From Heroin to Jesus (Part 1)

My name is Billy, I am 37 years old. My story began several years ago. Many incidents occurred in my life, which eventually led to my Heroin addiction of several years.

Four years ago I was begging on the streets of Manchester, living on the streets. Then by chance I managed to get a place in a hostel. The problem was we had to leave the hostel during the day.

I had come to a point in my life where I knew I had to stop my habit, or it would kill me. This certain day I decided to stop, as I had done many times before. But somehow I felt I was going to do it this time.

Next door to the hostel is a day centre called Cornerstone. I visited this centre each day.

On this particular day that I had decided to give up drugs, one of the staff in the day centre invited me to join her. She remarked that I didn’t look like many of the people that live in hostels, (I was clean and fresh). I told her of my plan to stop my habit.

It seems that if people were committed to changing their lives this lady could help people to enter Community Cenacolo. (A Catholic community that helps and encourages desperate young people, not only addicts to change their lives), and amazingly she was going to a Cenacolo meeting in Liverpool that night. She asked me would I like to go along with her? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, it was just the encouragement I was looking for.

We both felt God’s hand in this meeting.

Off we went to the meeting. That night a young Liverpool woman called Nicky who was living in a Cenacolo community in Italy, had come home for a couple of weeks, and had come to the meeting to share her witness about how Jesus had come into her life, how she had stopped taking drugs, and her life had been transformed. Wow! She was so inspirational, and her love of Jesus shone from her. I thought to myself this is what I want. If she can do it, so can I

I lived for each Tuesday meeting, it was the highlight of my week, so many loving, friendly, caring people, encouraging young people to get help with their addiction.Why were they doing this? and all voluntary.

They were all Christians and this was a work of love.

The staff in the day centre went out of their way to help me. They arranged a bed in a small room for me to rest on in the day if I needed to, as I may have suffered from withdrawal symptoms, it also kept me off the streets and enabled me to keep away from temptation. They were kind and encouraging, I began to volunteer at the centre and this helped to fill my days, and build my self esteem.