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I was first sent to prison in 2000 for street robbery against a lad who was under the age of 18. It was a sentence of two years because it was a violent robbery with threatening behaviour and weapons. It was connected with drugs, I did it to get articles that I could sell for drugs, especially Heroin which I have been using properly since the age of 18. I was introduced to it by my brother when I was 14 years old, but by the time I was 18 I was addicted. When I came out of prison I got back with an ex partner who is the mother of my 4 years old son. I was trying to go back to the past, but we had arguments, and I realised that it’s no good doing that. I ended up going back on the drugs, since then it’s been a roller coaster of drugs, and stealing for my habit, back to jail just a circle. Basically just injecting my life away. I first started using drugs because I was insecure. This insecurity started when I met other children and I wanted to and needed to fit in. That’s when it started, all the other kids were the same but they picked on me because they knew that I felt like that. So I was bullied at primary school by kids who felt just as insecure as me and I did things to fit in with them. I have been a bully myself, which makes you even more insecure. Things just spiralled out of control, you think that you are making things better but without realising it you are just making them worse. I was a kid and I suppose I should have known better. I had a normal upbringing, I had both parents and a large family, three sisters and two brothers one of which is using Heroin. The others are productive members of society, they all have jobs, none of them has a criminal record they all have their own houses, and I suppose in a way thought that I would be like him, big and hard and cool. At first I didn’t like it, it made me sick, but as I got older it could help me to hide my feelings and emotions. It made me feel that I didn’t have to be scared around people and I didn’t have to feel intimidated around people, but in the end when I started to come ‘down’ I just felt more paranoid and more insecure. These are problems that need to be worked on. I’ve done a lot of serious crimes in my life. Street robberies, everything, some serious stuff that I’m very, very ashamed of. But it’s stuff that I’m starting to work on. Since coming to T.H.O.M.A.S. I’ve looked at myself. The programme isn’t just about rehabilitation with drugs, it’s about rehabilitation with your life completely. For me my addiction was there before the drugs, the insecurity was part of my life and the disease that I’ve got. Since coming to T.H.O.M.A.S. and trying to work on that I’m beginning to change and I can see that I’ve been pretending for so many years. For the last fifteen years I’ve been pretending to be something that I’m not, I’ve been trying to put faces on it because I’m scared. I was scared that I wouldn’t be accepted if I showed people who I was. All that has started to change. Here at T.H.O.M.A.S. I’m getting the help that I need, I’m actually making friends, there are people here who like me for who I am, not for the person who I have pretended to be. I don’t have to tell lies about myself, here they believe in me, like I believe in myself, they have faith in me like I do. It’s a long battle, I can’t just click my fingers and think it’s done like I used always to believe. I can carry on living my life. Inside I have been an emotional wreck for most of my life, but I’ve done it myself and it’s hard to admit that; but it means that you have to be willing to learn, which will give you a willingness to change what you have become and that will give you an open mind and a willingness to become whatever you want to be. You can do this without the use of drugs, you can be strong, you can be the person you want to be, and I’m working on that day by day, minute by minute all the time and that is how I’m going to do it. I decided that after being sent to prison this last time, I had to change my life. Eighteen months ago I got sick and tired of using Heroin and being an addict. Now I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired. And going to jail this time I had a really hard time, I’ve been to jail a few times but this last time was bad. I was sent to a jail in Liverpool and not being from Liverpool, and being an outsider I got a lot of stick. People were trying to take things from me like my stereo and people were trying to take advantage of me like they have done all my life. I tried to please them so that they would accept me, but that’s wrong. I need to be able to say no and to be comfortable with saying no and I’ve decided that I can’t live the way that I’ve been living. I’ve lived and eaten out of skips. Because of my addiction, my parents made me leave and I was homeless, no money nowhere to go, nothing whatsoever. I had no support no friends and I ended up living in a skip behind a huge store for at least three months. There was a big superstore near and I would go into their skips for food and then go shoplifting. I’ve been to some seriously low places, I know that I’ve hit my personal rock bottom. I think that eating out of and living in skips is one of the worst things, but now that I’m not in addiction I think the worst experience is that of burglarising (twice) my parents home. I think that I can handle living in skips, it brought me to my knees and I can handle that because it brought me to where I am know. I can find the tools that I need to change and to use those tools when I leave. It sounds funny but I’m glad the addiction brought me to rehab because it made me realise that this is about me, it’s not just about stopping the drugs it’s something I’ve got to work on for the rest of my life. It’s about being happy and content with myself, accepting myself for who I am. I am happy about what I have done now. I have bad days as everyone does but I’m learning to deal with them in a constructive way. The bad days now aren’t as bad as those I had when I was using. Before I came to T.H.O.M.A.S. I was going to go to NA which was in Blackburn and I used that as an excuse not to go. Because I couldn’t afford the fare, but that wasn’t true, if I could afford Heroin I could afford the bus fare. I think NA is absolutely marvellous, and we have the chance to go to meetings. |
