Sean’s Story

A lack of support lead to drugs and alcohol

Weight of Emotions

At 17, Sean started an NHS cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) course, but it wasn’t right for him, so his feelings intensified.  

“CBT didn’t work out for me. I never saw any real improvement. It was so brief that I never really got to know my therapist,” Sean explained. “They changed quite frequently and I didn’t sense any kind of growth from it. I didn’t feel like I was getting anywhere.”  

Life gradually became more chaotic for Sean as he dealt with periods of unemployment after leaving education. As the weight of his emotions continued to build, he started to reach for drugs and alcohol to cope with the pain. It was his way of self-medicating to feel better. Sean surrounded himself with a group of friends who were also taking drugs, which reinforced and encouraged his substance misuse. But the initial relief that Sean felt was replaced with powerful negative thoughts that led to taking frequent overdoses to try and end his life.  

Crisis Point

Having attempted suicide, Sean was worried for himself but didn’t get the support he needed to make a change. “I was in A&E after a suicide attempt on drugs and I left there with a leaflet and no follow up. That was the first time that I realised I had a problem and needed to stop, but because there wasn’t much follow up I was using again within a month,” Sean reflected.  

“The support was there at a crisis point when I turned up to A&E and said I was suicidal, but there was nothing to stop you getting to that point. It is really interesting the progression that took me from feeling unsupported for me to then get myself together and to look at the chaos that was my life. It took me feeling a mess and feeling alone for me to seek help.” 

Following his discharge from hospital, it took Sean about six months to start the process towards abstinence and recovery. Aged just 20, Sean began attending 12-steps meetings which helped him gain perspective on how to move forward. “I got to be more comfortable with the idea of being clean and not taking drugs. I’d also had an ADHD diagnosis. It was a confusing time and I got to a point where I wanted to understand it,” Sean explained. 

Support through Counselling

Being honest with family gave Sean the crucial emotional support that he needed to make progress. He opened up and admitted his habit was more serious than he’d previously led them to believe. Knowing they cared gave Sean confidence to speak about the things that were worrying him. He took up a recommendation to access Youth Talk’s counselling. 

A key focus of Sean’s counselling was to help him understand himself. Once he recognised the reasons for his behaviours, he could start to make a changes. Crucially, Youth Talk’s approach and focus gave Sean the space and time to gradually explore his past. 

“I saw my own patterns very quickly. Once you start talking about the same things, but with different names of different people that the same things have happened with, I kind of knew what I was doing. I couldn’t hide away from it anymore. It is like I had the same negative relationships with different people my whole life because I was the same,” Sean explained. 

“I had a year of counselling with Youth Talk, because change can’t happen overnight. Getting to the bottom of the reasons for my feelings and behaviour happened gradually. Sometimes each layer is harder to look past, but ultimately each layer is another layer of self-understanding, which leads to self-acceptance. The main thing I was struggling with was a lack of self-acceptance, so uncovering everything enabled me to see all these things that I was using drugs to hide away from or using people to feel better about myself. I realised why I was doing that and what the actual pain was. Suddenly it didn’t seem that big anymore because the reasons behind it stopped being a mystery.” 

Sean’s Future

Sean now approaches 3 years since getting clean, he feels like a different person and continues to make positive decisions that promote his wellbeing and contribute to his future.  

“Now I’ll take an intentional pause before making a big decision. Look at why I am doing what I am doing and think what could the potential outcomes be,” Sean said. 

Youth Talk gave Sean the space and time to gradually explore his past, make lasting change and ultimately saved his life.

More festive fundraising with Youth Talk: