The charity Smile is in the process of being set up and we are raising funds to help prevent addiction, raise awareness in addiction and more support for people suffering with addiction.

we have so many ideas and plans and every penny we raise will go to a much needed cause. You can find all infomation on the smile face book page.

Peters story ….

Peter started experimenting with drugs as a teenager, like most his age he wasn’t really educated on the dangers of drugs and addiction and never would have thought it would happen to him.

Peter grew up in a loving family, his mam and dad and 2 older brothers couldn’t have loved him anymore. He had the perfect upbringing. His dad worked very hard to provide for his family and his brothers were great role models.

Peter told me he just took drugs when he went out when he was drinking with his mates. He started smoking weed and that turned to cocaine.

This became the normal for Peter as he came to associate drugs with having a good time and for many years there were no real consequence to his drug taking.

Unfortunately the invisible line was crossed and what was a choice for Peter quickly turned into a compulsion.

Peters life became unmanageable on more then one occasion, the first we knew was around 7-8 years ago when he got into a lot of trouble and owed around 10k to loan sharks and drug dealers.

The debt was paid by peters family and he assured us that he would never get into that kind of trouble again. We believed him and due to our lack of education we carried on as normal thinking this lesson was enough for him to stop. It wasn’t

This happened again

And again

In October 2021 peters life took a bad turn and we as a family diddnt know what to do, he was in debt again and his life became even more unmanageable and again we as a family still not educated decided that Rehab was the only option.

We had an intervention with Peter and told him he had to do this otherwise he was going to end up in prison or worse dead.

Peter agreed and my husband and I took him the next day to Liverpool where he spent 28 days clean of drugs. Champion we thought we have fixed him, we cleared his debt again on the understanding after rehab he would pay us back as we knew he could afford to as he was earning 1k a week.

We collected him from rehab so happy and so proud of him and he was so positive and excited about his recovery but needless to say 2 weeks after he relapsed. The disease of addiction had totally rewired his brain and he couldn’t stay clean by himself.

The Christmas of last year his relationship ended with his girlfriend, he moved back in with his parents and we at this point still diddnt know he was back on drugs. He was a master manipulator, he believed his own lies and we still uneducated belived him.

It wasn’t until March this year when Peter took an overdose and ended up in hospital that we realised he was back on drugs. His habit for years was £250 a day on cocaine. It was at this point that he came to live with myself and my husband.

Again still uneducated on addiction we all thought this was the best idea, this will fix him.

We took control of his bank accounts, paid his debt off again other then the drug dealer and made his life as easy as possible so he could get clean. We put a tracker on the van took him to CA meetings, he went everywhere with us from holidays to food shopping and for a month it seemed to be working. He was still smoking weed at this point and we thought well that’s better then cocaine so we were all for it. Again so uneducated.

Peter got to his 30 days clean off cocaine and we started to trust him more and he was allowed to go places on his own such as gigs etc..

Then he relapsed again as we found out through the tracker and the fact he never came home.

We found him dragged him home and screamed and shouted at him. How could he be so selfish, how could he lie continuously and think he could get away with it, how ungrateful can he be for all we have done for him. If you fail this drugs test your out on the streets….

Again still not educated on addiction

Peter took off from the house and we followed him as he went for more drugs and then he drove to the cliffs. We had to intercept him to stop him and it was that moment we knew we were powerless to his addiction.

It was at this moment we started to educate ourselves, Peter taught us all about the disease and how the drugs have consumed his brain. He made us watch the Brandon Novack documentary where he shared his story and something just clicked with us. We now understood the pain Peter was in and had been in for most of his life. We understood this wasn’t a choice for Peter but a compulsion.

He opened up about how he felt, how he lied constantly and how he had mastered the art of manipulation. His honesty and openness was not judged by us but instead we came to understand it.

Peter carried on working the 12 step programme with his incredible sponsor and seamed to be doing really well.

Then at one of his gigs that we attended we ended up in a stupid argument which got out of hand and Peter moved out of our house and back to his mam and dads. We resolved it the next day and apologised but we were heartbroken as we knew he would relapse with the new freedom.

He did the very next week and then moved in with his friend, he seamed to be doing ok and all seamed well, he was posting the right things on social media, he was at the gym and would call in on a morning for coffee, he said his money was ok and was working hard. If I was to be honest I was feeling really good about him doing well and also that I got my freedom back as his addiction consumed my life for so long when he lived with us that I forgot about myself and my family. I was addicted to peters addiction. How selfish was I !!

Then his final relapse came about when his mam was on holiday, his dad was away for a few days and my family and I were away for the weekend.

We diddnt know about it until the Monday and when he finally admitted to it he had been awake for 4 days and spent £1000 on cocaine. He was in a really bad way and I decided to spend the night with him on the couch to make sure he diddnt die and kept waking him up for water. He slept for 24 hours and when he woke up on the morning he vowed to never take it again. I was really scared for Peter this time and very frustrated, I said to him your going to loose everything, your job, your family and friends if he didn’t take the recovery seriously, I took his guitar off him as I was scared he would sell it. I was trying tough love as nothing else worked.

That week what we diddnt know until the week after was he did loose his job, we got him work and paid him half as he owed us money and he kept half for his bills etc, he lost his best friend who he worked with as he was getting sick of being let down all the time and he wanted him to get better and also took the tough love approach.

Peters life was unmanageable again but he disguised it so well as he always had done.

The week of his death he was making plans for doing gigs, he was back in recovery, he was working for us and himself, he came out for his mams birthday meal on the Wednesday and was excited to be dating someone new. He was practicing for a CA gig on the Saturday and he was supposed to come paddle boarding with us the Friday afternoon. He said he was too busy at work so couldn’t come and we diddnt even question it. He was supposed to come and get his guitar but diddnt and we diddnt even question that!!

On Saturday 18th June we got a call of his mam asking us to check the tracker as peters van was not outside. I went into my phone and saw that at 3:30am Peter drove to the cliffs between marsden rock and Souter lighthouse. I told John to hang up the phone and we got in the car and drove to the cliffs. We felt numb and scared and for a time thought he would be parked up like he did the last time.

We were approaching the cliffs when We saw the police and search and rescue and we got out the car and ran towards the police screaming. The police ran towards us to stop us and John fell to the ground in total agony and the realisation overpowered us both. Total disbelief, pain like we have never felt before, shock, anger. WHY ??

The police would not confirm anything even though we knew as we had the tracker and the van was showing as being in the sea.

The police followed us to peters mam and dads house where our children were and we had to go in and tell them that their son had drove off the cliffs and is dead.

How the hell do you do that, how can them words ever come out of someone’s mouth. But they had to and as you can imagine peters mam and dad felt the worst pain of their entire lives.

Saturday 18th June 2022 - the worst ever day in our families life the day we lost our beautiful, kind, caring, hardworking, super talented Peter whale.

The day the world stopped spinning as we were consumed with grief. The day we had to go to the hospital and identify peters body !!

Now all we have left is trying to help others as Peter would want and in peters name and memory.

We have to now accept the things we cannot change

Have the courage to change the things we can

And have the wisdom to know the difference!

Drugs are responsible for killing peter and if this helps people to understand the dangers with casually taking drugs and stops them before it’s too late then our brother will not have died for nothing.