A new home for women with drug addictions and experience of homelessness opened in Liverpool.
In an undisclosed location, to protect women fleeing domestic abuse, the home aims to teach them "the blocks to build their life back", according to 34-year-old Gabby German, who oversees it with Christina Justice. Both Gabby, from Manchester, and Christina, from California, spent 15 months each in recovery homes run by Victory Outreach.
Both wanted to die before turning to the international network of evangelical churches, founded in 1967 to help people experiencing homelessness and drug addiction in Los Angeles. Gabby, who grew up in care and got into drink and drugs aged 11, first visited the church's Manchester branch after she lost her one-year-old son who was put up for adoption five years ago.
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The woman from Oldham, who spent brief spells in prison for shoplifting, said: "It absolutely broke me. I just spiralled further into a pit of depression, and further into a pit of self-abuse as well. I was self-harming, having more and more drugs, worse and worse drugs. I'd been smoking heroin so I didn't have to think. My life went from wanting to always be awake and always be on the move to then, I just wanted to die."
Christina and her brother turned to drink and drugs when their mum, who had multiple sclerosis, was given five years to live. With other family members dying, Christina fought back the tragedy enveloping her life by losing herself to substance abuse. The 37-year-old said: "I was clinging to the bottle, I was clinging to drugs. I just got worse and worse, and I couldn't understand why them, not me. I was pretty much trying to die."
Both women found Victory almost through chance. Gabby stumbled across church members playing music in Piccadilly Gardens and briefly attended the church while trying to get her son back. A few years later, with £3 in her pocket at the end of a five-day bender, Gabby's feet "just carried" her to the Victory Outreach church in Manchester and asked for help, which came in the form of a place in a recovery home in Liverpool. There she "had to face some of the ugly pieces" of herself.
Christina "was not fond of it at first" when her brother was accepted into a Victory Outreach home. She told the ECHO: "I thought it was taking him away from us. Like, 'Why can't you just get clean and sober? Why can't you do it on your own? I didn't realise yet that it wasn't something he could do himself. He needed the help."
Him getting better helped Christina get better. Although she "bucked and kicked for a long time" after her brother got her a place in a recovery home, she's built herself up to a point where she can help others. Christina, who's been amazed by the variety of accents since she arrived in the UK three weeks ago, said: "We don't just get saved and graduate and head on our way - not us at least. We have a calling to continue the ministry, to help other women who have been in similar situations."
Religion is central to the work of Victory Outreach and the way they speak about recovery, which Christina described as a "spiritual battle" and "submitting" to God. It offers comfort in the knowledge their lost loved ones, like Gabby's brother or Christina's uncle, are in heaven. And it creates a structure of prayers, cooking and cleaning around which the women's lives revolve during their 12-month stay in the home, which currently houses five women, not including Gabby and Christina, with room for two more.
For Gabby and Christina, the "greatest miracle" is seeing other women grow and overcome hard times, repairing relationships with their kids, and even the 'beauty' of seeing some of them cry for the first time in years. Gabby said: "You see them soften. First of all, there'd be no smiling, then you start seeing a smile, then they laugh, and before you know it, they're crying. For years, to survive, they've had to kill their emotions."
The ECHO saw the women sitting, chatting and smiling with one another at a table in Anfield Sports Centre where Victory Outreach Liverpool hosted a day of food, music, and arts and crafts on Friday, June 2.
Gabby, whose 12-year-old son loves staying with the women on weekends and holidays, still holds out hope she'll see her six-year-old boy again one day. For now, she says: "I know real highs. When I'm happy, I'm really happy. When I'm laughing, I'm really truly laughing. The good times power you through the good times, and life's just a journey of ups and downs anyway."
