Pipe Down is a magazine based in Gwent about addiction and recovery. Through it, editor Araminta Jonsson aims to provide an insight into the ‘stigmatised subject of addiction’. She writes:

PIPE Down is currently in crisis and we need your help! After the amazing success of our last issue, of which we are so proud, our funding streams have totally dried up.

For the past year I have made it my mission to get a magazine out for those that need it, written totally by people in recovery or who have been affected by addiction in some way on another. I managed to get the first issue out in April 2017 thanks to funding from the Welsh government, who then funded two subsequent issues.

The fourth issue was funded by a private company, and the fifth by Parc Prison in Bridgend. In this year, we have created an amazing team of recovering addicts who write in from all over the country, we have set up creative writing workshops in prisons and in drug service centres.

I know that so many people will be devastated not to be able to continue with the magazine, therefore if anyone knows of a company that has an interest in helping the local community and further afield enable people in recovery to turn their lives around, develop skills and grow in confidence, please contact araminta@pipedownmagazine.co.uk.

For this month’s column I have chosen a story written by a guy we worked with whilst in one of the prisons. This was a man who could barely string a sentence together when we started. By the end of our sessions he was a confident wordsmith and had wanted to get part of his life story out there. He now is hoping to one day write a book. I am so proud of all the people that we work with and I hope you appreciate his story as much as I do.

This is Me

By anonymous

"This story is about me. I grew up with an Irish Grandfather. I was too young to realise it at the time but during my early years he was dying of cancer.

I’d wake up every morning with him coughing, spluttering and choking and I’d help him pull these clots out of his mouth.

But one morning my fingers were just too small.

I couldn’t reach. I couldn’t help him.

That was the last time I ever saw him. He died right there in my arms.

I’ve always blamed myself. If my fingers had been longer, I could have saved him. That’s when I ended up in a children’s home.

When I first arrived at the home, a little girl my age came up to me, she grabbed my hand and said 'sleep in my room. You’ll be safe in there. They don’t like little girls, only boys'.

I didn’t understand this but went along with it anyway. As we had a bath with male staff, the same little girl came up and dragged me to her room. 'You’ll be safe now', she said. As I lay there I could hear doors opening and boys crying. This went on for a number of months until one night I had to sleep in my own bed.

But I didn’t. I was too scared, so I slept under it.

That night I heard footsteps, they came to check if I was in my bed and when they saw I wasn’t, they left.

Yes! I thought. I’d made it. Another night.

The next night, I stayed in the little girl’s bed again. The door burst open - 'He’s in here!'

The girl lept out of bed and lied, 'it’s his birthday!' They took her instead.

When she came back she didn’t talk but she cuddled me. I felt wetness on my leg. When I looked down I saw blood. But the blood wasn’t mine. The next morning she was rushed to hospital. She was 13 years old.

When she came back the next day my head went. I will always remember it. I was in the kitchen making a curry. I was chopping peppers. When she came in she cuddled me but never cried. We went into the pantry and she told me everything that had been going on. I flipped.

I was still holding the chopping knife when one of the staff members came in to see what we were doing. I went for him. I stuck the knife into his thigh. Two years and nine months in Borstal they gave me for that. That’s when my life changed.

They sent me to Glen Para in the West Midlands. We had a bucket as a toilet and slept in a six man room. It stank of urine. Only the cockroaches were happy.

One day I was moved into a new cell with five bigger boys. I remember them just looking at me. One of them, a big black boy said: 'Smoke weed?' I didn’t know what to say, so said yes. Then one guy asked if I could play chess. Again, I didn’t know what to say, so said yes. This time it was the wrong answer. They called me a nerd and beat me up.

After that I started going to the gym. They realised I could play rugby so I had a job on the rugby team.

The problem I had was that I was Welsh and the prison population was about 70 per cent black and they all thought that the Welsh were racist. That’s when the fighting began. The Welsh boys hated me because I wasn’t from the valleys, the English boys hated me because I was Welsh. What was I supposed to do?

I started writing lyrics. I’d always loved music. Since I was a young child I’d used it as a way to escape. It was my freedom. For once I had something that was mine and mine only.