'You forge on': Emotions run high as students graduate from unique programme for substance users
How a specially-designed qualification is helping to transform the lives of people who have been affected by addiction
Alex’s 40 year journey through addiction has seen him cycle through prison, hospital and homelessness since the age of 14.
Just a few years ago he was certain he would die.
Now, however, he is a new graduate from a specially-designed qualification for people with lived experience of substance use.
All the trials and difficulties of his life, he says, will now be used to help other people.
Alex is “humbled” to be graduating and feels like he has now found himself.
“I gave up myself for years,” he said. “I gave up trying, I gave up thinking, I just accepted my life.
“Then came the moment I wanted to die, I just didn’t want to be here.
“I’d watched my brother die and my girlfriends die and I assumed it would happen to me one day.
“I kept trying to die but I didn’t.
“So I got to the point that I realised it wasn’t going to happen to me - so what was I going to do?
“I was going to have to live and I realised that my past experience was my asset.”
The Scottish Drugs Forum (SDF) National Traineeship is a nine-month, salaried programme combining work placements, specialist training and vocational learning.
People taking part earn an SVQ in Social Services and Healthcare to support their progression into roles across the drug, alcohol and wider social care sectors.
Some 85 per cent of graduates - including Alex - secure employment on completion.
Alex began using solvents and alcohol when he was 12. Shoplifting and housebreaking saw him sent to what he calls “List D schools” - or what we might call a secure unit.
His last stay in prison was in 2019.
Being in secure care gave him nothing other than learning what he calls “the tricks of the trade”, or how to carry out more significant crimes.
In his late teens he started using drugs and ended up in a coma.
His family priest performed the last rites but somehow he survived and went on to work in kitchens as a chef, a tough environment that didn’t help his sobriety.
Eventually he became homeless and slept rough in Glasgow city centre with his brother.
“My alcohol use went through the roof because that’s all that we lived for,” he said.
“Every hostel I was put in I was kicked out of because of getting drunk and fighting - drinking, fighting and getting up to no good.”
The fights would lead to DNAs - do not accommodate orders that meant he was banned from homeless hostels for 12 months.
Prison came as a relief, giving him a bed and food.
His brother died while in the homelessness system and he lost touch with his sister.
He had girlfriends but lost two partners to drug use.
At one point he nearly lost a leg. Yet he survived, even when he didn’t feel he wanted to.
Over the years Alex tried rehab repeatedly - he thinks around 30 times - but would finish a programme and then begin drinking again.
Then, while attending Turning Point Scotland, he decided to try Christian Fellowship and abstinence.
“I had no plans or intention to get clean, I just wanted the chaos to stop,” he said.
“This time I decided I should try and take nothing - no using, no drinking, no prescriptions - and see if things improved.”
And they did. In 2024 Alex went to SDF and signed up to the traineeship as part of his recovery journey.
The 54-year-old realised his lived experience could be helpful and, while supporting other people, grew in confidence and knowledge.
Alex had a placement with the charity With You and “I was welcomed at once, I actually enjoyed everything”.
Staff were brilliant, he says, always willing to put their work aside for a minute to help him out.
Every week he takes a Fellowship meeting in a prison.
“I was never out of prison, and now I go there and help other guys.”
When he works with people living with substance use he says he can identify quickly how they feel because “I've been there, and I've thought their thoughts, and I've talked that talk, and I felt that way”.
The SDF says its National Traineeship strengthens services by bringing staff with valuable first-hand insight into the workforce.
Last week’s graduation saw 30 people complete the course, cheered on by their families.
One graduate told the audience at Glasgow City Chamber that her table was empty because her relations had cut her off - but her coursemates are her family.
Kirsten Horsburgh, Chief Executive Officer at Scottish Drugs Forum, said: “Our graduation event represents far more than the completion of a programme. It reflects determination, courage and a willingness to step forward into new possibilities.”
May Riddell, a 59-year-old grandmother and mother-of-three now runs her own business - May Riddell Therapies - thanks to completing the programme previously.
The traineeship helped build her confidence and self-esteem but also helped her learn that it was ok to make mistakes - not everything had to be perfect.
“I just had to calm down and learn take my time and be good to myself and the kids and do what I could,” she said.
Ms Riddell first heard about the SDF at a Fellowship programme while completing the 12 steps.
She was amazed to learn there was somewhere she could go, even with her criminal record, and complete a course that would lead to a good job.
Ms Riddell started drinking tonic wine when she was nine.
Being drunk was “a wee bubble where I could be safe, a wee sanctuary within myself, a wee quiet place to be safe”.
Safe from what? Abuse, she says. “The environment that I lived in, the abuse, the trauma, the violence.
“When I found the alcohol, it was great. It was my saviour. It was like it saved my life.”
At 14 she became pregnant with her first daughter, now 44, and left school.
Finding abstinence took a long time.
“You've got all the attendant suffering of the trauma that you've never looked at, that you didn't even know until the years pass,” she said.
“And it’s revealed to you things that you didn’t realise were abuse and you recognise traumas.
“I had pushed a lot so far down.”
Ms Riddell is 17 years abstinent next month and has “never stopped learning”.
Missing out on education as a teenager has fuelled a passion for learning and development.
She thrived on the SDF course and is positive about the salaried aspect of it.
Having an income was transformative, she said. Her adult life had been one of telling her three girls what they couldn’t afford in the supermarket.
Now they could pop treats in the shopping basket.
“On my next birthday I’m 60 and I would be happy if I got another 20 or 30 years because I’ve got a lot to do.”
What would she tell that scared, pregnant 14-year-old girl? “She would never in a million years believe what she would go on to become,” she says.
She has counted Edinburgh University as one of her clients.
“You forge ahead,” Ms Riddell adds.
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