LOOKING at the grey, sunken-faced woman in the photograph, 34-year-old Chanel Walsh barely recognises herself.
Five years ago, the mum-of-three was addicted to heroin, splashing £600 a month on her drug habit.
There were days she was unable to feed herself, being forced to shoplift from supermarkets.
It wasn’t until the pandemic hit, leaving her mental health in tatters, that she feared she’d end up dead if she didn’t stop and take steps to change her life.
Now, sober for four years, bright-faced Chanel is worlds away from her old life.
Speaking candidly, she wants to inspire other drug addicts to seek help to turn their lives around.
Chanel, a full-time-mum, says: “One day I just woke up and realised I had to get clean.
“I knew I’d end up dead and never see my son again.
“I decided to survive for him.
“It was the best decision I’ve ever made and I have never looked back.”
Chanel, from Shard End, Birmingham, had a happy childhood until her parents split when she was 12.
She remembers: “I missed my dad terribly and life just wasn’t the same when he left.”
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”Inside Barrow in furness’ heroin gangs and derelict streets” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6368651870112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]Aged 16, Chanel claims her mother kicked her out following an argument.
Made homeless, she was forced to sleep in a multi-storey carpark nearby.
For a few months she sofa-surfed at friends’ houses or slept rough until one day, a friend of her family offered her to stay the night.
She claims: “While at his, he offered me a cigarette.
“I didn’t realise at the time that he’d laced it with heroin.”
“Next thing I knew I passed out.”
Coming to, the man was on top of Chanel, forcing himself on her.
After he raped her, she fled to a friend’s.
Chanel says: “I called the police and was taken to a rape clinic.
“They took blood tests which showed I had opiates in my system.
“I was horrified.”
Sadly, after an initial investigation, the police informed her that they couldn’t take the case further as there ‘wasn’t enough evidence’.
After that, Chanel’s life spiralled out of control.
She explains: “I got a room at a hostel for a week and a group of residents gave me heroin to smoke.
“I just wanted to numb the pain I felt after the rape.
“It made me feel like I had no worries.”
Soon, Chanel was addicted to the class A drug.
For the next two years she slept in pub doorways, bus shelters and car parks.
At 18, she was given a council property and secured a job in Tesco but she still battled her addiction.
She says: “I managed to hide it well.
“I wore make-up to brighten my dull complexion and functioned well in my job.
“No one noticed that I was still addicted to heroin.”
[quote credit=”Chanel Walsh”]At night I was living in the dark as I couldn’t afford to pay the gas or electric bill[/quote]A year on, she met a man and he moved in with Chanel knowing all about her addiction.
Six years into their relationship, Chanel, then 25, fell pregnant and was immediately placed on a methadone program.
The program sees opioid users taking a daily dose of methadone to help reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings.
Thankfully, Chanel’s son, Archie, now nine, was born without any withdrawal.
The mum says: “He was my world. Instantly I was in love with him.
“Determined to get better for him, I continued my methadone program to try to wean me off the drugs.”
Yet, when Archie was eight months old, Chanel fell off the wagon one night while her dad was in hospital.
When her partner discovered she’d used heroin again, he refused to let her see their son.
“Social services got involved and I wasn’t allowed access,” Chanel remembers.
“Not being able to see my son made me snowball.
“I drugged myself up to mask the pain and began smoking crack cocaine and cannabis too.”
Soon, she was forced to give up her job and over the next six years, Chanel barely functioned.
At her worst she was spending £600 a month of her benefits on drugs, shoplifting microwave meals or sandwiches to feed herself.
She says: “I feel so ashamed of how I was back then and what I had to resort to.
“At night I was living in the dark as I couldn’t afford to pay the gas or electric bill.
“I was just existing by this point.”
When the Covid-19 lockdown hit in March 2020, Chanel’s mental health was at rock bottom.
She explains: “I started experiencing delusions. I thought the TV was talking to me and that I’d actually caused Covid.”
One morning, later that year, after a big drugs binge the night before, Chanel woke up and decided ‘enough was enough’.
With that, she contacted a drug worker and restarted a methadone program.
She says: “Something woke up inside me that day and I was adamant to get better.
“I had missed so many milestones with my son, I needed to be well for him.”
A few weeks on, Chanel’s mental health slowly began to improve.
Determined to get sober, she requested random drug testing to ensure she stayed on track.
[quote credit=”Chanel Walsh”]Getting sober was easy compared to the life I was living[/quote]Each month her dosage of methadone was lowered and less than a year later she was completely clean.
In time she met her current partner, Nicholas Savva, 43, and at the end of 2021 she was granted supervised access to her son, Archie.
Now she’s able to have him every other weekend.
Chanel says: “Being able to spend time with my son was the best feeling in the world.
“I took him swimming and to the funfair.
“He was my reason to keep going.”
She has since had two children, Dolcie-Dee, two and Ronan, five months.
While Covid is a sour subject for many, Chanel credits it with saving her life.
Chanel says: “Getting sober was easy compared to the life I was living.
“I want others to know there is a way out.
“Stay strong and don’t give up.”
