ON the surface, Mike Relton had it all. A loving wife, three children, a steady job earning good money.

But Mike also had something else – a drink and drug addiction.

It robbed him of all he had and very nearly took his life as well.

“I wanted to die, but whatever I did it seemed I was meant to still be here,” he admits.

Mike grew up in Basildon and started drinking at an early age.

“I was 14 and we would get a few beers after going to youth club. I was a social drinker, I suppose.”

As he got older, the drinking increased and was joined by drugs.

Mike, now 40, was working as a welder at Ford and earning good money, but he would relax by drinking and smoking drugs.

“I couldn’t have just one or two drinks, though,” Mike says, “I would drink until I passed out. The feeling would build up and I just didn’t stop, didn’t know when to stop.”

Eventually Mike’s wife threw him out.

“She had had enough and I don’t blame her,” he says.

He went to live with his mum, but when she died he found himself with nowhere to go.

By that time, Mike was working as a delivery driver for a bed firm and began sleeping in the company van at night.

“I would climb back over the fence after everyone had left,” he recalls with a wry smile, “I slept on some very comfortable beds.

“I would pop into Sainsbury’s in the morning for a wash.”

But then the drinking got in the way of driving and Mike was prosecuted and lost his job.

“It was a good thing really, otherwise who knows what I might have done behind the wheel.”

Mike really had hit rock bottom. Still grieving for his mother and without a home or a job, he ended up in Southend.

That was three years ago.

At first, his drinking and drug taking escalated “I drank all the time, and dabbled in heroin. Reality for me was not an option any more and the plan was to hopefully die,” Mike admits.

Eventually, though, Mike found a lifeline in the night shelter run by charity Harp, the Homeless Action Resource Project, in York Road, Southend.

Almost immediately Mike’s life changed.

“I had never been anywhere like it,” Mike recalls. “For the first few nights I still had my bag packed and was thinking to myself ‘I’m going, I’m going’. But deep down I knew I had to sort things out. This was my last best chance.”

With the help of his key worker, Diane Ainslie, Mike began to see beyond his despair and believe that he could get his life on track.

Within six weeks, he had started attending AA meetings and with the help of family mediation was able to see his children again.

He began volunteering at the charity’s day centre for the homeless, in Valkyrie Road, Westcliff, and moved in to his own bedsit.

From there he secured a job cleaning at the night shelter for two days a week.

“It was the same money I could have got on the dole,” Mike explains, “but for me it was a start back into work.”

Two years ago Mike applied for the position of trainee project worker with the charity at its Ceylon Road supported accommodation for those with drug and alcohol problems.

“I got it,” beams Mike, “I knew they were taking a risk in employing me, but I was determined to make it happen.”

The role saw Mike working with Harp clients, many of whom had similar stories to his own.

“Before, I would have been so dismissive of people and their problems,” Mike says, “but I learned that people were what they were and you can only judge them as you find them that day. I found I really enjoyed the work and got satisfaction.”

When a senior project worker position came up Mike again applied and was successful. He also started an NVQ course at South Essex College in health and social care, which he has passed and was awarded an outstanding achievement award.

Now living in his own flat in Westcliff, Mike is modest about how far he has come.

“My biggest regret is losing my wife and not seeing the kids for that time, but without Harp I would be dead now.”

“It is still a struggle some days, and I know the addiction will always be there, waiting to catch me out when I least expect it.

“I have got to think about how much I have to lose. If I did go back, I know that would be it for me.

“But I also know now that the future is whatever I want it to be.”

l For more information on Harp visit www.harpsouthend.co.uk