My name is Thomas Sutton ... I would like to share my story

A new focus for our team at Orange Sky is really digging into some of the stories that make our service so unique. This is Thomas.

"My name is Thomas Sutton and I am 53 this year and I would like to share my story.

I spent a long time on drugs...mainly heroin. I had a bad car accident and broke my back and I ended up coming into a bit of money that I ended up blowing on drugs mostly. My mother was also getting on, she was about 80, so I helped her into a care village. But the rest of the money I just blew. When you have an addiction you don’t care about anything else, you just care about getting that next fix.

I was down and out and had blown all my money. I had a nice car, I had a nice 6 litre Calais that I had to sell for drugs. That was the end of it. I was that sick I couldn’t get the money to score and I just had to make a conscious decision that that’s it. I didn't want to continue down that path anymore and that’s when everything changed. That’s when I went to the doctor and started going to down the other road.

I have lived at Ainslie Village for two and a half years and am loving my new life. I spend most days in the workshop fixing things here and there. I am building a birdhouse for an old lady at the moment. It brings me peace.

I wouldn’t be where I am today without Ainslie Village to give me a place to live, The Blue Door for food and Orange Sky for the washing and connections.

A connection can be that first step to a new start. It can give you a bit of dignity/a bit of pride to go on. So you’re not down there feeling like a piece of crap. You need to have connections to at least get a foot up so you can start rebuilding your life in some form and start a new life. "

This was one story we captured in Canberra during our recent new van - Frosty's launch. It was a reminder of the more than 1,300 conversation hours that happen each week and how unique every single one of them is. Just like items of clothes in the machine, every person, every story and every conversation needs to be treated that way - unique.