Steve’s Story – peer mentoring

Steve is an ex-offender who has had his own share of difficulties. Here, he talks about providing peer mentoring to a young offender

Probation gave me the task of working in a mentoring capacity with Ryan, an offender who had recently been released from prison on licence. He had a long history of drug problems and offending behaviour and his recent offence of supplying class ‘A’ drugs was directly related to his personal drug use. Although he had lapsed not long after leaving prison he was at that time drug-free and he was very motivated towards changing his life.

Peer Mentoring

I met with Ryan on a weekly basis for coffee and we discussed his current situation. I shared my own experiences of how I overcame some of the problems and challenges that he now faced recovering from long-term addiction and over the next few weeks we developed a very good working relationship.

 Ryan’s housing situation was very unstable as he was staying in a temporary hostel and he was still associating with old acquaintances, who were currently still using. Unfortunately, Ryan fully relapsed and our meetings became less frequent as his life became more chaotic. However, we did still meet on occasions and he expressed to me how he was desperate for his situation to improve and how he did not want to revert to his old pattern of using, offending and going to prison.

I arranged for Ryan to have an assessment at a local recovery house which would offer a stable and safe environment with onsite support. The assessment went well and he was offered a room in a newly opening house on condition that he tested clean of illicit drugs seven days before he moved in. He managed to get stable on a prescription and subsequently moved into the recovery house. He is now accessing support from a local drug agency, attending a day centre where he is undertaking cooking and computer courses, and he is regularly attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings.

Dramatic Improvement

Ryan’s circumstances have improved dramatically and we continue to meet up regularly. He is currently living and socialising with those in recovery from addiction and his attitude towards his future is very positive. He is geared towards reducing his prescription and becoming totally abstinent with the hope of eventually gaining education and training to improve his work prospects.

For someone who was entrenched in using and offending, Ryan has come a very long way and hopefully I will be able to continue to support him on his journey to recovery.

Names have been changed to protect confidentiality