HOPE WHISPERS TO ME; I'LL GIVE YOU ONE MORE CHANCE

Aim

It’s the last hope..it really is.... Have nowhere else left to turn and are desperately in need of help to get our life back on track.

Since coming out of drug treatment in 2010, I’d started to live a decent life, free from active addiction and any criminality for the first time in my adult life.  

After completing 8 months on a drug treatment programme. I spent a year volunteering in services. I got deeply involved in building local recovery support, helped start a local charity, openly shared my story at national events.  I played a big part in reshaping local treatment services. I was even presented with a recognition award from the national treatment agency for my commitment and help, and invited to the house of Lords!!   I’d never had anyone say, “I’m proud of you” before now, and it felt amazing, I was literally wearing a crown.  

In 2012 I was given a great opportunity.  Someone with “significant influence” locally had been hearing my name, watching what I was up to and he wanted to meet me.     When I meet Frank, I had no idea what it was he really wanted to talk about.  We talked for hours, he shared Maslow’s theory, he gave me the opportunity I needed to get into paid work.   It was time to get on with life!!!  

I’d built a life for myself, had a career, a pretty well-paid job, a nice home, I’d re-built credit worthiness, and earnt back people’s trust and respect. I’d came to terms with my sexuality and was in a stable relationship with Dan. Life was the best it had ever been, and I can honestly say I was truly happy. 

Although I will always be an addict, I was finally free … until one sunny Friday afternoon and then 

CRASH, (literally).    

Through work I was involved with a fatal road accident after a motorcyclist collided with a company van and died instantly at the scene.  

It was one of darkest day of my life and when I got home that night I couldn’t handle my thoughts, feelings or emotions and in a moment of complete weakness and stupidity I turned to the one thing that I knew from the past would numb the pain and take all my thoughts away.   I didn’t consider the consequences, and to be honest in that moment I don’t think I even cared – I just knew I had to get through that night…  

It got me through the Friday night, and when I woke up Saturday morning, I told myself that although I’d had a lapse, it was only a lapse, and I was in control.  All I needed was a little more just to get through the weekend.  So, I used again over the weekend, and all the worries and emotions went away.   

Over the following months things got worse and worse, and harder to deal with – so the drug use got more serious and the amount went up, and Dan began to realise, but believed me when I played it down (because that's what you do when you love someone)..  

My employer didn’t do anything to help, in fact the exact reverse, they were even insensitive enough to hang a large canvass print of the van on the wall which I had to see daily.  When I asked them to take it down I was told to "MAN UP & DEAL WITH IT"   Maybe easy for him to say, he hadn’t seen or heard what I had, he wasn't being haunted at night by a crash helmet sat on the side of a road.  He wasn’t affected emotionally (except when he was worried the company was in trouble). He hadn’t dealt with any of it, so could just forget it now.  

I carried on my job, even though my use was now spiralling completely out of control, my absence was getting worse, I was starting to fall apart, and now it wasn’t just me suffering.   I couldn’t keep my using secret from my partner anymore, and as much as he tried to help me, he couldn’t, and now I'd dragged him in too, just to let him “try it to understand it, and be on my level”.  

Now because he has tried to help me through my struggle, he was now using too, and we were both living a lie to everyone we cared about.  We isolated from family and friends and began to borrow money to fund our growing habit.  Bills began to get missed, foods was the last thing money got spent on. 

For weeks and weeks, we attempted to detox, going a day or 2 without using, then lapsing for a few, clean a few, lapse a few.   My stupid pride still wouldn’t let me admit that I was back in active addiction.  I didn’t want to lose everything id built in the last 9 years, the kudos, the respect, the trust.  I didn’t want to be a failure. I needed help, but just couldn’t turn up at the drug service I had help build and develop to say the words. I just couldn’t.  I couldn’t break my Mums heart all over again. I just couldn’t. I couldn’t tear my family apart or put them through it all again. I couldn’t do any of it, and I couldn't let Dan get help without "revealing" myself.   

Paranoia and anxiety had us firmly by now, and people where noticing, constantly watching our every move, just waiting for us to fall.  We’d lost so much weight that trousers that fitted perfectly didn’t stay up on their own, had no appetite, and isolated and USED.  Everyone knew something was wrong, but we just keep up the pretence.  We even pretended to be doing serious keep fit and swimming to explain the body changes. 

Life was falling apart, pride was coming before the fall, then I heard some lyrics on a track by Stormzy "heavy is the head that wears the crown" and I realised maybe I couldn't tell the complete story, but I had to end the struggle, and get the help we needed.  

The following day I did it (kind of).  I admitted to work, and family, I’d been using drugs to help me through since the crash.   The only lie is was now telling was what “drugs” it was.  I pretended that I was battling with “prescription” drugs, not “street” drugs.   I know how much stigma still exists, how much pain and suffering I would cause the people I care about.  I didn’t want people to know I was a "failure”.    

I asked everyone to support us, and naturally assumed they would appreciate why I was struggling so much, and how Dan had got dragged in too.  I was desperately trying to get us clean and kept telling myself it was going to be ok, and some days it was, but some days it wasn’t, some nights were ok, some weren’t.    

Family and friends got it, they finally had an answer to their concerns, and even though they didn’t know the substance, they could finally help and support.   

My employer didn’t get it.  Instead of understanding, helping and supporting me, they began disciplinary action against me for my time keeping.  To them the fatality was history, in the past.  For me it was still very much in the present and there were no signs of these feelings leaving my future alone either.   

Enough was enough, I was hanging on the edge and my grip was slipping, it was destroying our lives.  I called into work sick, went to see my doctor, and told him the whole story.   I confessed to my boss that it was "Street Drugs" begging him for help and support in recovery.   None was given, I was right all along, they now just saw me as a junkie user, and refused any help, and terminated my employment.   

Since then we've not paid any bills, debt has gone up and up even higher than before, sometimes I think it would be better if I just wasn’t here, I cant see anyway out for myself, but Dan could be ok without me..   Nasty people are after money that I don’t have.  We’ve borrowed of family and friends that cant afford to help really, but they have tried as much as they can.   

We've now managed to escape home to a place of safety, and are 7 days clean and finally we are hopeful.    

We have love, we have the mental and physical support we need from family, friends and treatment to get ourselves well and back on track, but financially all roads lead to nowhere.  We can’t get out of this mess unless we can undo the financial damage, what’s the point in fixing ourselves if we’ve got nothing left in life once we have.   

We need a fresh start, detox, to the funds to fix the damage this has done, and get back to the place we were in the day before the accident.    

We hate doing this – it feels like begging a little, and putting it on people, making people feel its their choice if we "live or die".  That just isn't the case!! However when you see a guy on the telly bragging he had raised over £1600 for Botox, and material possessions, it makes you think.  When you are desperately low & depressed as we are right now, and you hear that people help fund such frivolous things, we thought maybe there is a light, and a bright hope that people might actually be prepared to help fund a second chance in life for us and give us a hand to get back from this darkness..   

As the wise man that got me back on track 10 years ago once said to me;

“The true measure of any society is found in how it treats its most vulnerable"

This project successfully funded on 10th June 2020