I have to say that I hated having a stutter. Hate is a very strong word but in a way it does not come close to the way in which this speech impediment affected my life. I could talk to my partner without too many problems however could hardly speak a word when chatting to her family.

I could not understand why I could talk to one person but not to another and why I could speak when I was drunk but not when I was sober. I did attended various forms of stammering treatments but to no avail.

I read many books about speech imediments, achieving fluency and about how to stop stammering, about a potential stammering cure and spoke to many speech therapists. From what I read and from what I was told, I was made to believe that I was unable to live a stuttering-free life as it suggested you are unable to eradicate a stutter. This was not really the form of stammering advice that I was looking for; I wanted specialised therapy etc.

I was not exactly impressed with the negativity – I am a person who believes in the power of positive thinking.

I then was fortunate enough to watch Bruce Willis being interviewed on the television. He stated that he had had a stutter which had started when he was a young boy, however he had managed to achieve fluency when he was a late teenager. I felt inspired and then decided that the time had come when I needed to try to also achieve total fluency.

I was eventually able to eradicate the stutter. It was far from easy and I was assisted in a big way by a 70 minute self-help stuttering therapy DVD that I bought from The How To Stop Stuttering Centre. I now have a much more fulfilling life and I also have a successful career selling front doors.  

Stuttering can be overcome with hard work and a lot of desire; if I can do it then so could you.

I once had a neighbour who was about sixty-five. I could not believe the way she lived life – she would rarely smile or say anything positive. She is called Nancy.

When I first moved to this particular area, I tried to make friends with the people who lived close to me, this was fairly easy as I sold front doors as well as offering a DVD authoring service for a living which was a kind of excuse for talking to them. When I first met Nancy she kept saying how ill she felt and about how her back was playing her up. I went away from this meeting feeling quite sorry for Nancy.

Around two weeks later I bumped into Nancy again. I enquired as to how she was doing on this bright and sunny day. I wish I had not bothered as I then had to listen to all of her problems. She did not have one happy thing to say. Over the next few years of living by Nancy, I actually went out of my way to avoid her.

I have to admit that I also used to feel sorry for myself. I had a stutter or what some people call a stammer which I had developed when I was a young child. I often used to wonder as to why I was given this problem. It did not seem fair to me as I believed I was a really nice person.

I lived with the stuttering problem until the age of twenty-two and then began to have a change of attitude. Instead of looking at people who I thought were more fortunate than myself, I started to read and hear about people who were far less fortunate.

When people ask me how I am, I always give a positive answer even if I feel terrible. I try and walk around with a smile on my face and am now living life to the full. I have also managed to overcome that horrible speech impediment and to therefore learn the ways to eradicate stuttering.

People like Nancy could do with having the same change in attitude and they may find they have more visitors to their house and that some of their ailments disappear.