SARAH’S STORY
SPECIAL EDITION
SARAH’S STORY:
Coping with Borderline
Personality Disorder and
Alcoholism.
A Brief Introduction:
I asked Sarah to write a piece about what it’s like suffering from
Borderline Personality Disorder and Alcoholism.
I asked her to write it in the hope that it would enable Sarah and others
who attend the Living Room to better understand her co-morbidity
issues – that she has two separate conditions vying for attention at the
same time.
We decided to dedicate this special edition of Living Room Cardiff’s
newsletter to Sarah’s story because, we believe, its powerful message
deserves a wider audience and is so relevant to current service
provision.
Wynford Ellis Owen CEO Living Room Cardiff
SARAH’S STORY
Preface
This is as factual an account of my illness and road to recovery as I can make
it, but I see life through the eyes of an addict, and someone with Borderline
Personality Disorder. This means that I do not always hear what people say to
me in a way they would normally expect.
All the people in my story are real. Some have helped me, some have not, but
I am convinced that they have all tried to help me in their own way, or were
damaged themselves and did not understand the harm they were doing.
I have to believe that everyone is capable of loving others and loving
themselves, no matter what they have done or experienced in the past –
otherwise I cannot believe that of myself.
Living with Borderline Personality Disorder and
Alcoholism
When I first attended the Living Room six months ago, I knew I had
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) but did not think I was an alcoholic. I
thought I would one day be able to drink again and I was only using alcohol as
a way to self-harm. After many discussions and listening to the stories of
others in the Living Room I now accept that I have two problems, BPD and I
am an alcoholic. The alcoholism was triggered by my personality disorder,
but has created problems of its own. Accepting the dual diagnosis has made
my road to recovery a lot clearer. What follows is my own personal account
of my struggle to stay alive.
My GP sat up straighter in her chair, blinked and took a deep breath. She was
looking at a married, middle aged, middle class mother of two. I’d just told
her that I wasn’t eating; I was drinking every day, self-harming and feeling
suicidal. I’d never met her before.
If I’d known then of the tortuous years I would spend in and out of Psychiatric
Wards, Police cells, A&E, support groups, courses and supported
accommodation, I think I would have laid down and given up. I wanted a pill
to make me better, I didn’t want to have to work my way towards recovery.
She weighed me and decided that at eight and a half stone I was underweight
but not anorexic. I was on a liquid diet. I’d just been on holiday to France
with my family and we’d brought back lots of duty free liqueurs. I drank
vodka before I took the children to school, and then drank liqueurs throughout
the day. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. It took away the empty,
dirty feeling that I’d had all my life.
About twelve months before I had realised I reacted differently to most
people. If I’d expressed an opinion to someone I would go over it again and
again in my head, wondering if I’d said the right thing, and what they thought
of me, would they still like me? I would always try and say what I thought
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they wanted to hear. Most of the time, especially in groups, I would say nothing at
all, or spend ages planning what I would say in order to be the person I thought they
wanted me to be. I always had to be perfect. If I had 90% in an exam, that was a
failure to me. I was doing an Open University degree at the time and when I went to
tutorials I would start to say something and then notice everyone looking at me to
hear me finish. I didn’t know what to say. For most of my life people hadn’t listened
to me for long enough to let me to finish my sentence. I had no real opinion, no
personality of my own, and the worst thing was I didn’t realise it.
I knew I had some things in my past which were difficult to deal with. I’d been
adopted at fourteen months, the social workers told my adoptive mother that I’d given
up on life, as I’d been moved around a lot, and everyone I’d grown attached to had
been taken away from me. I realise now, looking back as an adult that I thought if I
didn’t behave I would be sent away again. I was also bullied relentlessly in school
both physically and emotionally by pupils and some teachers. I survived by
unconsciously supressing all my emotions, and continued to do this for thirty five
years. I had no concept of what emotions were. I decided to go and see a counsellor.
I told my counsellor more or less my entire life story the first time I saw her. It
shocked me as I remembered things I’d spent a life time trying to forget. What I
didn’t realise, was that it also shocked her. I thought she could fix me, so did she. I
wanted her to be my mother. She gave me hugs, said well done. All I wanted was
her praise. She was a private counsellor, more suited to dealing with bereavement or
marriage difficulties, not the complete absence of emotions which I presented her
with. I stopped eating and sleeping, my whole life seemed like one big lie, a horror
story, and I wanted it to be as horrible as possible. I hated myself.
My counsellor wanted me to express my anger about the people who had hurt me, and
then forgive them. I didn’t know how to be angry at other people, they couldn’t be
wrong, it must be me, must be my fault. Thoughts about everything bad that had ever
happened to me went round and round in my head, making me feel worse and worse.
I got no relief, until I started drinking and self-harming. It was my counsellor who
had eventually told me to go and see the GP. My feelings towards my councillor
changed from complete trust and dependence to complete dislike in an instant. She
had abandoned me.
My G.P. referred me to Cardiff Addictions Unit (CAU) for a detox as I told her I
could not stop drinking. She also got me to do an alcohol diary so she could get some
idea of how much I was drinking per day. I must have reduced my drinking fairly
drastically when I started the diary because I got withdrawal symptoms even though I
was still drinking a bottle of wine and a large amount of vodka or brandy every day. I
was so scared I thought I was going to die. I went to the CAU for an assessment and
they told me I could have a home detox but the waiting list at the time was several
months. They advised me to cut down my drinking slowly, which I tried, but it made
me feel suicidal. I was desperate. My life seemed to lurch from one catastrophe to
another. I collapsed one night after taking citalopram and drinking a lot of wine. I
was in and out of the doctors, either because I thought I had drunk too much that day,
or too little, and I felt guilty because I was looking after my children, and sometimes
their friends, while I was drunk. I was terrified that social services would take them
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away from me. I asked my GP to Section me so I could get help quicker. She said she
was not able to do this as I always had alcohol in my system. I hadn’t realised you
needed to be sober to be sectioned. Always being drunk also hampered my attempts
to get help from groups like AA.
I used to wake up every day and wish I was dead, I thought everyone would be better
off without me. The only reasons for me to keep on living were my two young
children. My GP put me on Citalopram, which also made me feel more depressed at
first. Then my mood started to become more unpredictable. Sometimes I felt ‘good’,
sometimes I felt ‘bad’ and I could not work out the reasons why. I was like a toddler
trying to make sense of my emotions. They were totally overwhelming, and I felt like
lying on the floor, kicking and screaming. When you are a toddler though you are
never left on your own, an adult is there all the time making sure you are safe,
reassuring you and setting boundaries. As a thirty five year old toddler I did not have
someone with me most of the time and my methods of showing the world how I felt
were a lot more dangerous.
I suddenly seemed to have lots of energy and was cycling, running and climbing trees.
Also my sex drive increased, but it wasn’t making love, it was desperate and needy,
and left me feeling even more dirty. I wanted to stop drinking because that’s what
everyone else wanted me to do. I was quite enjoying being drunk now. It took away
all my cares and worries. I was self-medicating. When the alcohol didn’t numb my
thoughts enough to cope with I would also self-harm. I can remember looking at the
blades in a food mixer and wondering how it would feel to cut myself. The first time
I self-harmed I burnt myself with a hairdryer. I felt relief at first, and then I felt bad
about it for weeks as it had left a scar on my arm and I didn’t want anyone to notice it,
but the feeling of relief I had was too great to ignore and I started cutting myself with
a Stanley knife.
I found a private charity which could give me a detox more quickly. My drinking
increased to wine and most of a large bottle of vodka per day. I was going to make
the most of the drinking days I had left. The detox was fine. I had my first experience
of diazepam, and I lied about my symptoms so they gave me larger doses. It was
almost as good as being drunk. The detox lasted five days, then I had the weekend,
then I had to go to the CAU on Monday morning to start my antabuse. By the time I
got there I couldn’t sit still, I was scratching my arms and legs and muttering to
myself. They got a psychiatrist to see me straight away and he put me on Olanzapine.
That was the end of my fun for a while.
Even though it was quite a small dose of Olanzapine, it affected me quite badly. I felt
sleepy all the time, started drooling and found it difficult to talk. I’d been seeing an
alcohol and drug counsellor. I went and told her I couldn’t cope with the medication
and I was going to stop taking it. She said that I should get in touch with the mental
health team, but they couldn’t force me to take anything. I can’t remember what
happened then but I did come off the Olanzapine fairly soon afterwards.
I got seen by a psychiatrist at the Cardiff Mental Health Team (CMHT). She thought
that due to my extreme mood swings and self-harm I may be BI-Polar. I didn’t really
understand what this meant. She talked a lot about not driving the car when I was
high, and how it was safer to take my children to public places when I felt unwell so if
there was some emergency, hopefully other people would help. She put me on
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different medication. I went from there straight to Cardiff Mind and made an
appointment for an assessment.
When I went to Cardiff Mind I felt like an imposter. It didn’t feel like what was
happening was real. I didn’t feel like someone with mental health problems. They
seemed to take me seriously though. I had to change my attitude to mental health. I’d
always thought that people with mental health problems were drooling idiots. I soon
found out that most were actually highly intelligent and lots of them had degrees. I
also realised that many of them had good jobs and were able to cope with life most of
the time. I couldn’t cope at all.
I also had trouble taking my diagnosis as an alcoholic seriously. I took my antabuse
at the CAU three times a week. I went on a relapse prevention course at Whitchurch
soon after my Detox. I found out there that most people had been drinking a lot more
and a lot longer than me. I tried to make my problems sound worse in order to justify
being there. I tried going back to AA and encountered the same problem. I never
really committed myself to AA. I was painfully shy and couldn’t bring myself to
participate in meetings. I felt cheated. I should have been allowed to enjoy my
drinking for longer, and then I would have had a more exciting story to tell.
After a while I decided I liked the diagnosis of mental health problems which I had
self-medicated for with alcohol. I got tremendously upset if someone called me an
alcoholic, or a health professional asked me if I had been drinking. I was still totally
confused by what was happening to me, still suicidal. I didn’t see any way out of the
mess I was in. I carried on self-harming. I stayed on the antabuse and did not drink for
a year, but every time I saw a councillor or a psychiatrist the first question was ‘have
you been drinking?’
Eventually I realised that many people did drink again after a detox, and often while
they were still on antabuse. I wanted to fit in somewhere, and thought if everyone
expected me to drink I might as well try. I had also decided by this time that it was all
a mistake, I wasn’t an alcoholic, I hadn’t drunk enough to really be an addict, and I
could probably drink again normally. So I drank while I was on antabuse.
I drank a can of beer on the way to the CAU. I went there drunk because I wanted
them to know I was having problems, they would have to do more to help me, and
also because I was afraid I would react badly to the alcohol and I knew they could
send me to hospital if I needed to go. When I got there they breathalysed me as they
normally did, and found I had alcohol in my system. I started to have an allergic
reaction. They sent for an ambulance and while they were waiting they took my
blood pressure. That was when they saw all the scratches on my arm which I had
inflicted on myself. They decided I needed to see their psycho-analyst for
counselling.
It took me a long time to realise how counselling worked, basically you are supposed
to tell them the truth about what’s going on in your mind. I couldn’t resist the
temptation to tell them what I thought they wanted to hear. I had absolutely no idea
what was really going on in my mind anyway. It’s not that I didn’t tell them the truth,
more that I told them a version which would either get their sympathy, or shock them,
or both. I was well used to manipulating a conversation in any direction I wanted it to
go. I could make a saint sound like a villain and vice versa. I was doing anything I
could not to have to talk about me. Talking about other people was easy, thinking
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about what was really in my mind literally made my head hurt, and most of the time
my mind felt empty anyway and I was so worried about saying the wrong thing. I
have been seeing the same counsellor for at least four years and I am only just
beginning to be able to express how I feel.
The next day you would think I would have kept my head down and behaved myself,
but no, I went out and bought a bottle of Brandy and planned to drink it when my
husband went out for the evening. I genuinely thought the effect of the antabuse
would have worn off. I would probably been dead now if I had been able to wait until
he went out. I couldn’t wait. The bottle was there and I could not ignore it. I went
upstairs and drank half of it, then came downstairs and collapsed on the floor. My
children saw it all happen. Another ambulance was called, I was really ill this time as
I had drunk a lot more. My blood pressure kept crashing. I thought I was going to
die. I wasn’t that upset about the idea.
The CAU were not happy. They wanted to take me off the antabuse as I was putting
myself in great danger by drinking when I was on it. The consequences of what I had
done then became horrifically real. I knew if I came off the antabuse I would start
drinking heavily again. Distraught, I went and saw my GP and begged her to talk to
the CAU and tell them I would never drink on antabuse again, and if I did they could
take me off it, but I needed a last chance. The CAU agreed very reluctantly.
I started ‘forgetting’ to go and take my antabuse for a week, and then I would drink.
This pattern was repeated every couple of months for years. One of the first times it
happened I’d come off my antabuse and my psych medications when I was on
holiday. I felt great while I was away so I felt I no longer needed them. By the time I
came back I was in a terrible state, suicidal, desperate to drink, I went to the (CMHT)
and begged them to admit me to hospital. They said that I would be able to get drink
in hospital if I was that determined, so hospital would not help me. I told them how
suicidal I was, showed them my arms where I’d been self-harming. Told them it was
more than just a drink problem, I had mental health problems too which were altering
my mood. They reluctantly sent me to the Crisis Recovery Unit (CRU), which was a
day centre. They observed me while I was there and decided I needed more help and
so they gave me diazepam and sent me to the Crisis House. This was staffed 24 hours
a day. I could come and go as I pleased, but if I did not feel safe to go out on my own
the staff would come with me. I did get staff to come with me as I was afraid of
buying alcohol, but being at the Crisis house did not stop me from self-harming. I
didn’t have a blade so I used the plastic strips which my diazepam tablets were kept
in, and managed to draw blood. I would show the staff the cuts, they would get very
upset and say I should come and talk to them before I did this. I didn’t understand
how that would work as I did not know how I felt before I self-harmed, I just knew I
needed to do it to feel better, and as a cry for help. I wasn’t coping with life at all.
I was ill as a child with heart problems. I had to visit the hospital once a year for tests
which were often painful. However, I looked forward to these days because it got me
away from the constant bullying, I had the full attention of my mother, and the staff
made such a fuss of me I felt really important and cared for. My heart problem was
eventually cured. I think this led me to see hospital as a safe place. So as an adult
when my life seemed to be spiralling out of control and I didn’t feel safe at home it
was an obvious progression that I would try to get into hospital, where I could get the
care and attention I thought I needed. Maybe they could fix me.
SARAH’S STORY
The self-harming and feelings of suicide got worse. I would self-harm for many
different reasons (see table 1). For me self-harm was and is no more of a difficult
decision than whether to smoke another cigarette. I could also delay the actual act of
self-harming for a few days until I had time to do it. It was like fitting a meeting into
my schedule.
After a particularly bad bout of depression and self-harming, I was eventually
admitted to a Psychiatric ward. I had to fill in lots of questionnaires and had my
mental health diagnosis changed to borderline personality disorder. This diagnosis
was delivered as an accusation more than anything else. It has never been explained
to me properly, all I have learnt is by reading articles or talking to other people with
the condition. I soon realised that most Psychiatrists did not like diagnosing people
with BPD as there is no clear treatment and sufferers are often seen as manipulative.
While I was in hospital I felt I had to act like a mental health patient, so I would go
round kicking walls, self-harming and throwing furniture around, which ended up
with me being taken to the high care room and fed diazepam until I calmed down.
They threatened to throw me out of hospital if I continued to self-harm, which seemed
crazy to me as I was in there because I was a danger to myself. I would self-harm
with anything. My husband took me out one day to the beach and I picked up some
shells and used them to cut myself with when I got back to hospital. The staff had to
take almost all my possessions off me. In the end they discharged me because they
said it was making me worse to be in hospital. The one thing I did learn in Hospital
was it was possible to self-harm far more severely than I had been.
I used the self-harm as my weapon to get back into hospital as often as possible as my
life was bad and I felt I needed to be there. Once I threatened the Crisis Team with a
knife, I had no intention of hurting them, I just wanted them to keep away from me so
I could self-harm. That night I burnt myself in front of them and my husband by,
heating a knife on a gas ring and then burning the top of my arm. I ended up being
sectioned that time. My head used to feel really strange, I think it was probably a rush
of adrenaline, and all my inhibitions would go. I would be capable of anything.
Another time I was admitted I had gone into town looking for ‘legal highs’, my mood
was high anyway. My husband found me and I ran and tried to throw myself off a
bridge, then I ended up in the place I had my detox; the police had been informed by
now. I was left alone in an office for a matter of moments and I set fire to my skirt. I
didn’t give a thought to the possible consequences of my actions. The police took me
to hospital. During that admission I started having panic attacks every night and used
to threaten to jump from some railings just outside the hospital. I was described by
the staff as uncommunicative. I still hadn’t learnt how to work out what was going on
in my head, so I still couldn’t talk about it.
When I wasn’t in hospital I was still seeing my GP once a week. She would monitor
my mood which changed all the time. She soon learnt not to say I was going high, the
once she said that my mood was high I gave her a tirade of abuse saying what the
f*** did she know. Just because my nails were painted green and my clothes were all
the colours of the rainbow, didn’t mean I was going high. After that experience she
would say my mood seemed slightly elevated, I could cope with that.
I can remember one occasion where I was waiting to be taken to hospital. I could not
sit still, I was self-harming in public, swearing non-stop and I just wouldn’t shut up. I
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was in and out of A&E because my self-harming was getting so bad I often needed
my wounds to be glued together or stitched. I was always made to see a psychiatric
nurse who would phone the crisis team, but by now they were very reluctant to send
me to hospital. I needed to find a new way to get myself admitted.
I found that burning myself, was a better tactic. I would pour boiling water from a
kettle straight onto my arm. It hurt, but the result was far more spectacular than just
cutting myself. I was quite used to being in pain; in fact that was now my normal
state. I fell into a pattern of self-harming and drinking, going to A&E to be treated
and then leaving the hospital before the treatment was finished. The burns were
severe and the Hospital had to send the police to bring me back, or I would go from
A&E to a multi-storey car park opposite, sit on top of it and threaten to jump.
Sometimes I really wanted to jump, other times I just wanted people to leave me
alone, or sometimes it was force of habit, part of my self-harm ritual. The police
would take me into custody for my own protection, I would refuse to get out of the
van, and it would take six officers to get me out. I would struggle, scream and swear.
I found the whole process fun. After doing that I was often admitted to hospital.
One time I was put on close observation for three days, I don’t remember much about
that stay in hospital at all. I was genuinely really ill. I had cut myself so badly I had
cut through a vein and I had to call an ambulance, a junior doctor in A&E stuck his
finger in my wound in order to stop the bleeding. I had been given no anaesthetic and
I drifted in and out of consciousness because of the pain. My husband had to come
home from work early to clean up the blood before the children came home from
school. If I’d hit an artery instead of a vein that day my son may well have come
home and found me dead on the floor. I did my usual multi-storey car park ritual and
this time I really was going to jump. The police rescued me from the roof, took me
into custody and the Crisis team admitted me to hospital. I saw a new psychiatrist and
she told my husband that if things kept on going the way they were I would end up
killing myself either on purpose or by accident. She suggested I went to live in
supported accommodation. A light turned on in my head. This was a way of getting
the extra help and support I needed. I liked her; she was the first psychiatrist who had
seen my drinking as a form of self-harm due to my mental health problems.
Life at home had become really difficult. The children had grown used to being
picked up from school by someone else because I was drunk or I’d self-harmed and
was in hospital. Most of the time I was so depressed I would spend most of the day in
bed, wake up when they came home from school, and then go back to bed at six
o’clock. Social services were sniffing around because they were worried my
behaviour was harming the children, so was I. I wasn’t well enough to look after
them. I thought me leaving would be best for everyone.
I applied to every type of supported accommodation I could think of. I tried the
alcohol charity where I had my detox. They were very kind and helpful. They
showed me around. It was a dry house, you were breathalysed each morning and
night, and if you were drunk you didn’t get in. They said based on my drink problems
I would be eligible for a space at the hostel. That was before they read my psychiatric
report. Once they had read it they contacted me and said they were not equipped to
deal with my mental health problems. I shouldn’t really have been surprised; it was
the place I had set fire to myself in some months before.
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The weeks went on and I heard nothing. In the end I just couldn’t wait any longer. I
told the children I was moving out to try and get better and booked myself into a
youth hostel in Cardiff. I thought I was going to have a nice holiday. Instead I ended
up making myself homeless.
The hostel said I was only allowed to stay there for five nights. I did not want to
confuse the children by going back home. I felt I could not go back home because of
my mental health. I drank while I was at the hostel, but only in the nights and not
excessively. My days were spent trying desperately to find somewhere to live. I went
to the YMCA and explained my situation. I was already on their waiting list. They
sent me to Marland House and said as I had mental health problems the council had a
duty of care to house me. I took all my medication, explained I hadn’t long come out
of hospital and that being at the family home was putting an impossible strain on my
mental health. Marland house said I did not have mental health problems. The
medication I was on was for epilepsy not mood swings, and they did not have to
house me as I had made myself intentionally homeless. I screamed at the woman,
who was sitting behind a thick pane of glass, and said she may as well give me the
f****** knife herself. She terminated the interview at this point.
The YMCA had told me to try the Huggard Centre as well. I asked the scruffiest
group of men I could see where the Huggard was. They were really nice and pointed
me in the right direction. Under different circumstances I would have crossed the
road to avoid them. I arrived at the Huggard in tears, saying I would be homeless and
on the streets in a few nights. They really helped to calm me down, said I could
appeal to Marland House and they knew of an advisor who could help. They advised
me to go back to the YMCA and tell them what had happened.
The YMCA found me a bed and while I stayed there I had a support worker who
helped speed up my housing applications, and gave me Benefits advice. They weren’t
equipped to deal with my mental health problems though. I would often have panic
attacks in the night when all the support workers had gone home, and it was left to big
burly security guards and some of the residents to try and help me. I was also
vulnerable because there were a lot of single men there and I had no idea how to deal
with their unwanted attention. In the end I decided that telling them to f*** off
straight away worked best.
I was offered a place at the Salvation Army Bridge project. I turned it down as I
would have had to attend group therapy sessions twice a day. I would not have been
able to see my children very often.
After three months I got a place in Mind supported accommodation. That was when
my recovery began. This was about five years since I had first been to see my GP.
I did some CBT courses. These helped me control my anxiety and anger issues. I
realised I was very good at catastrophising. For example, if I could not find my
mobile phone I felt the world would end. If I got a letter from the Benefits Agency I
could not open it on my own as I was too afraid they were going to stop my benefits.
I still have many issues to face. If I do not feel listened to I still get really distressed,
have a panic attack or self-harm. The smallest misunderstanding can have really
significant consequences for me. I find it really hard to be objective.
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I have severe issues with abandonment. When a pastoral worker I had been seeing
for five years retired I flew into a huge rage, threatened to self-harm, and told
everyone who would listen how terrible she was. This was the person I would text if I
was in trouble. She had supported me for five years, almost twenty-four hours a day.
This was not enough for me, she had abandoned me.
I find it hard to cope with the smallest criticism. If someone says they don’t like
something I say or do I immediately feel sick and want to self-harm or swallow some
diazepam. I need constant reassurance and positivity from my support worker. A
DBT course has helped me to start working out what my feelings are, also to develop
effective communication skills and to not be afraid of my feelings but to sit with
them. I also have the security of my counselling sessions with my psychoanalyst. I
have also just completed a Relapse Prevention Plan with the CMHT so I know how to
recognise signs of a relapse, and who to contact in order to get help with my BPD.
All these treatments offer long term support which is what I need.
When I first started attending the Living Room six months ago I was afraid to get
better. I did not feel I deserved to be happy. The Living Room is giving me the
space and time to accept that I need help, explore my emotions and communication
skills in a safe, loving environment, and embrace my problems and failings rather
than fighting against them. I know the people in the Living Room will not reject me,
whatever I do or say. They talk a lot about unconditional love, loving yourself, loving
others, even the bad bits. I still feel that I am not worth all the effort sometimes, but
there is no time limit; I have no pressure to get better in a week, a month or a year.
Each achievement is praised, each setback is learnt from, and I am making friends
who have similar problems and are able to understand and help with what I am going
through. I no longer feel alone. At the moment I still self-harm and drink
occasionally. I still find it hard to cope with my emotions and share my darkest
secrets and fears, but a hope for the future, a new hope that I am able to love myself, I
am worth loving, is slowly growing, and one day I believe I will truly be able to say
that I am free, free to be myself.
Sarah Davies BA(OPEN)Hons.
17 February 2013
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By Appointment
Living Room Opening Times :
9am-5pm - Mon, Wed, Fri
9am-9pm – Tuesdays
9am-8pm - Thursdays
www.livingroom-cardiff.com
info@welshcouncil.org
029 20493895
SARAH’S STORY
How you can support us
There are various ways in which you can support the work that The Living Room does, both in individual’s lives and also within
the community.
Financially –
We are always in need of donations and Financial support to continue the value- able work at the centre. We welcome one-off
donations but if you would like to set up a standing order please call on 029 20493895 or email info@welshcouncil.org.uk. You
can pass your details onto us through these mediums or request to have a standing order form posted to you.
Voluntarily –
We welcome anyone who wishes to volunteer and offer their skills to help those in recovery. We have a range of opportunities
available (both in a mentor and non-mentoring capacity) and are willing to embrace the unique skills that
individuals bring to an organisation. You will be well looked after and always appreciated 
By prayer If you would like to be kept informed regarding issues that need prayer please contact us to be put onto our mailing list.
DONT FORGET
You can raise funds for us when you shop online: www.easyfundraising.org.uk/causes/livingroomcardiff