A manager who “carried around a lot of shame and fear” about their HIV diagnosis and became addicted to drugs, racking up debts of £70,000 before going into rehab, has found a new purpose and “sense of pride” in volunteering with Guide Dogs and said they are now nearly five years sober. Eugene Lynch, 39, who is non-binary, said it “felt like the entire world just stopped” when they were diagnosed with HIV in 2013.
Their mental health declined over the following years, leading to “escalating addiction issues” and diagnoses of anxiety and panic disorder, and they started to “self-medicate”. Eugene “tried to keep it all hidden” from their employer and partner Tim, 42, who works for an asset management company – but this only “made the problem worse”.
Working as a manager in consulting at the time, they were then signed off work, as they “couldn’t leave the house without having a panic attack” and had extremely “low self-esteem”. Their addition to drugs and alcohol then started to “get progressively worse and worse”, to the point where they were spending £300 a day on cocaine.
