‘I started drinking aged 11 and couldn’t stop’

Alcohol has always been a big thing in my family and it was around from when I was a very young age. I was about 11 when I started drinking.

I realised quite quickly the way it made me feel and that I could change the way I felt and escape from my life. It changed me as a person and at the beginning it felt good, it felt nice. From then on, I used it for day-to-day living. It was a survival technique really.

One of the first drinks I had was a whisky and lemonade, but I would drink beer, Baileys, sambuca and vodka.

There was a point when everything changed and I started taking drugs, when I was about 14.

I started smoking weed and I did cocaine for the first time at 16. I was still going to school every day but I missed out on so much. It’s not a normal way to grow up.

I don’t remember a lot of my childhood. I wasn’t living. I was just existing. I didn’t know what living was.