FOR Paul Cullen Christmas Day used to bring nothing but frustration.

Frustration that there was nowhere to go shoplifting. Frustration that he couldn't afford the heroin or speed he was addicted to. Frustration that while millions of families around the globe celebrated December 25, he was sleeping in a dark and miserable Blackburn squat, unable to trust anyone around him and desperate for his next fix.

As a former drug addict, now rehabilitated and trying to help current junkies ditch their habits, it would be easy for Paul to talk about the past as if it never happened.

But it did -- and the memories are as clear as yesterday and hard for him to relive.

He said: "Christmas Day in 1998 is one I will never forget. I had been shoplifting in the days before just so I had something to wrap up, then open on Christmas Day.

"I was trying to deny that there was anything wrong with the situation I was in. Families all over the world were sharing presents and I was opening ones I had stolen, just so I felt normal.

"Of course, on Boxing Day, I was selling that stuff to afford drugs. Christmas for me for about five years, when I was hooked on speed and then heroin, meant struggling to find somewhere where I could steal.

"On Christmas Day, only a few cornershops and garages are open and they know to look out for people who are shoplifting. I would get annoyed and frustrated at my situation, the fact I couldn't get any drugs.

"It was times like Christmas which made me realise that I had hit rock bottom. One Christmas Eve, I went to the THOMAS soup kitchen and they were handing out presents.

"I took mine back to the squat and opened it on Christmas Day. It was a Snickers chocolate bar. It was all I had."

For Paul, 31, from Darwen, it was alcohol and cannabis which started him on the long road from normal society to a drug-fuelled hell.

He said: "I was about 12 when I first started taking drugs, cannabis mainly, and also alcohol.

"It was just the natural step to go onto harder drugs, and I did suffer from low self-esteem and confidence.

"Amphetamines gave me that confidence and I spent eight years injecting myself every day with amphetamines. I was psychologically addicted to them.

"I then spent two years injecting heroin."

Reaching rock bottom, Paul now believes, is essential if any drug user is to truly stick to their rehabilitation.

By 2000, Paul's life was effectively over. He was stealing from his sick mother, and living a life which revolved around drugs and how to fund a habit.

He said: "I then spoke to a former user who told me how he had come clean. Most of the other people I knew had either gone to prison or died, so what he suggested seemed the best option.

"Rehabilitation isn't easy and you have to have hit rock bottom to know that it is better than what you had before. But memories of Christmases in the squat, cold, hungry and shaking for drugs, made me stick to it."

Paul's rehabilitation came to an end three days before Christmas in 2000. He had nowhere to go.

"One of the workers told me I could stay with her at her house in Chipping until the New Year when I could be found somewhere else.

"The whole family welcomed me, treated me like the family. Then, at midnight on Christmas Eve, they exchanged presents. They had even bought presents for me. I just broke down and cried. It was the first time in years anyone had given me presents.

"It felt so good to actually be enjoying a normal Christmas."

This year, it was Paul who was doing the buying.

He now helps run one of the THOMAS projects designed to help drug-users off their addiction.

He said: "I have been able to buy presents for family and loved ones, and I am going to visit my brother in Scotland for New Year and have a normal Christmas.

"I don't want pats on the back or to be told 'well done' but I do want to share my story so people know that they can turn things round, they can come off drugs.

"Christmas was the most depressing time for me as a user, and that makes Christmas extra special for me now."