Mark Deaville overcame years of drug addiction. Heather Bellamy caught up with him to find out more.

Every month in 2008 Cross Rhythms Radio is focusing on a key theme that affects our city, broadcasting daily interviews, information and news from local projects, strategic leaders and the people of Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffs. The 'City Focus' for March is Alcohol & Drugs.

Simply watching the news each day shows us the problem we have in the UK; did you know that at least one in seven secondary school pupils has tried illegal drugs, according to an Ofsted study - most often cannabis but also heroin, cocaine, LSD and ecstasy! It also found a fifth of 10 to 15 year olds regularly get drunk and one in six 14 and 15 year olds admit to getting drunk at least three times in the previous four weeks.

"Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation." Edmund Burke, an 18th century writer

What for each individual might just be an experiment succumbing to peer pressure amounts to a national problem and many lives ruined.

Mark Deaville with his wife Dawn

Behind all stats are real people, perhaps you, or a sibling, friend or child. What sound like cold hard, impersonal facts, are fleshed out in the lives of families and communities who have suffered emotionally and practically. Mark Deaville, co-founder of VIP was himself once a heroin addict, but it didn't begin there, "We started to drink, we started to smoke, and that's really the beginning of where I started to get involved in substance abuse. My story is not just about drugs, I had a lot of other stuff going on in me life; my parents had been through divorce. There were a lot of problems at home and I was angry with my Dad. There was a lot of family hurting going on, it was a difficult time. I found my release and my pleasure and my comfort within my group of friends. From an early age it was more about acceptance and just being wanted and feeling that need of being loved. From an early age at school, I was looking at the guys that were messing around and trying to fit in with them. I found that those people who were messing around, looked at me as a bit of a clown of the classroom. So from that period, I built my life on that because I was gaining acceptance. At the end of school I didn't take any exams, I left with no qualifications whatsoever. I was just standing around on street corners just messing around. We used to take diazepam with alcohol, which if you don't know, it makes you very sleepy and drowsy and you don't know where you are, I was 17 years old just doing that every weekend.

When I was 18, I started clubbing. I was on YTS so wasn't earning much money, about £30-£40 a week and spending the whole lot on a Friday night and getting off my head. I was taking ecstasy, amphetamines, and speed every weekend. When I went to the nightclubs and took ecstasy it was all about loving each other, getting on with everyone. No one was falling out. It was just an amazing feeling I experienced at that time. And I thought I'd found the meaning of life within that club. I did that for the next two years. When the club shut down I was on a bit of a ladder where I was searching for stuff in my life to make me feel good. I was at work one day in a tiling company and a guy said to me, have you ever had brown or SCAG; whatever it was called then. I didn't know what he was on about, but said I'll have a go. By this time, I'd done a bit of coke as well and done a bit of LSD and stuff. I tried quite a lot of drugs, so was pretty much up for anything. I didn't know it was heroin, if you had told me what it was I wouldn't have done it; but it came to me very subtly. It didn't come to me as heroin in a needle. My first time I was sick everywhere and didn't like the feeling at all. It wasn't very pleasant but at the same time I did feel good about myself and came away thinking, I'll do that again. Eventually I was taking it every weekend, then sometimes in the week. I was taking it to work. These gaps got smaller and smaller, until eventually it became daily use.

A friend turned round to me a few months later and said, how are you feeling, are you rattling? I remember thinking at this point, I don't know what he's talking about but I don't like what he's saying, and I'm not going to take any today, just to see what happens. I went home after work and I began the first withdrawal symptoms. I began to ache; I had sickness and diarrhoea at the same time. It was just like a cold shiver like a cold, but a lot more severe, stomach cramps; just a horrible experience. It was like a really bad flu but worse. I remember just the mental stages, really uncomfortable and I knew then I had a problem. I guess I also knew the remedy for that problem. So I just went out and fetched some heroin that day and the problem went away.

I ended up selling my possessions and lost my job. I started to sell my family stuff. I got kicked out. I did some pretty bad things to my family; quite severe nasty stuff. I'd just walk in, pick the telly up and walk out. I'd threaten my Dad for money and stuff. I was just in a mess. That wasn't me as a person; it's what the drugs made me become. I ended up in a hostel in Hanley, homeless."

After a failed rehab attempt, Mark began selling drugs, "I was walking down the street one day and I bumped into an old school mate. He said what you up too, and we got chatting. It turned out he knew some guys who were selling gear. So I got involved with him and I started to sell gear from my flat. That was a bit of a turning point, because in weeks I got set up. I had a wide screen telly; I had a set of drums. I had everything I could ever want you know. I had nice clothes all the time. I didn't bother washing my clothes. I'd just go and buy more clothes.

My heroin addiction, my habit, got a lot larger at this point. I was taking about £130 worth of gear a day, and I was taking about £200 worth of crack cocaine as well then, on the rock. I was making about £400 a day, and without realising it, that lifestyle developed. I was getting myself in a really big mess you know.

The police would come every four weeks and that was pretty much timed. I would get a drug bust and they would kick the door in, and I would be waiting for them every four weeks. It was horrible.

After nine months, I got caught outside the property. I had 8 wraps of heroin. It's called plugging them. I pushed them up my backside to conceal them there. I went out to score crack cocaine and got caught. They took me to hospital and examined me internally and found the heroin. And I got remanded in custody. They had had surveillance on me for months and I got remanded straight away. Three years nine months I got for eight wraps."

Mark was constantly told things like 'you're a smacker for life, you'll never get off that stuff' and nothing changed while he was in prison, but God began to break into his life. "My brother was coming into prison while I was there and telling me about God, and God's got a plan for my life. When I got out he was saying to me, come to church, God can help. So I went along to this church service and I met a guy who was a coke dealer in Liverpool and he was telling his story of how he came off the coke. He'd been in jail, but now he knew Jesus as his Lord and Saviour. I was like, now what's all that about. I thought, I've done that; I've done that, but I've not done what he's talking about here. I felt really strongly that I needed to do that.

I waited until after, and went up to him and said, listen I've been where you have been. I want to live how you're living now. He said a prayer with me. Nothing really happened; I cried and felt a bit upset. It kind of happened in prison as well you know. A chaplain used to come in and pray for me and I just used to cry and feel guilty. But at the end when this guy prayed for me, I felt better as well. Immediately after, these people in the church were there that decided to sit with me and help me through the withdrawal symptoms. Through that and through that church I got off the gear. I couldn't believe it. This was six to seven years into my addiction and I got off it and for the first time I became drug free; and you know I couldn't believe it. This God stuff worked for me. I didn't go through any pain and it was really strange. I said to these Christian guys, if I go angry and decide to go and fetch drugs, get out of my way; just don't mess around with me because I'm serious, I'll hurt someone. I just wasn't angry I was completely peaceful. You know every time I went through pain they laid hands on me and prayed for me and the pain just went away. I just couldn't believe it. It just blew my head off."

Mark went back to drugs for a while, but has now been clean for 6 years and life is looking up. "I met Dawn my wife. That's a miracle. I'd had a mindset of I'll never get married. What do you want to spend your life with one person for it's only a piece of paper; sleep around. I met Dawn and thought this is the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. That's a miracle to me because that wasn't me. That wasn't the way I thought.

So we got married. Her Mother worked at the YMCA, which is where I got involved and did some voluntary work. They offered me a job, two days voluntary, which again is another miracle. I worked with people with drug problems for four years. Obviously now I've been six years without doing anything at all. I've not taken one single drug.

Six years on, I'm now the housing management for the Crewe YM. I let people in. I'm just a model. I represent what life is about now and I don't believe in anything else, apart from that God is the way forward. I live my life as a role model to these young people, to show them on the level, I'm not better than they are but they can have what I've got and I love you to bits.

Life's been amazing and I've been truly blessed in everything in my life. It's great. It's not about stuff, but I've got a mortgage on a house; I've got a nice car, I've got a phone and all the stuff I wanted. It's mainly about getting that relationship with God, that's brought all this other stuff along too. I packed in smoking as well. That's a few months ago. Life is better now without those things in my life. That's pretty much my story."

If you or someone you know is struggling with an addiction, help is only a phone call away. Call 01837 851240 for Gilead Foundation drug and alcohol rehab centre, or email admin@gilead.org.uk.