In the second installment of her series, Addaction and DrugScope volunteer and co-founder of Lewisham’s Out of It? Service Gay Gower describes the educational doors she found opening for her once she had stabilised her alcohol use.

Whilst at the Core Trust, we had someone visit to give a talk about the ‘Next Steps’ project run by Turning Point (www.turning-point.org.uk 020 7738 3427). This was a programme for people who had stabilized their drug and alcohol use. It offered a 6 week course at Lambeth College covering IT, communications and numeracy aimed at helping people to get back into employment or education. At first I wasn’t interested at all, but the more I thought about it the more the idea of having something structured to do after Core would be beneficial to my recovery. Having long days sitting indoors with just myself and the TV wasn’t really a good idea. I knew it wouldn’t be long before the monkey on my shoulder started whispering in my ear.

It was quite daunting at first going to a college with so many youngsters, but that soon disappeared as I became involved and interested in the course. I began to take pride in doing my homework and getting positive feedback urged me forward. I also had a bit of a revelation during numeracy when I realized I actually knew more than I thought I knew. I’d gone through most of my life with a fear of maths, always stating ‘I’m no good at that’, purely because that had been brainwashed into me by a very bad school system years before.

Each week we attended a different workshop. On one particular week we went on a visit to Goldsmith’s University to meet up with Joe Baden who runs a project called the ‘Open Book University Access Scheme’ (j.baden[at]gold.ac.uk, 020 7919 7759). This scheme had been set up to enable people with problematic backgrounds break down the barriers that discourage them from entering higher education. Open Book works closely with a network of agencies to support those with a history of alcoholism, drug addiction, mental health problems and ex-offenders.

I felt at ease the minute I met Joe and was surprised that I didn’t feel daunted at being in a University at all; in fact the opposite happened to me. As Joe spoke and explained about the scheme I found myself getting more and more excited, realizing that ‘Yes, I can do this!’. I had always been interested in psychology and on the Next Steps course I was really enjoying studying. So the seed had been sown. At the end of the course I gained LOCN (London Open College Network) qualifications and I can tell you that was a great feeling after all my chaos to be able to achieve a qualification in anything other than drinking! Here I was, nearing 50 with only a couple of old CSE’s to my name, getting certificates in something and it felt good – real good!

On leaving Next Steps I started attending the Open Book twice a week. Eventually, with their help and advice I applied to take a degree in psychology – yes a degree! I had to pinch myself when I passed the interview and was accepted to start the following September. The only down side was having to wait nearly a year to start but I had Joe and the others at Open Book to meet up with and keep me focused. I started hunting down the books I would need, the theory being if I read up a bit I could only strengthen my position when I started.

One of the exciting things about life is the individual paths we decide to take, or are guided on by some invisible hand. Many times in my past I’ve come across a fork in the road or a crossroads and always took the wrong turn, the path to my own destruction. This time I had the awareness and tools to hand from my time in Core and recovery to make an informed decision based on what was best for me and not what I thought I should do.

The year spent waiting to start my degree I found myself drawn down a different path and after much deliberating decided against doing the degree. Previously I would have berated myself for ‘dropping out’ and considered myself a failure, but not this time. I had made an informed decision that felt right for me and how could I possible see myself as a failure; Goldsmiths University had accepted me hadn’t they? That was an achievement in itself. So it was onwards and hopefully upwards.

Gay Gower
Out of It?

In Part 3, in December, Gay describes her first steps towards working with alcohol and drug users.

If you are contemplating your own road to recovery, your GP should be able to refer you to the local service that is right for you. Alternatively, you can find treatment services on Helpfinder, or in one of the other service directories.

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