“I had nothing.”
This July, Clean Slate, home to Quids in!, celebrates 20 years of helping people become better off. To celebrate, Readers Club is handing the pages over to the people at the heart of our work. These are real stories from peers, clients and colleagues who found hope, practical support and the confidence to regain control.
When Emma left treatment after six months in recovery, she was proud of how far she had come. But at 52, after years of working and having a mortgage, a job, a car and family around her, she was suddenly rebuilding from scratch.
“I had to look at housing. I had to look at finances. I had to look at employment. I had to look at where to get food from a food bank, the whole shebang.”
Finding help was not simple. Citizens Advice had long waits. The council could only do so much unless she was sleeping rough. Other services needed a registered address before they could step in.
“I felt very, very much in the dark because there wasn’t really any guidance or anybody out there.”
A disability grant helped Emma buy a laptop. From there, she searched for food banks, local grants and charities herself. It took library computers, secondhand shops, crisis support and a lot of asking around to piece together the basics.
That experience made Emma resourceful. It also made her determined to pass it on. “I want to be a peer mentor to help people because the help isn’t there for them.”
Four years sober, Emma had started volunteering with charities and working with people in recovery. Then she found Clean Slate’s peer mentoring course.
“It was only as I started doing the peer mentoring course and understood the concept of how you bring people to work for you that have been through this process, I thought, “what a great idea.””
At Clean Slate drop-ins, Emma now sees people arrive overwhelmed, often after being passed from one service to another. She knows that feeling. Sometimes help starts with something simple: a phone call, a form, a food bank voucher, or someone sitting beside them and listening.
“You could see their relief that they had a human being talking to them and guiding them.”
She values the way Clean Slate meets people where they are, offering practical help alongside understanding from people who have been through similar experiences.
“There’s so many barriers that you do have to climb over. And especially for me with the label “addict” and a disability, I did find the stigma about that.”
But Emma kept going. Now she wants others to know that starting again is possible.
“Once you’ve got a roof over your head, once you’ve got a bit more stability in your life, once you’ve got a bit of direction, once you feel that somebody’s supporting you and helping you and you’re building your life, your confidence does grow.”
Need somewhere to start? We do not have to find every answer on our own. Quids in!’s useful links page brings together trusted support for money worries, housing, mental health, benefits, rights and more. There are also free tools to help us check our finances, plan a budget, look at benefits and take the next step. Start with one link, one form, or one phone call. That first step counts.
