04 September 2026
Michelle Dickson has lived in Dumfries all her life.
These days, she's a recovery worker at WithYou, but her own journey with services started long before she ever wore that job title.
Michelle used heroin for 12 years. She grew up in care, without much stability, and by 2008 she'd been in and out of prison more than once. It was a Christmas spent away from her daughter that changed something in her.
"That really, really shook me," she says.
When she came out of prison, her daughter and her mum gave her an ultimatum. Her mum told her she needed to get herself sorted. Her daughter, only young herself at the time, said she didn't want to come home while things stayed as they were.
"My daughter was right," Michelle says. "At that point I thought, I really need to get my act together."
Michelle joined a local group, which taught basic life skills such as how to use a washing machine, how to cook a meal, and how to deal with post that had been piling up for years.
She still remembers the first aid certificate she earned there.
"Just having that wee piece of paper, it meant so much," she says. "I genuinely thrived."
From there, Michelle got a job in a call centre and stayed there for 12 years, rebuilding her life while supporting her family through some difficult times of their own. When a friend suggested she apply for the Scottish Drugs Forum traineeship, she didn't think she'd be considered.
"I thought, nah, they won't employ somebody like me, surely," she says.
She got a place on the course, working towards her Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ) through a placement at WithYou.
The training began just six weeks before the country went into lockdown in March 2020, so Michelle and her fellow trainees had to adapt fast, learning online and finishing their qualifications from home. She's been part of the WithYou team in Dumfries ever since.
Today, Michelle works with people on their goals, their triggers and their coping strategies.
She leads on the service's injecting equipment provision, making sure people have what they need to stay safer, and she set up a women's group in 2024 that now runs weekly, after hours, with around eight regular members.
"To watch somebody walk in with their eyes on the ground, too scared to make eye contact, and then, maybe just a few months later, see them walk through that door looking you straight in the eye, saying hello to everybody with confidence, that's incredible to see.
It's making that wee bit of difference in somebody's life," she says, of what she enjoys most about the job. "Even if it's just a tiny difference.
Stigma is something Michelle sees up close, working in the town she grew up in.
She knows that for some people, simply being seen walking into the service can feel like too big a risk. So she and her colleagues go where people are more comfortable, meeting them in parks or at home.
She's also felt the impact of drug deaths in her community personally, having lost family members to drug use over the years. It's something that stays with her, she says, because in a smaller place like Dumfries, everyone tends to know everyone.
Michelle is honest that recovery isn't quick, and that people don't always get it right the first time, or the 50th.
"It doesn't matter if somebody's been in a service a hundred times," she says. "That hundred-and-first time might be the time they make that change."
Her message for anyone thinking about reaching out is simple.
Never give up," she says. "No matter how bad you think you are, or how low you've been, you can always come back from it. The support is there, without a shadow of a doubt.
If you're based in Dumfries and Galloway and you'd like to find out more about our free, confidential support, visit wearewithyou.org.uk/local-hubs/dumfries-and-galloway
