IT TOOK the murder of a friend to make drug addict Steve Walker change his ways.

Mr Walker spent 15 years addicted to drugs, spending hundreds of pounds a week on his habit and getting into trouble with the police and courts.

But the 61-year-old cleaned up his act and currently works at one of Oxfordshire’s rehabilitation centres.

He was abandoned by his parents and left on his grandmother’s doorstep at just 11 months.

He said: “I got into drugs at a very young age, when I was a child at school. I was on valium at the age of 14.

“My drug use made me a bit more confident about myself and I wasn’t doing well at school.

“I used virtually every drug that was available. There wasn’t anything really that I didn’t turn my hand to.”

Mr Walker’s drug addiction, principally to methadone, led to him being arrested for being involved in a ram raid and changing the number plates on cars.

Mr Walker, who has been beaten up and stabbed, said: “That period of my life was very frightening and very chaotic. I didn’t know what I would be doing next. I spent hundreds of pounds a week on drugs and about four years in prison.”

But he said he also made thousands of pounds by selling drugs.

His decision to leave that life behind came in 1980 after a friend and fellow drug dealer was murdered and his body found in the boot of a car.

Mr Walker, who now lives in Bicester, said: “When the person I was working with was murdered I was quite frightened for my life. It was a major shock and I certainly didn’t want any part of what had gone on.

“I think going to rehab was a joint decision. The courts wanted me to be there and I didn’t like who I was turning into.”

So he found himself at The Ley Community in Yarnton for 18 months to get off the habit which had taken over his life.

Now he is the community’s programme director and has been working there for 30 years.

He has published a book called Steve: Unwanted, ghostwritten by Deidre Nuttall, on how he battled his demons.

He said: “I am very proud about where I have come to.

“The book is about all of my life from the very beginning, but it talks a lot about my early upbringing in Lambeth and my rehabilitation.

“Getting it all out was a bit of a relief for me. It wasn’t hard to write. I have spent so much time working in rehab, sharing this kind of stuff.”