Drugs

Bootle High School

“On Friday and Saturday nights in our area it gets a bit rough because there are fights and many people who live near where drugs gangs hang around are getting harassed.

We wanted to find out why people behave like this when on drugs and any other side effects. We also wanted to find out how they affect your life. Do drugs cause you to fall out with friends and family? What other problems are there? We also tried to find out if there are treatments out there to help drug users.”

Hear the programmes

Addicts' Stories

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Hear from the experts -
Tony and Ruth

MP3 (1.9Mb)

Tony McGuire Learning Mentor

What does Tony do? His job is to support young people, identify their needs, and help them overcome barriers to learning, whatever they may be. It is mainly helping young people to fulfil their potential.

How ?

Initially he works to develop a trusting relationship with the young person after which the young person will talk about any issues and difficulties he or she may have. He will try to find strategies to enable them to over come these difficulties.

As well as working one to one and with small groups working Tony will act as an advocate on young peoples behalf. He can mediate with teachers and other support surfaces such as the youth service, social services, council services, drug support teams and the police.

For 15 years before this, Tony was a Youth Services worker, going out on the streets to find and help young drug addicts. Tony originally volunteered to work with young people in Litherland and became involved in helping a young heroin addict there who was eighteen and had used every drug there is. Just one year later, this young addict died.

Tony has also worked as a joiner and with the Probation Services as a community service supervisor.

Ruth Drug Counsellor

Ruth is the complementary therapy coordinator for the Merseyside Drugs Council.

Ruth became involved in drug misuse at the age of 15. She feels that this was partially in response to family problems together with mixing with the 'wrong crowd'

She took a wide variety of drugs at this time including LSD, Cannabis and Speed but moved on to using heroin. She was an addict at 18 years of age and eventually stopped using it after using Methadone to help her. She also found that alternative therapies such as aromatherapy helped considerably.

After her partner died from a drugs overdose and many of her friends as well, she was determined to prove wrong the people who said "once an addict, always an addict", and that she would never cope without drugs. But it took her 10 years to come off heroin.

She now uses her experiences to help others in difficulty by counselling and providing alternative therapies to help.