NATALIE'S STORY - PART 2

Natalie was forced to seek help to overcome her heroin addiction when her mother threatened to kick her out of the family house.

"I think it came to a head when she sat me down, me and John, and she said, 'I can't cope with this anymore. You're going to have to go…' And I just thought, 'Oh my God…I'd have to go and live with John with William [Natalie's son].' And I couldn't bear that, living like that. So I just said there and then, 'Get me the phone, I'll phone an agency.'

"I phoned up and I couldn't get through. It took me about a week to get through. I wasn't trying that hard. And then one day, I was just sitting in my room, I was crying, I was withdrawing, I'd had enough and I just got the phone."

Natalie clearly remembers the telephone conversation that she had with the treatment agency's receptionist.

"She asked me what my problem was and I said, 'Heroin.' It was the first time I'd said to anybody that I was a heroin addict. I was crying on the phone to her and she gave me an appointment and suggested that I went to a self-help group. And the appointment was for about three weeks later."

The agency accessed by Natalie is based on the Minnesota Model of addiction. In this model, addiction is viewed as a medical disease which can be treated with one-to-one counselling, family therapy, group therapy and involvement in 12-Step self help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous [AA] and Narcotics Anonymous [NA].

During Natalie's first appointment at the agency, she was assessed by one of the drug workers.

"… and he said, 'You'll do this. You're gonna do it.' And I… really didn't think I would. I thought he was just saying it just to make me feel better. I cried a bit in that session."

Natalie was offered a place on the agency's pre-treatment program, much to her surprise.

"… he said, 'I'll probably get shot for doing this but come to the pre-treatment group on Monday.'…"

Natalie remembers being very nervous on her first day.

"On the Monday I was so nervous about going to pre-treatment I got my mother to walk up with me. It was first thing in the morning. It was nine thirty and I thought it was punishment in itself. I thought, 'They're doing this deliberately - half past nine in the morning!'"

Natalie was still using heroin.

"So I went along and I was late, I'd been up since six using."

She was surprised that there was someone in the pre-treatment group who had been through situations similar to her.

"There was about fifteen of us and there was somebody in there that was an ex-heroin addict who'd been clean for about sixteen years at the time and she came out and then she talked to me and… she said 'That's the same as me. That's what I did,' and I was just like in awe from that day. I just thought 'God, I can't believe this - that she's done exactly what I've done. It sounds the same.' She … took me under her wing. From that moment, I didn't feel so alone."

Natalie attended pre-treatment every week for two months - during this time, she also started going to NA meetings.

"The agency suggested I go. I went there and I sat there and listened to the stories… I couldn't actually believe that people who were saying they were clean, were clean. I thought, 'Oh yeah - they're just saying that. They're bound to have a smoke. Oh definitely have a smoke, especially her…'"

However as Natalie's time with the agency and NA progressed she recalls a sense of belonging.

"It was just fantastic. I felt this is the right place. I belonged somewhere. I felt we all had something in common and that was really shocking for me. I started to understand my addiction and realised that my behaviour was part of my illness."

The agency suggested to Natalie the possibility of a detox at a local psychiatric hospital.

"… I was absolutely horrified that they mentioned it to me. I thought 'There's no way - me going to detox. That's for down and outs, not for me. No way.' And so after speaking to my family about it, they were like 'Oh no, you don't need that. Surely to God you don't need that.' But I started thinking about it more and more, and I thought 'Yeah I do. I actually need detox.' So the agency were trying to set-up an appointment for me…"

Natalie decided that it was time to start reducing her heroin use.

"I was working in a pub. And I loved working there. I really did like it. Just from the time I started going to the agency and NA, I started trying to cut down. I was scared to give up completely. I knew it was coming to a head at some point, I didn't know when."

So her father began to weigh out a certain amount of heroin each day for her with each portion progressively decreasing in size. When Natalie initially began the reduction regime, she was using 1½ grams of heroin a day, which at that time was costing her £120. However, just before Natalie stopped using completely, her heroin use was costing her roughly £10 a day. The reduction program was "probably over a period of two months. It wasn't very structured."

"… Before the appointment [for the detox] came, I'd done that reduction program just doing it myself and I thought on Monday I was going to give up heroin. I then thought 'No, just do it tomorrow.' So I stopped the next day."

Natalie was not confident that she would be able to stay off the heroin long-term so she still went along for the detox appointment, despite being clean for three days. During her assessment at the local psychiatric hospital, she was asked what she expected from the detox.

"… I said 'I would like is just to be normal and have a happy life.' He looked at me and I said 'Do you think that's too much to expect.' I really thought that was too much to expect and he said, 'No. Not at all'…"

Natalie was added to the waiting list for detox at the local psychiatric hospital. She decided that a change of scenery would do her good so she booked a holiday two weeks later.

"So I thought if I went away for two weeks when I came back, that would be sort of like a month then I'd been clean. So I did that. But in this time, even though I'd given up heroin, I was drinking and smoking hash."

Four months after the assessment, she received a phone call from the hospital informing her that they had a bed for her. However, she did not need the inpatient detox as she had been clean for just over four months.

"I said I didn't need it… and they were like 'Oh that's brilliant. Good luck.'"

Natalie described the heroin withdrawal.

"It wasn't too bad because I was cutting down really slowly. It was over a period of time, so it wasn't too bad."

However, she feels that the alcohol she was consuming may have helped to mask some of the withdrawal. Natalie was drinking three pints of lager ever night. Furthermore, every three to four days, she would binge drink, drinking anything from spirits to lager to wine, to the point where she would drink herself unconscious.

"… so I was still a bit chaotic even though I'd given up gear… my life didn't automatically change. Withdrawals - you'd think you'd never forget, wouldn't you? But I do. And that's when you've got to be careful… I've got to always remember where I've come from."

Natalie also took physeptone tablets to ease the withdrawal. However, she was afraid that she would become addicted to them. So on the first day, she took four physeptone tablets. On the second day, she took two physeptone tablets and 7mls of liquid methadone. On the third day, she took one physeptone tablet in the morning and one in the night. By the fifth day, Natalie had stopped taking the tablets.

She remembers having trouble sleeping.

"I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep. That lasted for about two months. Sometimes I'd be awake for hours in the night. Sometimes I couldn't get to sleep and I would do whatever I had to do."

She also recalls feeling disorientated.

"Shaky, very shaky inside. I didn't know whether I was coming or going or what was happening. It was like being put back in to the world after being locked up for a couple of years."

Natalie described how strange the feeling was when she stopped using heroin and became aware again of simple things, like the taste of food, birds singing and spring-time.

Natalie found the psychological withdrawal far worse than the physical withdrawal.

"Mental was worse, physical I could handle… The mental was like you know when you just want to rip something… it's like you're so wired up. What I did, I kept a journal and I've still got it… probably the first ten days I was going out of my head. I'd have to start writing or doing something, it's got in there 'I'm so demented.'

"… as I said my family would support me so they would take me out if I said 'I just can't handle this.' They'd take me out straight away - take me down the beach, take me anywhere. I might not want to go. The mental frustration of just being torn really and scared. You've got so many things going on, you're scared, you've done this so many times, you're gonna mess up again… You've got feelings rushing around but you don't know that they're feelings because you've suppressed them for so long."

Natalie recalls not being able to distinguish between the feelings of hurt and anger. Her counsellor helped her to re-learn what her feelings stood for.

The agency provided Natalie with telephone numbers of people who had been through treatment and were willing to be contacted.

"I was using these phone numbers to phone people up and they'd say 'Just go with it. Do whatever you can to take your mind off using - read, iron, go for a walk, go to meetings'…"

Natalie described how she would try to stop herself from thinking about heroin

"So it would be things like, it could be two in the morning and I'd think 'Right, I've gotta do the dishes. I have to do anything to stop me thinking about it [heroin].' So I'd start doing the dishes or I would cook something… you know whatever it was, ironing. I read a lot. I read a lot of the literature I was given and kept thinking I want this, I want this, I really want this…

"… sometimes if I was awake at six in the morning and I couldn't go back to sleep, I would go up and go to the café and just persevere with it and then I'd be knackered all day and then I'd sleep in the day. It was all chaotic, I was sleeping whenever. Tiredness was the main thing. Boredom, very bored. I didn't see anybody. I ate a lot. I wasn't sick. Sneezed a lot. I was irritable and sensitive."

Natalie described the coming off the heroin as:

"… the easy part, the hard part is carrying it on and sticking at it."

"… because you don't want to face your problems, that's why you've taken drugs. You don't want to face up to things that have happened or the things that you've done. You've got to sort this out raw, you know, no drugs, nothing in you. You've got to face them, they're there and you've got to deal with it."

Initially, Natalie found it difficult to break the ties to her social network of drug users.

"At the beginning it was difficult 'cause people were phoning me and wanting to come back in to my life, my friends and John. And that was hard because it was still raw and I wanted to be with them but at the same time I didn't. And I was jealous that they were still using and still doing it and I wasn't. I was stuck in the house now."

John was particularly persistent and Natalie had talked with her counsellor about taking out an injunction against him.

"… I remember we talked about that in one of our sessions - me and my counsellor - because he was hassling me and he'd never let me go easily before. But when we sort of like made the decision [to take out an injunction against John], he stopped. I had letters from him through the door and I burnt them, I didn't read them. I did what I was suggested to do - not to be involved, don't read the letters, burn them. I did all that - kept myself safe and that's what they [the agency] kept saying 'Keep yourself safe' so that's what I did."

Natalie recalled a memorable incident from when she was trying to re-establish a 'normal' life. She was so used to gouching out every night in her clothes that she had forgotten the process of going to bed.

"I really didn't know that you got into bed and I was there one night and I thought 'Well, what do you do? You must put your nighty on.' It'd been so long since I'd done it. And so, I put my nighty on and I got in bed and I thought 'Well what do you do now?' I was in bed and I thought 'Right, people set their alarms don't they?' so I did that and the feeling was so strange, I hadn't done it for years. I thought 'This is what normal people do,' and it usually was about two o'clock in the morning. It wasn't like a normal time, but I thought that was quite normal, two o'clock in the morning."

However, she found it relatively easy to get back in to the routine of day-to-day life.

"… and more or less straight away I started getting in to the routine of doing the things that I had to do. I started taking my son to school, walking him to school."

Natalie described the withdrawals from heroin as "…they weren't that bad." However, she is not surprised that she did not come off it sooner because as she points out:

"… you're just scared. You don't know what the future's going to hold…"

"… you have a fear of it [coming off the heroin]. You think you're going to die through it."

It became apparent to Natalie that if she wanted to access the next stage of treatment, she had to abstain from all substances.

"… to go in to primary, you have to be completely clean so you have to stop drinking and smoking hash but I never saw that as a problem. I know I did lots of hectic things when I was drinking but it wasn't a problem - I could give up whenever."

"There are times when you think 'Right, okay. I'll never drink, I'm twenty-four now, I'll never drink. Tidy. Can I really do this?' and then you just remember that you've only got today, you could be dead tomorrow… and that's what they teach you 'It's only today you've got. You haven't got the rest of your life to think about it - just today.'… "

It was not only the drugs and alcohol that she would have to give up if she wanted to start primary treatment.

"… they'd [the agency] said to me that if I wanted to go in to primary group therapy, I wasn't allowed in any wet places, which is pubs and I was working in one. So I had to leave my job…"

Natalie discussed the possibility of giving up her job with her family.

"… went home, told my family and they were like 'No. It's a perfectly good job. You love it there. They're your friends there.' It was about the only positive thing that I really had in my life apart from the Centre [the agency] and I thought 'No.' After about a week I got used to the idea. And I thought 'Right, okay, yeah I'll leave work…'"

Natalie told her close work friends why she was leaving. They were surprised to learn that she had a heroin problem and was in treatment.

"… one night when I was at work, I got drunk after I'd given up heroin and I told them at work… I said I wanted to carry on doing the program that the agency had on offer and they were like 'No, you don't need to. We're your friends, stay with us.'…"

However, Natalie knew that she needed the agency if she was going to have any chance at beating her addiction.

"… I wouldn't have been able to do it without the agency - no way. Because they give you that structure. They taught me, you know I didn't even know how to be a mother… me and my son used to argue like brother and sister… I'd reverted back to a child. I didn't know how to mother him. I mean he was really angry… I'd finished with John and he wanted John back and I couldn't work it out, 'Wasn't he unhappy? Didn't he hate the way it was?' but he'd got used to it. He wanted John there. So he hated me for that."

"I did what they [the agency] suggested really because I was unable to do anything myself. I didn't know how to look after myself so they had to guide me which was fine because I needed it. I needed to be taught how to live again, to eat properly…"

She had forgotten the routine of meals, e.g. breakfast, lunch and dinner. Instead, Natalie would binge eat from three or four o'clock in the afternoon. She recorded her food intake, enabling her counsellor to help her to devise a balanced diet plan.

A further obstacle in Natalie's road to recovery was her father's use of heroin. She was living in the same house. Not surprisingly, people doubted Natalie's willpower to resist the temptation of the ever-present heroin. Natalie wouldn't advise people to give up in circumstances identical to her own.

"People didn't think I'd do it and I don't blame them for saying it… They said, 'There's no way, not with everyone using. You're not going to do it in the house.' But I did."

Even though her father's heroin use made Natalie "really angry," she remembers times when his using actually assisted her in her quest to overcome her addiction.

"Well, the thing is, people used to say, 'Oh God, it must be really tough.' But at the same time you're looking at somebody who's doing it and you just think 'No, I don't want that. That's something I don't want. I'm going to do this.' And anytime that I felt like 'I want to use,' I just used to look at him and then think, 'No. If this is what it's all about - no thank-you.'"

Natalie's determination to beat her addiction was spurred on by the stories that she heard from ex-users and by what the agency had to offer.

"Oh, what everyone else had and what the Centre [the agency] had to offer - I wanted this. And I felt such a failure for everything I'd done, I just, I don't know I just went along with it. It was something here [at the agency] that kept me going, that I wanted this. And the stories that I read, NA, the people that I saw… And I really wanted that. They were happy."

More than anything, Natalie longed for happiness and the feeling of belonging somewhere.

"I'd been totally unhappy, I wasn't happy at all [when she was using heroin]…"

"For the first time I felt I belonged somewhere. I felt like I belonged here [at the agency]. There was something about this place. I just loved the people, they weren't judging me… they treated me like a human being, supported me in whatever I wanted to do and treated me as if I was a nice person. Most importantly, they believed in me."
"I just can't tell you, this place made me feel excited. I was in awe of it. I just loved everything about it. If I could come here early for my counselling session, I'd be here to speak to the staff. They'd sort of like become my friends… There were things going on at home and they gave me the space to air it here like in group therapy I could talk about it."

The nervousness that Natalie had experienced on her first day at the agency resurfaced on her first day of primary treatment.

"… I was really scared when I first started. But there were a couple of people that I knew from the meetings that were there…"

Natalie described what primary treatment entails, once you make the commitment to access it.

"You come here one full day a week. You've got a commitment of three NA/AA meetings a week. You have to have one counselling session a week. You have to do written work. And you've got rules to follow: you're not allowed to take holidays; you're not allowed to look for a job unless you're already employed; you're not allowed to go in to a wet place; you're not allowed to have lifts with people that are in group with you, things like that."

Even in primary treatment, Natalie still doubted her ability to overcome her addiction and complete treatment.

"And I still didn't think I was going to do it… And I use to speak to people and they use to say 'Yeah, you will.' I had all these people believing in me and wanting the best for me, which was something that was totally different to what I'd been use to."

Natalie began to notice little changes in her self.

"… Things like on my birthday John sent me fifty pound in a card and I'd think, 'Yeah! Yeah this is brilliant!' And then I thought about it and off my own back, I sent it back to him. I was skint. I was on income support and I sent it back to him saying 'How hypocritical it would be of me to take his fifty quid, and it would show how I hadn't changed when I won't speak to you and I'll take your money. It would mean that I hadn't changed. I don't want that and thanks very much' … Things like that, little things were happening and I thought 'Yeah, I'm changing. I'm getting some self-respect here.'"

Natalie began to do vocational courses in college and also helped out at a local school.

"I started doing little things like vocational courses at college. I did pottery and dressmaking… I was up the school, helping the kids read. I was in treatment while I was doing this…'

"… and I started mixing with other people, people who are not addicts because you become quite isolated in all this. If you're not going out there, mixing with people that are normal. So I thought that was important that I did that and I was supported here [by the agency] to do that…"

She was so determined that she was going to complete treatment.

"I just wanted to finish it. I wanted to achieve something… there's something magical that keeps making you come back [to the agency], keep on doing it. And there's obviously times when you think, 'Oh God, I miss John' but that's a really tricky place for me to be in because I don't miss John. It's my head telling me I miss the drugs really 'cause John is drugs as far as I'm concerned. And there are times when you do feel lonely…But I never wanted to leave treatment."

"There were times when I was scared like when I was doing my life story [in primary treatment]. I thought, 'Oh God I need a valium to get through this. There's no way I can sit there and read for forty minutes my life story no way' … I thought I was going to go blind and I wouldn't be able to read! And they're the things I don't particularly like - it's when you feel like you need a drug to get through something… but then once you do it and you do it sober - you feel good then."

There have been situations in Natalie's past where she has felt that certain people, especially men, have taken advantage of her. However, during treatment, Natalie began to take responsibility for the role she played in her addiction, instead of blaming John for it all. Furthermore, she began to take responsibility for the way she had treated certain people.

"I started forgiving people for what had happened to me and not blaming them - I did have to take responsibility for my part in all of this."

Natalie found the counselling sessions extremely beneficial.

"My counsellor was fantastic. I mean the stuff we went through, you know, everything. I can honestly say everything was brought out in to the open one way or another."

"I did have a lot of issues to deal with as well. I was angry when I was living at home. I was angry; I wished my dad would stop [using heroin]. I didn't want to see my family going through the pain they were going through. I kept thinking 'How selfish of him to carry on' … every morning I would smell it because it's got a distinctive smell. And he would be in contact with all my old friends which was awful, and John."

Her father's involvement with her old drug using friends was made worse because they used to visit the house.

"… It was horrendous 'cause I felt really… I just felt stupid for giving up. I know I should be proud but at the same time they're all coming round and like you know… 'Given up now have you? You don't go out. You don't do this' and looking down at me and I was twenty four at the time… John would come to the house…"

She desperately wanted to move out of the family home. Her counsellor helped her do this.

"… and all the time this was going on, they [the agency] were trying to get me out of there, out of the house. I was desperate to move. I was stuck in that room with William. I think at the time William was probably seven or eight, so I'd been in the same room with him all this time. My dad was using and I needed to get out basically."

"And nothing was coming up and I thought 'I'm not just going to move up to [the poorer parts of the town]'… 'Why would I want to move up there? I don't know anybody up there. I'm not moving William from school.' So I was picky. I thought 'No, I deserve this. If I've been through what I've been through, I deserve to live where I want to live even if I am on income support.' So I only put my name down for … the sort after areas really…"

A flat became available in her chosen area a week after she left primary treatment.

"… it was what I use to call 'my holiday home' … and it was a cheap flat. There was no damp, there was nothing wrong with it. It was really, really nice. So I accepted the flat. I was really scared… 'cause it was something I was doing on my own."

Although Natalie's family were initially reluctant about her accessing treatment, they came round to the idea when they started noticing changes in her behaviour roughly five months after she started going to the agency.

"My family, even though my dad was whatever he was, he was still supportive. Even though everybody slagged me off for leaving work and doing this, they started to think 'Okay' because they thought they [the agency] were going to try and control me here, but they started to believe it then. They started thinking 'Oh yeah, she's made some changes.'… The help the agency had given me was immense."

Natalie admits to have reservations herself about the treatment when she first accessed the agency.

"I did start thinking 'Oh my God, I'm gonna end up not wearing make-up. I'm not gonna wear a bikini in the summer you know, not going there. I'm gonna be like an old woman. What are they going to turn me in to?' and I remember coming here [to the agency] and saying to my counsellor 'Do you know what I mean - it's putting me off wearing short skirts and stuff coming here.' … But it's nothing like that"

However, Natalie admits that during treatment she let the agency lead the way because she "didn't have a clue" about 'normal' day-to-day functioning.

"You are a bit, I've got to say this, the first year I was sort of like in their hands and they had to just lead me the way… I hadn't really become my own person. That came after I came out of treatment when I was left to defend for myself really. I was out there and there was no counselling and I had to get on with life on my own. They'd given me everything I needed to go out there."

The thought of speaking in group therapy initially terrified Natalie.

"… my voice would be shaking but after a while you get used to it. I trusted them. It's about trust, I think. And I trusted them all and you get used to it. And when you've had nine months of it, you just feel like telling these people all the time, everything about you, you just get used to it in the end."

"I did all my meetings, I was very good. I didn't realise how good I was. I was so scared of ending up back using [heroin] that I did everything I was suggested to do. So I did that and it's paid off."

Natalie was in primary treatment for nine months. After completing the primary treatment, she accessed the aftercare programme.

"So from the day that I had an assessment to the day I left primary was a year and one day exactly. And then you have aftercare which is once a month… it's for an hour and a half and it's just like a big group so like fifteen people… And I was finding when I was going there that I didn't have any problems - I'd always had problems… Nothing major's happened in my life - it's been smooth for the last two years…"

The aftercare programme enhances the gains (e.g. life skills and coping mechanisms) made by the clients, in the form of one-to-one counselling and group therapy and involvement with self-help groups such as AA and NA.

Natalie then began doing voluntary work at the agency, which she describes as "little tiny steps that got me where I am now."

"…I left doing the stuff up the school. I finished those courses and that was another thing… I had never completed a course before, even though it was really small, I hadn't done it before. And I completed treatment which was absolutely amazing."

Natalie applied for and was accepted on a Social Welfare Diploma course. However, a week before she was due to start on the course a job opportunity arose that she simply could not resist.

"…they [the agency] offered me a job full-time… so I thought, 'Right okay. Can I do that voluntary?' that's what I thought, I didn't think it was going to be paid. And then I said, 'Oh voluntary?' and they said, 'No, paid' and I just said, 'Oh my God! This is like a dream come true. I love this place.' And still now, I still have the feeling that it makes me excited. I love it."

Natalie remembers the surprise she felt when she was offered the job at the agency.

"… You have these ideas in your head that you'd really like to happen but you never, ever expect it to happen to you. It's not going to happen to you, I thought. I think it's typical of addicts, they think the worst of themselves. So even when I came here to do some voluntary, I thought they wouldn't accept me, there's no way. I'm not good enough, let alone work here. But I knew they were looking for staff and I can honestly say it didn't even enter my head that they'd ask me. I thought because I hadn't got any GCSE's or anything, I wasn't very good on the computer at the time - there's no way and then they did."

This job opportunity was another significant turning point in Natalie's life.

"… my life completely changed. I'd never worked full-time in my life before. And in all this time as well, I'd got new friends, I started mixing… My sponsor [at NA] became my friend, a very good friend of mine… I had a friend that was in group, we became very close. And another old friendship, that we hadn't spoken for ten years, we became friends again after ten years."

"… and this was the thing I think I've been destined to do. All the times I wanted to be, when I was using, wanted to be somewhere you know be somewhere I fitted in and people could understand me because I felt I was very misunderstood and this [the agency] is the place."

Natalie has succeeded in re-establishing her self-respect and gaining respect from significant others.

"… gradually through my treatment I started getting some respect."

"To walk down the street and be respected and everybody from my past is in awe of what I've done. I mean they go on about it still and that's nice but most of all the respect I've gained for my self. I am a worthwhile person."

Natalie has a clear sense of ownership over her journey to recovery. Looking back over all the things that Natalie has accomplished - the list is plentiful.

"… and I feel today, I just feel I've done this on my own. I didn't have anybody with me, I'm single, I'm a single parent. I moved out on my own, came through treatment on my own. I know I've got the support of my family and they have been absolutely fantastic. I set up my own flat. I've started new friendships. I work full-time and I'm just really happy."

"To happen to me and I'm nobody special, I'm nobody different… Anybody can do what I've done…"

Undoubtedly Natalie's experience and strength played an instrumental role in her father overcoming his addiction.

"… the week that I started doing voluntary work was the week my dad came in to treatment. So I started here and so did he. It was getting really bad for him and he saw what was happening to me and he said he was prepared to take back what he said about the Centre [the agency] in the beginning… he'd seen the results and everything. So… he went in to detox. He came off everything…"

Natalie has been abstinent from illicit drugs and alcohol for two years.

"I've been clean and sober now for two years, March 23rd."

It's hard to believe that Natalie is the same girl she described as "totally lost" two years ago.

"I would say I'm quite balanced. I wasn't balanced at all. I didn't have anything positive in my life. I wasn't a balanced person… I'm happy and confident."

Natalie has a new social network. She has rebuilt her relationship with her family and more importantly her relationship with her son.

"I was re-building my relationship with my son [during treatment], my son still wouldn't trust me or anything. It took him a long time to even cuddle or kiss me. So that was painful because he wouldn't come near me…"

" I was thinking about this last night. I was in bed with him and I was hugging him, there was a time when he wouldn't, and he'll be eleven this year and he still wants to do it… our relationship is really good now."

Natalie's son actually saw the agencies family counsellor. It took a long time for her to rebuild her relationship with her son.

"It took a long time. When I moved in to the flat I had awful problems with him. It was just me and him. He'd lock himself up my mothers. He wouldn't come with me. He'd say I'd have to drag him if I wanted to take him… I'm in his room, he's nearly eleven and I'm still sleeping in his room with him and that's due to me leaving him on his own… There were always other family members around him because we were living at my mum's but he freaked when he use to wake up and I'd be gone. And he still worries about that."

"… it's just something he's just going to have to deal with. He's going to have to trust me. It's been two years now… He's got to face his fears, it'll just take him a bit longer than what it's taken me."

Natalie's most memorable moment through her whole experience of treatment involved her son.

"We smashed the bong up together. We bricked it out the back."

Due to a more positive outlook and freedom from drugs, she has embarked on a more rewarding stage of her life.

"I owe them [the agency] everything. Without this place [the agency], I know I have the fellowship and NA and AA, but it wouldn't be the same, no way."

"… it's [the agency] just absolutely fantastic. I owe them my life really. And I hope I never stop feeling the way I do about this place. And I'm ever so grateful, very grateful and it's just a shame it doesn't work for everybody…"

"They have taught me a new meaning to life. I have peace of mind these days."

Natalie would recommend treatment to anybody who wanted to put an end to their substance misuse as long as they were genuinely ready for the transition.

"Oh it would be the best thing they do if they want it, it's only if they want it. If they don't want it, it's not going to work. It's only when they're ready and obviously I was ready."

Rebecca Hancock

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