Former heroin addict Rob Witt. DA5470P1Lesley Bates talks to former heroin addict Rob Witt about making a fresh start.

A FORMER heroin addict has told how his life has turned round in the past 12 months and paid tribute to the social service agencies and probation officers who helped him make it happen.

Rob Witt (30) was made the subject of an 18-month drug treatment and testing order - a community sentence aimed at breaking the link between drug addiction and offending - last year, after his life hit rock-bottom through his addiction to hard drugs.

Now he has to report to a probation officer once a week and is subjected to weekly urine tests.

He also sees a counsellor at the Alcohol and Drug Advisory Service regularly and has attended courses on anger management and relapse prevention.

Mr Witt, who lives in Salisbury, was a junkie for 12 years and says he was spending up to £100 a day to feed his habit.

Arrests and convictions for possession over the years led to two sentences of community service and several abortive attempts to come off drugs.

This time last year, he had lost his job as a painter and decorator because of his arrest, and an affair had cost him his marriage and two children.

Finally, he was made homeless and spent four months in a tent near the fire station.

Today he can talk with quiet pride of the positive steps he has taken, with the help of agencies such as ADAS and charities such as Alabar Christian Care and the food bank, run by the Trussell Trust, to stay clean and regain his self-respect.

"Losing the wife and kids made me realise what I was doing and how it was affecting my family," he says. "The decision to get off drugs has to be your own - you've got to know it's time to give up. But you can't just stop."

At first, Mr Witt was put on the heroin substitute methadone, to help wean him off the drug, but he found it was not the most effective treatment for him.

"Methadone lets you use on top," he says. "ADAS changed it to Subutex, which blocks the receptors in the brain. It really helps."

He has gradually reduced the amount of Subutex he takes, from 16 milligrams to two milligrams daily.

He knows that if he breaks the DTTO he will be sent to prison, but he says this is not the main incentive.

"Unless you've been through heroin yourself, it's hard to understand," he says. "It's a nasty drug to get addicted to."

Mr Witt has now been rehoused by Salisbury district council. He is currently on benefits but hopes to get a job, once the DTTO comes to an end, and has an appointment to look at job options in a few weeks' time.

"The future holds a lot more than it did two years ago," he says.

"I've lost everything I hold dear, but I'm alive, I haven't got diseases like HIV or hepatitis and I want to prove to people that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

"I'm not sure if the government and ADAS know how well the DTTO is working, but I'm proof it's working and I want people such as the probation service, ADAS and the others to get the thanks for what they have done. There is more out there for me than drugs."