03 August 2026
Toni Glancy grew up in a small village in the west of Scotland. She did well at school, went on to study business management at college, and worked in retail. On the surface, things looked fine.
But Toni had been drinking heavily since her early teens, and she knew, even then, that she took it further than everyone else.
“I always took it too far, but I didn't realise why at that point,” she says.
Her mum struggled with alcohol throughout Toni's childhood. After her mum died, Toni's drinking became much worse. She became alcohol dependent, and her life began to unravel quickly. She eventually had her eldest son removed from her care by social work. She was frightened and exhausted.
A referral to a drug and alcohol worker led to her first detox, in 2017. It helped, for a while. But recovery isn't a straight line, and Toni's wasn't either. Over the years that followed, she tried again and again to get on top of her drinking. Each attempt taught her something. Each setback cost her something too.
The lowest point came during lockdown. Toni was pregnant with her youngest son, already a mum of two by that stage, and physically dependent on alcohol. She was terrified to ask for help. She knew what had happened the last time social work became involved. She kept quiet and kept going.
“I convinced myself that if I stopped drinking, the baby could die," she says.
I felt I had to drink. I was shopping online and getting drinks delivered at all times of the day.
After her youngest was born, social work became involved again. With a toddler and a newborn in a new area where she knew nobody, Toni made the hardest decision she'd ever faced. She agreed to her two youngest children going into foster care while she sought treatment. It took everything she had.
The turning point for Toni came on 23 December 2022, when she had her last contact visit with her children before Christmas. She wouldn't see them in person over the holidays. The pain of that, on a bus home, broke something open.
"I cried all the way," she says quietly. "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 was admitted to Woodland View, a community hospital in Irvine, Ayrshire, where she completed a week-long detox. Three weeks later, she returned as an inpatient for a rehabilitation programme. Straight after completing treatment, she went to her first peer-support meeting. She'd been reluctant before, convinced it wasn't for her. This time, she stayed.
Five months later, the day before her birthday, she got her children back full time.
Six months after that, she started volunteering with another local organisation, where she first discovered what it meant to support people in recovery. She hadn't planned it that way. She just knew, when she walked through the door, that she fitted.
“I'd never felt like I fitted in anywhere, but I knew straight away that this was my calling,” she says, smiling. “I felt this was what all that heartache had been for.”
She went on to complete the Scottish Drugs Forum's national workforce development programme, gaining a Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) through a placement at WithYou. When her contract ended and a part-time recovery worker post came up, her placement supervisor encouraged her to apply.
She got the job, and she still can't quite believe it.
“I'm still pinching myself, to be honest,” she laughs.
Toni joined as a recovery worker in March 2025. She brings something to the role that no training course can provide. She knows what it feels like to sit across the desk from a worker and wonder if you'll be judged. She knows what it costs someone to walk through the door and ask for help.
“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.
I just keep doing what I'm doing. I love coming here. I love this work. Everything I went through, and it wasn't pleasant, I can use it now for something good.
“The best part is my kids know I help people now. They'll never see me the way I was. That's what keeps me going.”
If you're based in South Ayrshire and you'd like to find out more about our free, confidential support, visit wearewithyou.org.uk/local-hubs/south-ayrshire
