Stuart shares his experience of being placed in a hotel and how the environment you’re in can push you back into addiction.
Presented myself at Salford Council, to the Homeless Unit and they ended up putting me up in a hotel in Middleton. But it was a shithole, you wouldn’t put a rat in there.
It was horrible. I got up there, there’s not much of a lock on my door, there’s no lightbulb in there, I had a little lamp there. No TV, no brewing facilities.
The kitchen was a mess. I dunno, the microwave was full of mould. Grimy. It was hanging in there. It was just minging. It was probably cleaner and safer to sleep on the streets.
Sat on my bed, really depressed then. This girl then shouts me, says, “You, over there, new lad”.
So I said, “Hi.”
“Have you got a rizla?”
I said. “Yeah.”
Smoke billowing out her room, She just sat there a smoking crack pipe as if it’s the normal thing to do.
I mean, I’m not dissing anyone who’s got addiction issues, a lot of my friends have and I’ve had them myself. But I didn’t want to be in that environment again.
It’s a good job I wasn’t really going to go down that route again, I’ll never touch that shit again you know what I mean, it ruined my life. But if I was weak, and I was in that vulnerable situation I could have gone back round the revolving doors.
One of my friends came. He’d only been clean about six months or something. Good friend of mine. Grew up with him, went school with him as well. He ended up in there.
And unfortunately, he ended up back on the drugs. Unfortunately, he’s passed away now due to drugs. Perhaps if he hadn’t been put in that situation in the first place, Then he may still be here today.
Who knows?
