Dave T

FREEDOM. I am no longer shackled by my addiction. However, this story is not all about me.

I have not consumed alcohol now for 7 1/2 years. During that period I have done many things but for me the most important thing has been my voluntary work with both the frontline drug and alcohol service in the area and the abstinence based recovery hub, The Comeback, here in Grimsby. This has allowed me to use my lived experience to assist others on their own journey of recovery whilst enhancing my own recovery.

I first met Ken, himself now over 3 years abstinent from alcohol, whilst volunteering for, at the time, Addaction. A worker and myself visited him at the very beginning of his recovery journey. Over a period of time our friendship developed and we found that we had a mutual passion for angling. It transpired that Ken had previously worked with the junior section of a local angling club and during a random conversation he mentioned that he missed doing this. Without thinking I asked why he did not do it again. We got our heads together and not long afterwards our company, Angle For The Community CIC was registered with Companies House.

With support from Angling Trust and various trade and community organisations we were soon offering angling coaching to local youngsters. Our aim is to extend this scope to people in the recovery community, affected others and other associated local organisations.

In the short time that Angle For The Community has been in existence we have grown in numbers and, including Ken and myself, there are now five people in recovery working with us and one affected other.

Without our recovery we would never have achieved this, our minds were a mess and even the slightest setback would likely see us resorting to alcohol to solve our problems. We have our freedom and the confidence to do what we want, when we want and with whoever we want.

We had a bream and the bream came true!!!