Phil beats booze habit to turn his life around

Oct 27 2009 by Diane Parkes, Birmingham Mail

NINE years ago, Phil O’Driscoll was living under bridges in Birmingham, spending any cash he could scrape together to feed his alcohol addiction.

But this month, Phil celebrated totally turning his life around by picking up an award from homeless charity Crisis.

The 57-year-old was named national runner-up in the lifetime achiever category for giving up the booze, finding a home, training for a job and now working full time to help other vulnerable people.

And Phil is the first to admit that when he was at his lowest point he could never have imagined his life as it is today.

Leaving school at 15 and finding work as a banksman on building sites, Phil’s life began to spiral out of control when he took to drinking.

“I grew up in Aston and finished school with no O-Levels and went into building because it was easy,” he says. “But then I had a doomed relationship and was hitting the bottle. I lost my job and ended up homeless.

“Part of the reason the relationship was doomed was because I was drinking so much. I used to drink scotch and brandy and when I couldn’t afford that I went onto cans.”

Life on the streets was hard.

“I spent about 18 months homeless,” recalls Phil. “You just sleep wherever you can – in gardens, under bridges, in doorways, anywhere you can find a bit of shelter and peace.

“There are hostels but they are always full. You go to them and ask for somewhere to stay and they can’t help you. But they do give you blankets so you can keep warm. You hide them away each day and hope they are still there in the evening but sometimes they would be gone.

“I would make money by collecting scrap metal and then selling it to the yards. They rip you off, you don’t get anywhere near what is worth, but you don’t care. You make about £20 and then you go and spend it on booze.

“I never begged, I was too proud for that but you can’t find work. There is a real stigma to alcohol and homelessness. How can you go for a job and tell them you are ‘no fixed abode’? No-one is going to give it to you. Everything goes against you. You get passed from one place to another and it’s a circle you can’t break. Everyone judges you and you can’t get out of it.”

But Phil did find his way out.

“I was actually getting more and more into that being my way of life then I found a place at a hostel and someone took an interest in me and offered me some support. They showed me there was a way to get into supported housing.

“I needed to get out of the hostel. There I started getting benefits but the problem is that you get into groups and whoever gets their benefit that day goes out and buys the beer for everyone. We would take it in turns depending on who was Monday guy or Tuesday guy and that doesn’t help you at all.

“Once you have paid for board and food and then bought the drinks and smokes there is nothing left.”

Phil was able to find a place at a housing scheme in Hockley and that was his first step on the road back to normality.

“It was actually a house for guys who were alcoholics and I had a studio flat there,” he says. “They would come out once a week to check on you but I was still drinking.

“They moved me to another place in Sparkbrook and it was about that time that I decided to pack up the alcohol. I packed up completely for a week and it was horrible. It literally is going cold turkey. I had food in the house but I couldn’t eat anything I felt so ill.”

At this point Phil found an opportunity to start giving back by becoming a volunteer for the charity FareShare.

“We would go around getting food from supermarkets which is coming towards its sell-by date and we would take it to hostels, old people’s homes, places that need it,” he says. “When I was doing this I got interested in counselling so I went back to college and took my level one and level two in counselling.

“Then I decided to go for a job. I was walking down Broad Street and I saw a hoarding for the job with Future Home Care saying they needed people to become support workers. So I read all the leaflets and decided to apply.”

Phil admits he thought it was a shot in the dark but had nothing to lose by applying. “I didn’t think I would get the job but I got called for an interview,” he says. “I got a grant of £150 to buy a suit for the interview and I just went in there and was myself. I didn’t hide anything and explained why I wanted to do the job. A few days later they sent me a letter saying I had got it and I started in January.”

As a support worker, Phil is able to call on his own experience to help others.

“I work with people with challenging behaviour and learning difficulties with sorting things that they find difficult like accessing benefits, training and things like that,” he says. “I think my own experiences help.”

He has also taken on a voluntary role helping to assess services to vulnerable groups in the city – including services for homeless people.

“I did a three-day residential course for it and we all graduated at the Council House with the mayor there,” he says.

“Now we do some of it like a mystery shopper making calls pretending to need the services and we also go into centres an interview people. That team, the Supporting People Team, is also up for an award, the UK Housing Awards in November.”

To complete the picture, Phil also now rents a flat in Edgbaston which he loves.

“As soon as I saw it I said it was perfect for me,” he says. “It is part of a retirement home and I am the youngest person but everyone is so nice and it is safe and secure.”

He admits he does sometimes struggle to conquer his addiction.

“I have fallen off the waggon a few times but it is only for a few days and then I carry on,” he says. “I feel I have done really well from where I was. If you had told me then where I would be now I wouldn’t have believed it.

“There will always be homeless people but you have to get out of it. And the only person who can get you out of it is you. I would say the thing that helps is self-belief.”

Being shortlisted for the Crisis Changing Lives Champions award was the icing on the cake as Phil travelled to London for the ceremony where he met ITN chief economics editor Daisy McAndrew and MP Caroline Spelman, MP for Meriden and Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government.

“I couldn’t believe it when I found out,” he says.