Prison, death or redemption. These were the three options laid out in front of 21-year-old Graeme Armstrong when he reached a pivotal moment in his life. On Christmas Day in 2012 he had reached a point of no return. “I just wasn’t coping,” he says. “I was using drugs to self-medicate and I was traumatised from friends killing people, committing suicide, or dying from overdoses.” That day something overcame Armstrong and he prayed. “Finding faith was a catalyst for change in my life,” he says.
Growing up in Airdrie, a town about 12 miles east of Glasgow, Armstrong had been lured by the violent life of street gangs, known in Scotland as young teams, and by 16 he had 15 criminal charges under his belt. “I’ve never been more dangerous than when I was 14,” he says in Street Gangs, a new BBC documentary series that is available on iPlayer and is being shown on BBC Scotland.
