"I dreaded going to work as I felt so down, so helpless. I’d be thinking of nothing else every day, all the bad things that were going on, but I didn’t want other people to see this in me, it was a constant worry."

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"Mum got a new boyfriend and he drank too, a lot, and he would be violent to my mum often, and to us kids too, and only if he’d been drinking. He would hit us, he’d throw things at us. He put me in hospital with concussion when he threw a table at me"

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"We split after many years. I couldn’t allow things to go on for ever. Even now he won’t accept he did anything wrong. To this day he doesn’t see some of his family but he won’t accept it was because of something he did."

"Losing my daughter was so painful. Me and the children still keep her memory alive and on special occasions we have our own way of remembering her."

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"I'd never felt so much pain, watching my boy suffer, and nothing I could do about it. I told him I couldn’t stand watching him destroy his life...as I couldn’t take it anymore. He was dead 6 weeks later."

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"It’s not easy to accept that your loved one has changed, that they’re dependant on something that you can’t control, that they’ll actually choose that over you, these things are hard to accept but the only way you can get through that is by getting support from  Bridges and from other carers in a similar situation."

"The arguments, the mistrust, the stealing, the lies and deception, the visits from police, they all took their toll on me. Yet I couldn’t turn my back on him, I couldn’t turn him away, he’s my flesh and blood."

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"I haven’t used drugs for 4 years. I have a child of my own now. I always thought I’d die a drug user. My experiences drive me to bring my own child up in the best way I can. I want to protect my child from any experiences like I had."

"My anxiety levels were off the scale. It was horrible. I didn’t have anyone to talk to about these things. And anyway, who would understand? Who would believe that I’m not a bad parent and I’m not to blame for my son’s choices"

"I feel isolated from some friends and neighbours, like they know about my daughter and that they think it’s partly my fault. I used to be a friendly person, but I started to feel like people were looking at me in the street, like they were disgusted with me"

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"Our daughter Clare had been quite a normal young person, maybe a little rebellious, and she did like her own way, but nothing more than that."

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