National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse - Personal stories

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Who are you?

Service users, families and carers

Personal stories

Substance misuse is a complex issue. It affects individuals from all walks of life, as well as their families, friends and communities.

Below are some personal stories from people* whose lives have been affected by substance misuse, and from those who look after them and treat them. Names may have been changed to protect identity.

Our thanks to everyone who shared their story with us. Our thanks also to Abigail Gordon at Blenheim CDP Evolve and Noreen Oliver MBE at BAC and their colleagues and clients for allowing us to use their photographs.

*some names have been changed to protect identities

'Recovery is contagious'
Last month, Katie Thomson became the Eastern Region's Best Recovery Champion – an accolade bestowed on her at the first-ever regional recovery awards. Over 50 nominations were received for people, projects and services in the East of England helping former addicts to live drink or drug-free lives. Read Katie's story.

The Road to Recovery
The Road to Recovery supplement on drug treatment featured in the Society Guardian and was supported by the NTA. It covers a range of perspectives on recovery, with information and first hand experiences of users and professionals. If you're interested in learning about the support available to help individuals on the road to recovery.

Read more about types of support available, and perspectives from a former user in recovery and a GP
Read more about a scheme to address the underlying social needs of addicts

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Carolyn McDonald

Operations Manager at Westminster Drugs Project

In the past, you might get a referral for family therapy but it wouldn’t be linked up with your substance misuse work. It would be stuck in social work. At WDP, we come with a background and awareness around substance misuse. We’ve expanded drug and a...

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Leigh Wallis

Head of drug and alcohol services – HMP/YOI Chelmsford

In prison, you can engage with the individual because he doesn’t have outside distractions so can focus on his treatment journey. When they come on our wing, we sit with them, discuss their background, their motivation and need. We actively work out...

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Ellie Gordon

Ellie Gordon , Head of Commissioning - Continuing Care NHS North Lincolnshire

Ellie is a member of the substance misuse skills consortium and active member of the Royal College of Nursing, sitting on the steering committee for the Nurses in Management Leadership Forum. Ellie’s roles in the past included clinical nurse specialist ...

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David Ryan

Supported housing manager at Acorn Treatment and Housing

Ex service user David Ryan knows what a difference the right kind of treatment can make to a recovering addict. Clean now for 11 years, the former heroin and crack user has worked his way up from volunteer to support worker to supported housing lead at A...

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Ex service user David Ryan knows what a difference the right kind of treatment can make to a recovering addict. Clean now for 11 years, the former heroin and crack user has worked his way up from volunteer to support worker to supported housing lead at Acorn Treatment and Housing, a large recovering community rehab providing a 12-step programme alongside a supported accommodation programme in the North West of England. “The emphasis at Acorn is very much on Recovering communities and peer mentoring and we are lucky enough to have a large and reliable cohort of peer mentors living in our recovering community, we have even been able to employ a number of ex service users to do things like take our service users to Narcotics Anonymous or Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or to GP or dentist appointments or even just a trip down to the shops. There is also a strong focus on family support. The daycare programme operates as a therapeutic model which consists in the main of group work/one to one counseling/daily feelings diaries to give the client the opportunity to be able to identify their feelings and get to know themselves and each other better. We have also recently introduced psycho-dynamic sessions which are running as an add on to our current programme. There is also a large emphasis on the family work we do here at Acorn, we are very much aware of the impact that addiction has on the family unit and as such we have always sought to provide a robust package of support to the families of our clients. We have recently commenced the IMPACT training package to add to this already successful element to our programme, we support the whole family and we also run sessions to support each family independently from the service user. One of the many benefits of Acorn and the service that we provide in the community is that we support people to face up to the consequences of their actions and to take responsibility for the things they have done rather than to be removed from the situation and to have to face it later down the line our service users get well where they got sick and as such they learn how to take pride in their community . Often, people who go into rehab do so straight out of prison, where there has been little or no family contact. To then go to a rehab – remote from where they live – where they are, again, away from their family, takes away a very important layer of support that they might get from family and from the community. Being at our rehab in the community means that service users get the opportunity to stay closer to their family and as a result they are usually better able to take steps to rebuild relationships with family – but even more so and just as importantly with the community too. They are also able to have a level of continuity as they keep the same GP/dentist etc that they’ve always had. It helps them to reintegrate more quickly and to allow others to see that they are giving back to the community by getting better and taking responsibility. Of course community rehabs aren’t for everyone, infact rehab isn’t for everyone period, but we have lots of current and previous success stories at Acorn and there are lots of people who have left Acorn and gone on to be very productive members of society and do really great work with other services as well. We have excellent links with partner agencies and local training and education so we are really able to provide our service users with the building blocks they need to successfully recover, reintegrate into society and reunite with their families and communities. Integrating treatment with training, housing and employment is critical to sustained recovery, so it’s good to see that the government’s new drug strategy includes recovering communities like Acorn. As long as service users are involved in moving treatment forward, using our experience to shape future treatment, then I think that it can only be a good thing, and I am looking forward to taking part in the consultation.

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Dr Caroline Dollery

Clinical GP Lead

As a GP, everything turns up at our door. We come across problems relating to substance misuse all the time. We get people that might not normally come to their GP. Once you provide a good service, word of mouth spreads. I’d love to see all GPs getting...

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Paul

Ex-user

Heroin was my drug of choice but I’d inject anything. I started injecting when I was 21 and finally went for treatment at 44. A friend said ‘you need treatment Paul because you’re going to be dead pretty soon’. I went because I was fed up doing nothin...

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Eric Noi

Director, The Oldham Boxing and Personal Development Centre

We have great support locally. Almost every week we’re in the paper telling positive stories. We organised a bag pack at Tesco’s – all the lads helping out, representing the club. We are at the coal face of the community, bang in the centre of an est...

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We have great support locally. Almost every week we’re in the paper telling positive stories. We organised a bag pack at Tesco’s – all the lads helping out, representing the club. We are at the coal face of the community, bang in the centre of an estate in Oldham. Our centre is part of the ACCE (Alcohol, Cannabis, Cocaine and Ecstasy) project, which uses sport to help substance misusers. We work on their health, self-discipline and self-esteem. ACCE is based around lifestyle change. The boxing club is here because of ACCE. We decided to tackle the poor rate of attendance at appointments by bolting it on to boxing. Boxing is attractive to our clients. Many of those referred here, walk in to a gym and feel comfortable. We get the Jack Daniels and coke brigade – weekend users who often don’t think they have a problem, end up having a fight, being arrested, sent to services, then don’t turn up. We talk about their weekend habits. One guy said – I don’t want to sit in a circle talking about my problems. What can you do for me? Here, he knows he’s amongst friends. One of our coaches epitomises how this project helps. He came through heroin and crack addiction and is one of my head coaches. The lads see the end product. They come through the door for the boxing. That’s the hook, the medium. Keep fit initially and when they are ready, take on more. We run courses on personal development, sports massage, reflexology, smoking cessation. We pioneered steroid awareness programmes. We run substance misuse courses. We look at harm reduction. There is credibility. We run vocational programmes teaching basic literacy, providing help with CVs. We have accredited courses too. Whilst engaging, you are diverting, while engaging you are educating and preventing. We engage people who have never engaged in education before. This can be a catalyst for their learning journey. We ran a course for security industry occupations and immediately got four placements. Our club is unique. It works. It’s about the energy and enthusiasm people put into it. People are realising that boxing is a tool, amiable, and controlled. It is not about losing your temper but about self control. Skills that transfer to other parts of your life. Boxing is about growing citizens. *Eric was a nominee for the BeMobo awards 2010, an award established to honour special contributions that orchestrate significant changes via grass roots, educational or community initiatives.

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Alex

Ex-user

I don’t want to change the world. But I know I can reach people, hard nuts like me, who are in a destructive way of life. Untouchables - I can relate to them. They are all little clones of me. I can relate to what they are feeling, to what they say. Th...

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Margi

Carer

My daughter told me my 13-year-old son was glue sniffing down in the park. I didn’t know what that was – why would someone want to sniff glue. I went to my GP and was given a helpline number for him to call. He wasn’t interested - he was enjoying himse...

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Dr Jenny Maslin

Clinical Psychologist, Lambeth Aftercare Team and Lambeth Drug and Alcohol Service

Working with a community drug action team and an aftercare team, I see people across all stages of their substance use career. With aftercare, we work with service users who are stable in their drug use, following treatment or a period in prison and...

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Working with a community drug action team and an aftercare team, I see people across all stages of their substance use career. With aftercare, we work with service users who are stable in their drug use, following treatment or a period in prison and help them to rebuild their lives in the community. This could involve relapse prevention skills, employment and housing advice, developing self-help, life skills and supportive social networks, psychological support and more. We often work in the community and meet our clients in cafes, libraries and parks. The team host a weekly lunch at a community café. As well as lunch, there’s housing advice, creative writing, drama workshops etc, and I provide psychological assessments to help people think where they might best access appropriate talking therapy. Often, people with substance use problems have psychological difficulties and they use substances to manage those difficulties. Maybe it’s depression or anxiety or they’ve had difficult childhood experiences. Meeting with a psychologist can help people understand how they can manage psychological difficulties in healthier ways than using substances. The process of psychological therapy is a collaborative exercise with the psychologist bringing some expertise in models of human understanding and evidence based treatment and the client as an expert in their own experience. Identity is a recurring issue for people who have made the move away from problematic use. After the initial euphoria of stopping, people ask ‘Is this it? What does it say about me that I developed drug problems? What do I want from my life, what’s important to me?’ Often people talk of not having a strong sense of self because they began using so young. These ‘identity’ ideas aren’t new but we are bringing them more in to treatment. Overall, there’s a move to a more consistent recovery-oriented treatment system. This more holistic approach allows us to think about people’s treatment and substance use problems in a broader way than before. Appropriate support should be given to service users at different stages of their drug use, over a longer period of time, with a move away from discrete, acute episodes of care with a chronic focus. In aftercare, we’ve made links with some excellent community support services for people in recovery, although there are still many obstacles for our service users. Conversations are starting to happen between service users, providers and potential employers about the barriers to employment they face. It’s important to recognise that recovery is a unique and individual journey, requiring a personalised support plan, which inspires hope and aspirations and provides the right support at the right time

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Robert

Volunteer, SOVA

While on sick leave from my job as an underwriter, I thought of volunteering. I wanted something I’d find challenging. I travelled with my job. I saw colleagues sniffing powders. Their lives ruined by it. Drug users come from all sections of society. It...

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Zoe

Ex-user

All of a sudden, it’s bloody hell I am 30 this year. How did that happen? I missed out on my formative years because of drugs. I left school at 17 to train as a nursery teacher. It was the 90s’ rave scene and I was a teenager experimenting. My boyfr...

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Jamie Sadler

Manager, Drug and treatment user service, Birmingham

I’m Jamie, manager of the drug and treatment user service and a service user in Birmingham for over ten years. I haven’t used for years but would like to say a few words about recovery from my point of view. DATUS is a peer-led charity run by servi...

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I’m Jamie, manager of the drug and treatment user service and a service user in Birmingham for over ten years. I haven’t used for years but would like to say a few words about recovery from my point of view. DATUS is a peer-led charity run by service users and former users of drug treatment services. We promote service user involvement and support service-users-ex to become involved in the planning, delivery and quality monitoring processes, of treatment services and commissioning bodies. Through our advocacy service we support service users in having more control over their personal treatment journey. Many service users encounter the ‘we know what’s best for you’ approach during treatment. We want to move to a model based on shared aims. After all, no one can recover for you. Service users need to make more decisions for themselves, and for that they need to be empowered – that’s what we do. If service users get a better service, they are more likely to recover. Choice and an inclusive definition of recovery are vital if the recovery movement is to achieve its true potential. Many detox and rehab services are set up around the addiction-as-a- life-long disease model, people are born addicts and will die addicts and abstinence is the only option. There is a danger that the recovery movement is associated only with residential services and the lifelong disease view. We cannot have a systemic bias to that view or any other. This is not about abstinence verses non abstinence. Many people who see themselves as recovered are abstinent but believe they are no longer addicts. The system needs to allow people to choose how they view their addiction and recovery. Most people who recover do it in the community and disappear back into the community, no longer needing services. The majority aren’t doing it via a rehab, abstinent, or lifelong disease route, so any exclusive connection between recovery and abstinence - disease model, alienates people who might otherwise engage with the recovery movement. Our research on users who see themselves as recovering or recovered and back in the community found that the biggest factors contributing to their success were physical needs, such as housing, being met, than being involved in meaningful activities, paid or not. Having a good social network had a positive impact. I believe the key is to adopt a national definition of recovery that is inclusive, based on a person being able to have sustained control over their life and contributing to society in a positive way. If you can achieve those two things, you are in recovery. We all want the same thing - to lead happy and productive lives.

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Jenavi Omoma

Young persons’ substance misuse practitioner, Addaction

I was attracted to working with young people because of the opportunity to empower them. I wasn’t aware of any services that could support me when I was growing up. I see 12-19 year olds. It’s more common that people in their late teens will self-refe...

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Laura Walsh

Managing director of Advanced Cleaning UK, and ex-user

Currently, we have two very good employees who were once drug users and are now excellent members of our team. My advice to employers: don’t judge. Look at my story. I am very non-judgemental in my approach. Obviously if we are cleaning at school we ...

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Currently, we have two very good employees who were once drug users and are now excellent members of our team. My advice to employers: don’t judge. Look at my story. I am very non-judgemental in my approach. Obviously if we are cleaning at school we are mindful of CRB checks. I have employed ex-heroin users, ex-drug users. I am open and talk to people and these things would be discussed during interview. A lot of our customers are blue chip companies so we need to have a rigorous application process. Part of that process is asking about a criminal history. One of our employees was straight out of prison. We were his first point of contact. He said: ‘I have done nine years in prison. I’m an ex-heroin addict and ex-alcoholic. I am being honest with you. Take me on if you want’. He did nine years for armed robbery, so a lot of his work was supervised. The trust builds up and you get to know your staff on a personal level. You build up a rapport. Obviously, I try to be very respectful of people’s confidentiality. No ex-user is proud of what they have done. I see their self esteem go up, their sense of pride, their whole attitude to life. It is really good to see. It is very rewarding. I think the return to work gets the ball rolling for them. If people look at me now, they think I have a very good lifestyle. Yet I have been exactly where they are so I never judge. In 2005 I had a ten year addiction to drink and drugs. I went from being a proud housewife, homeowner, manager and mother to a single woman about to be made homeless. My family washed their hands of me. I wanted the New Year to be my turning point. I got myself into a bad place over Christmas and drank. I slept most of the way through the tsunami. That was the turning point for me. So I went into a treatment programme. My ambition in life had been to get my next fix. I needed a new focus. Now I wanted to do something with my life. I wanted to have a go at setting up a business. And I used the same focus and energy in getting that company up and running that I used managing my addiction. The job centre bought me a new suit and paid for some printing. I posted leaflets around Bristol and it wasn’t long before I had my first cleaning contract. After a year, I had an accountant and a turnover of £100,000. That was five years ago and today I have 50 employees. Now I have self respect and focus. Currently, we have two very good employees who were once drug users and are now excellent members of our team. One is a site supervisor and the other a regional contracts manager. My advice to potential employers: don’t judge. Look at my story.

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Helen

Mother and ex-user

For the last three years I have been volunteering for the Isle of Wight drug action team as a service user representative. That means working closely with people. Empathising with them and offering support on their journeys is important – it helps that I...

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Noreen Oliver, MBE

Chief Executive, BAC

People want the choice of a local rehab facility. But we aren’t the sort of service that works in isolation. We offer other levels of treatment, and we work closely with the local council, primary care trust and other related services. It’s an integrated...

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People want the choice of a local rehab facility. But we aren’t the sort of service that works in isolation. We offer other levels of treatment, and we work closely with the local council, primary care trust and other related services. It’s an integrated community service. Our new facility in Newcastle under Lyme came about because of the huge demand for our services. We’re always looking at how we can do things better. We’re working with a local housing association, for example, to build semi-independent flats in Newcastle that provide the final stage. We’re also planning a café, run by service users, where we’ll have educational training, AA meetings, advice sessions and so on. We also felt the family programme needed to improve. So we invited families in and spoke to them about the importance of engaging in the rehab process. We now run a range of sessions where families work together to rebuild bridges and repair relationships. Our business model is good. But as we move towards more recovery-orientated treatment, we have to make sure we continue to do it properly and show that the investment is working, that people are leaving free of drugs and alcohol, and are contributing to society. As part of this we have to recognise that every sort of treatment has its place. Recovery is not about abstention versus methadone, but about uniting the workforce, bringing together providers, academics, the NTA and other organisations. Let’s unite as a field and be more ambitious. If we can inspire the workforce, they will inspire their clients to achieve. Locally, we encourage our clients in all sorts of ways. The local college runs literacy and numeracy courses for us. The council and voluntary agencies offer work placements. We encourage clients to work outside, to move out of their comfort zone and get some experience. If you go to local shops and businesses, you will meet any number of people who have come through the programme and are now working. Our clients are successful because the minute they walk through the door, we support them and keep them moving forwards, from detox to therapeutic rehab to resettlement. Even when they move into the flats, where they fund themselves and look after themselves, they still have access to our main facilities and the support of a therapist. Of course we still see relapse, but we always ask why, and look at data and service-user feedback to see what we can improve. For example, we found that some people going into the flats weren’t attending support meetings, so we introduced floating support workers. Now, if anybody relapses, we can quickly get them back in the system and keep them safe. Progress often depends on the individual, but it’s up to us to remain flexible, ambitious for our service users and workforce.

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Sue Hall

Co-ordinator, Family Drug Support, Herefordshire

I see our role as two-fold. We can offer support and practical help to families who are suffering because of a loved one’s drug problem, but we can also help improve treatment for drug users by sharing our extensive knowledge and experience with commissi...

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Debbie Millar

Integrated Drug Treatment System nurse manager, Her Majesty’s Prison Eastwood Park

When I started here nearly six years ago, some prisoners would arrive in a dreadful state and they’d leave here in the same condition. Things have turned round. I think drug misusers would say that treatment services in prison are good these days. Whe...

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