Welcome to the ‘miracle factory’ – Jericho House drug treatment centre

“We call this place the miracle factory,” says Leeh Howell, with a bashful smile. It’s All Soul’s day and he’s been at Jericho House drug treatment project in Greenock, Inverclyde, for exactly four months. “And I feel amazing,” he says. He found substances at 15 and has used ever since. It started with party drugs – speed, cocaine, ecstasy, LSD – and he was soon taking them every day “till it got to a point where the uppers weren’t working for me anymore. I was very depressed, I was having serious panic attacks and at that point I was introduced to heroin. And … it continued.”

Before he came here he was begging on the streets of Stirling, down to 9.5 stone, his lips and eyelids purple, all his front teeth smashed. “I thought about suicide,” he said. “I had stopped contacting my family. There was this lady that I met from the church and in the end, she sent my mum a message saying: ‘You need to know what’s happening to your son. Someone needs to do something or he’s going to die.’”

His parents somehow scraped together thousands to pay for a two-week detox centre, assessments were done over the phone and within days he was in Wishaw. “Very quickly I became aware that all that was going to change was I was going to stop using but then I was going to come out and go back to the same area where the only people I knew were either using or selling,” he says. “I spoke to my key worker who had came through Jericho House and within three days I had my first assessment here.”

His second assessment should have been a day after he left the detox centre but there was no money left. The centre gave him a free week and drove him right up to this front door.

This 16-bed unit is an abstinence-based rehab, and though discussions are ongoing with Inverclyde Council about getting a prescriber to work with the service, residents must currently wean themselves off methadone in advance until they are able to go cold turkey. Structured days are spent with key workers, counselling, group therapy and Narcotics Anonymous meetings. For Howell, it’s involved dealing with fears that date back to childhood where home didn’t feel safe, “relearning how to live” and how to be himself.

Lee Howell has had to learn how to be himself

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There are familiar threads in the stories of others too, like 22-year-old Lee McDermott from Glasgow. He started smoking cannabis at 13, added in cocaine and alcohol and ended up on anti-psychotics, hearing voices and making suicide attempts because he couldn’t stop taking drugs. When he came to Jericho House initially he says it was tough. “I wanted to leave after the first week. But I stuck through the very hard stages because I wanted to get through this for myself mostly but my family too.

“We have family therapy once a week and my sister broke down in front of everyone last week saying she was dead proud of me. It felt so nice after all the pain and havoc I caused them that they still accept me. I could see myself having a future now. It’s good to have that hope.”

The recovery rates here show he has reason for optimism, with 57% of its 670 residents since 2002 staying drug free a year after leaving. The average rehab programme in Scotland lasts three months and although 97% leave substance free, about 80% relapse within a month.

But there are other miracles at work here too, explains manager Michael Trail, who despite promises from successive ministers has never seen any funding from the Scottish Government. When an additional £20 million to address drug deaths, Trail put on a suit and went to argue the case. “But there was no benevolence,” he says.

He jokes darkly that the only difference between his current situation and when he was in addiction is he now dresses up to beg. Meanwhile residents can apply for housing benefit while here, and as the service has strong ideological principles which mean it “refuses to profiteer from people who are unwell” it costs just £250 per week.

The strain is showing though. Both this 16-bed men’s unit and the 10-bed unit for women that opened in 2015 are a staff member down. The phones are answered by volunteers who include ex-residents and Benedictine monk Brother Tom, who does admin in the back office. “We nearly folded a couple of time last year and to recruit in a situation where we are not secure and staff are getting wages in two halves by cheque and not by payroll, well it’s very difficult,” admits Trail.

Yet in the TV room, the mood is upbeat. “I was considering doing something that would get me the jail before I came in here, just so I could get out of my situation,” explains Stephen. “I was sitting in a house with smashed windows, there were people involved with drugs at my door all the time. It was pretty bad. As long as I put the work in here and do what I’m told it’ll be the first time in 20 years I feel like I’ve got a future.”

And Leeh Howell is also keen to get hold of how much he wants this. “The system that we have at the moment doesn’t work,” he says. “We know it’s about money but when support services are lying to you and telling you that it’s not possible to get into rehab something is really wrong. Drugs aren’t the problem – they are the plaster on top of the real problem.” And that, he argues, is a truth we all need to confront.