MY LETTER TO SCHOOLS

I would like to introduce myself and tell you a little about what I am doing at the moment. I am Carly and when I was 13 I made some mistakes which completely wrecked my life for nearly ten years. Like so many other teenagers, I started drinking alcohol and smoking cannabis. We had never had much drug and alcohol education when I was at school and I thought it would be OK. Everyone said it would be OK. Everyone said that everyone else was doing it and that it was no problem. Well, it wasn’t OK. And it soon became a huge problem. Soon my school work went down hill and I started to spend far too much time with the wrong people.

You should know that I didn’t come from a bad family. Quite the opposite. I was doing well at school and all seemed well. But it still only took a short time for my life to fall to pieces. By the time I reached fifteen, having tried every drug I could, I arrived at a place called heroin.

And I stayed there for six long, desperate, miserable years.

Thankfully my family never, ever gave up on me. My mum found The First Base Agency. For six years my family and all the people at First Base refused to give up on me and finally I was able to wake up from my nightmare and get clean.

Of course I got into all kinds of trouble and my final appearance in front of the Sheriff resulted in a 200 hour community service order. First Base asked the Sheriff if it might be possible for me to serve my community by going into local schools and telling the pupils about all the mistakes I made and the awful consequences that followed. Thankfully he agreed and over the last year I have had the opportunity to talk to hundreds of young people all over Dumfries and Galloway, both with First Base and several police officers.

My community service order is now complete and in the spring the Area Committee of the council agreed to make funds available for me to continue my work for another year. And of course this is why I am writing to you. I hope that you might be able to give me the opportunity to come to your school to talk with the pupils. I am enclosing a CD from a BBC Radio Scotland programme about the work we are involved in. I hope you will find that it gives a good insight into what we are all about.

You should know that I do not talk much about the years I lost to heroin. Instead I focus on how my problems got started with alcohol and so called recreational drugs. I have worked hard with everyone at First Base to make sure that I never stray into any inappropriate areas and I have received nothing but praise from the schools that I have visited. This of course has been wonderful for me and it has done much to rebuild my self esteem. Of course I did many things I am deeply ashamed of in the years I lost to heroin. Going into schools to pass on the lessons I have learned the hard way goes some way to making up for that dark time in my life.

I like to think that I am not a bad person. I simply made some stupid mistakes when I was young, naïve and eager to please. I paid a very heavy price for those mistakes. Now I very passionate about helping future generations to steer clear of the mistakes I made. I hope that you will be able to find some space in your timetable for me to come and speak to the pupils at your school.

Carly

AN ARTICLE ABOUT ME IN THE FIRST BASE ANNUAL REPORT

For several years many of the schools First Base have visited have asked if it might be possible for us to bring in a recovering drug user to talk with the pupils. We have never been in any doubt as to how effective this can be. However, meeting this demand has not been easy to achieve. There have indeed been several recovering users who have made contact with us and volunteered to accompany us into schools to talk with pupils.
Sadly we have never been confident that the time has been right. Anyone who has ever stood up in front of an audience of teenagers will know that there are many easier ways to spend an hour of your life. A class of S4’s can be about the toughest audience you could ever choose to address. People who are recovering from drug addiction tend to be very emotionally vulnerable for a long period and we have always been worried that the trauma of addressing a class of teens could set them back, maybe catastrophically.
A second issue has always been reliability. It is not at all easy to persuade schools to free up space in their congested timetables for agencies such as ourselves to come in and give presentations.
If the school is willing to make a visit possible, it is essential that we prove ourselves to be not only worthy of that slot, but also to be absolutely reliable. Most of our invitations come as a result of positive word of mouth and we are always anxious to maintain our reputation. Bearing this in mind, we have always been a little nervous of promising to bring recovering users into schools in case they let both ourselves and the pupils down.
In December an opportunity arose which we felt we had to take advantage of. We heard that one of our young clients had received a two hundred hour community service order. Carly's mum came into see us six years ago to become one of the very first clients to use our Family Mediation programme. Soon we met Carly herself and over the next few years we did our best to help to support the family through what was an awful time.
Finally things at last started to improve two years ago as Carly started to turn the corner. Her community service order was the last legacy of a life that had become utterly chaotic. Carly's story is one that all parents should hear. She comes from a fine and loving family and did well at school. She is intelligent and articulate and should have gone on to the kind of successful life that her family and teachers anticipated. Instead things slipped.
At thirteen she started drinking and within months she was smoking cannabis. Over the next two years she experimented with every drug she could get hold of until she discovered heroin at the age of fifteen. Soon she was heavily addicted and the next six years of her life were black ones indeed. At last she finally turned things around, largely as a result of the resolute support of her family, the endless patience of her support workers from the Criminal Justice department and access to treatment. We like to think that we played a major role as well: Carly certainly feels that we did.
Carly had always told us that she would one day relish the opportunity to talk to school pupils. She firmly believed that her story could be used as a compelling warning to youngsters as to how very easy it can be for the wheels to come off. Carly defies many of the prejudices that many members of the community cling onto with such apparent glee. She comes from an excellent family. Both of her parents work hard and always have. She did well at school. She speaks clearly and succinctly.
Nobody would ever recognise here as the stereotypical ‘junkie’ so many love to loathe. And yet heroin got its talons into her and held on tight for six years.
Once Carly turned things around, we didn’t see as much of her: life had moved on. However there was still some unfinished business from the time when her life was chaotic which resulted in 200 hours of community service. When we heard about this we felt that she deserved the chance to do what she had always wanted to do: to talk to pupils in schools. We asked the Sheriff if Carly’s two hundred hours of community service might be best used up by her going into the classroom to tell her story. He agreed and that is exactly what she has done.
Her two hundred hours are now complete and we feel that she has given outstanding service to her community. She played one of the roles in the Christmas Carroll play and answered tough questions from the audiences with great honesty and courage. She has visited schools both with First Base and local community police officers. She has addressed the members of the Children’s Panels in Dumfries and Stranraer and she has talked on the local radio.
We were loathe to lose this new string to our bow once the two hundred hours were used up and so we went to the Nithsdale Area Committee of the Council to ask for funding for Carly to continue with her work. Not only did they say yes, but the unanimity of the support shown by the councillors was truly heartening. As well as granting funding for us to continue with the project for 2009/10 they also asked that ongoing funding should be identified.
All too often the stories we become involved in have miserable endings. It is something we never get used to, particularly when clients, their families, and their friends pay the ultimate price for their addictions.
In the six years that First Base has been running we have seen few better endings than the most recent chapter in the story of Carly. For any of you who have read ‘Roads to Down’, you will find Carly on the cover of the book. The photo shows her with her head resting on her arms in a pose of misery and despair.
That was exactly how her life was when she volunteered to have the photo taken. Now her head is held high and along with all of her family, she is smiling. It should also be pointed out that the young man whose picture appears on the back cover of the book has also defied all expectations and is now a proud father and doing brilliantly. At the time that photo was taken, this young man’s life was beyond chaotic and fuelled by the manic need for nine bags of heroin a day and umpteen valium tablets.He was written off as a lost cause. Now he has proved just about everyone wrong and three cheers to that. Through his most manic times he could never understand why First Base never lost faith in him. The truth is that seeing people achieve what he has achieved is the very thing that gives us the inspiration to keep on believing.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

My visit 2 Stranraer Acadamy!!

Last Wednesday and Thursday I went 2 Stranraer Acadamy 2 do a talk 2 all the 3rd years. I done 12 talks altogether and each class I spoke 2 seemed interested and seemed 2 take on and think about what I had said 2 them. Like I said 2 most of the classes," If what I have said makes a difference 2 1 3rd year out of everyone I have seen then I'll b happy." Of course I hope more than anyone could ever hope that it makes a difference 2 every one of them who are taking drugs or are effected by them in some way but I can only live in hope as I will never know actually how many people will make different choices through hearing my story. All I know is that if I could go back in time and have someone come in2 my school 2 tell the story that I tell(someone who had been through it all and knew it all),I know that I would've made different choices. Whether it was 2 stop taking drugs alltogether or even just 2 be more careful and steer clear of most of the drugs I have taken, I just know it would've made a difference.
Ta Ta the noo xxxxxxxxxxx
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