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My name is Wayne I am 31 years old. Things have changed a lot recently, we started in a flat, but slowly we have moved into a nice house, and I feel comfortable with the things that we have achieved. With a lot of help and support from THOMAS and Pauline they have helped me to come this far. I am looking forward to the baby being born. When I was homeless it was frightening because I slept in some weird places, empty houses, things like that. Lots of strange noises outside, it was a bit scary,kids screaming adults shouting, hard to get food and difficult to keep ourselves clean. Because of my addiction it was difficult to hold a flat down, well there were no flats but it didn’t bother me anyway because I was off drinking lagers, sometimes I’d drink shorts, but I’ve never been a shorts person. The heaviest drink with me was cider, and I could drink about 20 litres in a day, that’s how bad it got for me. I used to have the shakes, nightmares and another big problem for me was that I used to get into fights with people, arguing which would get me into trouble with the police, and to try to get money for my drinking, I would go around hassling people to get money out of them. This would do their heads in so they’d give me a couple of quid to go and get a bottle of cider. I’ve been in prison three or four times and it’s always been because of drink related problems. And all the trouble I have been in was just so that I could get a drink. I was always in and out of police stations, constantly being picked up for being drunk and disorderly. I would try and fight with police, anybody when I was in that state I would fight with anybody. I started to change when I met Pauline. Bumping into her changed me, she showed me love, I found love with her, I had never had those feelings in my life before. When we met, I bonded with her, she showed me how to care because I could see how she cared for me. We both came to THOMAS we had been on and off the streets all the time. Before this I hadn’t really tried to stop drinking, but I could see myself changing. When we came to THOMAS they showed us a lot of support and helped us out a lot which was different than any other place where we had try to go, not in that way anyway. Also I had that support from Pauline which helped a lot and it all combined together. We’re going to have a baby which is due on the 21 st November and I can’t wait for him to be born, I can’t wait to hold him. Me and my partner being there for each other, together, trying to help him trying to support him, trying to make sure that he doesn’t go down those roads that I went down myself in my life. We have decided to call our little baby Thomas in appreciation for the help we’ve been given and because it’s a nice name anyway. We’re calling him THOMAS in appreciation of all the sound things that have come because of it, we might not be together now. Pauline’s Story When I first met Wayne, I was on a girl’s night out with my friends, and I was on my way home when I met him. I asked him if he would like a drink. At the time I didn’t know him, he was a stranger to me, but I fell right into love with him. I’ve always been in love with him and at that time I didn’t know that he had a drinking problem. When I moved in with him, I had a lot of grief with the girl who I thought was my friend. She tried to split us up and it took someone like Wayne to tell me she was nothing but a bully and a troublemaker. She was using me and trashing me, I had a flat but she trashed my flat and I wanted to leave Blackburn, so Wayne took me to a place called Newcastle. We stayed there five months then came back from there, ended up living in a tent for a few weeks. From the tent we came to the drop-in centre then to the Floating Support, met the team who helped us a lot, helped us out with a flat, and I got pregnant with Wayne and we are happy together. The baby is a boy and he is due on the 21 November. For the first time I’ve become a woman and I’m excited and happy and I’ve got a wonderful life with Wayne. And we’re going to call the baby Thomas and I want to spend the rest of my life with Wayne and bring Thomas up. I’ll be there for him and he will be there for me as well. A Story of Hope |
