I now have a future

Joel Busby is now building a new life in our Rehab Project.

My name is Joel and I'm twenty one years old. I started using soft drugs like cannabis and LSD when I was thirteen years old. Then I moved onto ecstasy, speed and coke. I eventually moved onto heroin and crack cocaine. I think most of my friends were already addicted to heroin when I started using it. I had plenty of warnings of lots of people but I just carried on using it. The gaps between using got shorter and shorter and I found myself addicted.

I'm not really sure why I got addicted. Maybe it was down to the situations I got myself into. I think I was also trying to block painful experiences out and forget whatever troubles I was going through.

At school I got bullied quite a bit in the first and second years of high school. Due to my older brother having gone through the same school and having a reputation they seemed to pick on me for that. My brother wasn't bullied, he was more of a bully himself. After those first years I turned into a bit of a bully myself. I used to get bullied on the bus to and from school by the older lads. One day I went home in a bit of a state and my brother overheard me telling my mum about it. He went and found one of the lads that did it and put him in hospital. That was the end of the bullying.

I started getting in trouble with the teachers at school because I would bully the 'swots'. By the end of the fourth year I had just become as bad as my older brother. The teachers thought, 'Oh no, not another Busby,' and I was a victim of that labelling. On my first day at school the teacher was reading out the register and when he got to my name he said exactly that.

At home I experienced a lot of arguing between my older brothers, mum and step dad. My eldest brother, who is in prison at the moment, really resented my step-father. My mum and my real dad got divorced when I was about two. My mum got straight into another relationship with my step dad and he was basically my father figure. I think it affect my older brothers differently when my mum got divorced.

Towards the end of the third year I was playing truant a lot from school and by fifth year I wasn't going at all. We would just chip all our money in and buy cannabis and smoke that all day. All my teachers had given up on me by this point.

By the time I was sixteen and leaving school I got into a relationship with this girl. I concentrated on that relationship and not what I was going to do with my life.

I started using heroin while I was seeing my girlfriend. I hid it from her and I was seeing her for four years. I was smoking heroin for three of those years and then I started injecting. It went downhill from there. I lost the respect of my friends, countless jobs and my girlfriend eventually. When I couldn't get another job I would start thieving to feed my habit. I ended up getting in trouble with the police, getting community service orders and fines etc. I wouldn't pay my fines so I would have a warrant out and would end up getting arrested while I was out shopping with my mum etc.

I moved to Halifax and got a flat when I was about seventeen. I started a two year Art & Design course. I got to the end of the first year and I turned eighteen. I was claiming Income Support at the time and suddenly there was no more funding for me to complete my second year. So, I had wasted a year of my life really.

Since being in the Reconcile Project I have found out that there is a lot more to life than drugs. You start to appreciate the little things - eating normally, sleeping normally and living normally. I'm starting to find out a lot about myself as well. I have not been focused on myself for the past five years, it's just been the drugs.

In the future I would like to go to college and then on to university. I know I have got a talent I can use. I would like to do something like Graphic Design or Architecture. Since joining T.H.O.M.A.S. I have discovered that I have a lot of ambition.