Reaching out to others

Getting support for bereavement was hard. My friends were great but I didn’t want to talk to them about it and I felt bad about bogging my boyfriend down with it all. I didn’t feel like any of them would really understand what I was going through and I didn’t know how to communicate it to them. Every time I tried to talk about it I couldn’t find the words. I didn’t know about any support services and I felt quite alone at that point.

I decided to ask my GP about bereavement counselling. ...

A lot of people are worried about getting help for their drug use because they think that they will be forced to give it up straight away and they're not always sure if that is what they want to do ? but getting help doesn't necessarily mean quitting completely ? depending on a person's circumstances it can mean cutting it down to a level that doesn't cause them problems, for other people it could mean quitting ? but over a period of time, little by little, cutting it down.
For other people, ...

Sometimes when we have problems, we know the solutions but things just don?t go our way. That?s what happened to a girl who I worked with once who had just graduated from uni and fell into a
pretty good job in the city. Along the way she got involved with using coke ? someone had offered it to her one night after work and little by little she used more and more until finally she was using far more than anyone else and it was no longer a Friday night thing, but an every night thing and it had ...

Sometimes our circumstances can be the biggest barrier to making those first steps and getting help, advice and support.

An 18 year old man told me once about how difficult it was for him to reach out and ask for help when he was doing crack, cannabis and drinking heavily. He was homeless at the time after being thrown out of his parent?s house for his drink and drug use. After that, he sofa surfed until his friends got sick of it too and finally he found himself living on the streets. ...