Gregory Smith knows a thing or two about the power of labels. At 17, he was diagnosed as sociopathic and spent the next 30 years living up to that description. Violent, drug-addicted and itinerant, he channelled childhood trauma into a one-man war against society.
During the past 20 years, however, he has accumulated other labels. Doctor. Lecturer. Author. OAM. It’s an astonishing transformation that he struggles, at times, to comprehend. “My life has changed so much,” he said when Australian Story filmed with him recently in Orange, in Central West NSW.Â