Anybody who has to live life with a stammer will know just how much of a hinderance it can make what fluent people see as simple tasks. Making a phone call, ordering a drink, going out with friends and attending a job interview can be very hard for people who stammer or stutter.

My name is Steve Hill and I am one of these people who have had to endure the affects of stammering. I am now very happy to report that I have been fluent for the last ten years and life has never been so good.

I was never willing to accept my stammer despite what many other so called stammering experts said. These people wanted me to stop fighting and to realise that I would live with the stammer for the rest of my life. In their eyes if I accepted this fact it would be a lot easier for me to cope. These experts are fluent people and it is easy for them to say.

Throughout my life I have tried to improve especially in the areas that I was not happy about. For me stammering was the ultimate problem in my life and I was certain that I would continue my search for a cure for the rest of my life. There was no way I was going to ever accept it. Whenever anybody says to me that a particular thing can not be achieved, I always think of this as a very negative approach. I have now decided to try and avoid these negative type people as they are the ones who are weak and I do want them to have any influence on my life, as they can easily if I am not careful bring me down to their level.

I found stammering to be a very frustrating problem. At times I could actually speak quite well, for example after I had drank quite a lot of alcohol. I was able to talk well to one person but not to another. For many years I could not work out why this was. To find some answers I attended speech therapy at various points in my life. Unfortunately these people did not have the required information to help me. My search for a cure for stammering would have to continue in a different place.

My advice for anybody who has a stammer is to never give up or accept your stammer. This is in a way accepting second best which is exactly what I did when I had a stammer. I had to accept second best in my work, social and even love life as having a stammer made me believe that I could do no better.