I began using drugs at the age of 10. I was already drinking alcohol that was obtained either from a shop in the market (cider and cheap wine or sherry mixed) or from the cupboard at home (whiskey).

The first drug was cannabis. An older friend encouraged me to try it and I was ‘addicted’ from the word go. Within weeks I had sold toys and other things to buy ‘puff’ and in no time at all the same person gave me some speed pills to try (I was still only 10). I took five pills and fell ‘in love with them’.

My life from that point on was one of crime, dishonesty, drugs, alcohol, violence and institution after institution. Even in prison I was taking drugs and drinking.

Inevitably, the progression of drug-taking led me to heroin and at 14 I started injecting not only heroin, but anything that could be put into a syringe and into my body.

Over the years I had tried to stop taking drugs but whenever my drug-taking diminished, my alcohol consumption spiralled out of control, so I took drugs and continued doing crime.

Crime is all part and parcel of drug abuse, and along with that goes pubs and clubs where you done your ‘shady deals’. In a nutshell, the drugs, booze and crime had taken over and I was lost in this madness of which even if I could have found my way out, I was too scared to do it alone.

So what changed?

At the ripe old age of 44, I found myself living in dustbins, eating food from the floor and committing more and more crimes to feed my drink and drug habit. I would often think of suicide and also considered murdering someone (anyone) so that I could get locked up for the rest of my life. I had spent 18 years in jails and quite liked it.

I was arrested for house burglary in 2002 and got three years in prison. I had taken part in a thing called ‘restorative justice’ where I met the victim face to face. It was probably the beginning of the end.

I asked to go to Norwich prison and do the RAPt program. I was given the OK and have never looked back.

My time on the RAPt program was without doubt the toughest time in prison ever, yet it was the most rewarding – you see, it was where I was shown how to live.

It was not only about not taking drugs and not drinking booze, it was more than that and that’s what the people on the RAPt unit showed me. It was about changing everything, and they showed me, they guided me, they enabled me to finally understand what life on life’s terms was all about.

I am pretty sure that if I had not been given the chance to do the RAPt programme I would have either still be doing crime, taking drugs, drinking booze and doing loads of harm to people or, more than likely, I would be dead – another statistic of drug/alcohol abuse.

To round it all up, without RAPt there would not be me and hundreds like me – BORN-AGAIN HUMAN BEINGS!


Peter F. Woolf