A FORMER heroin addict has gone from prison to the dreaming spires of Oxford thanks to Blackburn charity THOMAS.

Paul, 22, warned youngsters there was no future in drugs after seeing his own life fall apart when he started injecting heroin four years ago.

After several years of solvent and cannabis abuse, Paul, from Blackburn, lost his job as a glazier within months of injecting.

"I went downhill really fast," said Paul, who does not want to be identified.

"Heroin was the main concern. I was robbing off my parents until I got kicked out, then shoplifting."

He was convicted twelve times and imprisoned at the age of 19.

After seven months in Lancaster Farms young offenders' unit he was drug-free but came out to the same life he had left.

But his life began to change when he visited St Anne's House drop-in centre and met Father Jim McCartney, who let him work on Edges, the magazine for THOMAS, Those on the Margins of a Society.

"He didn't see failure in me," he said. "The magazine gave me a purpose and I didn't feel so useless."

Paul decided to cut himself off from his friends and stayed at the France Street centre for six months while recovering.

Despite having left school at 16 with no qualifications, Paul won a place on a one-year Oxford University degree preparation course and has just been awarded two A-levels.

He plans to start a sociology degree at Liverpool Hope University in September.

Paul said he would never go back to drugs. "You don't need drugs to enjoy life," he said, "and if you do then you've got a problem and you are going to have a bigger problem."

Father Jim said Paul was proof that with a lot of investment, time and energy, heroin addicts could recover.

"As an organisation we want to walk with people for years so they can achieve a quality of life," he said.

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