From client to colleague: how a WithYou recovery worker is helping others by sharing her own story

A woman who once feared asking for help with her alcohol use is now supporting others to do exactly that.

Mum-of-three Toni Glancy, from Ayr, became alcohol dependent in her 20s, after losing her mum who had struggled with alcohol since Toni was a child. 

Growing up and raising her family in a small, close-knit community, she was afraid to seek support. She worried about being seen to struggle, about being judged, and about what asking for help might mean for her family.

At her lowest point, Toni placed her two youngest children in foster care while she sought treatment. When she waved them off to celebrate Christmas 2022 without her, she decided she had to make a change.

"I cried all the way home," she recalls. "I was absolutely heartbroken. But I knew I had to change. I knew I had to be a good mum. That was it for me."

Toni completed a detox followed by an inpatient rehabilitation programme. Five months later, the day before her birthday, she got her children back full time.

She went on to complete the Scottish Drugs Forum's national workforce development programme, gaining her Scottish Vocational Qualification through a placement at WithYou in South Ayrshire. "I'd never felt like I fitted in anywhere," she smiles. "I knew straight away this was my calling. I felt this was what all that heartache had been for."

When a recovery worker post in the service came up, she applied. She joined the team permanently in March 2025. “I'm still pinching myself, to be honest,” she laughs.

Toni now works directly with people seeking support with their alcohol or drug use, including those who are reluctant to take that first step.

"I can say, I know how you're feeling, and I mean it," she says. "That connection, that lived experience, you can't get that any other way.

"Everything I went through, and it wasn't pleasant, I can use it now for something good."

WithYou's services in East and South Ayrshire together received more than 1,000 referrals in 2025, a rise of more than 17% on the previous year, as more people came forward to ask for support.