Not a funny story but I thought it was inspiring.
I met a friend at University and lived with her in my final year. She was quiet, unassuming and really lovely. Her dad was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer and died a few months later.
She got hooked on pain killers and I stopped hearing from her after I moved home. By some dark twist of fate, she had moved down to my home town with a friend she’d met in rehab for painkiller a*******n.
Unfortunately, it gets worse. After meeting some unsavoury characters in rehab she starting smoking crack and eventually became homeless down here. She soon started injecting h****n and prostituting herself.
After a year of stealing, getting kicked out of squats and staying the odd night at my place (when I could get hold of her) for dinner, shelter and clean clothes, she moved up to her family’s house in London. She got kicked out when they found out she was using.
One of the veins she was injecting into became infected while she was living on the streets and she collapsed into a coma, waking up a few weeks later in a hospital in London. After another week of being bedridden she finally got up to walk outside of the hospital in her gown to get some air.
She told me that she was stood there contemplating all the things that had gone wrong in her life and how she’d ended up there when all of a sudden she noticed a big tower block across the street which looked blackened and strange.
All of a sudden hoards of people came running from around the corner covered in black stuff and coughing and screaming. It was the Grenfell Tower fire.
For those of you who don’t know, a few years back a tower block in London caught alight and tonnes of people were trapped inside and died. It was such a horrific tragedy.
My friend said that the hospital went from being fairly quiet to being full to the brim. She packed her bag and gave up her bed and headed back to her mums house.
She’s been clean ever since. That was two years ago. I know it’s not a funny story but I’m proud of my friend for turning her life around.
Edit: thank you all for your kind words of support and thank you to the kind stranger who gave me my first gold!
I met a friend at University and lived with her in my final year. She was quiet, unassuming and really lovely. Her dad was diagnosed with terminal stomach cancer and died a few months later.
She got hooked on pain killers and I stopped hearing from her after I moved home. By some dark twist of fate, she had moved down to my home town with a friend she’d met in rehab for painkiller a*******n.
Unfortunately, it gets worse. After meeting some unsavoury characters in rehab she starting smoking crack and eventually became homeless down here. She soon started injecting h****n and prostituting herself.
After a year of stealing, getting kicked out of squats and staying the odd night at my place (when I could get hold of her) for dinner, shelter and clean clothes, she moved up to her family’s house in London. She got kicked out when they found out she was using.
One of the veins she was injecting into became infected while she was living on the streets and she collapsed into a coma, waking up a few weeks later in a hospital in London. After another week of being bedridden she finally got up to walk outside of the hospital in her gown to get some air.
She told me that she was stood there contemplating all the things that had gone wrong in her life and how she’d ended up there when all of a sudden she noticed a big tower block across the street which looked blackened and strange.
All of a sudden hoards of people came running from around the corner covered in black stuff and coughing and screaming. It was the Grenfell Tower fire.
For those of you who don’t know, a few years back a tower block in London caught alight and tonnes of people were trapped inside and died. It was such a horrific tragedy.
My friend said that the hospital went from being fairly quiet to being full to the brim. She packed her bag and gave up her bed and headed back to her mums house.
She’s been clean ever since. That was two years ago. I know it’s not a funny story but I’m proud of my friend for turning her life around.
Edit: thank you all for your kind words of support and thank you to the kind stranger who gave me my first gold!