LIAM Elder wishes he’d listened when people warned him about taking drugs.
Thankfully, the 22-year-old pulled himself back from the brink — but tragically, he lost two brothers to substance abuse.
Now, Liam and his mum Jo Roden, 56, from Dryburgh, want to warn others about the dangers of drugs and are calling on legal highs to be banished from Dundee’s streets forever.
The pair opened their hearts to the Tele after we revealed how a crackdown on shops selling legal highs had led the authorities to believe that local stores were clear of new psychoactive substances.
Liam’s brother Philip Finlayson died from a blood clot caused by intravenous drug use in 2011.
He was just 28 years old.
The following year, his brother John Finlayson died at the age of 32 after taking Valium.
But despite the double tragedy, Liam himself ended up taking the once-legal substance mephedrone at a party — and became hooked.
Within just months of John losing his life, Liam was standing at the top of a building thinking about jumping off.
But today, he is both drug free and teetotal.
Liam, who is a student chef, said: “I didn’t want to be the only one not doing it. I wouldn’t have gone out with the intention of taking it unless I was offered. It was alright at the start because it made me feel good, but it ended up becoming a regular thing.
“I ended up feeling really depressed when I wasn’t on it. I had lots of suicidal moments — I can’t really explain the feeling. You just feel so alone.
“One time I was thinking about jumping off a building, others it would be thinking about hanging myself. It’s strange because it wasn’t that I wanted my life to end. It just made you think these crazy thoughts.”
After losing her sons, Jo started a support group to help carers and families affected by drug abuse.
Jo said: “Philip was very fit but he ended up taking just about everything. He was a bodybuilder but then he had some personal problems and he turned to drugs. In the end it was a blood clot caused by injecting that killed him.
“John was different. He started using legal highs. It started with mephedrone, but in the end it was Valium that killed him.
“You don’t think things like this will happen and you aren’t picking up on them. But it’s nothing to do with class, race or religion — anyone can fall into the trap.
“Drugs are killing our kids.”
And Jo admits she was really surprised that Liam ended up taking drugs after what he had seen happen to his brothers.
She said: “When I asked him about it he said, ‘everybody does it’. He was obviously suffering from bereavement too but I don’t think I realised because I was so wrapped up in John and Philip dying.
“I’d already buried two sons, so thank God Liam is OK now.
“I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
Liam hopes his story will convince other young people not to try drugs.
He said: “People would warn me about drugs and I would think to myself — ‘here comes another lecture’. “But I wish I’d listened.
“I’ve been through it, so hopefully people will read this and take notice.
“Avoid them at all costs.”