my greatest loss by Maureen

My greatest loss was my only son, Chris.

We were all very excited, I had just picked up our brand new car, I had three weeks leave from work and we were going on holiday to Cyprus. Little did I know we were not going make the journey to Cyprus, our lives were to take a different pathway from now on.

I had collected our new car and drove it onto the driveway at home, Chris ran out to see it. As Chris sat inside he said to me “will I pull the birds when I drive this?” “You look lovely anyway” I replied.

It was later the crunch that brought me back to earth with a big bang took place. We were getting ready to leave for the airport, Chris came downstairs for some white socks before going back upstairs to get dressed and then to clean his teeth. He had been up there a little while, as I called him for his breakfast. I said to Don “he’s just cleaning his teeth” - I could hear him retching, Chris always did this while cleaning his teeth. Don went upstairs to see what he was doing only to find him slumped on the floor, Don shouted to me “get the ambulance, I think he is dead” As I telephoned for an ambulance I told Don to give Chris mouth to mouth while help was on its way. The ambulance was there within 10 minutes, unfortunately it was too late for Chris, and despite their efforts they could not resuscitate Chris.

The Police and Doctor all attended, at that time it still felt unreal, a bad dream, this was not happening to us, not our family. It was not until his body left our house that I realized this was not a bad dream - it was real, it was happening to us. My whole world fell apart.

* The above piece of writing was adapted from a article written by Maureen as part of a creative writing course run on behalf of BucksDAAT in March 2008.

National Drug Prevention Week
Friars Square, Aylesbury
Friday 23rd May 2008

‘We thought it would never happen to us’

As part of national drug prevention week Bucks DAAT, Youth@ACT, ADDACTION, DPEAP, and User involvement had several stalls in Friars Square, Aylesbury.

The theme for the day was ‘we thought it would never happen to us’. There was information, and workers to talk to, as well as the drug box – the interactive portable computerized console, which provides facts and quizzes about all types of drugs and alcohol.

DPEAP held a drug quiz ‘who am I? ’ this proved to be very successful and attracted more than 90 young people and adults to take part. A board had been put up with lots of information about drugs and alcohol. The quiz sheet had several facts about a particular substance, the entrant was to read each section and guess the substance it was referring to. All the facts mentioned on the quiz sheet were displayed on the boards under the relevant substances, for those who may not be as familiar with the substances. All entries were entered into a draw for a £20.00 HMV voucher.

The winner of the quiz was Jenni Duncomb pictured receiving her voucher.

The day was well attended, by many young people and adults, who were able to talk to the workers present or pick up further information on substance misuse. Many of the young people attending were of school age and were very interested in the information available, saying it was more in-depth than they had at school. This was a good way to give out information about the variety of services available in Buckinghamshire, to people who otherwise may not be aware of what is accessible to them, should they need it.

Your Children Need You

Your Children Need You Parents Be Aware Substance Use and Misuse Event

Hilltop Community Centre was the venue for ‘Your Children Need You’ event. A community event focusing on drug awareness, prevention and families. Three guest speakers were invited to speak, an ex user, a professional and a mother’s point of view, a huge success and an excellent event.

The event ran off the back of Akacia Saturday School, (an African Caribbean School for children age 5 to 16). The first session started with the children age 8 to 16 years, Grantley Hayes guest speaker from Walsall West Midland spoke to the children about the basic drug awareness. The younger children ages 5 to 7 years were in the small room with one of our volunteers, using the multi media drug box, it was evident that the children knew a lot about drugs. This session was very well received by all the children and the feed back from parents are very encouraging as a result of this event, two young people have signed up as volunteers for our Volunteer Development Programme.

The second session started later than planned, with a group of about 50 parents, the speaker was Kaz Ghalmi, an addict’s story, and he spoke about being brought up as a Muslim, his relationship with his father and mother, his involvement with drugs as a young man and the long road back from addiction. The audience was hooked and at the end of his talk, parents have so many questions for Kaz that session had to come to a close to allow time for the second speaker.

Grantley Hayes, presentation focus on the African Caribbean culture and drugs. He spoke about the cultural use of cannabis and the drug of choice now, crack cocaine. Grantley then explained how the African Caribbean community are still not accessing the treatment services therefore missing valuable help for their addiction. He also gave an insight into what the treatment service offer and how easy it is to access them; at this point the group had grown to 150.

The final session was by author of ‘Mum can you lend me twenty quid’ Elizabeth Burton-Philips a mother’s story. At this stage the audience was over two hundred and growing. Elizabeth’s moving story about her family experience with twin’s boys with drug addiction and the tragic death of one of the twins, Nick. She also spoke of tough love, their worst fears, isolation as a family and hope even after tragic circumstances.

I have selected a few comments from the event evaluation form, ‘I thought it was excellent also found that having people who have been through this bad experience a good idea’. ‘It gave me a big wake up call’, ‘A very good idea, keep up the good work’, ‘Very powerful and moving story’, ‘The event was well organised which led to the full support of the community. Awareness of this kind is continuously useful for our community, keep the good work up’. ‘Would like to know more about the on-line café’.

As a result of this event 10 members of the African Caribbean community registered for the volunteer development programme and to date 30 families need assessment questionnaires returned.

Drugs & Family

Haddenham on 23 April was the venue for a meeting about drugs and family. Two guest speakers were invited to speak at the event from a users and parents point of view, which they both did very well.

The first to speak was Simon Hayday, about drugs and the dark places they took him. Simon spoke as an ex-user and his perspective on drugs was firsthand experience. Simon told the gathering how he became involved in drugs and how it changed his life. Simon had used drugs for many years from the age of 13 or 14 until he was 36. Simon had been involved with a group of young people who identified themselves with the 'Mod' scene. Simon was the type of person to try anything once, and so he did. Simon used amphetamine's (speed) for a number of years, he then moved on to use heroin. (This is not a natural progression and not all speed users use or go on to use heroin). Heroin use led Simon to a very chaotic time in his life. Simon described a few incidents that happened during this period, including a near fatal stabbing of himself by another drug user.

Simon's description of events in his life story is very hard-hitting and an educational insight into the life of a user. Simon spent time in prison and is able to use his experience as a educational tool to help in drug prevention work. Simon works for SMART CJS, which is a new kind of substance misuse organisation that directly engages drug users through their contact with the criminal justice system. SMARTCJS currently works throughout the Thames Valley including Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire, they can be contacted through there website: www.smartcjs.org.uk

The second speaker of the evening was by international best selling author Elizabeth Burton-Philips. Elizabeth has written a book titled 'Mum can you lend me twenty quid? what drugs did to my family'. Elizabeth gave a very moving talk about her experience as a mother of twin boys who used drugs. Elizabeth's story was accompanied by pictures of her sons and how drugs had impacted on their lives eventually tragically this led to the death of one of the twins, Nick.

DrugFam/The Nick Mills Foundation was established in August 2006 by bereaved mother, Elizabeth Burton-Phillips. Her surviving son Simon, now drug free, also helped to set up the foundation in memory of his twin brother. Their aim is to ensure no family is left living in isolation, fear and ignorance of any local & national support. They can be contacted through their website along with details of her book and how to obtain a copy are to be found on the website www.twentyquid.com

BucksDAAT are currently undertaking a survey of drug and alcohol misuse within the family. If you would like to be part of this survey by completing a questionnaire please contact BucksDaat through the website www.bucksdaat.co.uk

Taking her Breath Away

Taking her Breath Away - a short story by Jan Moran Neil –
Tutor of the Blog writing course for the DAAT Volunteers (Chesham 2008).

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Lily. She had long, dark, luscious hair which grew quickly, bright sparkling eyes and teeth as white and shiny as hard-boiled eggs. In fact everything about Lily just smacked of youth, vitality and health.
When Lily became a teenager, she went through those awful, gauche ‘how do I behave in company’ years? She wanted to look like the film star Bette Davis.
A boyfriend introduced her to a bunch of his mates in his mum and dad’s back kitchen. He said that his mates would make Lily’s heart race and take her breath away. The mates were called ‘Slimangels’ and they came neatly wrapped in glossy packs of twenty.
When Lily’s boyfriend said you had to inhale on the ‘Slimangels’ and draw them deep down into your lungs, Lily thought it was absolutely disgusting and she coughed so much she knew that these foul-tasting ‘Slimangels’ could never become friends of hers.
Lily was confident that she could never keep up a long lasting relationship with her boyfriend’s bunch of friends. After all, they were so disgusting that they presented no danger to her whatsoever. So she would flirt a little with them now and then. Of course never when she had a cold and oh, couldn’t she go ages about the house without wanting their company? She only entertained them on social occasions. They helped her through those gauche moments - little props that they were - and there was nothing wrong with that was there? Anyway they made her look like Bette Davis.
Of course, what Lily didn’t know, was, that no matter how smelly these friends were (she didn’t actually enjoy their company ) slowly and stealthily they were creating a dragon inside her stomach.
Over the years, when Lily was doing work which needed the utmost concentration, the little dragon in her stomach would whisper, “You need a little ‘Slimangel’ friend to be creative.” So Lily would entertain one, or two ... or ...
Then the slightly bigger dragon in her stomach would say, “You’re bored. Where’s your friends?” Out would come the ‘Slimangels’.
Whenever Lily wanted to relax or she had good news, the dragon in her stomach would tell her to reward herself with a comforter.
Whenever Lily was under stress, the big dragon in her stomach would nag persistently, “Go on. Get your friends out. They’ll help you and give you confidence.” And Lily truly began to believe that they did.
She began to feel sorry for people who did not have these little friends as props, for now she knew she slavishly enjoyed their company and could not entertain life without them.
So much did she enjoy them, that no matter how costly their company became, she paid the price. And as the years went on, the price increased.
Lily began to need these little supportive friends so desperately that she never listened to current hype which was trying to tell her that the price of their company might be her life. She placed the black shadows to the back of her mind.
She was seen so regularly in their company that she began to be known as ‘Fag Ash Lil’ because she dropped ash wherever she went. She knew that the ‘Slimangel’ friends smelt so much that she must smell too. The teeth as white as boiled eggs were now as black as ... tar. The only hairs which grew were those on her face and that face was as lined as an old witch.
She had a permanent cough, no cash and Bette Davis was now dead. She looked around for other role models who had the same friends as she had but there were very very few. As Fag Ash Lil was looking around she noticed that people who had no need of these little weeds seemed brighter, more relaxed and confident than those who were terribly attached to them. (The weeds were being barred from most places now.) In a fog she realised that instead of giving her the confidence she had once longed for, these ‘friends’ were sapping her of any courage she might possess, as she was now finding it difficult to breathe. She realised that the more she persisted with their company, the larger the dragon in the stomach would become. So large that it would demand more and more and more continuous company from these ‘hangers-on’ who were giving her nothing in return. It was all
one way traffic - right down to her lungs. “The only end of this story will be ...” Lil meant to say ‘me’ but she was now so breathless she found it difficult to finish the ends of her sentences.
So Lil took control. After twenty seven years, she sent the leeches packing. Oh yes, the raving lunatic of a dragon in her stomach tried to shout loudly to her - screeching and fuming that she craved their company. But she didn’t listen. She just told as many people as possible that she had removed the stone from her shoe - for good. Not just for twenty minutes at a time - but for good. She told as many people as possible, because she didn’t want to lose face. Having lost so much through these friends in the last twenty seven years, she did not want to lose her face.
She didn’t. In fact as powerful as the dragon in her stomach was (and he is so terribly powerful) he had vacated that location in a few days. He did move to her head and kept reminding her that she should re-introduce the gang. But she would never even give them a taster for there lay their insidious path back.
And Lily found that she could create, relax and cope with good and bad news without their company. Within a few months, she began to forget that they existed at all, reminded only when she saw somebody gasping on a little devil.
Lily pitied the gaspers, but she did understand their plight. She refused to condemn, but understood how powerfully hypnotic these little devils were. She wanted to tell her story, whilst it was still fresh in her mind ... fresh being the operative word.
She hoped that she would live happily and healthily ever after. If nothing else, she would be free from black shadows.
http://www.janmoranneil.co.uk/

One Evening in Castlefield (High Wycombe)

On Thursday 17th January at 7.30 pm Wycombe Drug Prevention Club met for the first time in 2008. The meeting was held in the newly revamped Castlefield community centre. The evening had two parts. In the first part Mr Don Wallington reflected on his family's struggle with their son's drug problem. He couragesously reflected on his relationship with his son who unfortunately died about ten years ago due to an overdose. Don explained how eventually he and his wife, Maureen, who have been working with the DAAT as a volunteer for over a year came to terms with the loss of their son.

Within the last twelve months Don and Maureen have campaigned tirelessly against drugs. They have given talks and shared their stories with others on many occasions hoping it would stop others going down the same path their son took.

In the second part of the evening the group reflected on Don's talk and discussed approaches which parents can adopt to have an appropriate discussion about drugs with their children. It was mentioned by one of the members that some parents may not feel confident to talk about drugs with their children even if they have a fair level of knowledge about drugs. She believed the next step for the DAAT can be to provide opportunities for parents where they can drop in and learn some communication skills on how to communicate their concerns with their children.