“ADAPT saved my life. There is no doubt about it. I was at rock bottom. I was kicked out of my house, I’d lost my job, had no contact with my wife or kids and was living rough in Cowley and doing whatever it took to get drink and drugs.
“I was hospitalised three times, attacked, my mental health was at an all time low. But thanks to ADAPT I’ve now been clean for seven months and it’s all down to them.”
So speaks Terry, a former high-flying business and project manager whose career and fulfilling family life came crashing down around him when his addictions spiralled out of control.
“We are not just changing lives but saving lives, reducing the crime rate, putting families back together, taking people off benefits, and it’s working.”
He is speaking to me from ADAPT’s House 4 in Oxford, having completed the initial treatment programme, and is now focusing on his future.
And while his treatment costs around £3000 a week in private clinics, ADAPT’s clients are treated for free, referred by the probation service, prisons and other charities such as CRISIS and paid for with housing benefit.
Not only that but of their 40 clients, only four have relapsed since introducing their extensive treatment programme.
Only 15 clients can be now treated at any one time however, and ADAPT now finds itself a victim of its own success, because while its waiting lists soar and its reputation spreads, funds are desperately needed to buy ‘independent living’ flats to free up space for new clients.
And this is where you come in, by donating to this amazing charity to enable ADAPT to treat more addicts https://adaptoxford.org.uk/donate/
ADAPT (Addicts Are People Too) was begun in 2019 by recovering addict Eddie Cobb who realised there was a lack of dry houses or rehab centres in Oxfordshire.
Demand for ADAPT’s initial two houses in Cowley was overwhelming and yet Eddie soon realised that her clients required more than somewhere safe to recover. They needed to understand their addictions, the underlying causes as well as how to cope in the real world. They needed coaching, therapy, counselling, to be heard and supported and to understand themselves, to beat their addictions.
Bringing on board two renowned addiction therapists and two more houses, their highly successful 4-day-a-week treatment programme of group therapy and one-on-one counselling, combined with wellbeing aids such as acupuncture, means that ADAPT’s success rates are impressive.
“There is no other service like ours,” Eddie says proudly. “But funding is a problem because we need to expand.
“We want to buy flats for independent living to free up space for new clients,” she says, “to provide a second safety net and support for our graduates.”
That Eddie is an inspiring individual goes without saying. The 29 year-old single mum has two young children, a history of addiction and a new charity to run. But what she has achieved in the past 15 months, and her holistic, modern approach to treating addiction speaks for itself.
But then maybe it takes one to know one because Eddie herself was a drug addict whose drug habit had taken over her life. Homeless and suicidal, her family eventually stepped in and paid for treatment privately, a luxury many don’t have.
“I got clean in 2013. It seemed unfair that recovering from an addiction relied on money, which is why I started up ADAPT,” she says.
Terry was one of ADAPT’s first clients and relapsed before the treatment plans were introduced. So he understands how important the process is.
“You have to learn to live in the real world without the crutches of drugs or alcohol – to manage your own feelings, to live with your past, to deal with your shame,” he says. “ADAPT see you for who you really are. They help you believe in yourself.
“I am now back in touch with my wife and kids and I couldn’t ask for more. ADAPT saved my life, plain and simple.”
Or as Eddie puts it: “My clients teach me humility every day. At ADAPT we are not just changing lives but saving lives, reducing the crime rate, putting families back together, taking people off benefits, and it’s working. The proof is in the pudding. But with more property and resources we can help more people.”
Help them by donating today at https://adaptoxford.org.uk/donate/
