A minister has opened up about her 18-year drug addiction struggle which saw her having to turn to sex work.
Trudy Makepeace - who now works as a minister at E5, a church on Jamaica Street in Stokes Croft - first started using drugs at the age of 14, shortly after going into care. She was using amphetamines at first before moving to heroin.
"I was hanging around the wrong crowd looking for acceptance and belonging, I was looking for a place to belong," Trudy added. "They were using things like acid, cannabis or amphetamines.
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"For them, it was recreational but, for me, because of my past, I could not just do that - it became a need very quickly for me. I was just seeking to escape my reality as I was carrying a lot of pain and hurt."
Having been sexually abused while growing up in a difficult childhood, Trudy said that this impacted her self-image and had a deep sense of self-hatred, having a belief that something was wrong with her. Trudy - who now lives in Newport - said that, also as a teenager, she began to develop an eating disorder, believing that if she changed how she looked she may be more lovable.
Things quickly started escalating, she continued, and she began getting in trouble with the police for offences such as shop-lifting or handling stolen goods. Having moved out at the age of 16, Trudy said she became addicted to heroin very quickly after trying it at the age of 18.
She was introduced to the Class A drug through her partner at the time, adding that she kept trying to get clean but was not able to. "I was out there shoplifting every day to fund my habit - getting arrested was just an occupational hazard," she continued. "I would get a job but I would not be able to maintain it."
Trudy said that at 21 she was jailed for various offences including theft, fraud and possession of heroin. She spent a month in prison before being sent to a detox and then to rehab, where she spent five months.
Coming out of rehab, Trudy moved to Bath looking for a fresh start. However, she was then offered a place at a dance and fitness course in Bristol so she moved to the city instead, living in supported accommodation in Easton at first.
"It did not go well," said the now 49-year-old. "I got involved with someone who was a pimp - I was lonely and I just wanted to be in a relationship with someone.
"I was really struggling to pay my way, getting into debt. I tried to do a couple of little jobs but, as the course was demanding, I was struggling.
"As time went on and things got worse, I got into it [sex work]. For me, there was a lack of value regarding my worth and my past played part into that. I was 23 when I first started working [as a sex worker].
"At first, I was in a parlour and that is when I picked up heroin again. I fell back into injecting and things started to escalate again."
Trudy said that she began using crack cocaine as well, again being introduced to the drug via a partner.
"Crack was just on the scene and it wrecked my life like a hurricane," she continued. "I never quite finished college and I lost my flat, becoming street homeless.
"I was going from crack house to crack house, from squat to squat. It was a dark place - at the time, I became relentless in my using. I was really out of control with my drug use, I would not sleep for weeks.
"I would work in the parlour in the evenings and night, come home in the early hours to smoke my drugs and then would be in a street corner by 5am or 6am. And then, I would spend the daytime stealing, doing credit card fraud. Eventually, I lost the job at the parlour as I was so chaotic."
Trudy lost her flat at 26 and, once she was homeless, she was spending her time between Easton and Fishponds, before moving to St Paul's. She said that being on the streets was about survival, adding that she has in the past been raped, been held hostage and nearly had her throat cut.
However, Trudy said that one becomes desensitised to violence when there is lots of it. Talking about the crack houses, she described them as a volatile and unpredictable environment where someone could get hit with a hammer on their head at any moment.
"It is so removed to who I am now, it takes a minute to go back," Trudy continued. "It was a real time of brokenness. I was out of control and really lost in a dark place.
"I was getting an increasing sense of hopelessness. For me, I was suppressing trauma but, by making those choice, I was adding further trauma - just the trauma that comes with that lifestyle.
"You are making it worse, rather than better."
Trudy said that she believes she was very fear driven and that, for example, she was scared to face reality, her emotions or getting clean. It would depend on the availability of drugs and other factors, she continued, but she could be spending up to £500 a day in crack as well as at least £100 a day on heroin.
She had started injecting at the age of 19 and, with the veins on her arms shutting down, she was having to turn to other parts of her body to inject including her feet, hands or even her neck.
"At that point in my life, it was all about my next fix - my whole life was geared around my next supply," she continued. "I was obsessed. It starts taking control and it ends up possessing you.
"I looked like a walking skeleton, I didn't really eat. I was completely unmanageable."
Having done her first detox at the age of 18, Trudy said she ended up going through 33 detoxes and went to five rehab centres. At 33, she was sent to a Christian rehab while awaiting sentencing for numerous offences.
It was at this point that she realised something had begun to change and shift. Trudy said that she had a faith experience and felt she had found what she was looking for.
"It was like the missing piece of a jigsaw," she continued. "I felt this overwhelming love and acceptance. My whole life I had felt dirty and now I felt so clean.
"I felt like a big weight had lifted off my shoulders and I felt at peace. I never knew how anxious and restless I was, but now I just felt that everything would be ok - this sense of coming home. It changed everything.
"From that day, I have never desired to pick up a needle again, the desire was gone and the power was broken."
Trudy said that she was sentenced to 18 months in rehab and that, in that time, she started doing college courses, among others. She ended up becoming a support worker there before becoming the rehab manager at 35.
She then did a degree in church leadership and applied theology at the age of 40, before being ordained as a minister in November 2020 at the age of 47. Trudy now works as a minister at E5, a church on Jamaica Street in Stokes Croft.
Trudy now helps people with all sorts of issues including housing as well as providing emotional and spiritual support. She said that she has always had compassion for people, particularly those most marginalised.
"I know where they are at, what they are thinking, but I do not want to settle for it," she continued. "I am happy to be a voice of change, a light in the darkness - that is a privilege.
"Everyone can change but I understand it is not that simple. My hope is that my story sows that it is a journey and that hope is possible."
Writing a book over lockdown, Abused. Addicted. Free got published last October and more than 3,000 copies have now been published - with some being distributed to places such as prisons or outreach projects. You can find out more about her book here.
