From the age of 15 I was using drugs and drinking. By the age of 16 I was addicted to heroin and before long I was in trouble with the police and on probation. My probation officer and key worker suggested that I try Amber.
My first few weeks at Amber were hard but at the end of my first month I started to relax and started thinking about my life. The whole structure of Amber was good, getting up in the morning, cooking in a team, doing activities within a team who became like my family. Having people to talk to who had been through the same thing. The staff were cool and there was always someone to talk to if you had a problem. Amber got me involved in outdoor activities and voluntary work, which in turn helped me get my confidence and motivation back and helped me communicate with people.
I was in Amber in 2000 and I’ve been working abroad for the last six years years. I still have bad days but here in France I have a mountain I can go snowboarding on and that is a much better buzz then me spending £100 on drugs and spending the whole day inside. There is so much more to life than doing drugs. Getting clean and learning to live a normal life is the hardest thing I have ever done but I have done it and I can now look at myself and know I am trying my hardest at living a good life. I learnt so much from Amber and its staff. I am still in contact with all the people I was close to at Amber - they were there for me when I was at my worse and I know that we will always stay friends.
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When I first arrived at Amber I was in a mess. My life was going nowhere. I’d been kicked out by both my parents and had been living a generally unproductive lifestyle of menial jobs, doing drugs, dealing cannabis and basically just existing in a negative way.
I’d had two unsuccessful attempts at post 16 education and had spent a few periods of unemployment ‘contemplating my navel’. After being honest, sleeping in my van and sofa surfing, I was sectioned with drug induced psychosis. This ironically was the turning point, as it was then that I found out about Amber.
Depressed and lacking focus, Amber staff encouraged me to participate fully in the day to day routine and activities. I began to rise from my pit and to get involved in a lot of rewarding experiences including a week long circus skills workshop culminating in a live performance, and a speech and poetry recital to an audience of around 300 people at the South West Conform conference on homelessness. My proudest achievement was the personal development course. Six weeks of intensive fitness training finishing with a 35 mile, 36 hour exercise on Dartmoor. The feeling of achievement we all felt on the bus home was one of the biggest natural highs I have experienced – complete satisfaction and a feeling of self worth, a marked contrast to my arrival at Amber nine months previously.
With help and guidance from the manager and team leaders I decided to apply for college to do a one year course in preparation for University. My future is so much brighter and I will keep in contact with Amber staff as I am eternally grateful for their support. I have made strong and lifelong friendships which mean a lot to me.
For as long as I could remember my life was in turmoil. I gained good GCSE results at school and chose to study ‘A’ levels but within a few months my girlfriend and me decided to set up home together and I quit school and got a job in the building trade. Shortly after moving into our flat my girlfriend’s mother and father had a major row and her father moved in with us.
Unfortunately (on reflection) her father had a serious alcohol problem and I got into the habit of drinking with him every night. For her father, drinking was obviously the cause and effect of his depressive state and whilst still living with us he committed suicide. This was such a traumatic time for my girlfriend and me. I lost my job and in order to cope I began drinking more heavily and using drugs.
Eventually it all got too much, there were so many issues and there was such a strain on our relationship that I was like a time bomb waiting to go off and the drink fuelled that. Then one night, whilst heavily under the influence of drink and drugs, I got into a bad fight and received a four-year prison sentence for grievous bodily harm.
Alcohol and drugs were not a problem inside prison but when I came out 3½ years later I had not been prepared for the adjustment needed to getting used to living on the ‘outside’ again. I was met at the gate by friends who took me to the pub to celebrate my release – they thought they were doing me a favour - but after so long without a drink I was ‘flat out’ and continued to drink regularly and heavily for another year. During this time I also started taking class A drugs and as a consequence I started drinking even more to counteract the effect of coming down from the drugs.
Three years after leaving prison and many attempts at quitting drink and drugs, I managed to clean myself up with the help of my counsellor who told me about Amber where, for the first time in twelve years, I felt able to react normally to situations. I realised I could change things in my life for the better. Amber gave me a choice and a different way of life, a good way. I was never judged at Amber and it was the first place where I felt I had something to offer and was valued for that. Counselling and the way staff treated me at Amber gave me confidence and self esteem, time, responsibility and space, which enabled me to turn my life around. So much so that I am now studying for my professional diploma in counselling, a 3 year course that I will complete next year. I also work as a volunteer at the local prison on the drugs awareness programme.
The staff at Amber were such a positive influence on me when I was in a really desperate state. Amber believed in me before I believed in myself and I will never forget it.
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