Simply put - I’m just someone giving life my best shot.

To summarise my journey: I was born in South Africa and lived there till the age of 7, when my parents moved back to our native country, Madeira. After about six years, we moved here to the UK in search of a better life.

Growing up, I struggled. I was learning English, battling social anxiety, and had little confidence. I felt insecure, was labelled dyslexic at school, and had a hard time fitting in. I was bullied, uncomfortable around girls, and eventually fell in with the wrong crowd. I started smoking cigarettes and weed, and my performance at school suffered.

I still vividly remember the humiliation of receiving my GCSE results - E's, D's, and F's. My parents were devastated, and so was I.

I got a second chance when I enrolled in college to study graphic design, but I completely blew it. I started hanging around with the "cool" kids and wanted to be just like them - an MC.

They called me Slick.

Regrettably, instead of doing my homework on the iMac my dad bought me, I spent my time writing music, making beats, watching porn, and scrolling through MySpace. That's where I met my first love. We clicked instantly, but the relationship was toxic. We were bad as each other.

At one point, I spent 3 months in prison. The relationship was abusive. She'd put her hands on me, and I'd retaliate. She cheated on me a few times, yet I stuck around - because I didn't think I could do any better. That's how little I valued myself.

When she conceived my son, I fell in love with him - hard. But the arguments continued, and I couldn't stomach it around my son. So I left. It wasn't until several days later that the weight of what I'd done hit me. I realised I hadn't just left her. I'd left my son, too.

Soon, he was used as a weapon to hurt me. It used to crush me.

One night, after looking forward to seeing my son all week, I got told to f*ck off - that I wouldn't be having my son that weekend because his mum and I weren't seeing eye to eye.

That night, I decided to get on it. After my first line, all the troubling thoughts and overwhelming emotions disappeared. Cocaine became my go-to escape.

I spent 13 years living this way - chasing the high, hating my life. The only thing I looked forward to was indulging at every opportunity - pursuing pleasure to escape the misery and pain.

I was deeply, deeply troubled.

Then I met someone new. We fell in love, I moved into her house, and eventually, we had a daughter. I told myself this was my chance to turn my life around - to knock the drugs on the head and outgrow my childish behaviours.

But instead of maturing, I substituted with steroids. It made things 10x worse!

One day, she ran upstairs, packed her things, grabbed our daughter, and ran out the back door, slamming it behind her. In that moment, I collapsed to the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Following that, I didn't get to see my little girl for several months. I hit rock bottom. What terrified me the most was the thought that maybe slicing my throat with a kitchen knife was the only way out.

By some miracle, I felt inspired to create a vision board. One night, after a come-down, I wrote:

"I will write a book about my life."

Then the pandemic hit. That's when a light bulb went off - write the book.

What a gift.

Through the writing process, I started to understand myself. I uncovered the root cause of my pain - why I was troubled. I realised I hated myself, a feeling I'd carried since childhood, after having experiences I was far too young to process, including being sexually abused.

I eventually hired my first coach. For the first time, someone listened to me - truly listened. They made me feel seen. Heard. Safe.

They told me nothing in life defines you. That you are the one who gets to define everything and anything.

It's the reason I became a coach myself - because those experiences with my coach spoke to my soul.

Today, I help others also rebuild their lives by breaking free from destructive patterns and rediscovering their own worth, too. Becoming a coach is what made me feel truly alive for the first time and gave my life purpose - and in hindsight, it's what replaced my need for substance abuse to begin with, and became the foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

If you're struggling, if you don't know what to do or how to move forward - please know you're not alone. Your past doesn't define you neither, much like myself, you can also give life your best shot!

I'm always just a message away, helping however way I can.

God bless,

Antonio