EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 4645

December 2006

Homeless on the Streets of Liverpool

Robbie speaks to Edges.
Robbie is currently in the T.H.O.M.A.S. Rehabilitation Unit.
 
I remember being on the streets in Liverpool – Seal Street at a place run by ‘sisters’ for the homeless, somewhere to have a meal. I was lonely. I couldn’t return to my family after I had stolen off them and letting them down for over twenty years. It was hard on the streets, you needed to learn survival skills to find a safe place to get your head down to sleep, or to get a meal. I felt lonely and isolated, depressed and anxious, living on my wits all the time.

Addiction has led me to a couple of jail sentences, in and out of hospital. Over the last twenty years I’ve lived everywhere, moving from town to town, trying to sort out my problems, with doctors and CDT’s, trying to do it on my own, always thinking that I knew best. It’s like being in a maze for twenty years. I have lost count of the ‘rock bottoms’; I’ve done a couple of withdrawals, especially from Methadone where I’ve gone into prison. I’ve done benzones and I was a raging alcoholic too. I’ve had convulsions and blackouts. I have Hep. C. And I’ve also had thrombosis and pneumonia. I nearly had to have my foot amputated through injecting

I’ve done all sorts to my family; every time the phone rang they expected it to be the police telling them I’d been found dead in the gutter. When I was in prison it was like I was safe there. I needed to change my life because when I got out of prison in 1999 I got married and had a son who is now six years old. I got my partner on to heroin addiction. I pushed my family away, I was on the streets again; I couldn’t turn to anyone because I had used up all my resources. I was on my own; I had to do something. I needed help and that was the first time I was honest. I got help from the CARATS team.

I was emotionally and physically a wreck. I went to rehab at the Lancaster Castle. Seven months there and I knew that I had to go into rehab or twenty four hours after leaving I would be back again. I came to T.H.O.M.A.S. and it’s changed my life. The T.H.O.M.A.S. organisation has given me life skills to use as a stepping stone. I feel a part of something; I’ve never felt that before; it’s hard work at times and sometimes challenging but if you’re prepared to put in the footwork you’ll come out at the other side. I’ve got a long way to go but it’s giving me so much. My family are coming back into my life because they can see the difference in my letters and telephone calls. I’m not asking them for anything, I’m managing now. I’ve been here twelve weeks and I’m still clean and stable. I’m looking to the future. I know I have a future. Before coming here I thought I was designed to die an addict; I thought I was born that way, but now I have something. People can see the potential in me.
 

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