Running for Rehab

This January I got my mum back.

Next January I am hoping another family will be able to say the same!

To give a struggling mother a chance of redemption I will be running the Athens Marathon on the 10th November, 2019.

I’m taking the battle to Marathon, the place where this all began. Where Pheidippides ran from Marathon to Athens after a famous battle seeing the Greeks win their first significant battle against the Persians shaping the world as we know it today!

Every penny donated will go to the addiction treatment centre Salus Withnell Hall (the same centre that helped my mum) and upon reaching our target this will fund 4 weeks of rehabilitation and detox for a lady unable to fund and desperate for help.

We will follow and support the journey of the lady we fund and my mum will offer to support her in order to give her the best possible chance.

This is no sob story, this is a positive story and we have a chance to help!

“Rang an ambulance! Gonna get her proper help for once! Pointless us trying to be doctors and diagnose her she needs serious help”

This is the message I received on the 25th November, 2018. My brother Joe had just found my mum cut, bloodied and completely given up on life, two days away from being in a fatal condition due to an addiction she now explains as a disease - being an alcoholic. 

This disease had crippled her to the point of seemingly no return to the point where she openly said on this day, she did not want to carry on. 

This is something neither her or us ever saw coming. My mum had convinced herself it wasn’t a problem and we never saw it as a problem as like I’m sure many people, you just believe your mum likes a drink... maybe a little too much it turns out!!

After a really horrific detox (a lot of shaking and spilt brews!!) in Blackburn Hospital and going through the superb but tough 30 day rehab programme at Salus I can now proudly say I have my mum back and she is now over 6 months clean!

Regularly attending AA Meetings and being the character she is, making others laugh with some cracking stories and continuing to be a real inspiration!