I’m proud of the person I am today 🌈

” I’m proud of the person I am today, I’m proud to be clean and I am proud to be me…

Addiction doesn’t discriminate, it doesn’t care if you’re straight or LGBTQ+ and it doesn’t care if it destroys you. The disease is insidious and relentless.

I spent many years of my life longing to be myself. I knew who I was and who I needed to be, but being myself seemed impossible. I was a boy deep within my inner most being but the world saw me as a girl. The dysphoria and the depression I felt was intent on eradicating me, much like my drug addiction.

I had fought so hard to survive and to be accepted, acknowledged and affirmed as the person I knew I needed to be, so when drugs became more important than everything else, I knew I needed to do something. I knew I needed to find my fortitude and fight to get my life back.

My addiction took me down a path that I’m thankful to not be on anymore. I merely existed, isolated from everyone, and from the world beyond my four walls. I’d lost myself in the process. I was a liar, I manipulated, I was selfish, I was reckless and I would choose a line over my family without a thought in my mind.

The version of myself I had become was so far from the person I was known to be. Steps Together gave me a safe place to recover and find quietude from the chaos I’d left behind. It gave my family the space they needed with certainty that I was safe. It was more than just safety I found at The Chestnuts in Leicestershire, I found a wholesome environment where I could get vulnerable, get clean and get happy again. I found freedom, whilst learning all about the disease of addiction and what tools and rules I needed to stay clean and build a life worth living again.

Recovery hasn’t been linear, life has thrown some pretty wild curve balls..

I’ve come a long way since I first walked through that door back in the fall of 2020. Recovery hasn’t been linear, life has thrown some pretty wild curve balls, but it always comes back down to the basics that I was introduced to at Steps Together, and of course, the continuous decision that whatever happens I won’t pick up, because the life I have now is not worth throwing away.

I’m Nathan. I’m an addict and I’m transgender.

Addiction doesn’t discriminate and thankfully neither do Steps Together.”