Meet our Founder
DrugFAM is a registered charity and was founded in 2006 by Elizabeth Burton-Phillips who lost one of twin sons, Nick, to heroin addiction.
Our purpose is to ensure no family is left living in isolation, fear and ignorance of any local and national support. We intend to work, wherever possible in partnership with any statutory and non statutory services to ensure that families are understood, educated and supported.
Who is this for?
This service is open to anyone who is affected by someone else’s use or misuse of drugs and or alcohol.
Family Support Team
The staff at DrugFAM are trained and experienced. Many have gone through the ordeal of knowing what it is like to live with an addict.
A Mother’s Message from Elizabeth Burton-Phillips
As a mother of identical twins, my life changed in February 2004 with a ‘knock on the door’ in the middle of the night. My husband opened the door to find two police officers asking for me. They gently told me eleven words I can never forget: ‘Elizabeth, we are so sorry, but your son Nicholas is dead’.
It is every parent’s nightmare to lose their child, that your son or daughter should die before you is so painful and so hard to accept. Death is so permanent. For many weeks I felt numb and unable to function properly, my husband and I live in wilderness of pain for months. I was trying to deal with the dual emotions of grief and relief.
Grief that came from the loss of my son Nicholas who hung himself and, relief that Nick’s identical twin Simon, had survived. Simon’s rock bottom was finding his brother dead after 13 hours. That day will be forever etched on my/our memory and it brought tragic closure to a dreadful period in our lives which can be summed up in two words: HEROIN ADDICTION.
Between February and August 2004, I lived, like so many bereaved in these circumstances, in a bubble, I knew the world was out there but somehow I felt separated from it. Yet when my parents died, (my father in 1979 and my mother in 1991) the emotional pain and sadness was raw, but somehow it was more bearable than losing my son, aged 27. For weeks, my greatest fear was that Simon would commit also suicide - because he could not live without his twin.
I was fortunate enough to be wrapped in love by those who were close to me, my husband, friends and neighbours and members of my local community. In the years leading up to Nick’s death, I had prepared myself for the death of both my sons. When you live the daily nightmare of drug addiction as a family member and, in particular, as a mother, you know in your heart and mind that death is lurking round the corner waiting to take your son or daughter through overdose, suicide, heart attack, violence, the list goes on.
Six months after Nick’s death, I found myself scribbling on bits of paper the horror of what had happened to us, as form of therapy, little realising that the end result would be a powerful book called ‘Mum, can you lend me twenty quid?’, which exposed the isolation and helplessness we experienced, how we could not find any information about coping with such difficult circumstances, how we were trapped within the twins ‘life of addiction’, how we hid our shame, and embarrassment from friends, family and work colleagues. I just needed to exorcise the stench of heroin from my system and to find a way forward as a bereaved mother.
It was a huge gamble to lay my life open for the public to know what drugs did to me, my husband Tony and my family. I believe that because I wrote from such a deeply personal experience, the impact was so much the greater simply because it is a story, I know only too well, which could have been the story of anyone, anyone of you reading this today.
Like many other families, we have been down the hell road of drugs to the very end but I have found the way forward with the knowledge that you never recover from the loss of a child, but somehow you have learnt to live with it although the scar on my heart is always there. What I could never have predicted was where Nick’s death would take me and why it is such a privilege to be speaking to you. Nick’s death was the end of a nightmare journey but it has brought a new journey which has opened up so many opportunities for me to enhance my knowledge and understanding and perhaps, more importantly, to be a voice for others.
It is unusual for an ordinary mum, like me, to have told her story as I did and then to have the media door opened to them in the way I have had. I knew that we could have hidden the truth about our experiences when the tragic closure came. Yes, it would have been possible to retreat and avoid facing reality and I can understand and respect those who prefer to do that.
Five years on my email inbox fills daily with stories from families across every social, religious and cultural background from every country and around the world. My story proves that drug addiction knows no boundaries and it is, of course, an equal opportunities killer.
I have lost count of the many mothers who have contacted me to say that they have seen so many lives lost and destroyed by drugs, how they are still witnessing it with people in their neighbourhood, and with people they have known for many years. Other family members have told me how drug dealers drive around in fancy cars, have ‘respectable ‘ businesses, live in lovely homes with every luxury you can think of and how their children are dressed in designer clothing. Many question how such men and women can sleep at night knowing the distress and torment that their dealing is doing to families.
Not only mums and dads but children tell me that they are going without so their parents have their "fix" everyday. Brothers and sisters tell me of their heartbreak, how it is a battle not to give up on the addict in their family, as they think how many more years do they put up with it before they lose who they are and how many years have been lost already for them.
Addicts’ families deserve more out of life than just surviving. They witness how the drug addiction problem is increasing daily; they witness more and more kids going out every weekend taking alcohol and drugs, and sometimes these binges last for days.
Several mothers have mentioned in their emails that they knew the dealer that supplied their son or daughter the lethal dose that finally took their lives. I now know of over 107 mums who have lost a son or daughter in the last year. This is why, for me it is an honour to be the voice for them, and for all the bereaved families as well as the several thousand families who have contacted me to say they too are trapped in the treadmill of drug abuse.
During the many years that Nick was an addict, we had nowhere to turn for help for ourselves. We could not find any information about coping in such difficult circumstances and we were trapped in our son’s lives of addiction, hiding our shame and embarrassment from everyone.
After living through the ‘ripple effect’ of addiction on our family, the stigma, conflict, stress, fear, mistrust, and disruption, we realised that out of our tragedy, we could in fact provide much needed help for other families.
In 2006, with the support of Simon and Tony I founded the Nicholas Mills Foundation now officially known as DrugFAM. Its official launch was on 6th February 2009 in High Wycombe. Over the last two and half years the trustees have worked very hard to set up the charity. DrugFAM has important aims: to be a powerful voice for families struggling to cope with nightmare of addiction both nationally and internationally so they are not forgotten or stereotyped and to provide much needed support for families whose lives have been affected by shame-debt-isolation-violence-having to deal with dealers-health-problems-break up and conflict. The most common phrase I hear is ‘I just need someone to talk to who won’t judge me and who understands what it is doing to me and my family’
Through education: DrugFAM is already taking up a much wider educational community role working with schools, over parents and teachers by addressing teachers and parental concerns and ignorance about drugs in today’s society.
DrugFAM wants to highlight the needs of families so they can be met and not swept under the carpet as if they do not matter. By acknowledging what families are experiencing or have experienced, positive strategies can be developed for them to manage their own lives through and beyond addiction.
Family support groups can make a huge difference because they give families a chance to offload. Support groups give them a place of safety which allows them to realise that, at last, they are not alone and they can share experiences. Simply meeting other people in the same boat is really helpful and by additionally providing training and information sessions on drug and alcohol awareness, a lifeline of hope can be offered which can make so much difference to the quality of life the family leads.
Elizabeth Burton-Phillips
FOUNDER of The Nicholas Mills Foundation known as DrugFAM
DrugFAM Operations Manager 0845 388 3853
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