Linzi and Ingeus UK transcript

Content warning: This video contains content about suicide and alcohol abuse.

Linzi: My name’s Linzi and I’m a volunteer Peer Mentor at Ingeus. I grew up in a family that was a very loving family. At 16, I met who I thought was the love of my life. He was a bad boy.

At the time, I worked very hard at college and I got a job for the local authority in a health and social care setting. I worked in that job role for 15 years. I had two kids, two girls, early, and everything look picture perfect on the outside, but at home was a very toxic relationship.

And at the time I thought that speaking out and asking for help was a weakness. 

So what I did to block out what was going on, was turn to alcohol.

Frist of all, it was just on weekends, all weekend, every weekend. But I was able to put down the alcohol and go to work Monday to Friday.

This continued for a few years and one day your mum and me brother came, came over and said we think you need a rehab.

And I was like, I'm not going like I didn't think I had a problem with alcohol during this time. I'd woke up in a police cell after a night of drinking and I was told by my solicitor that I was looking at nine years in prison for GBH with intent and I had no recollection of what had gone on at that time.

I was put on probation. I was very lucky that I avoided prison. I got a plea bargain 10 minutes before court.

That offence got dropped down to a lesser offence. It was after that offence that the drinking started turning into morning drinking as well as on a night. So I went into my first rehab to keep my family happy. I didn't make any changes after that rehab.

I kept in touch with the same people that I was hanging around with. I completed me suspended sentence order by the skin of me teeth. I was turning up to appointments drunk, not engaging.

At this point I left the relationship that I was in and what I did was blocked out. How I was feeling more with alcohol all day every day, drinking. I lost my job, I lost my children, I lost all my friends, me self-respect and I just didn't care what was happening around us.

The only thing I cared about was drinking and it was a very dark isolated place at that time.

I was getting arrested a lot, drunk and disorderly and one night while I was getting arrested, lashed out at 4 police officers and that was me, me second defence assault of four emergency workers.

And as soon as I got out from the cell, I went back to the shop. I was blocking out again with whiskey and I woke up in February 21 and I didn't know if it was morning or night and I had a bottle of whiskey on the side of me bed and I just got a feeling inside of us where I thought I can't do this anymore.

I rang me secondary rehab myself this time because I wanted it. I went into detox and then two months rehab.

When I got out of that rehab, all I wanted was my children back. But what I did was focused 100% on my recovery. I did a meeting every day. I had to face the consequences of the assaults and I found myself with another suspended sentence.

My probation officer was the loveliest woman and she didn't ask intrusive questions. She just asked how I was and made a cup of tea.

And I thought, I'm just going to tell her everything, open up to her. We built up a great relationship. I did my unpaid work and she asked if I wanted to start to volunteer at the probation service.

So I started doing that and what that did for me was give me a purpose, my first purpose. I loved going there and telling my story to people and helping them.

After I'd done that for a few months, she recommended the NGSPI Mentor course.

I feel very privileged because I was the first woman to be allowed to take part in that course in the Durham and Gateshead area, and I thought the course was about learning skills to help other people. But what the course did for me initially was give me more purpose.

It helped me to bring out all the qualities that I'd lost in addiction and in bad behaviours. I've got that girl back for me, that criminal conviction, that addiction doesn't define who you are as a person.

And I want to use my lived experience to help people relate to that and give them hope that they can turn their lives around. I positively recommend the NGSPI Mentor programme to other service users.

I was once in that place where you feel like you've got no one, no one you can trust, no one who understands what you're going through. Somebody with lived experience can give hope when people feel hopeless.