John came to us several months ago with a drug problem and in complete and utter chaos. He is now rebuilding his life and preparing to go to college. He represents many young people we work with as we try to liberate them from a history of criminality and drugs. My name is John Leach and I’m twenty-eight years of age. I came to this project on the 31st of May. I have had a drug addiction for the past twelve years, it started in 1988. I left school when I was sixteen in the summer of 1988 and found myself a job so I had money in my pocket most of the time. I started going out clubbing with my friends and taking LSD and ecstasy. I was going to the warehouse parties and my drug taking escalated. My mum died in 1989 and I carried on taking ecstasy after that and a few months later I was introduced to heroin. After I had first tried heroin I said that I would not get addicted but it became more of a weekly thing. Eventually, I started taking more and more heroin and before I knew it I was addicted. I never did anything about it because in a way it was a big escape for me. That carried on for quite a few years. The euphoria of heroin just engulfed me. I didn’t have to worry about anything when I was taking it. For the first few years I was very good at school. When I had to take my options in the fourth year I just lost interest, I didn’t revise, do my coursework and that reflected in my poor results. I was also influenced by the people I was hanging around with and I didn’t go to school so often. After I left school I had two or three months off before I found a job. I was employed in that job, a warehouse person, for about three years. The cost of my heroin use increased and my timekeeping became bad so I got sacked. The first time I was homeless was when I lost my job. I was committing crime and I fell out with my family. My first experience of homelessness was when I was living in a car for three months. Usually I was homeless when I left prison, I had no direction and nowhere to go so I ended back up on the streets, taking heroin and committing crime. My first time in prison was in 1993. I spent three months in a young offenders jail but because I had done three months remand and the judge gave me a six month sentence I got out the day I was in court. Prison was a massive culture shock, I didn’t know what to expect. In a young offender prison there is always a bad atmosphere because they are young there, always trying to show they are better and stronger than what you are. In prison if you show a weakness it gets picked on very quickly and people abuse that weakness. The second time I went to prison I started off in Preston. I got a two year sentence and I got out after twelve months. It was pretty easy, I spent that twelve months more out of curiosity than a jail sentence. It didn’t really hit me as I was surrounded by friends I had grown up with. Having said that, some people say that jail gets easier but for me it just got worse. From Preston jail I went to Lancaster. I got released for Lancaster jail and I returned straight back to crime and heroin which resulted in another prison sentence. That was a twelve month sentence. I started of in Preston again and ended up in Haverigg. It was the same again, when I came out of prison I went back to heroin. My last prison sentence was in December 98’. That was the worst ever prison sentence I have ever done. I was given a nine month sentence and ended up doing eight months out of that, where I should have only done four and a half. I was transferred from Preston to Kirkham, which is an open prison, but I lost five weeks there for being out of bounds. They sent me back to Preston and from there I went up to Haverigg to finish my sentence. The day before I was due for release I was told I was getting a gate arrest. On the day of my release I was arrested by the police and taken up to Scotland where I was given a four month sentence. That wasn’t a nice experience because I was an English person in a Scottish jail and people let you know that. I got by in my own way, you defend yourself in every way you can and don’t show any weaknesses to anybody. I’ve put all that behind me now and one of the main reason is I’ve had enough of jail. The only way I was going to change was to stop taking heroin. The only way I could get the heroin was by committing crime and that resulted in me going back to jail. I just couldn’t do that anymore. I was referred to the reconcile Project by someone at Nightsafe in Blackburn. I was offered an assessment and after that I had to show I really wanted to come into the Project which I showed obviously because I am here. Over the last few months I have discovered how much I am worth as a person. I am learning day-by-day to cope with the everyday problems that life brings and how to maintain a life without drugs. I’ve learned how much potential and what qualities I have. At the moment I am hoping to go to Plater College in Oxford. I’ve had an informal interview with the principal. After the foundation course at Plater College I hope to go on to university and gain a degree in either computer aided design or some kind of form of helping people with similar backgrounds to myself. I hope that includes a bit of travelling which I enjoy doing. I am aware that this could change during the foundation course at Plater. As I look ahead I am very optimistic about where I can take myself. There are unlimited possibilities and I have never seen my-self facing such a prosperous future before. |
