Steve leads CDAS’s assertive outreach and assessment team. His job is to make sure that anyone in the city who is facing challenges with drugs or alcohol can access support - not just those who walk through the door, but the people who, for whatever reason, can’t or don’t.
That means going out to drop-ins at local churches and community spaces. To doorways on freezing winter mornings. To wherever someone happens to be when they’re ready to talk, or when they’re not quite ready but might be one day.
Steve still goes out with the team on Friday mornings, even as a team leader.
“I still absolutely love my job,” he says. “I never sit down and think, oh God, I’ve got work today. That feeling is priceless.
No two days are the same. One day, he might be in the office doing one-to-ones with his team, the next out on the streets at six in the morning, handing someone a coffee and letting them know where they can get breakfast.
One cold Friday morning in March, his team reached nineteen people between them in just a few hours. One of those encounters - two of his colleagues sitting with a young man who’d been beaten up, getting him food, calling his mum - prompted a glowing email from probation afterwards. Steve called it “absolutely beautiful.”
“We weren’t expecting anything from it,” he says. “It’s okay if someone isn’t ready to engage with us yet. We’ll still be there.”
What makes Steve’s perspective on this work distinctive is that he’s experienced both sides of it.
Around ten years ago, he was in a very different place - in the middle of ‘chaotic’ substance use, living a high-risk life, injecting drugs.
“When you’re in that place for years, you start to believe the negative things people say about you,” he reflects. “It holds you back.”
What changed things wasn’t one moment but a series of small ones. When he reached the point where he’d had enough, he began filling his time with everything positive he could find - a peer mentoring course one day a week, a college course another, local support groups, regular appointments with the local drug and alcohol service that would eventually become CDAS.
After ten months of building that foundation, he went into residential rehabilitation for four and a half months. The day he came out, he started volunteering, never missing a day in ten months.
“It was about finally realising I had value and worth. That I could be a valued member of the community - not this derogative thing everyone else had sort of labelled me as.”
Ten months later, he was offered a permanent role. He’s been with the service ever since, working his way up to team leader.
Steve is open about his history because he thinks it matters for the people the service supports.
Steve is open about his history because he thinks it matters - not just for his own story, but for the people the service supports.
“I tell people,” he says, “because I think it’s vital to show visible recovery. For people in the community to realise that things do change, that people do move forward and give back. And for people coming through the service - to give them the sense that if I can get here, there’s nothing stopping them.”
He tells a story about the moment, over twenty years ago, that first planted that possibility in his own mind. He’d been seeing a worker at a local hub for a while - someone who got on with the job and never spoke much about their own past. Then one day he arrived with a friend, who waited in reception. Afterwards, his friend mentioned that she recognised the worker. She bought drugs from him years ago.
“That just stayed with me,” Steve says.
“I thought - if he can come through all of that and end up working here, then there’s nothing stopping me.”
It was another ten years before he got there himself, but he never stopped believing it was possible.
He sees that same dynamic playing out now, in reverse. People he knows approach him and tell him he’s an inspiration. His response is always the same.
“I’m not special in any way, shape or form. I’m no different from you. It was my time, I’d finally had enough, and I accepted the support.”
He’s careful to point out that accepting support means accepting all of it. “There were a lot of people along that journey,” he says. “I couldn’t have done it on my own.”
That understanding shapes how Steve manages his team. He talks about watching them grow with pride.
“Every single one of them has developed so much,” he says. “Seeing their journeys, watching them gain those skills - I get a huge amount from that.”
For Steve, that sense of purpose - found on both sides of the same door - is what keeps him going.
If you or someone you know could benefit from support with drugs or alcohol, we are here to help. Call us on 01782 283 113 or come along to our drop-in. Our services are free, confidential, and you don't need a referral.