THE launch of Southend man Steven Rosen’s memoir is a huge cause for celebration charting his remarkable story of surviving drug addiction and a life of crime in London’s East End...and the fact he is even here to tell the tale.

The memoir, called Lost in the Babylon, also comes out on the same day as his 35th anniversary of sobriety.

The captivating memoir starts with Steven at the age of six out playing on his own and walking into East London’s Boundary Passage...and how that led him to become a drug-addicted criminal.

Born inLondon in 1963, Steven spent his early years in Bull and Pump pub in Shoreditch which his mum and dad ran. His parents separated and Steven’s mum left when he was eight.

He said: “My parents took over the pub in1969 and there were villains in there and all sorts of goingson.My mum and dad split up and mum left when I was eight.

There were a lot of underlying abandonment issues going.”

By the age of 23 he had survived high-speed police chases, prisons, and attempted suicides.

“I went to prison,and I was involved in the underworld and Lebanese gangs, but when I look at my younger self now, I see I was never really a horrible person. You could compare it to kids in London gangs now - how they have lost their sense of belonging because of where they live and their circumstances.”

In 1987 he went to treatment centre for six weeks and never went back to drugs or crime.

“When I gave up drugs I had feelings of shame and guilt and horror of my life before. Recovery groups helped me and gradually I began to feel empathy for other people.”

Steven worked night shifts at a bakery to earn money for his family and later he took a window cleaning job which he turned it into a successful business with 90 employees, making Steven a selfmade millionaire.

In 2012, Steven confronted his past again: “For long had been the businessman and the family man, always looking out for everyone, and then I started to ask ‘who am I?’ I stripped back the layers again and went on a journey to get back to me and back to that six-old-boy again really, and build myself up from there.”

Steven is one of the Create 98 writers The launch event is on November 18 at the Yoga Factory in Southend from 7.45pm.

Lost in the Babylon retails at £9.99 and is released on 21 November via www.lostinthebabylon.co.uk