I am a 27 years old PWSS who lives in Denmark. I had a stutter for as long as I can remember (roughly it started at the age of 6). The stuttering really affected my social life over the years and also some decisions in life that was based on my disabled speech (like skipping some job interviews, not applying at all for some jobs, being scared to introduce myself in front of strangers, skipping parties..). This really created humiliating images in my mind of me being speech disabled.
I found Lee’s book in August 2020 which completely changed my understanding about my stuttering, the reasons why I do it and it gave me a LOT of tools to defeat it. The book is written in very practical way and it is very easy to understand and follow. I started following the recommendations by Lee right away – reading aloud, doing AST twice per day and learning the crutches. After just 3 months, I was able to avoid appearing to have a speech disability. It has been several months now without appearing disabled. I consider this to be 95% stutter-free. The 5% will be gone once the FEAR of stuttering is gone, but as Lee is saying, the fear is not stutter. It will go away in time while I continue follow my program – reading aloud for an hour, doing AST twice per day and practicing the crutches.
For me, Crutches 2, 6 and 13 really made a miracle and the reading aloud gave me the self esteem that I needed. The AST are VERY good to brainwash yourself to LOVE to speak and NOT think about words. I can really feel that I DON’T think about the words (okay, maybe 95% of the time) anymore. This alone removes stuttering, as there is no space for the fear to kick in.
I joined SAC and watched the video lessons on Lee’s book, and I’ve learned a lot there, especially by attending SAC’s speech club (SAM). It’s tailored to the needs of speech sufferers, and the people who attend are all ex-stutterers or PWS who are working on beating it. So, they get the problem at a deep level. It’s great to finally have a community of ex-stutterers, people who understand your problem and have similar goals.
I joined Toastmasters recently and introduced myself in front of 30 people without a stutter, which was a huge win. I also talk every day with colleagues and customers over meetings and I don’t stutter. Maybe I do a repeat here and there, but not at the level of a speech disability; we are all humans, everybody makes mistakes from time to time. I order coffee outside, talk to strangers without hesitation, again – no stutter. I am so grateful not to look speech disabled anymore in the eyes of new people that I meet.
The book is on SAC also, along with a 21 video-lecture course on that book. So are Coach Lee’s other three speech-related books, along with 40 or so more video lectures. All I can say is that Coach Lee’s book and SAC’s videos, courses, coaching provide the ways to stop stuttering, as well as a community of ex-stutterers which you can ask questions at SAM meetings or in SAC’s forum. I intend to support SAC’s and Lee’s cause: “Kick stuttering off the planet.” Thank you, Lee and SAC!
VASKOV, Denmark, December 2020