‘Life is such an amazing gift. I wake up every single morning with a huge smile on my face. I open my door as I put the kettle on and take a deep breath of air. This feeling never gets old and I wouldn’t change it for anything.
I’m not waking up with the immediate thoughts of heroin, or having to go to work to do a job I didn’t choose because I liked it – it was all about flexible hours and good money. My thoughts are my own and not influenced by drugs.
Life is so simple for me now, it doesn’t matter what happens. I look back on my past – the homelessness, the overdosing, my attempted suicide and think, “If I can survive that, I can survive anything.” So I never get depressed or down about things. It’s fantastic.
I’m not proud of taking drugs. But I’m so proud of getting clean. Because, as we know it far from easy. To be honest I wouldn’t change a minute of it, because it has helped me make me the person I am today. And given me a unique perspective on life.
I take nothing for granted. I see my friends who have never done the drugs thing, and think what they’re missing out on. Their lives revolve around working all week so they can go and get hammered at the weekend. I think this is a problem with society as a whole.
They all think I’m a bit strange, because I don’t get stressed and I’m always smiling. But this too is a problem with society. A person is measured on what they have these days, not what sort of person they are. They can’t be truly happy with nothing. They ‘need’ a nice house, a nice car etc. But this stresses them when they don’t have that.
Happiness is a state of mind. And when you have literally had nothing – no friends, no home, it’s easier to achieve I think. Because every day of life is a gift. Everything you earn means that little bit more. Life is a gift… don’t waste it.’
I couldn’t resist putting up a second Wee Willie Winkie blog from Wired In To Recovery, this one posted a month after his Personal Story.
