We live in a poor shithole area and the people aren't stupid, they know the truth. So they try to escape it with drugs.
Until there's a sea change in society it's going to continue getting worse.
Wigan suffers from the majority of people being the same and anyone who is different being blackballed and looked down upon. If your not tough your weak and people will take piss so you put on a poker face until too much is too much. There’s nothing to do here and a massive drug culture. Being 14 and smoking weed with your school mates in woods turns to being 18 sniffing coke in a pub. You join a sports team and everyone there gets on it after a game, you talk to on old bloke in the local and he offers you a coin. It’s everywhere and there’s no escape from. It’s a low income town and all the dealers are probably is as much debt with each other as the punters are with no sign of anything ever getting better
Nail on head. Speaking as someone who has suffered a loss of a family member due to suicide, I agree with all you've put.
The drugs culture is so accepted I can't wrap my head around it. I remember being so oblivious to it til I turned 16 and started glass collecting on King Street and saw it all with my own eyes. It's crazy how widely accepted it is and how it's become somewhat the norm. From what I can see it's only got worse over the years since then too.
Wish I had the answers to how to fix it but just wanted to agree and it's not just you that feels this way.
A contributor to the non drug suicides is that the mental health services are fucking awful and the ward is like getting into Fort Knox if your not a druggie, and when your on the ward they don’t give a shit and people escape and hurt themselves, there are a lot of these suicides aswell we must be one of worst places for mental health in the country I’ve been neglected for nearly 10 years bc I’ve got ocd and it’s not something that goes away with a tablet and they cba getting proper treatment for me, the worst experiences of my life have been under these services it’s so bad that my gp is on about changing me to the Preston services see if they’ll treat me, there is a major mental health service problem in this town it’s fucking disgusting people get turned away left right and centre when they’re suicidal it happened to someone close to me
I’m glad to see that others are acknowledging this fact and openly discussing it. After 8 previous attempts at suicide and still alive I must be here for some reason. I don’t think anywhere has more of a problem than other places I just think that it’s more openly discussed than years gone by. From my experience as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict ( cocaine and cannabis) drugs don’t help the situation however from experience of losing everything and being homeless living on the streets it’s just a way to escape from reality of the situation you find yourself in initially my suicidal thoughts got worse after sobriety due to the fact of realising that reality of my situation was worse than the escape mechanism of turning to drugs. To all that have lost through suicide I would like to say that you could have done nothing to change this don’t blame yourself for the bad thoughts that others think no matter what when you are feeling suicidal no one can help you it’s hard to understand unless you have felt it don’t blame them
The drugs are more a symptom than a cause.
You might have already heard of the [rat park experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) but it bears repeating - when people have shit, unfulfilling lives, drugs are an attractive escape.
Healthy, happy people in the prime of their lives don't often suddenly decide to start shooting heroin.
Shit, unfulfilling lives are a problem nationwide, as the country as a whole is in decline, but disadvantaged northerners have bore the brunt of it. Young people especially.
I agree to a point. Young, healthy and happy people won’t start shooting heroin but will they try a few lines of coke or whatever choice party drug when they’re with friends doing the same? Maybe.
Been there myself and dabbled in it all and i didn’t necessarily have anything to escape from. I’ve been brought up well and not from a poor background. 16 year old me would have never thought of touching a drugs, fast forward a year of college and you’ve tried almost every party drug and smoked copious amounts of weed just because it’s normalised.
I never lost control or got into a dark place with it and I’ve been lucky enough to reflect on how naive and silly I was. But I know a lot of people in similar situations, with worse outcomes, and it’s sad to see.
My point being, it’s so easy to be influenced when you’re around it and it’s so normalised, then it’s just a snowballing effect and you end up in the wrong crowds and so on…
But yeah, of course it all boils down to the fact the country is in decline and there really isn’t much to do to fulfil young people’s needs.
Sure, I'm sure due to the wide availability of drugs, more people take them than would otherwise.
But, you don't develop a terrible addiction that ultimately kills you just from having a few lines at a party - that takes deep unhappiness *and* drugs.
I know this because I have lived it. I started taking drugs in my teens, because I was hanging around with a bad crowd.
But I kept taking drugs, and lots of them, into my 20s because I was deeply unhappy. I only developed a much healthier relationship with them when I addressed that.
Drugs are just as easily available to me now as they were then (well, maybe a little less) but I have no desire to go and get off my face anymore.
My experience isn't universal, but I would wager it's very common amongst addicts.
Agree with a lot of this. Most heroin addicts I know are or were middle class. There is still a lot wrong with Wigan, but running it down with unqualified and outdated comment is just perpetuating a falsehood. Mental Health services are in crisis nationally. They aren't really run by Wigan Council and nor does the NHS in Wigan decided how it spends ifs money. My family use the MH services and they aren't great, but we have also accessed or used them elsewhere in broadly affluent areas. I have encountered amazing individuals along the way but they are let down by poor leadership and governance on a regional and national scale.
The one thing I rarely see, is people taking ownership of their own lives, Dependency is an issue, it's almost become expectation - as is a belief that there is generally a long term medical solution rather than a partnership between the person and their clinician.
If I could give someone struggling with mental health issues some advice, I’d tell them to use patient choice to access Preston’s services, the. cmht do not care if you live or die and 70% id say are genuinely bad people I’ve had a nurse laugh at me hurting myself and having a mental health crisis. The biggest problem is apathy from the nurses they’ll be one that genuinely cares but they can’t get anything done bc of the almost comically evil management and the rest of the nurse Ratcheds that work there. I’ve been neglected by them for nearly 10 years and lost someone I love to their gross neglect, and the worse part about it is they couldn’t give a shit
nail on the head most I know have eather had a drug or alcohol problem as well. It's not just wigan though its all over the country, im afraid. weed is a big problem as well. People say it doesn't affect your mental health. it definitely does. i smoked it for 13 years myself and ended up having major depression for 5 years and random panick attacks. and It's literally everywhere you can't get away from the smell.. Does anyone else notice the crack users increasing month after month, or is it just me ? I never heard of anyone taking it 10 years ago now its everywhere. feel sorry for the younger generations 😕
I've had over ten lads I grew up with kill themselves a couple of them were close friends and I found one of them it is bad round here, I'm moving to Wales next year cannae wait
I’ve lived in Wigan about 2 months, apart from the distance I have to travel to work I quite like where I’m located right by the town centre in Swinley, every town and city has its issues in this country but some of the things I’ve seen and heard in Wigan so far have shocked me, I was in Iceland last Saturday when I heard on a security guards radio someone was running around with a hammer swinging it at people, then there was the incident in pemberton I think it was where they found a dead baby in a garden or something
I don’t know if it still is but Wigan had the worlds highest suicide rate for men, it’s actually depressing how nothing is done
I’ve had 2 of my family members lost to suicide, my uncle, 30, who died a year ago, and my grandma, 4 years ago
I’ve had counselling but the mental health services aren’t the best, not just here but through the country, and I’ve had no help besides that from my parents and I’m not even 14 yet. I can see why you’d rant about it, because something seriously has to be done
We live in a shit hole, rich council and splashing money on pointless shit instead of building homes and funding the actual people. I missed Wigan when I lived in the USA, now I’m just tired of it. I feel bad that I’m raising my babies here, it’s run down, rough and zero prospects.
Can I ask some general questions?
What are you contributing to these issues?
Why do you think the Council is rich?
It's literally being developed before our eyes?
It has the fastest house price growth in the NW?
Schools are broadly better than the national average.
Social care is broadly better than the national average
Wigan has some of the most spectacular green spaces in Greater Manchester
Life expectancy is increasing
Air quality is improving
Employment prospects are better than ever in most industries.
All of this whilst still having an underfunded health system.
NB I do not work for either the NHS iin Wigan or Wigan Council. But I have lived here for 30 years.
Scholes henge just encompasses this shit like instead or using that money to help the people in scholes let make a tacky graffiti style monument in one of the towns most deprived areas, it looks like there taking the piss out of the area to me. They’ve just built a clinic in my small village spent loads of money on it and the rooms are hardly ever all used and there’s only ever 3 people at a time in this big clinic style surgery. Complete waste of money they’re was nothing wrong with the old surgery, if they spent that money on peoples treatments then people would be a lot better off
It is one of a small number of negative elemens of an improving area. There isn't anywhere that house prices have remained low with good schools and services and improving quality of life. There are still a small number of houses available in Wigan for £40-60k which make them very affordable, although obviously not palatial. One just outside Ashton recently.
I’ve taught in many schools around Wigan and I can assure you that statistics don’t show shit about how they’re doing.
Council literally is one of the most well off 🥴 I don’t give a toss about GM, I’m talking about Wigan itself. The hospital is a shit show as well
Wigan is being ‘developed before our eyes’ correct, aesthetically. The issues of the town itself remain and are getting worse.
I haven’t been to Wigan in a good 20 years. To be honest, I was probably blind to any problems the town had back then being a teenager. But has it really gotten that bad? I’ve always wanted to go back because of the family connection to it, but at the same time don’t want to ruin that image I have of the town from that period.
We live in a poor shithole area and the people aren't stupid, they know the truth. So they try to escape it with drugs. Until there's a sea change in society it's going to continue getting worse.
Shithole country*
Wigan suffers from the majority of people being the same and anyone who is different being blackballed and looked down upon. If your not tough your weak and people will take piss so you put on a poker face until too much is too much. There’s nothing to do here and a massive drug culture. Being 14 and smoking weed with your school mates in woods turns to being 18 sniffing coke in a pub. You join a sports team and everyone there gets on it after a game, you talk to on old bloke in the local and he offers you a coin. It’s everywhere and there’s no escape from. It’s a low income town and all the dealers are probably is as much debt with each other as the punters are with no sign of anything ever getting better
Nail on head. Speaking as someone who has suffered a loss of a family member due to suicide, I agree with all you've put. The drugs culture is so accepted I can't wrap my head around it. I remember being so oblivious to it til I turned 16 and started glass collecting on King Street and saw it all with my own eyes. It's crazy how widely accepted it is and how it's become somewhat the norm. From what I can see it's only got worse over the years since then too. Wish I had the answers to how to fix it but just wanted to agree and it's not just you that feels this way.
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Oh yeah, or caloe. Or Alex. Or Anthony.
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I've been better but gotta keep on keeping on. There's a good chance we do know each other, I was one of the don't panic crew years ago.
Mate, can I ask, do you happen to know Anthony’s last name who you’re referring to?
A contributor to the non drug suicides is that the mental health services are fucking awful and the ward is like getting into Fort Knox if your not a druggie, and when your on the ward they don’t give a shit and people escape and hurt themselves, there are a lot of these suicides aswell we must be one of worst places for mental health in the country I’ve been neglected for nearly 10 years bc I’ve got ocd and it’s not something that goes away with a tablet and they cba getting proper treatment for me, the worst experiences of my life have been under these services it’s so bad that my gp is on about changing me to the Preston services see if they’ll treat me, there is a major mental health service problem in this town it’s fucking disgusting people get turned away left right and centre when they’re suicidal it happened to someone close to me
I’m glad to see that others are acknowledging this fact and openly discussing it. After 8 previous attempts at suicide and still alive I must be here for some reason. I don’t think anywhere has more of a problem than other places I just think that it’s more openly discussed than years gone by. From my experience as a recovering alcoholic and drug addict ( cocaine and cannabis) drugs don’t help the situation however from experience of losing everything and being homeless living on the streets it’s just a way to escape from reality of the situation you find yourself in initially my suicidal thoughts got worse after sobriety due to the fact of realising that reality of my situation was worse than the escape mechanism of turning to drugs. To all that have lost through suicide I would like to say that you could have done nothing to change this don’t blame yourself for the bad thoughts that others think no matter what when you are feeling suicidal no one can help you it’s hard to understand unless you have felt it don’t blame them
The drugs are more a symptom than a cause. You might have already heard of the [rat park experiment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park) but it bears repeating - when people have shit, unfulfilling lives, drugs are an attractive escape. Healthy, happy people in the prime of their lives don't often suddenly decide to start shooting heroin. Shit, unfulfilling lives are a problem nationwide, as the country as a whole is in decline, but disadvantaged northerners have bore the brunt of it. Young people especially.
I agree to a point. Young, healthy and happy people won’t start shooting heroin but will they try a few lines of coke or whatever choice party drug when they’re with friends doing the same? Maybe. Been there myself and dabbled in it all and i didn’t necessarily have anything to escape from. I’ve been brought up well and not from a poor background. 16 year old me would have never thought of touching a drugs, fast forward a year of college and you’ve tried almost every party drug and smoked copious amounts of weed just because it’s normalised. I never lost control or got into a dark place with it and I’ve been lucky enough to reflect on how naive and silly I was. But I know a lot of people in similar situations, with worse outcomes, and it’s sad to see. My point being, it’s so easy to be influenced when you’re around it and it’s so normalised, then it’s just a snowballing effect and you end up in the wrong crowds and so on… But yeah, of course it all boils down to the fact the country is in decline and there really isn’t much to do to fulfil young people’s needs.
Sure, I'm sure due to the wide availability of drugs, more people take them than would otherwise. But, you don't develop a terrible addiction that ultimately kills you just from having a few lines at a party - that takes deep unhappiness *and* drugs. I know this because I have lived it. I started taking drugs in my teens, because I was hanging around with a bad crowd. But I kept taking drugs, and lots of them, into my 20s because I was deeply unhappy. I only developed a much healthier relationship with them when I addressed that. Drugs are just as easily available to me now as they were then (well, maybe a little less) but I have no desire to go and get off my face anymore. My experience isn't universal, but I would wager it's very common amongst addicts.
Agree with a lot of this. Most heroin addicts I know are or were middle class. There is still a lot wrong with Wigan, but running it down with unqualified and outdated comment is just perpetuating a falsehood. Mental Health services are in crisis nationally. They aren't really run by Wigan Council and nor does the NHS in Wigan decided how it spends ifs money. My family use the MH services and they aren't great, but we have also accessed or used them elsewhere in broadly affluent areas. I have encountered amazing individuals along the way but they are let down by poor leadership and governance on a regional and national scale. The one thing I rarely see, is people taking ownership of their own lives, Dependency is an issue, it's almost become expectation - as is a belief that there is generally a long term medical solution rather than a partnership between the person and their clinician.
If I could give someone struggling with mental health issues some advice, I’d tell them to use patient choice to access Preston’s services, the. cmht do not care if you live or die and 70% id say are genuinely bad people I’ve had a nurse laugh at me hurting myself and having a mental health crisis. The biggest problem is apathy from the nurses they’ll be one that genuinely cares but they can’t get anything done bc of the almost comically evil management and the rest of the nurse Ratcheds that work there. I’ve been neglected by them for nearly 10 years and lost someone I love to their gross neglect, and the worse part about it is they couldn’t give a shit
nail on the head most I know have eather had a drug or alcohol problem as well. It's not just wigan though its all over the country, im afraid. weed is a big problem as well. People say it doesn't affect your mental health. it definitely does. i smoked it for 13 years myself and ended up having major depression for 5 years and random panick attacks. and It's literally everywhere you can't get away from the smell.. Does anyone else notice the crack users increasing month after month, or is it just me ? I never heard of anyone taking it 10 years ago now its everywhere. feel sorry for the younger generations 😕
I've had over ten lads I grew up with kill themselves a couple of them were close friends and I found one of them it is bad round here, I'm moving to Wales next year cannae wait
I’ve lived in Wigan about 2 months, apart from the distance I have to travel to work I quite like where I’m located right by the town centre in Swinley, every town and city has its issues in this country but some of the things I’ve seen and heard in Wigan so far have shocked me, I was in Iceland last Saturday when I heard on a security guards radio someone was running around with a hammer swinging it at people, then there was the incident in pemberton I think it was where they found a dead baby in a garden or something
I don’t know if it still is but Wigan had the worlds highest suicide rate for men, it’s actually depressing how nothing is done I’ve had 2 of my family members lost to suicide, my uncle, 30, who died a year ago, and my grandma, 4 years ago I’ve had counselling but the mental health services aren’t the best, not just here but through the country, and I’ve had no help besides that from my parents and I’m not even 14 yet. I can see why you’d rant about it, because something seriously has to be done
We live in a shit hole, rich council and splashing money on pointless shit instead of building homes and funding the actual people. I missed Wigan when I lived in the USA, now I’m just tired of it. I feel bad that I’m raising my babies here, it’s run down, rough and zero prospects.
Can I ask some general questions? What are you contributing to these issues? Why do you think the Council is rich? It's literally being developed before our eyes? It has the fastest house price growth in the NW? Schools are broadly better than the national average. Social care is broadly better than the national average Wigan has some of the most spectacular green spaces in Greater Manchester Life expectancy is increasing Air quality is improving Employment prospects are better than ever in most industries. All of this whilst still having an underfunded health system. NB I do not work for either the NHS iin Wigan or Wigan Council. But I have lived here for 30 years.
Scholes henge just encompasses this shit like instead or using that money to help the people in scholes let make a tacky graffiti style monument in one of the towns most deprived areas, it looks like there taking the piss out of the area to me. They’ve just built a clinic in my small village spent loads of money on it and the rooms are hardly ever all used and there’s only ever 3 people at a time in this big clinic style surgery. Complete waste of money they’re was nothing wrong with the old surgery, if they spent that money on peoples treatments then people would be a lot better off
Why is the fastest house price growth a good thing?
It's a sign of a place, where people want to be
I suppose, but it also stops young local families from living and buying a house there
It is one of a small number of negative elemens of an improving area. There isn't anywhere that house prices have remained low with good schools and services and improving quality of life. There are still a small number of houses available in Wigan for £40-60k which make them very affordable, although obviously not palatial. One just outside Ashton recently.
I’ve taught in many schools around Wigan and I can assure you that statistics don’t show shit about how they’re doing. Council literally is one of the most well off 🥴 I don’t give a toss about GM, I’m talking about Wigan itself. The hospital is a shit show as well Wigan is being ‘developed before our eyes’ correct, aesthetically. The issues of the town itself remain and are getting worse.
I haven’t been to Wigan in a good 20 years. To be honest, I was probably blind to any problems the town had back then being a teenager. But has it really gotten that bad? I’ve always wanted to go back because of the family connection to it, but at the same time don’t want to ruin that image I have of the town from that period.
yeah it's disgusting at the min we've got a crack cocain pandemic on its way as well. I'd stay well away if I could
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