Katie started drinking when she was about 14 to try and deal with her mental health issues and family problems.
"I drank because I wanted to. I had no commitments or responsibilities to care about.”
From around 2011, Katie was in an out of prison. She was offered detox programmes when she was serving her sentence, but it never worked as she wasn’t ready. However, when she was offered treatment on ReNew programme in Hull, Katie realised she wanted to get sober for her family. Since then, she’s never looked back.
As part of the treatment, ReNew offered Katie a place on the ‘Relationships Matter’ programme. This helped Katie to learn about the boundaries between addiction and her family and enabled her to consider more about how addiction affects others.
"ReNew changed my life, and the ‘Relationships Matter’ programme helped me earn back love from my kids. Before I was in recovery, Christmas was always about myself and how drunk I could get, but now it’s all about my kids and what I can finally give them.
“It was so helpful being able to talk about my addiction and mending my family with people who have gone through it themselves. The staff at Forward really understood.”
