We ask students from Devon's rehabilitation centre Gilead Foundations to tell us their stories. This time it's the turn of JANE COX.

I'm the second youngest of a family of six children from a farming background. However, I didn't really go into agriculture. I decided I was going to be a secretary and a book keeper, and started working at the age of 18. I'm now 48. At one point, I also got involved with a sailing magazine and through that I really got into sailing. I ended up doing transatlantic deliveries in Japan for six months as a volunteer crew. I came back to the UK and took up my old jobs again until August 2005 when I decided I was going to take a year out and do some voluntary work.

While I was working at one place, I received very severe threats on my life and I didn't know who they were coming from. It was horrifying. I did actually have to involve the police and forensics and I even contemplated moving address. I decided not to because this person wasn't going to get the better of me. Unfortunately, however, something else did get the better of me. I couldn't control whoever it was trying to, or supposedly wanting to, do me harm and I'd been very much in control of my life up until then. So, because I couldn't control this, I found a new friend. This friend was in the shape of a bottle and it was full of alcohol. I used it to anesthetise the fear and try to forget and not to worry about what was happening. A lot of addictions are born out of fear. And I'm afraid mine was one of them. The threats then subsided and stopped but by that time the alcohol had taken a hold. And that's where my addiction started. It was through fear of not knowing, and not being able to cope with the situation. Not being in control of the situation. And weak-willed and weak-minded people, like myself, then try and find something that will anesthetise what's going wrong and give us an excuse to then hide away and pretend that we don't need to hurt and don't need to care.

It took a lot of time for me to know that I had an addiction. In fact, even when I first came down to Gilead I still kept denying it to everyone. I just didn't want to face up to the fact that I, the age that I was, could be an addict to something as simple as alcohol. It's a very humbling experience to have to admit it but it's also very therapeutic and if you want help there is help to be had.

I referred myself to Gilead and I'm here till September. Being from a farming background anyway, and this is a very farming orientated therapy, it appealed to me. Gilead has got a very lovely sort of ethereal quality about it. It's extremely peaceful here and there's a lot to do. I probably have the best deal of the lot because I do a lot of the milking the cows. We have an organic dairy farm here with a herd that needs milking night and morning. I also do some gardening and I do some reception and admin work and I love it.

Unless you really are desperate to get hold of whatever substance you were using, there's nothing available here and there's no incentive here to do it. It's a case of working through the fact that you're not anymore on the substance of your choice. You have to learn how to cope with not picking up the substance when the same emotions come into your life. You deal with it and you eventually get over it to full recovery. I've learnt that I don't need to pick up the bottle because I've got so many caring people around me that I can talk a problem through with.

I wasn't a Christian at all before I came here; I didn't believe there was a God. If there was, where was he through all my troubles and what was he doing to help me? And the answer was nothing. But now, I'm getting there. I know that we are made by God and he loves and cares for all of us. He doesn't want us to do harm to ourselves, even though I think in the madness of addiction we all want to harm ourselves quite seriously. He doesn't want that, he wants a better life for everybody and has a purpose for everybody. I think that I'm certainly learning through being here that he's got a much better purpose for my life than I had for myself. And it's a very nice purpose. If it keeps on going the way it's going I shall be very happy and I will live for a lot longer than I otherwise would've done. So I thank him, on a daily basis.