How Ollie overcame cocaine addiction - and is helping others

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For any copyright, please send me a message.  Deep in the throes of crack cocaine addiction, Ollie Foster was sleeping rough after his marriage broke down.  Just over a year later, his life is unrecognisable.  He's battled his demons - and won.  Ollie now helps men and women with similar struggles fight to get their lives back.  The 34-year-old spends his days working for homelessness charity The Brick, mentoring those who end up at the night shelter in Leigh.  In August 2018, he was staying in the same shelter, having been told he had to leave the family home five months earlier.  Ollie started taking cocaine at parties from the age of 17. Addiction truly took hold when he started his own company 10 years ago.  “It just got worse and worse," the dad-of-two said.  "First it had just been cocaine, but then in the last four and five years I moved onto crack cocaine,” said the father-of-two.  “When I got onto crack cocaine, it was a different level. It was soul destroying.  “I was asked to leave the family home of 10 years because my lifestyle was so chaotic. Read more of today's top stories  “My wife wouldn’t know if I would wake up angry, sad or happy. She tried her best, but there’s only so much one person can do themselves.  “I was going off the rails.  "What came next was a complete breakdown.”  Using all the money he had left over from his business, Ollie rented a hotel room in Leigh. When that ran out, he started sofa surfing.  Then lived in a tent, sleeping rough in Wigan and occasionally, in Warrington.  "I was still in the chaos of addiction and was spending every day surrounded by people who were still using drugs," he added.  The Brick then came into Ollie’s life. He was given a place to stay at the night shelter.  The former magistrates’ court building on Chapel Street gave him stability, but it also gave him a stark reminder of his own vulnerability.  “You have to accept the reality that you’ve got nothing except the clothes on your back,” he said.  Ollie admits that his engagement was ‘limited’ at the beginning, but soon he was opening up and he was put in touch with Addaction.  The community substance misuse service offers a ‘warm, non-judgemental space’.  “There’s a lot of people who look at support services and think they’re just trying to relieve the situation,” said Ollie.  “But mentors from Addaction have life experience, they’ve been where you’ve been.  “What the Brick, Addaction and Wigan council do is they work to restore an individual, and that takes a lot of time and investment.” Want more news from Wigan, Atherton or Leigh? Here's where you can find it.  We now have a dedicated page bringing you all the latest news, events and community news in and around Wigan.  To keep up to date