at myself and encouraged me to take responsibility.’’

Our meeting is interrupted by a mother keen to get help for her heavy-drinking son, but Mr Kingdon is adamant that it is the drinker himself who needs to seek guidance: ‘‘Lots of people need help but unless they want it, it ain’t going to work.’’

He is reluctant to talk about success rates, because he doesn’t ‘‘play the statistics game’’.

‘‘I’ve worked with lots of people who have sorted themselves out and never looked back. And I know people who have stumbled here and there, engaged again and redoubled their effort.’’

Although most of his City clients pop out of work to see Mr Kingdon for half an hour or an hour, he will go away with people if he feels that they could benefit from intensive help ‘‘for maybe a week, 10 days or two weeks – just me and them, somewhere quiet where there are no distractions. You’re not going to be missed at work, are you, if you go away for a week or so? Whereas you go away for two months to rehab, that’s pretty on top, ain’t it?

‘‘There is a nasty side up here too, with people ready to put the boot in [if they think a colleague is going to rehab]. Everyone wants to go up the career scale, and anyone who can find any information or weakness on you, they’ll use it. That’s why some people won’t engage in groups [such as Alcoholics Anonymous] as well.’’

He is keen to point out that not everyone with an alcohol problem is an alcoholic. Many of his clients are habitual four-day-weekend binge drinkers. ‘‘They come here as trainees and they’re all doing it. They’re indoctrinated,’’ he says, adding that many City workers don’t know the risks of addiction: for instance, that mixing alcohol and cocaine is particularly damaging, and that most cocaine is far from pure.

‘‘You’re more looked down on here for smoking a cigarette than for doing a line of gear,’’ he says. ‘‘It’s easier to get cocaine than cigarettes, I reckon. It’s mad.’’

Mr Kingdon says thousands of City workers have some form of addiction problem: ‘‘You could have 50 rehabs here and it wouldn’t touch the problem. HR will turn a blind eye while you’re making money. But now they ain’t making too much money.

‘‘I’m not a knight in shining armour who can cure the City. But if I can pull a few people out, that’s good. Because you’re not just pulling that person out, you’re pulling that wife’s husband out, those kids’ dad out. It’s not just one person with a drink problem.’’