Rehab centre 'tougher than prison'

At the Ley Community — a residential centre set in five acres of leafy grounds in Yarnton, near Oxford, between 49 and 51 per cent of the intake kick their habit.

In comparison, national figures released last week showed just 3.6 per cent of the 202,000 addicts who entered treatment last year left their programmes drug free. The centre, a charitable trust supported by donations and NHS funding, makes its 40 residents work seven days a week in a tightly structured regime that affords little free time.

Each rehab course lasts for at least a year, as opposed to the more common three- or six-month programmes, and its approach is considered to be at the forefront of addiction treatment in Britain.

Ley Community chief executive Wendy Dawson said: "We are the long-term solution and we have a great success rate compared to shorter programmes. We offer 12 months with three months after-care.

"In Scotland they have scrapped all treatment under 12 months, so this is definitely the way forward. "I've been doing this work since 1981 and this is the only way to do it."

Addicts from all over the country come to the centre, which is completely drug free and does not use substitutes like methadone.

"Patients are referred by their drug workers and doctors, and their stay is funded by their local NHS primary care trusts.

A handful of residents are privately funded.

Guests are woken at 6.30am every weekday, 7.30am on Saturdays and 8.30am on Sundays. From then until bedtime at 10.30pm, they are set work in different areas of the centre, including the kitchens and the grounds, and undergo therapy and group-interaction sessions.

The programme is split into five stages and participants can only move upwards "on merit" at their own pace. They get two phone calls a week and can send and receive unlimited letters.

After first applying for their peers' permission, residents can receive a visit every three months.

Mrs Dawson said: "This is tougher than prison. They all come here and work — it's like a commune and it is not a closed door, which, in some ways, makes it harder for the residents because it is their own will which keeps them here. "They work seven days a week. It's called work-based structure. "That's not to say they don't get leisure time, but that's still part of the structure. That's why it's hard work."

Residents are taught literacy and numeracy in partnership with Oxford's Ruskin College and can only leave once they have secured a real-world job and have saved enough money to put down a deposit to rent a home in Oxfordshire.

All successful graduates find employment within the county, many as drug workers in Oxford.

Mrs Dawson said: "This methodology, which has been around since 1959, works because it is peer driven. Most of the staff have been through the programme and because it is peer driven you cannot cheat."

One of the residents, who has completed 52 weeks and is looking for work, told his story: "At a very early age, about 12 or 13, I started sniffing solvents and smoking weed, and I progressed from there. I had a council estate upbringing and an alcoholic father who was never around — I had no positive male role models.

"I first injected heroin when I was 16 and never looked back. From there I continued on to crack.

"That was 17 years before I came here and in all those years I was stealing — even from my family.

"I can't remember how many times I was in prison — I've been locked up all over England.

The lowest point came when I had septicemia and a spinal abcess where I was injecting into my groin. That was four years ago and I was in hospital on life support.

"I've slept rough in carparks and church yards; I've begged on the streets; robbed dealers; and, I'm ashamed to say, I've had girls working, selling their bodies on the street.

‘My friends and drug workers were saying “rehab, rehab”, but I didn't think it was for me. In the end I gave it a try and looked at three or four places, but I knew this was the one.

‘But then I got myself into bother with a firearm charge. The judge let me come here, but said if I hadn't made progress in four months I would get five years in jail, minimum.

‘It was a huge turning point.

‘It's a massive culture shock when you first come here. There are a lot of things that happen here that seem quite strange to you at first.

'It took me about three or four months to understand what it was all about, to be able to see the meaning of it all.

‘I was quite overwhelmed with the care that people were showing me. I wasn't used to that kind of care in the past.

‘It's the hardest thing I've ever done.

"There's a bunch of people that come in at the same time and you go through it together. You get quite close and I've made friends like I've never had before.

‘It's the Ley Community way to give back a little bit of what you've learned.

'Some of the people who work here have done this programme and their experience means they know what we are going through.

'They are not easy to trick — as addicts we are very manipulative — so they know how we behave.

‘I've grown massively since I've got here. My life was so entrenched in hardcore drugs, I was still a kid in my head. I'd had no adult life and had no basic life skills. This place gives them to you and I've now got a relationship back with my family."