EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 38

Jul 2004

  I’ve been in prison from the age of sixteen and I’m 34 now. I’ve had a drug problem I started with tablets, sniffing gas, ecstasy, crack, cocaine and it’s controlled my life. I started because I felt that there was something missing in my life. I don’t know what it was.

When I was at school I was always thieving long before the drugs started I was a thief. I was expelled from school for fighting but I was never caught thieving.

My family have never been into drugs, but it was people outside my family that I got involved with. Most of my family don’t even drink now. I don’t like blaming other people, it was me, my choice I wanted to have what other people had through drugs and drinking but I can’t blame them. It was me and the way I was feeling.

I decided that I wanted to change my life because I looked at the damage I have caused; I have made other people’s lives a misery. It was only this last time in prison that I looked at myself and I didn’t like the devastation that I have caused. I didn’t like the uncaring selfish person that I was and I have never been able to see this before.

The last couple of years I have had it pointed out to me in prison. I was in an establishment where I was on a programme about behaviour. There I was given a chance to build up my confidence, look at myself and have things pointed out to me. I was never really violent, only through the drink.

I got to hear about T.H.O.M.A.S. whilst I was in Lancaster through a prison officer called Mark and the CARAT team. I was interested in what T.H.O.M.A.S. could offer and I was put into contact with Pam. She came to see me and when I left prison I came here the same day.

The advantages of being here. It is a stepping stone, there is support and ongoing support when I leave. There is a way out of the life that I have lead. I would have gone straight back onto the streets. Now there is support, not just with NA, there is a place to live, help with employment and a chance. I’ve never had a chance like that before, well I have but I have wasted it, because I have never wanted to know the difference.

As I look to the future I would like to be the person that I have not been for years, not go to prison, be a respectable member of society instead of being a menace to society. I would like to be known not as a bad person, by the people who are closest to me, people who I have hurt. I would like to turn things round, they have always been there for me but they have distanced themselves from me because of my behaviour, my drug-taking and I would like to be there for them so now to-day I have got hope for the future.

 

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