Last updated 05:42, Friday, 19 September 2008

First the tea then the milk then the sugar. Small rituals are packed with significance for Harry Price and Adam Slade. Harry carries the cups through to the living room as his friend Adam turns the volume down on the TV. Homelessness and drug use often go hand in hand. Drug addicts frequently lose everything, including their homes. And people who become homeless for other reasons often turn to drugs to blot out grim reality.

This Christmas is the first for many years which 38-year-old Harry and Adam, 47, have spent in what might be termed a normal place – physically and emotionally.

In Christmases past they were living in hostels, homeless and struggling to overcome the heroin addictions which blighted their lives for a decade.

Today they are the proud tenants of Impact Housing terraced houses in Denton Holme, free of drugs and using their bitter experiences to help drug users kick the habit.

Homelessness has rarely been far from Cumbria’s headlines in recent weeks. The coldest December for years prompted concerns for the welfare of those sleeping rough in Carlisle. The city council has now announced plans for a night shelter in a church hall.

Meanwhile, plans by Impact Housing to convert two houses in Denton Holme into seven flats for homeless men, some of whom will be recovering from drug or alcohol addiction, have prompted strong opposition from neighbours.

Harry and Adam are just the kind of people they might have objected to. Not so long ago they were junkies, tramps, down and outs.

They have known each other for six years. They never took drugs together but were part of the same underworld. It says a lot about their friendship that it survived those dark days. “When you’re in the world of addiction you can’t trust your shadow,” says Adam.

Theirs is a spectacular story of redemption which continues to unfold. But Adam has every sympathy with those who feel that homeless drug addicts are hopeless cases, even if he is living, breathing, tea-sipping proof that this is not necessarily the case.

“The people in places like the proposed flats in Denton Holme have jumped through a lot of hoops to be there,” he says. “But I understand and sympathise with local residents. In my former life I spent 11 years as a manager with a local authority, with 2.4 kids and a £200,000 house. I would have had concerns about it, too. I came from a middle-class background. I had wonderful parents and a wonderful childhood. I was totally and utterly against drugs.”

The chances of respectable family man Adam Slade becoming a homeless drug addict seemed as long as the odds against him signing for Manchester United.

But it happened, and the message he feels compelled to convey is that it could happen to anyone. “You can find yourself homeless very rapidly, having done very little wrong. You lose your job, you get divorced, you default on your mortgage. The roads in are many.”

The tipping point for Adam came when his sister died of an HIV-related illness contracted through heroin use. Adam’s certainties began to disintegrate. So did he.

“I was suffering from depression, having problems keeping myself straight, losing the plot,” he says. “I wanted to find out what was so special about this drug that cost my sister her life. So I started using it. Within weeks I was addicted.

“I separated from my partner and within 18 months I was sleeping on sofas. I slept rough for a couple of weeks. I had big debts. I found myself at the council, trying to find somewhere to live. Every morning I dreaded getting up because I would have to try and get some drugs.

“When I was on the street occasionally I had to tap money. More often than not it was the poorest people in society who would stop and buy me a cup of tea. I met people I’d known before; that was exceedingly embarrassing. I was ‘respectable’ and I lost my self-respect. You’ve been part of society and you’re now excluded. People will cross the street to avoid you. You feel you’re scum.”

Harry’s route into the gutter was different but the view was much the same. He started using heroin because he was curious about it. “But you can’t afford to be curious,” he says. “I was really bad on the drugs. I was down to eight stone. You feel you’re dead.”

He took to crime to feed his habit and was sent to prison for breaching a probation order. When he came out he had lost his house. “I had a bad reputation but I wanted to change. Impact Housing gave me a chance.”

For both men the turning point was a move to Impact’s Arnwood House. “I can remember walking into Arnwood House, being shown into a room, and bursting into tears through sheer relief,” says Adam. “From that day my life changed.”

Clambering out of the Catch 22 of homelessness is often beyond the reach of people for whom even the next meal seems an impossible dream. But Harry and Adam have done it. Their solution combines the desire for change with outside support.

“You need a handful of things to be successful and if one or two are missing you’ll struggle,” says Adam. Harry suggests that you also need stability; something painfully absent from the life of someone without a home.

The long list of reasons people fail includes the practical and the emotional. Finding somewhere to live can be difficult if you don’t have access to a telephone. It can take too long to get treatment for drug and alcohol abuse. People trapped in a cycle of depression might find it hard to keep appointments and deal with officialdom.

Adam and Harry now help to address some of these issues by volunteering at the Carlisle Users Self-Help Forum for people with addictions. “They hear the reality,” says Adam.

He and Harry have tasted more of that than they would have wished but, against all odds and most predictions, things are looking up.

“You can better yourself,” Harry insists. “I didn’t think I’d be here right now but I am.”

“You’re tarred with a brush,” says Adam. “People think you can’t change. You can.”

For two decades Graham Ditchburn was painful proof of the connection. Graham has spent much of his life addicted to drugs. When he wasn’t in prison he was homeless, mainly because of drug use.

Graham has overdosed 10 times, deliberately and accidentally. “I’ve had adrenalin pumped into me. I nearly didn’t make it a few times. I’m lucky to be alive. And I’m happy to be alive.”

That’s something Graham could not imagine saying when he was sleeping on friends’ floors and in garden sheds. But this former heroin addict has been clean for two years. He recently moved into an Impact Housing Association home in Carlisle and, at the age of 40, has just started work for the first time in his life.

It’s been a long way back from the downward spiral which started when Graham was growing up in Workington. At 14 he started sniffing glue. Within five years he was using heroin, committing burglaries and shoplifting to feed a habit which lasted nearly 20 years and cost him up to £70 a day.

“You’re not bothered about anything else,” he recalls. “All you’re looking for is your next fix. You haven’t got friends when you’re on drugs. I stole from my family. That’s the most embarrassing part. But my mother and father stuck by me through thick and thin.”

Graham’s first prison sentence came at 17 and he has spent 13 years since then behind bars. Much of his life in the outside world has been in probation hostels all over the country. “I’ve never had a stable life. I’ve come out of prison with nowhere to live and been sent to hostels in London, Bournemouth, Liverpool, wherever there’s a place. Homeless isn’t just on the street. I’ve lived on people’s floors and I’ve slept in garden sheds.

“Two years ago I was at rock bottom. My mam took us back in and I’ve never looked back. I just put my mind to it.”

With help from drug counsellors and hostel staff Graham has stopped taking drugs and started a labouring job with construction firm Thomas Armstrong.

“This is the first proper job I’ve been given. Drugs have cost me a lot of time. But that’s down to me. You can’t turn back the clock.”

Life begins at 40? “That’s what it feels like. I’ve lost a lot of friends through drugs. When you lose a friend you think ‘That should have been me.’ But I’ve been given a chance. I’d like to go around the schools and talk to the children about the danger of drugs.

“And I’m really looking forward to working for Thomas Armstrong. Honest to God, I can’t wait. I’m happy now. I’m high on life.”