Recovery or Discovery? I could bore you with countless tales of misadventure whilst wandering around my life in a nonchalant manner, but I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. Today it’s about my journey from making that choice to change, acceptance and understanding and how I developed a sense of self which were guided by my deepest values. From the

Hi my name is Paul. I’m 48 and battled with addiction for 34 years. I grew up in Stoke Newington, Hackney on a council estate which I absolutely loved. I was smoking dope at 12yrs old, drinking heavily at age of 14, a coke head at age 16 and a heroin addict by the age of 17! I definitely had

“I was in a drug haze for 35 years and am now doing really well on my new journey. I am very proud of myself for where I am now.” Vince has recently walked 138 miles to raise money for our partners Mulberry Community Project, here’s some of his story… I’ve now been with Mulberry Community Project for over 2

At the age of 20, I met a man who appeared to be the most charming, kind and loving human Ihad ever met. We quickly fell in love and before we knew it, we were expecting a baby.During pregnancy, the abuse started. Initially, emotional and then financial abuse began tocreep into our relationship, he would call me names, gaslight and

For my courageous sister Katy – The red butterfly… In March 2022 Katy complained of not feeling well, at the same time she mentioned a funny smell, one similar to that of burning toast. Soon after my 9-year-old niece and two nephews found Katy on the floor having a seizure and called her partner to come and help, Katy was

From the age of four, I used to tell myself that I’m on the wrong planet or maybe I was adopted. I felt different to my peers who looked happy and content in their own skin. I felt like a square peg in a round hole. The story I am about to tell you has nothing to do with the

Things hit me really bad when I lost my grandad, he was my hero and I was young, around 12-13 and didn’t know how to deal with it. Both grandparents basically raised me and I was really close to them. It didn’t just affect me, it broke my family apart when he died. I already really struggled at school before

It was 2018, I was 38, I had a good job with the civil service and I had two grown up children and had been with my partner for 22 years, he was the father of my children and we had been through a lot together. We were childhood sweethearts and I thought we would be together forever…we took cocaine

Hi, my name is Robin I’m 72 yrs old, not something that I want to remind myself of. I was born in Blackpool and have lived here all my life. Like most people out there my upbringing was not the happiest after losing my mum when I was 9years old. The path I chose in life was one I had

In 2019 I was diagnosed with Triple Negative breast cancer, an aggressive form of the disease which affects 10-15% of patients. I’d never heard of it, so I had to try to research what the future might hold or if there was actually going to be one. Just a few days before, I’d been suddenly made redundant, so I had

I met the girl of my dreams at 21 and moved to Blackpool. I spent 15 years as happy as I could be in a town I came to call home. I lost a close relative in a short period of time just before lockdown and found myself in crisis. I was in a job where I wanted nothing more

I grew up being told I was never good enough, never smart enough, and nobody would ever want me. To top it off I had a secret that I knew they would never except. I knew I was different, but growing up in the church I knew it was wrong and hid it for years, trying to change who I

I had struggled to come to terms with my sexuality during childhood and was told in 1991 that I had just six months to live after a HIV diagnosis. I was still alive 10 years later but heavily dependent on alcohol, crack cocaine and heroin. In 2006 I ended up overdosing on class A drugs while suffering with the Aids

As a child I just could never fit in, and I really tried. I was very academically bright, but ‘didn’t play well with others’ and as I got to high school, I found it even harder to make friends. I started to get into more trouble because I thought it made me more popular with other kids. I lost interest

For the past 10 years I have been self employed as a large scale muralist/ street artist, currently based in the UK.  Within this time I have been blessed to travel to many countries with my work, painting large scale murals across the world in places such as the United States (Miami, Michigan & Los Angeles), Mexico, England and North