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

I pretty much grew up in the South West all my life. I've got one sister and my parents are still happily married. My mother's been a Christian probably since she was about 18. I was regularly going to church probably up until I was about 14 or so but then after that I slipped away. I would say I pretty much had a stable and happy childhood. I'm 37 now. I met my wife when I was 23 but when I was 30 she got seriously ill. I hit the bottle as soon as that happened. My wife then died two years later in 2002.

My family have been really supportive. Although for a time I did try to cope on my own. I tried to isolate myself because I felt a needed to prove that I could cope. But I suffered with a lot of anxieties.

I came to Gilead about 14 months ago. Before that I tried a lot of other options and went to another rehab down in Plymouth. However, that didn't work out so I was looking for something different. A friend of my mother's, from her church, mentioned Gilead. So we checked out the web page and came and had a look at it and I decided to come. There were a lot of things about it that attracted me. I thought it would be better in a Christian environment and I wanted something to do during the day, so the work on the farm appealed to me. I was a little bit nervous about coming here. But having been down to visit it wasn't too much of a shock, I knew what to expect.

At first I stayed for six months and I pretty much figured that that would be enough to get well again. I thought six months clean time is great. So I got myself a flat and I went back to Exeter. It didn't go very well so I ended up coming back a month later. This time, I intend to finish the whole course. I'm not in such a hurry to leave.

Since being here the counselling course has been very good. It's brought a lot of things to the surface that I didn't realise were problems for me. It's helped me deal with stuff that's happened in the past. The structure of things here is really helpful too because I didn't used to have any structure in my life at all. Having people around also helps me because before I came here I was just isolating myself more and more. I've made many friends at Gilead and that's good. I am really grateful there are people around all the time. It makes me feel more comfortable. My life is definitely better. I feel I have a purpose again, which I lost. I would now describe myself as happy and content. I'm gradually getting more confident.

Whilst I've always been aware of God in my life it's only really since I've been back to Gilead that I've started to put my faith fully in him. God has always played a big part in my conscience, but since learning more I've become even more conscious of the direction my life's taking now. I've learnt to give over control a lot more. He's always been guiding me in what's right and what's wrong, but it's probably only since I came back to Gilead that I've started to look into myself more and am starting to see the way he's working in me and in the other people around me as well.