My Story
I looked like I had
it all together.
I didn't.
This isn't the story of how I became perfect. It's the story of how I nearly lost everything — and found a different way to live.
Sport → Addiction → Crisis → Help → Treatment → Recovery → Purpose → Empowerment
Hear My Story
In my own words — the good,
the bad, and how I found
my way into recovery.
Approximately 9 minute listen
Prefer to read?
You can read my full story below.
Where It Started
Sport was where I felt OK.
Growing up, sport was a huge part of my life. I was a hard worker, competitive and a very good sportsman. I represented my club, my schools and my county, and from the outside I probably looked like a young lad who had plenty going for him.
But there was another side to my life that very few people could see.
I grew up in an environment where drinking and gambling were normal. They were simply part of life. I didn't recognise anything unusual about that at the time because it was what I knew.
Looking back now, though, I can see something in myself from a very young age.
"I never really felt OK just being me."
When I was playing sport, competing, training or pushing myself, I felt good.
But when I wasn't, I seemed to need something else to change how I felt.
And eventually, substances did that job.
Two Lives
The sportsman everyone saw.
The struggle they didn't.
I started drinking and experimenting with hash and magic mushrooms when I was young.
For years, I lived what felt like two completely different lives.
There was the version everyone could see: the sportsman.
I trained. I competed. I worked hard. I played almost every sport I could get involved in.
Then there was the other version of me.
The one increasingly dependent on alcohol, drugs and eventually gambling to change how I felt inside.
For a long time, those two lives somehow existed alongside each other.
Until they couldn't.
When Everything Changed
Then sport disappeared.
In my twenties, an injury took away one of the biggest things that had always kept me grounded: sport.
And I went downhill quickly.
What had once been drinking, drugs and gambling alongside my life gradually became my life.
I went flat out.
The consequences became more serious.
- My mental health deteriorated.
- My physical health suffered.
- Relationships were affected.
- My freedom was at risk.
"I came frighteningly close to losing everything.
Including my life."
I tried psychiatry numerous times. I wanted things to change.
There were plenty of promises, plenty of attempts and plenty of moments when I genuinely believed:
"This time will be different."
But wanting to stop and actually being able to stop were two very different things.
The Turning Point
Then I sat in front
of a counsellor.
Eventually, I found myself sitting in front of an addiction counsellor. That was different.
For the first time, somebody began helping me understand what was happening underneath the behaviour, rather than simply looking at what I was doing.
He guided me. He challenged me. He helped me understand myself.
But even with that understanding, I still couldn't stop.
Eventually I entered residential addiction treatment.
"That decision changed the direction of my life."
Treatment wasn't the finish line. It was the beginning.
After residential treatment, I committed to a two-year recovery support programme, including fellowship meetings and continued support.
Slowly, life began to change. Not overnight. Not perfectly. But one decision, one day and one piece of work at a time.
Today
I am more than
16 years free from
But recovery gave me far more than abstinence.
It gave me my life back.
And eventually, it gave me a purpose.
Purpose
From needing help
to helping others.
I went back into education and began learning professionally about many of the things I had experienced personally.
I became an addiction counsellor and later trained as a psychotherapist.
My professional work has included recovery support, relapse prevention and intervention, crisis management, one-to-one counselling, group work and supporting people and families through some incredibly difficult moments.
I've also trained across a range of therapeutic approaches and work as an addiction worker supervisor and Recovery Support Coordinator.
But qualifications are only one part of what I bring to this.
"I've sat on
both sides
of the room."
I've been the person desperately needing someone to help me.
And I've been the counsellor sitting opposite somebody who believes they've destroyed everything and there is no way back.
"I know differently."
Why I Built Empowerment
There isn't one doorway
into recovery.
Over the years I've learnt something important: there isn't one doorway into recovery.
For some people it's abstinence. For somebody else, the first step might simply be drinking one night less, putting a barrier between themselves and a bet, telling somebody what's really happening, understanding a trigger, or finally admitting:
"I can't keep living like this."
I don't believe somebody should have to hit rock bottom before they're entitled to help. And I don't believe shame, labels or judgement help people change.
That's why I created Empowerment.
I wanted to bring together what I've learnt from lived experience, professional practice and years of walking alongside people in recovery and turn it into something practical that people can actually use in real life.
At home.
After an argument.
When the urge hits.
After a lapse.
At two in the morning when everybody else is asleep.
"Enough. I want something different."
Empowerment isn't here to tell you what your recovery has to look like.
It's here to help you understand where you are, decide where you want to go and give you practical tools to start moving towards it.
"Your worst chapter
doesn't have to be
your last one."
I'm living proof of that.
— Mark
Founder of Empowerment
Addiction Counsellor • Psychotherapist • Recovery Support Coordinator
Ready to take your first step?
You don't need to have everything figured out.
You just need somewhere to start.