 AWasted Youth Colin is in the THOMAS rehabilitation unit |
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| I have
been in care homes since the age of 8 or 9 years old. The Social Services asked
my mum if I could be sent to a centre for assessment for 6 weeks in the
1970’s. The 6 weeks became 7 or 8 years in several secure units. I had
rebelled against authority from an early age and the centres were brutal, to be
honest. It was scary, very scary. I didn’t like being told what to do, if
I was asked to do something I would do it, no problem, but I objected to being
told what to do. In those days the centres were just – up early for breakfast, then education all day, just like prison for kids, table football, table tennis and other such games in the evening. Then there were visits home for the week end and I absconded, first time I got the chance I didn’t go back. That’s where the secure units came into it. To start with I was scared I just wanted to go home to Preston where I come from. After a few years it became the norm for me, it’s hard to explain, I didn’t think that I would ever go back to Preston. When I was about 10 I started getting into crime, burglaries, breaking into cars, and when I was about 12 years old my drug using began, glue sniffing, gas sniffing, stealing motor-bikes. It gave me an escape from all the loss that I was feeling. I was just a kid, feeling lost and scared and it made me feel good. It was an escape and the petty theft gave me enough money to buy a can of glue or gas. It gave me a feeling of elation, I was on my own, no one telling me what to do, off my head with gas or glue. My associates at that age were in the same predicament as I was, they had been in care from an early age and they also wanted to escape anyway we could so we would go into shops doing petty theft stealing cans of glue or gas, also stealing toiletries or anything we could sell for money for our habit. But we were basically lost kids of 14 years old or so. At 13 years of age I started smoking Cannabis, but so did most of the kids, it was another escape. It was all just to suppress the bad feelings. At the age of 15 I was caught doing a burglary at a house and the first time I was sent to Walton prison, it was ‘youth custody’ at that time. I was given 8 months. It wasn’t just for youths, there were men there, but certain wings were for youths. It was very violent there. Young men needing to prove themselves. In prison and the estate where we came from it was always that if you wanted respect you had to fight to prove yourself. It seems silly saying that now, but if you wanted respect that was the way it was, there was always someone wanting to fight you. The first seven to ten days were the worst, I was scared but after that it wore off. If they had let me out then, I don’t think that I would ever have gone to prison again, but the fear factor had gone by then. I was only out of prison for a few months when I was back again and that continued for the next nineteen years. Until now, I was released in March of this year and I came into T.H.O.M.A.S. Deciding to change my life was a chain of events. My life was going nowhere, I was sick of the sight of prisons. People had tried to get me into rehab for about 4 years, but I wouldn’t, I just didn’t have the bottle really, it was going to be when I was ready. I woke up one morning in Lancaster prison and decided that I had had enough. Basically the first thing that I was doing before going to see my family was going out and buying drugs. I knew that when I took that drug, that I would be back in prison in the next few months. It had become a vicious circle, jail, drugs, car crime, prison. That was my life as I knew it until now. In a period of nineteen years I have spent 10 or 12 of those in prison, wasting my life; I am now 34 years old and it has taken a long time for me to realise that. Since the 2nd of January this year I have not touched any drugs at all. That same morning I went to see Kev from the CARAT team in Lancaster to make me an appointment with Pam from the T.H.O.M.A.S. team, I saw her the next day and she agreed to take me in when I was released at the end of March. I worked with Kev and the CARAT team and it’s Kev who got me here. He was always there every day giving me support, offering me a way out showing me the right way, it was good, the support that he gave me. I was teaching Maths and English in the afternoons at Lancaster and that made me feel comfortable when I finally came to T.H.O.M.A.S. I was a personal guidance tutor there. I got into this because I passed every exam that they give in there and I was asked by the education department to be a teaching assistant. It turned out to be a good thing because it made me feel comfortable in a group environment. Since I came to T.H.O.M.A.S. I have had an interview with Blackburn College to be a Basic Skills Adult Education assistant. I am starting to realise my dreams now, because that is what I want to do – teach. It is T.H.O.M.A.S. that has given me the opportunity to find a new way of life without drugs. |
