24 September 2026
From drinking vodka in the woods as a child to volunteering with WithYou, George Dewar, 30, and from Guisborough shares how alcohol and drugs took hold – and how recovery gave him a future he never thought was possible.
The first time I had a drink, I was in the last year of primary school.
I stole a bottle of vodka and took it into the woods with some friends. At first, I thought it was horrible. But when I started to feel the effects, something changed.
Despite the taste, I felt truly happy and calm.
That was the beginning of my journey with alcohol and, eventually, drugs.
During secondary school, I began drinking regularly. When I couldn't drink, I became depressed and started to self-harm.
Towards the end of school, I went to a party where I took drugs for the first time. I didn't think much about it at the time. But when I went to college, and later university, I discovered I could get hold of whatever drugs I wanted, whenever I wanted them.
It felt as though a whole new world had opened up.
When partying stopped being fun
As I started going on nights out, I became convinced that drinking and taking drugs was the only way I could have a good time – the only way I could feel like a normal person.
My university years became centred around partying.
I would go to lectures the morning after still drunk or high. My nose would be bleeding. My teeth would be grinding together. Eventually, I met people who were doing the same things I was, and I was ecstatic to have company while I spiralled.
For a while, I could pretend it was all about having fun. Eventually, I couldn't pretend anymore.
I was taking cocaine throughout the day and drinking to stay level, using again and again in an attempt to recreate the feeling I had first experienced years earlier.
I lost friends I'd known for years. I became increasingly isolated and desperate, convincing myself that they were the problem and that I wasn't doing anything wrong.
My drug and alcohol use escalated further. I was using a combination of cocaine, ketamine, benzodiazepines, tramadol and wine simply to get through the lonely days and nights I had created for myself.
The friends I had managed to keep were worried about me. I knew they were worried.
But I didn't care.
If total self-destruction was the price I had to pay to feel good, then it was a price I was willing to pay over and over again.
Finding a way out
I couldn't tell you exactly when I first spoke to someone at WithYou. I don't remember the month, the year or even who I spoke to. Maybe I reached out for help myself. Maybe someone else recognised that I needed help and helped me find it. What I do know is that, looking back, getting that help probably saved my life.
By the time I was ready to give up drugs, I couldn't have asked for better guidance. Recovery didn't happen overnight. But gradually, things began to change.
In just a few years, I went from shooting up cocaine in coffee shop toilets and snorting crushed benzodiazepines to try to level myself out, to volunteering with WithYou and trying to pay forward the support I had received.
And now I'm about to start a new chapter. I'm going to work for WithYou.
From being helped to helping others
Since working with WithYou, I've stayed clean and sober for longer than I can remember – and for longer than I ever thought possible a few years ago.
I've also been able to reach out for support with my mental health. I was properly diagnosed and received treatment that helps me in a way that alcohol and drugs once seemed to, but without all the devastation that came with them.
For me, that's one of the most important things about recovery. It isn't simply about stopping taking drugs or drinking. It's about understanding why you were using them in the first place. It's about getting the right support, rebuilding your life and finding reasons to keep going.
For a long time, I thought happiness was something I could only find through drugs and alcohol. Now I know that what I was chasing was something very different. Today, I have something far more meaningful. I have purpose.
WithYou gave me the compassion, trust and care I needed when I was at my lowest. Now they're giving me the opportunity to use my own experience to help other people find their way forward.
I want to be able to guide others on their own journeys. I want to show people that recovery is possible, even when you can't imagine what your life could look like without drugs or alcohol.
And I want to make sure that people who are struggling know that they are worth helping.
WithYou saved my life. Now I have the chance to help someone else.
And that brings me a kind of happiness that is far greater, more meaningful and longer lasting than anything I found at the bottom of a bottle or in a bag of drugs.