A MUM-OF-FOUR who stole to fund her next heroin fix has got a job with the same charity that helped turn her life around.

Catherine Holmes was desperate to change when a drugs worker referred her to a recovery programme with The Hidden Homeless in Bradford.

The 33-year-old from Greengates said she had been too ashamed for years to get help being caught up in a destructive cycle of stealing to feed her drugs habit and having a boyfriend who was also a heroin addict.

“I was behaving in ways that were leading me to self-destruction, harming me and my kids,” she said.

“I was a heroin user and lost my kids through it. I was going round and round in a circle. My boyfriend was also on heroin and we were mixing with drug dealers. I was thieving clothes, food and booze and taking them to the pub to get the best deal so that I could continue to feed my heroin habit.

“This had to happen every few hours to pay for my next fix.”

She was also self- harming and was terrified her children, living with her mother as their guardian, would copy her and end up as addicts too.

“I was getting older, my kids were all growing up and I did not want them to only see me a somebody on drugs who is always sleepy, not able to play with them or care for their needs,” she said. “That made me say ‘enough is enough, I need to change’.”

Ms Holmes said it was only when she joined the SMART Recovery course that she learned to realise her negative behaviour was being caused by her own way of thinking.

“It took a long time for me to realise that the harmful things I was doing was because of my own thoughts and behaviour, not because of other people or circumstances,” she said.

Two years on and she has a brighter future ahead thanks to the recovery sessions and lessons learned from them, which she still uses daily such as positive and rational thinking, and addressing insecurities.

This week she started work as a volunteer co-ordinator for the charity’s Holistic pathway to Sustainable Change programme and delivering SMART recovery workshops.

Chief Executive Officer of The Hidden Homeless Gary Staniforth said: “To see the changes we are making to people’s lives like Catherine’s is fantastic. We hope to become the only service-user led organisation of our kind.”