A man has told how fishing helped him to build his life back after years of drug addiction and living in a tent. Ben Koba now helps other people who are recovering from addiction.
The 35-year-old said he was addicted to heroin and crack cocaine for seven years until he thought “something’s got to change here or I’m going to f*****g die”. Ben, from Woodchurch on the Wirral, could not bear the thought of his daughter, who he had not seen for two years, growing up without him, so he returned to his childhood love of fishing.
With his “meagre benefits”, he bought a rod, reel, bait and hooks at a fishing shop in Birkenhead and went down to the water on his own in the middle of winter. Ben cried as he caught a couple of codling, telling the ECHO : “I was that overcome and overwrought that I could get such a high off something other than intravenous drugs.
“For the first time in years, I felt normal.” The first 18 months of recovery were “nightmarish” as he couch surfed and slept in bushes hugging his rods “so no one could steal them”.
But Ben “just kept going”. He said: “I just concentrated on the fishing above all else – I’ve used it as a life jacket to keep me afloat.”
Now he’s in a better place then he’s ever been. He said: “I love what I do. I wake up with a spring in my step every morning, dive out of bed and look forward to the day, whereas in the past when I was in the tent, you’d be taking bigger and bigger hits, hoping it was going to kill you because you were just that fed up of life.”
People asked to join Ben fishing when they saw how much it helped him stay sober, so in 2018, he launched Wirral Sea Angling Academy. With tackle donated by shops, and donations of £10 to cover the cost of bait, rods and reels, Ben now spends most days fishing with people recovering from substance abuse, along with people with mental illness, veterans, and people with disabilities.
He estimated he has taken 500 people fishing in the last four years, with people travelling from as far as St Helens and Portsmouth. He said he gets a natural high from seeing “the look of joy on their face” when they catch their first fish, especially those who thought they never could.
Ben said: “It’s given me, not just my life back, but a second shot at life and having a family. I’ve got a better relationship now with my mum and my daughter than I’ve ever had in my entire life.
“If it can do that for me and change my life completely, it can do that for lots of people, even if you just come for a few hours. People come down and they don’t even fish, they just talk. It just the catharsis of being by the river, having a laugh and seeing a few fish come out.”