WHAT do you do if you see a homeless person on the streets? Give them money? Buy them a cup of tea? Or walk past? Here, a Weymouth man who spent three months living rough in the town shares his story and talks exclusively to the Dorset Echo about how he turned his life around

“WHEN I hit rock bottom I was on two bottles of scotch a day.”

Speaking from his comfortable flat in Melcombe Regis, it is hard to believe that this strictly sober, articulate man once spent several months living in a shed with 10 drug addicts.

He agreed to an interview with the Dorset Echo on condition of anonymity because he wants to show that there is ‘always hope’ that life will improve.

“Someone could be reading this who has a son, or daughter or brother on the streets. Maybe they’ve lost contact with them, like I did with my family.

“My story could show that there is always hope.”

A self-confessed alcoholic for 20 years, he left his West Midlands home in 2005 and moved to Weymouth.

It would be several years before he saw his family again.

Always a heavy drinker, his problem spiralled after losing two close friends to cancer.

“That evening I was onto my second bottle of whiskey and I just decided, no matter how bad the hangover in the morning, I would just leave and sort myself out.

“And I did. I left my whole life behind me.”

Moving south, he found himself in Bournemouth, but soon decided city life was not for him and moved westward.

He spent his first night in Weymouth on a park bench, then moved to a bunker on the Nothe Gardens which he shared with a drug addict.

“It was a shock to the system. I come from a decent family but I was living in a hovel.”

Later he moved to a shed, sharing his sleeping space with up to 10 others.

“The chap from the bunker took me up there and they accepted me straight away. They all looked after each other. I felt safe there.”

It was only when he was urged by Salvation Army volunteers to go to the hospital that he began to get the help he needed.

“I was attending the centre twice a week for my breakfast. I was quite ill one day and they urged me to go to accident and emergency.

“The nurses and staff there couldn’t have been kinder. They even gave me tea and biscuits while I was waiting.”

The hospital put him in touch with Lantern, a Weymouth-based charity, who found him a room in Melcombe House within one week.

“I have had a lot of help which I don’t think would have been available if I’d stayed in the West Midlands.

“I was still drinking when I went to the hospital but I had been cutting down gradually and stopped drinking whiskey.

“The worry was that if you stop cold turkey after all that time, it can kill you.

“But Melcombe House has a strict no-substances policy. I knew that if I went back smelling of alcohol, that would be it.”

Residents are also encouraged to carry out voluntary work to add structure to their day.

He added: “Before I moved in they asked if I wanted to see the room first. I didn’t need to.

“It could have been the smallest room in the world and I would have taken it.”

He was there for 18 months before deciding to move out.

“You can stay for up to two years. Eventually I decided it was time to move on with my life.

“The staff again were fantastic and put me in touch with a landlord. People from the Salvation Army helped with furniture. I’ve had so much help.”

Almost a decade later, he is still in the same town centre apartment, and continues to volunteer with the Salvation Army.

“It is not necessarily about giving something back as much as having a constant reality check.

“I look back occasionally, which I do not think does any harm, and think that if I was to pick a drink up, I know where I would end up. I don’t take anything for granted.”

Staying away from alcohol was a tough battle in the early days of his recovery, and to this day he is still dealing with his addictive behaviour.

“Certainly in the first three years after I left Melcombe House I was still getting urges.

“There were a few nights I had to call an officer from the Salvation Army because I wanted a drink. Every time I rang for help, they came.

“I do have addictive behaviour and you have to be careful about dealing with that, for instance not swapping one addiction for another that’s as bad.

“I love puzzles and games and that is what I put it into. It’s harmless, as long as I don’t spend money on it, which I never do.”

He also made a conscious decision to stay away from those he had met on the streets.

“No one ever tried to steal anything off me, they all look out for each other.

“But when you go into recovery you have to keep your distance. They looked after me but I did not want to get dragged back down.”

He believes being homeless helped him in the long term despite facing a variety of attitudes from people – from being criticised for drying his clothes on a park fence to being bought food and a hot drink by a passer-by.

“I needed that spell on the streets. It’s a funny thing. I think if I had been there longer, for six months maybe, I would have found it harder to come off alcohol.

“You have to reach your lowest point to come back up. For me that would have been begging or stealing. I never got to that but I would have done if I had been there longer.”

He is reluctant to offer advice for people who find themselves in a similar situation to himself.

“It is an awful place to be in. But you can’t help. You have to wait for them to reach out and get help.

“And unfortunately, for some people that point never comes. It kills them.”

He recognises that his own family would have wanted to help if he had gone to them rather than leaving the West Midlands.

His family reported him as a missing person, and it was months later when he was approached by a policeman in Weymouth who asked his permission to send word to his parents that he was safe.

Police tracked him using facial recognition on CCTV cameras.

“My family always wanted to help. But they were watching me kill myself through drink.

“I was worried if I went to them, they would just give me money, and we all know where that would have been spent.

“When things aren’t going your way it’s quite easy to blame the world. Life was kicking me in the backside but I thought, if I could just get out of the situation I was in, it could work.

“It took a lot of guts. But I swear that night I knew it was the only way I could do it.”

His story has a happy ending. He has been reunited with his parents and brothers, who accepted his decision to stay in Weymouth. He talks to all of them regularly on the phone.

“I do want to emphasise just how much help I got here, and am still getting. Lantern do a fantastic job. They still help me now, filling out forms and things.

“The Salvation Army were there when I needed them. Even the policeman who found me that day was so understanding and wished me well.”

This help will not soon be forgotten by his family.

“My brother was in Birmingham recently and gave his daughter some money to put in a collection pot for the Salvation Army.

“She asked why he was giving money away and he told her, ‘They are the ones who helped your uncle. They are the ones who brought him back to us.’”