Then something happened that changed her life
An unrecognisable woman who spent years trapped in addiction, homelessness and dangerous situations says she is lucky to be alive after turning her life around.
Jodie Davies, from Tonyrefail, has gone from sleeping in tents, on friends’ sofas and in drug dens to rebuilding her life, raising her children and supporting others through her own experiences.
She has shared a picture of herself taken in the depths of her drug taking, not only to show how far she has come, but also in the hope that it will inspire others to get help.
Jodie’s journey into addiction began when she was still a child, after struggling with experiences that she says left her trying to escape from what was happening around her.
“I started using it just before my 13th birthday,” the now 44-year-old said. “I went through a lot as a child and I ended up losing myself to substances; and when I say losing my way, I mean badly. My two daughters went to live with my mother and sister.”
Jodie’s drug use eventually spiralled into an eight-year period where heroin and crack cocaine dominated her life. “For eight years then I ended up really bad on heroin and crack cocaine. Loads of things,” she said.
She describes that time as less about chasing a high and more about trying to shut out everything she was carrying.
“I managed to stop doing drugs when I had my two daughters but then I split with their dad and I crumbled,” she said.
“Mentally I was so stressed and it was about blocking out, forgetting everything. I didn’t want to speak to anyone. It wasn’t the case that I wanted the drugs because I was going out all the time. It was a blocking out mechanism.”
During those years, her addiction took her into situations she says she never should have been in as a young woman.
“I got into loads of dangerous situations,” she said. “I went from Rhondda as far as London and places. I was a young girl in situations which I should never have been in. I’ve been attacked; I’ve ended up with black eyes, broken ribs. I was attacked by men and women. In the drug world, they don’t discriminate.”
The reality of addiction became a daily cycle of finding money, finding drugs and trying to avoid withdrawal.
“I’ve had to wake up every single day just wanting to use. Having to find the money, needing to find all these different things to make myself feel better.
“It was hell. You only have two jobs as an addict: finding money to score, and scoring. I know it sounds easy, but trust me, even with all the dealers from here to the moon, it’s still hard when you need it. You feel like hell and you’re sweating and shaking, you’re back and forth to the toilet being sick.”
Her health suffered as her addiction continued, with Jodie describing a period where she became dangerously thin and withdrawn.
“I’m five foot seven and I went down to about seven stone at one point. I was really, really, skinny and withdrawn. I would turn over in bed and I would bruise on my shoulders on the springs I was that bad.
“I work for a foodbank 1781408560. Back then all I thought about was getting drugs, I didn’t think about eating. People saw how skinny I was, but I didn’t. I just saw myself in the mirror. When I would get completely starving, that’s when I would go to the foodbank.”
The turning point came when she discovered she was pregnant with her eldest son. “But then I found out I was pregnant with my eldest boy. That was enough for me. I didn’t want to keep on living the life I was living. I decided to sort my life out. Now I’m going into my 17th year heroin free.”
With support from what is now Barod, Jodie began the long process of recovery. “I had a fantastic drug and alcohol worker who basically told me that if I was going to mess her around she would sit there and go: ‘Yeah, yeah yeah,’ but if I wanted to put the work in she would put the work in with me.
“She put me on medication Buprenorphine – but it was the intervention as well [that worked].”
By the time her son was born, Jodie says she was able to start experiencing a normal family life again. “I was able to become a mother straight away. By the time my son was born I was able to get up and cope with having a normal life again.”
That recovery became the foundation for the work she does today. Jodie trained as a peer mentor and began using her own story to show people that change is possible.
“[I tell] my story to people that actually need to see that there is hope,” she said. “People who are trying to get out of things but haven’t been able to, but then see me and what I used to look like. It shocks them.”
She now runs Families Supporting Families, a community support group and warm hub based in and around Tonyrefail, helping people access support and connect with services.
She said: “Through that voluntary work I work with different agencies, therapists, drug and alcohol counsellors and people with housing. If someone wants to speak to me one on one, I do that as well. If someone rings me at 4am and I’m awake, I will answer their call.”
Detailing some of the workshops she runs and facilitates, she said: “I run Families Supporting Families on Monday morning at Rethink Reuse Tonyrefail, and then I take a team to learn self defence for domestic violence with Counter Force, then Narcotics Anonymous Wales on Wednesday at Rethink Reuse, all others days I’m helping with Dinas TRA community centre and Friends of St John’s Tonyrefail.
“[Then] my therapist Janine not only helps me with my childhood trauma but runs group sessions to help people in my Monday sessions too.”
Jodie also campaigns around hepatitis C after contracting the virus during her addiction, encouraging others not to avoid treatment because of shame.
She said: “Yes it’s embarrassing when you find out you have it, especially when you were the cleanest of clean like I was – I would give everyone clean needles – but at the same time you don’t want to die of liver cancer. You don’t want to not have treatment because you feel so ill. Now it’s just one tablet a day for 8 to 12 weeks.”
She said the treatment today is far less invasive and unpleasant than the treatment she was prescribed many years ago: “Previously I had to take two tablets a day and I had to do an injection in my stomach once a week. Once I took that injection I couldn’t take my head off the sofa for three days; I was really ill with it. I lost my hair and my appetite.”
Jodie said that although there are great resources out there for people struggling with addiction today, she particularly worries about the rise of certain dangers associated with drug taking.
“The people who start using drugs these days are seeing them as fun,” she said. “They aren’t seeing it from my eyes of having lost everything.
“Today people are using ketamine, people are using spice and it’s scary, Nitazenes (a group of highly potent, synthetic opioids) are being mixed into the drugs [including cannabis].
“If this was my life now, I probably would be dead because I was the greedy one who would look for the stronger stuff. And that’s the truth. I’m surprised that I’m still here now because I would be the one that if I heard there was stronger stuff out there, I would look for it. There is no doubt.”
For all her hard work helping people in the community, it is unsurprising that Jodie recently won Tonyrefail’s Citizen of the Year 2026. Despite her efforts, she said it’s a real pinch me moment.
“To go from the girl that I was to the girl I am now, even being nominated I tell everyone it feels surreal,” she said. “Even now I never would never have thought I would get nominated. People hated me and they had every right. I hadn’t done anything to them personally, but I was in the circles with people who had.”
Jodie said there is one huge reason behind all of the work she does to try and make her community a safer and happier place.
She said: “It’s for my children, and for my children’s children. Because it’s even worse with the drugs now, it’s not getting better.”
Her message to anyone struggling is to seek support from people who understand. “I tell everyone to reach out and get a peer. Reach out to someone, this day and age the services have people like us. Ask for a lived experience peer straight away because it helps a lot.”
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