I’ve come from a background of addiction from the age of 17 to 27, entailing of taking most drugs, and by the age of 21 I was injecting heroin into my arms and legs. I spent many of those years in prison.
My addiction left me in a mess. I had used all my veins and was injecting into my toes and fingers. On release from my last sentence, I met a housing officer who helped me find a place to live. However, I soon slipped back into heroin, so he helped me get into Gilead Foundations rehabilitation program.

I was a very arrogant person then, and could be violent, I had psychosis as well from the drugs, and I needed a lot of help. I was very lost, very weak, I had no direction in life, and needed a lot of character work. But the people at Gilead accepted me with all my faults and failures and helped to rehabilitate me.

I stayed at Gilead a while and went through the phases and eventually became a support worker there myself, helping the other students. Gilead helped me to take on a milk round, which was vital for helping me back to work in the local community. I had to learn communication skills, to be responsible with money (and not steel it like I used to!), deal with customers, and basically learn life skills so that I could leave Gilead and stand on my own two feet. I then met my wife to be - a youth worker, and moved into my own place in the local community. Since leaving, I’ve successfully kept a job in support work and probation, imparting into others what Gilead had imparted into me.

I’m now married, we have a mortgage, our own home, and my wife is now pregnant with our first baby! I’ve recently started up my own business as a DJ, which is something I have always wanted to do. I am also awaiting some funding which I have applied for to use for another business/project which will involve going to the schools, colleges, prisons, etc, to talk to people about the reality and effects of drug use. I’d also like to talk to other service users going through rehab and encourage them that they can also come through and go on to live successful lives.

I have now been clean 11 years in total, and can honestly say that the program at Gilead does work.

View Martin's story on video.