I had a relatively good upbringing
David is currently on our Rehabilitation Programme
My name is David and I am 40 years old. I was born in Blackburn; I had a relatively good upbringing and I don’t think that I wanted for anything. I was always pretty clever at school but I feel I could have left with more qualifications. My mum and dad split up when I was 14 and my brother and I stayed with our mum. Mum married again a couple of years later and this year they celebrate their Silver Wedding.
I started working soon after leaving school but also started my drink and drug career. Apart from drinking alcohol and smoking Cannabis I started dabbling in amphetamines at week-ends. This was to be followed by LSD and Ecstasy at the Rave scene which was just hitting Blackburn.
I look back at these times as being the best times of my life but it was to come with a cost. By 1991 the Acid House Scene was winding down and I, amongst others were left with a gaping hole to fill, especially at the week-ends. It was then that I was introduced to heroin which I would take on occasion at the week-end, but it wouldn’t stay that way.
Slowly over the coming months heroin would get hold of me and affect other areas of my life. I started getting in trouble at work for having time off, personal relationships were suffering and I was starting to be devious and dishonest. I was getting more involved in petty crime to feed my addiction and also stealing from family members.
In 1995 I went into Inward House in Lancaster and completed the programme in 1996. Thinking that I’d cracked my heroin problem I carried on using every other drug available but eventually it was to resurface years later. In the space of 12 years I went from owning my own house and having a well paid job to losing everything and renting back the house I once owned. Even this wasn’t enough for me to realize how much I was on a downward slope.
After failed attempts to get some normality back in my life and exhausting help from family and friends, I found myself back in Blackburn, homeless with a chronic alcohol addiction. Although my outlook was bleak I was lucky enough that my auntie got me a place at THOMAS and after a detox in hospital from alcohol, I landed at Witton Bank in 2008.
I’ve been here for 6 months and it’s good. I’m trying to rebuild my life with the help of others and I’m very hopeful for the future.