A dad-of-five, who started using drugs at 14, reveals transformation after addiction saw him spend £3,200 a month on cocaine.
Reece Rowley was hooked on cocaine for years, but has now been clean for seven months.
The 30-year-old turned to drugs to cope with his anger after his dad left the family when he was a baby.
By the time he was an adult, he was blowing £800 a week on cocaine.
He slept rough for eight months and found himself in hospital four times with a suspected heart attack.
Now, he’s turned his life around after starting a 12-step programme.
And he wants to use his experience to help other addicts.
“I’m so proud of myself,” Reece, from Harlow, Essex, told Need To Know.
“I feel so lucky and grateful.
“Things are so different now.
“My mental health, my financial situation, my relationships are better, and I can look at myself in the mirror.
“I haven’t been this sober since I was 14.
“People stop me and say I look so different.
“I’m able to be more grateful. I see pleasure in the small things like getting up and having a shower.
“Now, I want to use my story to raise awareness and stop an addict from dying.
“You can come out the other side.
“I’m aiming to be someone’s sponsor one day, but I have to stay disciplined.
“The addiction wants you isolated, but you aren’t alone.”
Reece’s life started to spiral when he began smoking cannabis at 14.
His behaviour got so out of control that his mum and stepdad asked him to leave the family home, and he moved in with a neighbour.
When he turned 18, he became a father and started using cocaine.
In the height of his addiction, 5ft 7in Reece was just 9st 5lbs.
Reece dealt drugs and stole to fund his habit.
He slept on the streets for eight months, stole food and went to prison for ABH.
Reece said: “Even so young, my addiction had consequences.
“My dad took off when I was a baby, and raised his two other children, and it made me angry.
“I took it out on my mum and stepdad, so they asked me to leave.
“I was left to my own devices, and it was scary, but from that stemmed more anger and resentment.
“Addicts are very self-absorbed and ‘why me?’, but I wasn’t thinking about how my actions affected my mum and stepfather.
“At 18, I met a woman, we had a baby and went into shared accommodation.
“Work wasn’t great. Then, I bumped into a guy and told him, so he gave me a drug phone.
“I started running it for £170 a day.
“I fell in love with the party life and staying out for days on end, leaving my child and partner at home.
“I got into cocaine. It was a weekend thing at first, but it crept into weekdays.
“I was irresponsible, aggressive, and I couldn’t take accountability, so my relationship broke down.”
He now weighs a healthy 13st, works as a landscaper and lives with his nan.
Reece said: “I used to live in squats.
“I slept outside a row of shops in the town centre and would wake up surrounded by pigeons.
“I had to steal my food, and I was skin and bone.
“I lost everything.”
Reece went on to have four more children.
He says he was trying to get sober for six years and even tried rehab, but left two weeks into the eight-week treatment.
He finally decided to give up drugs for good after his second stint in prison.
Reece said: “I became an existence.
“Every time I used it, I could feel my heart beating.
“I had pains and I couldn’t breathe or smell.
“When I thought about the damage to my family and the trauma I’d caused, I knew I couldn’t go on like this anymore.
“I looked at myself and knew I couldn’t keep causing pain.
“I had a choice. I’ve got five children. I can let them bury me, or I can choose to give them hope.
“I’d let them down, but I wanted them to be able to look at me and say ‘That’s my dad’, but I know that seven months sober doesn’t undo 15 years of chaos.”
