28/09/2025
Some days just being able to breathe is enough reason for living...
By 25, I had lost 4 friends to drug-and-alcohol-related deaths.
At 18, my best friend was found dead in a squat.
At 24, my flatmate was hit by a train while under the influence.
Months later, another friend went missing and was found dead in an abandoned shed.
At 25, one more friend overdosed.
I wondered if I was a curse—or just lucky to survive.
Sometimes I wished I hadn’t.
Burying a “partner in crime”—part of you dies too.
Losing people this tragically teaches you to hold back from getting close to anyone.
I had no one to support me and didn’t want to let people in, for fear of losing them too.
Grief became a constant companion—unless I escaped myself.
No one can handle that much grief at such a young age—and I didn’t.
The days blurred into one; I detached from reality just to make life make sense.
Substances took so much from me.
Yet they were the only way I could survive the sadness, guilt, and isolation.
From my experience, and from working with people struggling with substance use, I know most who use them in harmful ways aren’t bad people.
They’re often running from trauma they never had the tools or support to process.
Unfortunately, this can create the world they were trying to avoid.
Substances stopped working, but I came close to dying.
I decided I didn’t want to be the next funeral.
September 18, 2015—the day I stopped running.
God knows I tried before
But this time I asked for help
I found the support I needed.
18th September 2025 — Ten years of feeling my own feelings.
Ten years of truly being alive.
