CELEBRATING

29 YEARS

29 Years ago today I was in Psychiatric wing of a prison

hospital in Channing’s Wood HMP totally depressed,
sad, lonely, with a total lack of any self-worth, I hated
myself inside and out and suicidal. I was without any
hope of ever living life outside of prison and especially
free from the torment that I lived with, within my mind
and emotions.
Why was I in such a mess and tormented?
It was because of all the abuses physical,
verbal and sexual that I went through as a
very young kid from outside of my family
and I wasn’t ever able to tell anyone, this
caused a deep sense of shame and
rejection. Rather than feel the rejection I
started to rebel because I thought that if I
rebel I won’t have to feel anything.

I was first arrested by the police at the

age of 10. I used to run away from home
all the time which must have worried my
mother sick.

I can remember at the age of eleven, sleeping in an abandoned car

with no windows in and it was in a snow blizzard and it was
absolutely freezing. I slept in railway sheds, abandoned buildings
and even a sewerage pipe. I was a really messed up kid.
I was taken to a care home in Swansea at 13 because I was totally
out of control. As soon as i got out of the car i ran away until i
was caught days later and taken back.
I was then sent to a Detention Centre at Eastwood Park in
Gloucester at 14, March 15th – April 29th 1977 It was known as
a short sharp shock and it certainly was and it was probably the
worst and hardest six weeks of my life.

Whoever thought that yelling and screaming at young boys who

were already traumatised would make them better needed their
head examined.
I was out of Detention Centre only a few months when I was
given a care order and sent to a secure unit in Swansea. I
remember the headmaster telling my mother “Your son will be in
trouble for the rest of his life”. I was sent to Neath Farm
Approved School in November 1977 - February 1979 whilst there
I was still completely out of control as I used to escape all the time
and end up committing more crime, at the age of 15 I was put in
the punishment cell for 2 weeks and the only time I could speak
to anyone was when they brought me food three times a day.
They gave me one book to read and it was the book Jaws and it
terrified me as this was before the film came out. It was the first
book I had ever read.

I remember being in the assembly with 150 of the worst young

criminals in South Wales and the headmaster Howard Davies an
ex Scarlet’s player and boxer, started to tell a story about, if you
get a barrel of apples and put one rotten apple into that barrel it
would affect the whole barrel. He then asked me to stand up and
in front of everyone said “This boy Alan Andrews is that rotten
apple”. This just made me rebel even more.
What I have realised over the years is that the most rebellious
people in society are actually the most damaged, through verbal,
physical, sexual abuse, neglect, ridicule, bullying etc).
They are the ones who need the most love and support.
I was sent to Portland Borstal at 17 and spent 11 months there
marching everywhere having abusive officers shouting and
ridiculing you all day long.
It is within the human spirit to find a way to cope and that’s what I
did I became a Borstal boy to survive.

When I came out of there I was determined to live life free from
prison yet I still did not know how to cope with all this
emotional pain that I carried daily. I only lasted a few months
then I was sent to an adult prison.
Luckily for me there were no drugs around in Llanelli when I
was young or I would have been a 13 year old Heroin addict and
probably would now be dead. Most if not all addicts that I have
ever met are addicts to hide from the pain of childhood trauma.
(There is a stronger link between childhood trauma and addiction than
there is between obesity and diabetes. That means that the war on drugs is
a war against traumatised people who just need love and support)

“I have never ever met an addict

who wants to be an addict”
Until we recognise that to truly treat addiction we have to deal with
the root causes and not just the current behaviour or we will
continually see addicts remain as addicts.
(Most of society would feel for a young child going through
abuse-trauma. Most of society would feel for the 14 year old child
who suffers at school because they feel different to other children
because of what they have gone through in life. Yet most of society
when that young child who was traumatised and struggled at school
because of that trauma starts to experiment with drugs to help them
feel better and numb ot the pain and then eventually becomes
addicted to those drugs would call them a junkie, they have
completely lost sight of the fact that it is the same person and they
are an addict by default).
I had my first smoke of dope at the age of 21 in Shepton Mallet
prison and within 2 months I was injecting myself as I thought
that I had found something to make me feel better in life. Whilst
under the influence of drugs I felt like a million dollars, full of
confidence and devoid of a conscience. For the 8 years that I was
involved in drugs I had to take more and more drugs to suppress
the intense emotional pain inside and at times the drugs nearly
killed me.
I am really truly sorry to all the people that I hurt in the process of
the crimes that I committed, especially my mother, sister and
family. I can remember being in the punishment block in
Swansea prison and thinking “I am going to spend the rest of my life in
prison” what a hopeless place I was in. Doctors, Psychiatrists,
Rehab etc couldn’t help me. I had no hope of ever living life
outside of prison as prison had become my home.
I spent 13 months in rehab in 1988-1989 whilst I was there I
talked about all the abuses that I went through as a kid and I really
thought that I was going to live an honest life free from crime and
drugs.
The first day that I left the rehab I went straight back onto drugs
and I realised that the only reason that I did well in the rehab was
because it was just another institution and by this time in my life I
was institutionalised.
 The first day back in Llanelli my
mother who had stuck by me
throughout my life asked me what I
was going to do with my life now that
I had left the rehab? My reply was “I
am going to be a drug addict” I said that
as I had no other way of living as I had
no hope left in me. At this time no
amount of drugs made me feel better.
I was slowly but surely killing myself.
When I left rehab I committed all sorts of crimes to support my
habit including breaking into chemist shops, armed robberies.
I actually committed an armed robbery in the same street that i
lived in. I just didn’t care about anything.
Within 6 months i was back inside. Swansea HMP first and then i
was sent to Erlestoke in Somerset.
I escaped from Erlestoke prison in 1990. Looking down from
that 20ft fence it seemed a lot higher than looking up at it. I
remember thinking “I am going to look a right idiot if i jump and
break my leg” but jump i did and i got back to Llanelli the next
day.
Ten days later i was back in prison and then i was sent to
Dartmoor HMP. Prison is a place where society sends people
who break the rules, Dartmoor at that time was where prison sent
prisoners who break the rules.
“It Was Literally The Jail That Time Forgot”

It was well know amongst prisoners that written in Latin above the
doors of Dartmoor was the words:

“ABANDON HOPE ALL WHO ENTER”

It was as if i had arrived at a destination that agreed with how i felt.
I had abandoned hope of ever finding a normal life out of prison
and free from drugs.
I got out of Dartmoor in February 1991 and I started meeting
Christians and they were telling me their story about how they
became Christians and I was very angry and volatile towards them,
and remember saying things like, if God is real then where was he
when this happened to me and that happened to me. Apparently i
prayed a prayer with them asking Jesus to come in to my life
although i can’t remember it as i was to drugged up.

I ended up back in prison in June 1991 and I started

questioning God and I kept asking him that if he was real to come
and touch and change my life. One day whilst in Swansea prison
I was totally out of control I robbed the prison hospital of a lot of
drugs whilst visiting the dentist and managed to get away with it,
then one day as I was threatening the doctor for more drugs I was
carried down the block (punishment wing) by 4 screws (prison
officers) and I was put in the stripped cell for my own safety. I
remember sitting there on a concrete floor with a pair of
rubber shorts on so that I couldn’t rip them to commit suicide, in
a cell that was 12ft high so that I could not hang myself. thinking
that my life cannot get any worse than this.
When they let me out of there 6 hours later they put me in the
punishment block and there was a book in there about a gangster
who had become a Christian and it just wrecked me, I cried my
eyes out. It was the first time that I had cried in over 15 years. I
was then sent to Channing’s Wood prison in Exeter and I was still
questioning God as to how real he was.

One day 31st October 1991 whilst sitting on my bed I said:

“JESUS I AIN’T STOPPING UNTIL I FIND YOU”

and as I said that I had this massive experience that felt like
electricticy and what i can only describe as liquid love and
acceptance filling my whole body and in that instance I knew that
Jesus was real. I cried and cried and cried and this was the start of
the process of God healing all the wounds inside me. That was 29
years ago.
I got out of prison December 18th 1991 and the first five years of
being outside trying to live as a Christian it was really hard as I had
never lived outside of prison drug free and honest. I remember
buying a car and whilst I was driving it I suddenly thought “should
i tax and insure this car” so I parked it away and saved the money
to do things correctly. Other addicts started coming to me asking
if I could help them to change their lives.
At one time I had five recovering addicts living in my house with
me and my family and not enough food to go around. I can
remember taking John home who was coming off drugs and it
was just after the children had their bedrooms back as we had no
one living with us. I starting telling my daughter Siobhan who was
about 7 years old at the time about John. I said “Siobhan there is
this man called John who is coming off drugs” and that’s as far as I
got and she said “don’t worry daddy he can have my room” bless
her heart.
 I can remember arranging a rehab in London for someone, so
we had to thumb a lift to London as I didn’t have a car and we got
stuck on the old Severn bridge for about 5 hours, so we went into
the services and managed to get a teabag and we shared a cup of
tea together absolutely skint. It took us 12 hours to get to Lon-
don.
When we got to the rehab they had a collection to get me home
on the coach.
When I started Chooselife in 1996 I was still unemployed but I
wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. I did not have any
plan just a desire to make a difference.
To my mother i sincerely apologise for all that i put you through
and also i thank you for sticking by me all them years, visiting in
me in every prison, you even came to Dartmoor to see me which
was in the middle of nowhere.
To my five children, Siobhan, Joel, Jordan, Emma and Rosie. I
do apologise that I haven’t been an all singing and dancing father
as I have had to fight my thoughts/demons in my mind every
single day and it has at times been all consuming. What I do know
is that each of you have received my love and affection and I have
done the best that I could have considering what I have been
through in life. I think you will all see the benefits by becoming
fantastic parents yourselves.

I love the 5 of you lots and lots.

When I became a Christian I was at a point in life where
everyone had given up on me, probation, prison, doctors etc.
I have attached a report written by my doctor and it certainly
sounds like he thought I was potentially cuckoo. This is what he
wrote about me to a psychiatrist in 1987 when I was 24.
“I feel that this young man suffers from a marked personality disorder and
would appreciate your opinion in case there is evidence of pathological
depression or even psychosis”.

When someone like myself comes out of addiction and joins a

church it’s not going to be nice and clean, it is sometimes going to
be messy and I know that I have hurt people along the way, please
forgive me as none of it was intentional. Also people who I didn’t
expect it from have lied, accused, gossiped and hurt me up to
this day and I just want you to know I completely forgive you and
would willingly sit down and have a chat over a cup of coffee today
or whenever. There is not a person on the planet who I do not
completely forgive including my childhood abusers.
I have never claimed to be anything other than a broken human
being who was touched by an amazing God. In 1 Corinthians
1v27 it says “God chose things the world considers foolish in order to
shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless
to shame those who are powerful.”
The greek word for foolish is moronos which literally means
moron. So for all of you who criticise me and all that I try to do, I
have never claimed to be anything other than a moron in recovery
but I do plead guilty to boasting about having an amazing God by
my side.

As for the Church I have realised that we are all hurting people
who sometimes accidentally hurt each other. That is when we
really need to practise Love, forgiveness and hope with each other.
If you intend working with the broken in society they need more
support than most people and it will get messy at times, are you
prepared to get your hands dirty and be in it for the long haul. I
hope the answer is yes.
There is a song that I really like and it says:

“Just one touch from the King changes everything”

I have known so many people over the past 29 years who have
genuinely tried to overcome their addiction and there are many
who are now living life free from their addiction. This gives me
so much satisfaction, joy, happiness, love, admiration,
contentment, peace etc. There isn’t a single emotion to
describe it. Yet sadly there are also some who the addiction has
got the better of them and they lose their lives.

It is so painful when you lose a friend to addiction and just as

painful to sit and try and comfort family members in their grief
having lost their son, daughter, father or mother to their
addiction, yet when this happens it makes me even more

“If you take the risk of getting close enough to take

the thorn out of the lions paw, you often discover a
magnificent creature full of power and grace”.
You see when you are doing it from the heart they are not
targets or outcomes they become your friends and when you
lose a friend it hurts but it also makes you more determined to
keep going through all the lies and false accusations.

Whoever you are and wherever you are in life never ever give
up and always believe that no matter where you currently are in
life or how big your problem seems. Never forget that there is
an ever loving God out there who is waiting for you to call on
his name and he will change you beyond recognition.

My beautiful JESUS you have been so faithful over these 29

years you are absolutely amazing. Through all the trials I have
been through and all the times that I have let you down through
my behaviour, anger, rejection, wrong responses etc you have
never ever done anything other than be by my side yelling me
on in this race of life, like a proud father. You keep yelling go
for it, I love you, that’s my boy. There is a saying that I always
use to measure where I am in life and it goes like this:

“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I am

going to be, but I certainly am not what I was”
JESUS I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART, SOUL AND
MIND.

YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL BEYOND DESCRIPTION.

I am looking forward to the next 29 years…