Today we’re pleased to introduce Kevin, one of our dedicated peer support workers in Somerset. Kevin is sharing his story to mark Men’s Mental Health Month, highlighting how his personal experiences with homelessness and addiction help him support others as they navigate their own mental health recovery. The following was written by Kevin, for the News Hub.
Hi, I’m Kevin and my role at Second Step is Peer Support Recovery and Wellbeing worker. I work alongside people who are using the Step Down service by offering support, using my personal lived experience of homelessness and addiction to drugs and alcohol.
Here’s my story…
At the tender age of seven I was enjoying my childhood, living just outside the Brecon Beacons in Wales.
Then all of a sudden, things changed very drastically. My father left the family home and within a year a new man was in the family set up – one who I didn’t like, and the feeling was certainly mutual.
We (me and my brother) were soon shipped over the Severn Bridge to live in a tough area of Bristol. My stepfather was a controlling bully and a coward who would beat mostly me on a regular basis and occasionally my younger brother.
Playing rugby helped my confidence
Moving from Wales to England wasn’t easy to navigate as a child, and I was bullied relentlessly at school for several years until I began to play rugby with the school team.
Bit by bit I managed to gain some confidence, and my physical presence began to change, which decreased the bullying I had experienced at school.
However, a fascination and unhealthy interest in alcohol developed around 14 years of age. I soon discovered it gave me confidence to defend myself, albeit a very naïve and false sense of confidence at that time.
I was full of anger on the inside until at 16 years of age I decided to confront my stepfather who had beaten and bullied me for the best part of a decade.
He didn’t respond to my outburst when it arrived and I packed my bags, rendering me homeless until I found my own place to live.
Fortunately, I found a friend’s family to stay with and I felt loved and looked after by my new family. I had a feeling of being wanted for the first time in my life.
Several years later I was lucky to have been offered a flat with a housing association, close to where I was living – this gave me a sense of independence and security, although my addiction to alcohol was to continue and to increase.
Hiding behind drugs and alcohol
By the time I reached 21, I had found another way to mask the traumas of childhood, taking ecstasy and amphetamines every weekend for almost all of the 1990s. The love I felt in the rave scene may have been chemically manufactured, but it was still a very welcoming feeling internally.
I craved for and lived for the weekends, Monday to Thursday was always a long and painful existence that I just wanted gone.
Once the 1990s had ended and Ecstasy and the 90s free party culture started to become a thing of the past, I then turned my additions towards cocaine, as well as increased binge drinking.
This addiction was where my life began to spiral even further. Even though I managed to purchase a house, build a family and get married, my life continued to falter. I would go through jobs quickly and my home life was mostly one of misery.
Finally, everything started to fall apart
Fast forward to 2020; I had left the family home, started divorce proceedings, sold the family house and spent a lot of the money from the sale of the house on cocaine and drink.
Then the day of reckoning arrived – it was mid-December, I had been living in a pub since September, and I was getting issues with my vision, heart palpitations and feeling very unwell.
I booked an appointment with my GP and the first thing she wanted to do was take my blood pressure.
When the figures were read out, my GP explained that the readings were ‘extremely dangerous’ (194/134). I was told I had two options – to go directly to hospital or to wait 24 hours and test the numbers again. If they hadn’t reduced, I would need to go straight to hospital.
I took the option of going back to my accommodation with a blood pressure monitor, desperately hoping the numbers would reduce so I wouldn’t need to be in hospital.
It was a relief to reach rock bottom
I still recall feeling a mixture of fear and excitement – fear that I knew that I was very unwell both mentally and physically, like never before, but excited that I knew that was at my lowest moment.
I really wanted to get better and I knew that day was the start of the rest of my life – but a significantly improved life with the hope of feeling love and happiness to look forward to.
Then, in March 2020, everything changed. The world went into lockdown and a golden opportunity to find a way to live a more satisfying life was suddenly a reality.
I was looking for support on the internet and by chance found a course about mindfulness. I was curious about this and paid £26 for the course, and it turned out to be a complete game-changer and the best £26 I had ever spent!
When I became more mindful of my thoughts and actions, life started to feel very interesting and I started to feel a real zest for life.
Not long after completing the mindfulness course online I started to look at meditation and this worked well as an additional tool to go in the box with the mindfulness practice.
Additionally, a short time later I stumbled across a Facebook page that promoted intermittent fasting. At that time, I was dangerously overweight and felt uneasy with the weight I had gained.
Putting the three together was incredibly powerful; meditation helped with internal chatter, mindfulness brought about an acute sense of awareness, and the intermittent fasting changed the way I viewed and ate food.
I removed every person from my life that was not a friend, no apology or explanation as recovery was more important than anything or anyone else, this was the first time in almost 50 years that I put myself and wellbeing first.
Intermittent fasting offers a sense of discipline to continue to achieve the free feeling that also comes with the sobriety from addiction. Now, for five years, I have eaten twice a day, only between midday at 8pm, with a couple of slack weeks off during holidays.
Starting a new journey at Second Step
In September 2024 I saw an advert for a role with Second Step as a peer support worker and applied for the role. I couldn’t believe that such a role existed, where I could pass on the lessons from my negative experiences to people who have also become powerless to addiction caused by life’s traumas.
My journey with Second Step began in October 2024. Being able to support people with addictions and trauma feels like a privilege, I’m able to support the people who use our service with lived experience, share that recovery is possible, and see and feel inspired by those that I support.
My personal belief is to count every day as a positive opportunity to not only help our service users, but to learn from those around us. We’re all on different journeys and every day is a day of learning and development.
When challenges of the mind arise, I remind myself that every moment is an opportunity to learn, especially on the tougher days.
This way of thinking has really helped me to continue living a clean, fulfilling and happy life for the past five years, one that previously felt like an impossible dream and Second Step, it’s employees and service users have played a big part in this journey we call life!
The biggest thing I’ve learned is to overcome the male ego stigma around poor mental health. To those who say proper men do not cry, I say the opposite is true and verbally sharing is powerful – and in my case, it’s healing and feeling a big release.
Kevin before (left) and now (right)
You can find out more about Step Down here: Step Down Somerset | Second Step | Mental Health Charity