Platform 51

meet the women we work with

Laura

Laura has been a drug user for the past ten years and is now working hard to stay clean.

I started when I was about 17, when I was kicked out of home. It was my way of coping. The drugs hide the pain and make you forget. I come here because you can get counselling and if you are feeling low, miserable, you can come in and talk. It is always a nice atmosphere and you leave just feeling happier.

I was using heroine and crack cocaine. It’s not a cheap habit. My partner of nine years used to do all the robbing and things like that from shops. When you’re in the drug like that, you’re not bothered about anything any more.

At one point I lost a lot of weight. I was spending money on drugs rather than eating. The drugs stop hunger pains.

Once you’ve taken the drugs you just mong-out for the rest of the night.  That is what most people want from it, the numbing, it makes you forget and makes your days shorter as well.

It got to the point where I didn’t care if I died. I didn’t want to wake up in the morning, I use to wake in the morning and start crying just for the fact that I had woken up. I felt like a right coward because I thought about ending it but I just couldn’t do it. And I thought that shows how rubbish you really are because you can’t even do that.

And it just got too much. I said I can’t do this life any more. You get ripped off by dealers and meet dodgy people in the street; the drug world is very dangerous. I’ve seen things that I wish I had not seen. It’s very seedy and horrible. You get tarred with the same brush as all these scruffy people and they think you’re like that as well.

Now I do want to carry on and I am just trying my best now, really trying. I was with such a controlling partner, I had no control over my life and I was that low and depressed and miserable, I just gave up. I was sucked into a drug habit.

I just realised in the last couple of months that I do need help, I can’t do it alone. And that’s why I come here.

I manage on benefits. I make sure that I’ve got my shopping and my gas and electric and everything that I need, even clothes for myself, which is like a massive great thing to me because I have not brought clothes in a long time really.

I just know now I want better for myself, that I am worth more. The drugs cloud the way you think and my head was just not thinking right. My mind is clear now and wow, I can think properly now! I can see a future for myself. I’d like to work with animals. Or work for a charity. I want a better life for myself. People say I’ve come a real long way. I walk around with a smile on my face now, I’m just like high on life.

Please help us to help other women like Laura.