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.

The importance of communication is well known; whether it be communication in the workplace, in a social environment or within the home, to be able to communicate with others in a fluid and cohesive manner is vital. So what about those people in the community who have a speech impediment and who therefore are unable to speak in a fluent way for this reason? Do you realise just how tough it is for people who have a stutter or stammer to become a success in life?

I was one such person, yes I had a stutter, in fact I had one for eighteen years of my life. Life back then (I have enjoyed the last thirteen years being able to talk fluently) was tough and what made it even more difficult to bear was the fact that people had no idea as to what I was going through. There was certainly a lack of care, or at least it seemed that way.

In my early twenties I was working for a rather large financial corporation in the UK. I had a rather basic role within the organization however was often appalled at the lack of communication skills within the higher management. These people were able to speak free from any form of speech impediment yet chose not to. This was of massive frustration to many of the staff but especially to myself for obvious reasons. It was as if they could not be bothered to pass on information or to advise of the changes within the business, verbally or via e-mail.

Having a stutter in the workplace was quite an experience; you certainly get to know who your real friends are. Stuttering, or stammering as some people call it, nearly ruined my life however I did eventually manage to achieve fluency. 

I have two pieces of advice for the readers of this article; firstly to the people who have a stutter - do not give up - if I can overcome my stutter then there is no reason why you can’t overcome yours. Secondly to the higher management of businesses - poor communication skills can often lead to lower profits therefore start communicating!

I now run a five day stuttering cure speech course. The courses are based in Birmingham, England.

Are you looking for techniques that can help you to eradicate your stutter? Has speech and language therapy or pathology been unable to help you to the levels that you require? Is second best no longer acceptable? The above three questions are ones that I would regularly answer in the positive during the eighteen years when I had a stutter. I was constantly looking for that miracle “stuttering cure”.

Now I am fully aware to call it a stuttering cure is not exactly what some people would call the “correct English” but I basically was looking for a way or a set of techniques that could enable me to “stop stuttering”. At there time there were not that many stuttering therapies out there, or at least not ones that were worthy of the name.

I always find it strange when I read about the so called National Associations for Stuttering or Stammering. For some reason they seem to always advise people to attend local speech and language therapy. Well that is a great referral! What is the point of asking people to attend speech therapy, something that has been unable to help them in the past? Speech therapy does not work for people who stutter, well not to the levels that they desire - again to stop stuttering completely and let’s face it anything else is to accept second best.

I searched high and low in my quest to find the solutions to stuttering. I read many a book, asked many a question and studied many of the “best talkers”.

I put in a massive amount of effort, hard work and dedication as that is what is required. The majority of people are fully aware and accept that there is not one magical pill that can cure a stutter. What is required is a desire to succeed and a willingness to work hard to ensure that the techniques become second nature.

There is now a seventy-minute film which has been produced by a DVD replication company in association with The How To Stop Stuttering Centre which has full explanations of the techniques required to achieve fluency. 

Are you one of the many people who suffer with the speech impediment known as stuttering or stammering? Does your stutter/stammer cause you to become very frustrated at times? Have you attended speech therapy in the past in the hope that it would help improve your speech? I am a person who has overcome a stutter and I now help other people to achieve fluency. In this article, I write about the frustrations and emotions that people who stutter have to deal with.

When I had a stutter, it created many different forms of emotions within me. The stammer was not exactly something that I was proud of; this is why I was less than eager to discuss it with other people. My family, especially my parents, even to this day are unaware of most of the difficulties that stuttering caused me, during my time at school and in my late teens. I rarely confided in my parents as to how bad things were for me. I was not the type of person that liked to talk about their problems; especially when it came to the stutter. I would instead just go to my bedroom and attempt to forget it.

I also felt rather sorry for myself. I feel that I am a good human being; I am kind, I am honest, I am loyal, I am friendly and I am caring - I could therefore not understand why I had to have this most frustrating of speech impediments. There were many people in my class who in my opinion deserved to have the stutter much more than I did, however in truth I would not wish a stutter on anybody.

I was a person who felt like a second class citizen due to the fact that I had this speech impediment. I was not able to socialise with the ease as what everybody else seemed to, and had many traumatic experiences in the classroom when attempting to read out of a book for example.

Even though I had a stuttering problem, I could at times talk quite well. I could not understand why I was able to talk to person A but not person B. This caused me many frustrations.

When I was about sixteen, I started to drink alcohol. This had a major impact on my speech as I could talk perfectly well when I was drunk. This proved to me that there must be a chance of me being able to overcome the stutter.

Speech therapists and negative national associations, have for years attempted to convince me to accept my stutter and have told me that there is no cure for stuttering. How can this be right, if I was constantly drunk, I would be fluent, there is a cure in itself. Of course it is not right or healthy to be constantly drunk but I am sure you know what I mean.

I found certain tasks very hard to accomplish when I had the stutter. Making and answering telephone calls was especially hard for me. I look back now and can not believe that I coped with working in an office environment for six years, at a time when I had the stutter. I remember traveling to work feeling sick in my stomach through the stress and fear.

Ordering drinks and food at the bar, introducing people to each other, attending meetings and job interviews were other aspects of my life which were made all that more harder by my inability to talk fluently.

My advice to people who have a stuttering problem is to not give up, believe in yourself and your own ability to one day achieve fluency. Do not listen to negative people who try to convince you that there is no cure for stuttering. Most of the people who say this to you will have never had a stutter and will have no idea how our brains work.