26d โข General discussion
๐ Meeting People Where They Are: Why I Do What I Do ๐
People sometimes ask me why I work in harm reduction.
Why I spend my days talking about overdose prevention, naloxone, safer injecting, homelessness, recovery, trauma, and hope.
The truth is, for me, this isn't just a job.
It's personal.
I was born and raised in Gateshead during a time of enormous change in the North East.
Many families, including my own, were struggling.
The miners' strike wasn't just something we watched on television.
It was something we lived through.
Entire communities were being affected.
The industries that had built the North East for generations were being dismantled.
Coal mines were closing.
Shipyards were disappearing.
Factories were shutting down.
Jobs that fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers had relied upon were vanishing.
With that came unemployment.
Financial hardship.
Loss of identity.
And for many people, a feeling that they had been forgotten and left behind.
But it wasn't just jobs that were lost.
It was communities.
The North East had been built around industries that gave people purpose, structure, identity, and belonging.
The pit wasn't just where people worked.
It was where friendships were formed.
Where families supported each other.
Where entire communities were connected.
When those industries disappeared, many communities experienced something deeper than economic decline.
They experienced a breakdown of community itself.
Social clubs closed.
Community hubs vanished.
People became more isolated.
Hope became harder to find.
For many families, addiction, alcohol problems, poor mental health, and family breakdown followed.
Not because people were weak.
But because communities were dealing with enormous social and economic upheaval.
I grew up seeing the effects of that.
I saw good people struggling.
I saw families doing their best with very little.
I saw neighbours helping neighbours because there was often nobody else to help.
I saw the pride of working-class communities.
But I also saw the pain that came when opportunities disappeared.
I started using drugs and alcohol at the age of 13.
Like many people, I was searching for something.
Connection.
Escape.
Belonging.
At the age of 20, in 1997, I left Gateshead.
At the time, I didn't realise I would spend the next 26 years away from the North East.
Life took me in different directions.
I worked in different industries.
Lived in different places.
Met different people.
Made mistakes.
Learned lessons.
And experienced far more of the world than I could ever have imagined as a young lad growing up in Gateshead.
But if I'm honest, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had stayed.
I genuinely believe there is a chance I could have become just another statistic.
Not because I was different from anyone else.
But because I know how easy it is for circumstances, environment, trauma, addiction, and lack of opportunity to shape the course of a life.
In 2023, I returned to the North East.
And in many ways it felt like coming full circle.
Back to the communities that shaped me.
Back to the streets I grew up on.
Back to a region that had given me so much, but had also experienced so much loss.
Because addiction never really left my story.
My father died in the 1990s at the age of 53 following a long struggle with alcoholism.
Years later, my brother also passed away at the age of 53, with alcohol playing a significant part in his life.
My sister died at just 44 years old following years of struggles with mental health, alcohol, and drugs.
Then, on Christmas Day 2022, my nephew died from a drug overdose at the age of 34.
When people ask me why I care so much about addiction, recovery, harm reduction, and supporting others, this is why.
These aren't statistics to me.
These are people I loved.
People with stories.
People with hopes.
People with families.
People who mattered.
I've seen first-hand what addiction can take away.
I've seen the grief it leaves behind.
I've seen the impact that trauma, poverty, isolation, poor mental health, and substance use can have across generations.
But I've also seen something else.
I've seen resilience.
I've seen recovery.
I've seen people come back from places that looked impossible.
I've seen hope return where people thought there was none.
One of the most important lessons I've learned through harm reduction, recovery work, and life itself is this:
You can't help people by judging where they are.
You help people by meeting them where they are.
Not where you think they should be.
Not where society expects them to be.
Not where they were five years ago.
And not where they might be five years from now.
Just where they are today.
Some people I meet are actively using drugs.
Some are trying to reduce their use.
Some are in treatment.
Some have been abstinent for years.
Some are sleeping rough.
Some have just received the keys to their first home.
Some are struggling with alcohol.
Some are struggling with trauma.
Some are struggling with loneliness.
Some simply need somebody to listen.
Every person is on their own journey.
And every journey looks different.
I don't see addicts.
I don't see statistics.
I see people.
People with families.
People with dreams.
People with struggles.
People who deserve the same opportunity that I was given: the chance to build a different future.
That's why I believe so strongly in harm reduction.
Because before recovery comes trust.
Before change comes connection.
And before hope comes the belief that somebody actually cares.
Perhaps that's what I'm really trying to do through Recovery Beyond Borders.
Build community.
Build connection.
And create the kind of hope that many people feel they've lost.
Because recovery doesn't happen in isolation.
People heal through connection.
People heal when they feel seen.
People heal when they feel they belong.
Because recovery has no borders.
Community has no borders.
And neither does hope. ๐๐
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๐ Meeting People Where They Are: Why I Do What I Do ๐
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