From heroin addict to hope-bringer

I had a good family upbringing. I was born at home, in my great-grandparents’ house, so I was always very close to them – but more so to my dad than my mum. My mum often said I was a mistake. But those early years with my dad and grandparents were good. When I was about nine, my dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer. He died within four months. It was a massive shock to me.

I stayed with my great-grandparents but, soon after, my mum got into another relationship. I couldn’t understand or accept it, and I blamed her for my dad not being there. Struggling with the death of my dad and all the emotions that I was feeling, I committed a very nasty crime against my family. Aged 13, I set fire to an armchair in the living room. The fire destroyed the property. The only reason my family survived was because the next-door neighbours came home, saw the fire and managed to get a ladder up to the windows before the fire brigade arrived. If they hadn’t come home at that exact time, the outcome would have been so much worse.

I was 14 when I first went to prison for arson with intent to endanger life. I spent nearly six years inside.

When I came out, I got a job steel erecting, working away with older guys from my village. I didn’t know much about alcohol or drugs, but I quickly got involved in party drugs, smoking. Within six months, heroin and crack cocaine were knocking on the door, and I became addicted.

I was a functioning addict for many years. I worked full-time, got married, had a daughter, bought a house. I was working away from home most of the time, so my family only saw me on weekends. They had no idea what was going on. But then the company I worked for went into liquidation. At home, my addiction was exposed. My marriage broke down. I moved into a toxic, drug-fuelled relationship.

In early 2016, I was living in Mansfield. I was caught with possession with intent to supply Class A and B drugs and given a long, suspended sentence with a drug referral requirement. I had to be tested twice a week, but after five months I hadn’t given a single clean test.

I set fire to an armchair in the living room

One morning, around 4:30am, I was in my kitchen when my partner came up behind me and stabbed me through the arm with a knife, pinning my arm to the breakfast bar. She wanted to argue and I didn’t, so that was the course of action she took. I pulled the knife out myself, knowing I had to be in court that morning. Somehow, I made it to court with no medical attention. A week later, my arm turned black. An infection had spread from my neck to my fingernails. I was so weak I could barely move. I went to the doctor for blood tests. The nurse took one look and got a doctor straight away. That’s the last thing I recall before being rushed to hospital. Within half an hour, I was in an induced coma. The infection had spread to my brain.

The doctors told my family to prepare for the worst. I was detoxing from drugs while they fought the infection in my brain. Four weeks later, they brought me out of the coma. On 26 June 2016, I was ready for discharge, but the staff didn’t want me to go back to my flat. They knew that, if I relapsed, my body couldn’t take any more. 

Just before I left the hospital, the ward sister told me I had a phone call. It was Darren Jones from Green Pastures. He told me about a Lighthouse Homes [a Green Pastures partner running a local housing project in Mansfield]. He said: “There’s going to be a taxi outside in ten minutes. Get in it. I’m going to give you a chance to change.”

I don’t know why I got in the taxi. I can’t say I really wanted to change; I didn’t know what change was. I tried so many times my way, but that didn’t work. When I arrived, all the staff there told me Jesus loved me. They spoke Jeremiah 29:11 over me: “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”.

That evening at chapel, a man asked if he could pray for me and then asked if I wanted to give my life to Jesus. I said yes. I don’t know what came over me, I can’t explain the experience I had, but that’s when everything started to change.

I began to recover. I shouldn’t have, not the way I did. I started volunteering at Lighthouse Homes, then got a part-time contract, then full-time. Eventually, I became senior support worker in Shirebrook, then with Green Pastures’ project in Derby and now I serve as General Manager at our training centre, Mattersey Hall. From that day in June 2016, I never gave another dirty drug test. 

My faith has only grown stronger. I didn’t think it was possible, but it has. I put God at the centre of everything. Even my family say they don’t recognise the man I am now compared to who I was. That’s the power of Jesus.

Now, I get to do for others what Darren did for me: offer them a chance to start their own journey of change. 

Andy Moore was speaking to AJ Gomez 

Lighthouse Homes exists to relieve poverty, particularly for those who are homeless in the Rotherham area. They work in partnership with Green Pastures (greenpastures.co.uk)