Before Emmaus, I had just come out of rehab, and I was living in Luton in supportive housing. I have now been in Emmaus for 6 months. I’m constantly working on my sobriety, but I’m in a really good place at the moment thanks to Emmaus.
Experience of Rehab and Recovery
After coming out of the treatment centre I was in, I went straight to accommodation in Luton. I had never been there before. It was a sort of move-on place to continue supporting us, and I was living with three other guys in this little flat. We had support groups every so often, but we were getting benefits and we couldn’t work at all. It was the same old thing every day. I was right outside a pub so every single night all I could hear was this chaos. I was still doing really well in recovery, but it was kind of just a black hole of nothing to do.
I was in rehab; well, it was meant to be 4 weeks, but they extended it to 5 weeks in total. I walked in absolutely petrified.
It was the scariest thing I’ve ever done. I was just constantly thinking ‘why am I here’, I wanted to leave every second of every day.
I was in partial denial of how bad my addiction was even when I got to rehab, so when the physical side effects started it was scary. I had been drinking heavily since I was 11 years old, it’s been a huge chunk of my life, I’m only 22 now. I needed the first week just to get over the withdrawal symptoms, that first night was awful. I don’t remember a huge amount about the first week, but it was just horrid.
I didn’t really realise I had a problem until I was in AA meetings, I’d sit and hear people share their stories and I’d relate to them so much. I grew up thinking my drinking and my life were normal, I thought I was just going through my twenties and teenage years. People would be sitting there talking about their life and it would be my life too.
Experiencing homelessness
I started drinking at such a young age, I’ve had times when I’ve had nowhere to go. My family often saw me as more of a drinking partner, than family, even at the age of 13 or 14.
When I was working in a pub, before rehab, I got kicked out of where I was staying and I had to live in my car. I had no other choice. Then I just had to go to work and pretend like everything was fine, I’d put a mask on and not feel anything that was so much easier to do when I was drinking.
Now I’m so emotional but I’m grateful for all of it, I can feel everything now!
Coming to Emmaus
I found Emmaus when I was helping a friend in Luton to find somewhere to live. And when Emmaus came up, I thought I’m going to be selfish and look at this myself! I was desperate for something to keep me busy, I’d worked all through my drinking, so it felt weird not doing anything. When I found that Emmaus was somewhere I could live and work I thought it sounded perfect. I’ve got a close friend who lives in Norwich, so I was keen to come back here to be close to her.
It took me a little while to settle into Emmaus, I was having so many new experiences sober that everything felt new. After about 4 months here, I relapsed. That was when I realised the full extent of my addiction. There were a lot of battles happening in my head at the time. I went all in when I relapsed, I smashed up my entire face and lost a tooth. It changes you completely.
Being here at Emmaus and having people around me the whole time is so helpful. The last thing I needed to do was to be isolated. It was on my mind constantly; all I could think about was drinking as soon as I woke up.
I sorted out with the team here for them to hold my money in a separate account, so I didn’t have access to it. It was an agreement between the both of us that I should transfer my money. I still have that set up now, if I’m having a bad day, I’ll transfer some money over to it and the team just knows what’s going on, no questions asked, and they’ll check on me to see if I want a chat.
During that relapse, I realised how badly I wanted sobriety. I had 6 months of experiencing life sober and I knew how good it feels. Then I started to fight for it, because I wanted it. I’ve made so many decisions recently that are putting me and my sobriety first, rather than just things that make me temporarily happy.
I have to work for my sobriety every single day, if I let it slip it will consume me. I’m aware now of when things feel like they’re going bad and I know when I need to get to a meeting, chat with my sponsor or tell someone here I’m having a bad day.
Emmaus has been extremely extremely supportive of my recovery and so understanding too. It’s just helped me get back into normal life, I didn’t have that in my previous accommodation. If I had relapsed there, I don’t think I would’ve come back out. I’ve had so much support here and the chance to do things myself and learn from each mistake I’ve made.
Having somewhere to come out and work every day and a solid routine is amazing for me. I’ve never had that sober, I’ve always had that in chaos. I love working in the café, it keeps me busy, and I like being around other people.
I’m still in the process of working out what I enjoy doing, what I like doing, and what I want to do as a possible career.
It’s the first time in my entire life that I’ve actually seen a future and not just the next day.
I’m looking forward to continuing this road that I’m on and seeing what it brings. But yeah, I feel positive.
I’m grateful in a sense, if I didn’t live through everything I’ve experienced, I wouldn’t have realised at such a young age, at the age of 21 that I’ve got a problem. I’ve got the rest of my life ahead of me. And it’s exciting.