When you first meet Oliver Westall, nothing about him hints at the battles he’s faced. At 25, he sits in a hoodie and shorts, grinning and laughing, the very picture of health.

But behind that easy smile lies a story of relentless struggle – a dark addiction he couldn’t shake, not until he confronted just how badly it had ravaged his body. Today, Oliver’s mission is simple but powerful: to show people that no matter how far you’ve fallen, it’s never too late to reclaim your life.

What began as recreational ketamine use in his mid-teens quickly spiralled into a daily, all-consuming addiction. “The first time I used it, I felt like I was floating on a bubble,” he recalled. “It instantly took away my anxiety and made me feel warm and numb inside.” For the biggest stories in Wales first sign up to our daily newsletter here.

By the age of 16, he was dealing ketamine to fund a £55k-a-year habit, meaning he was surrounded by the drug constantly. At his peak, he was using around 21 grams every single day, often locking himself in his flat for weeks at a time. Psychosis followed: seeing and speaking to dead relatives, withdrawing entirely from the world. “Sometimes no one would see me for two weeks,” he said. “I was completely psychotic.”

Alongside the mental toll, the physical damage was devastating. By 18, the Neath man was suffering severe bladder problems, a brutal and irreversible consequence of heavy ketamine use. He couldn’t leave the house without needing the toilet every minute. He began bleeding, passing clots, and bursting blood vessels in his eyes. I would look in the mirror and not even recognise myself.

“I looked like I’d been beaten up for three weeks,” he said. “I knew it was destroying me, I felt like I was dying, but the only thing that helped the pain was more ket.”

Attempts to quit were short-lived. By 20, he was wearing incontinence pads full-time. “I wouldn’t buy them,” he explains. “But every five or ten minutes I needed to pee. My mother actually left them in my flat, she knew I was struggling with it and I wouldn’t go out to Boots and buy nappies for myself.

“I left them there for two weeks, then one day, I think I was going for a haircut – and usually, before I went, I’d go round the lane behind, pee, and if there was any queue, I couldn’t wait, I’d have to leave and pee. So I just thought to chuck one on and in a weird way – to me, it was like ‘problem solved’. I can pee anywhere, no one knew at the time because I was really discreet about it and I thought, ‘I don’t need to stop ket now.’ It’s mental how your brain works.

“Then I went in the car with the boys, they started asking why I wasn’t stopping for a pee, so I ended up opening to one or two of them and then word just got about. I was dying, because at the time, I was still going to parties and festivals, still trying to be normal.”

Repeated hospital visits finally revealed the irreversible damage. Doctors told him he would need bladder removal surgery, a reality he has now come to accept. “I’m only 24 and I’m going to have a bag for the rest of my life, but I know I’ve got this,” he says. “I know my life is worth living and my story can help others. I want to show people the true destruction that ketamine can cause.”

“The thing is, people don’t read the story,” he adds, with a touch of frustration. “They just read the headline and see how much money I had spent on ket, and then it just looks like I’m whinging about it – when I’m trying to raise awareness.”

The path to awareness, and more importantly recovery, was far from simple. Oliver spent five months at The Carpenter’s Arms, a Christian rehab in Loughborough, where he began to rebuild not just his body but his entire life.

“It doesn’t feel like the same person. It’s night and day really. I have since had my bladder removed. And I haven’t just had to change the addiction, I’ve had to change everything in my life. Nothing of my old life now remains in my new because it really just dragged me back into it, and I was very glad I went so long into rehab.”

It was there he discovered faith, and with it, a new perspective. “I found my faith, that’s the main thing, and then just the teachings about gratitude and being grateful for life,” he explains. “When you’re in addiction all you do is feel sorry for yourself and like the world is against you. Now, I’m taking accountability for my actions rather than blaming others – that’s the biggest thing I took out of it all. And just being humble too, not cocky about it.”

Even simple daily choices became lessons in self-restraint. “I won’t go to the pub now and drink, just because I know that drink would lead to other things. It’s never just a drink,” Oliver says.

Life after rehab brought its own tests. Returning to Loughborough, a town with a mix of university students and multiple rehab centres, he faced temptation head-on. “There’s young students sniffing ket and crack dealers on every street corner,” he recalls. “It taught me to be very mindful of my surroundings.

“That’s when I put the teachings into practice. I had the chance to see if I was strong enough to move back to Wales and have my surgery done – obviously, in hospital I was on morphine, which was triggering – but I knew I was ready.”

Oliver’s time in rehab also offered an unexpected advantage: the wisdom of those who had been there before him. “Other than me, I think the next youngest was around 29. The rest were 30, 40, maybe 50. The good thing was they’d all been in recovery a while, made mistakes, and I learned from that.

“People go to rehab loads of times and don’t get it, but I surrounded myself with older people, and I tried to learn from their experiences. They were all really accepting of me, which was nice, because obviously I was from pads at the time and didn’t know if they would rip into me.”

This level of empathy was a world away from what Oliver had grown up with. Oliver explained that during the height of his addiction, reliable information about ketamine and support tailored to its effects was almost non-existent. “When I first started sniffing ket, there was no information. It had been about for years, but no one was really taking it,” he said. “When I tried to access support, I was falling straight through the middle of it.”

His complex physical and mental health needs left him caught between services. he added: “Ward F wouldn’t help me because of my physical condition. Detox wouldn’t have me because they said my mental and physical health were too bad.

“With the hospital, part of it was my fault because I wasn’t staying sober – so they wouldn’t treat me. The only people waiting for surgeries like cystectomies are bladder cancer patients, and understandably, they come first over someone who’s still using.”

The reality was stark. He said: “If I used ket now, my kidneys would fail. So they were just like, ‘No, we can’t do that kind of surgery for you.’ I always slipped through the cracks – some of it was my fault, but there just wasn’t anywhere that fit.”

Despite everything, Oliver held onto a plan. “My goal in rehab was to come back when I was healthy and in the right headspace to take it on, and start something in Wales,” he said.

Awareness of ketamine has grown in recent years. Oliver added: “I know Barod are amazing up in Swansea, and they cover all of West Wales too. But I want to do my bit – I want to be someone’s guide.

Indeed, Oliver credits much of his own recovery to his mentor and spiritual guide, Padre Alan, who “saved my life.” “He wasn’t a ketamine addict, but he’d been through drug addiction himself. I think he went through 14 rehabs and got here on the 15th time, and he’s now been 15 years sober. I owe everything to him and the team.”

Since, Oliver has set up a Facebook page called God’s Grace of Sobriety and a TikTok account called Oliver’s Recovery. He’s also worked with Welsh organisations like Barod. Now his focus is on Ketamine support Wales, a support group that he founded and the start of a much bigger vision. “I’ve always had a blueprint in my mind of what I wanted to do,” he said. “One goal is to set up online support groups. With Zoom, we can reach people in towns in the middle of nowhere – in Wales, it’s hard for some people to get to Swansea for meetings.”

Education is also central to his mission. “Ketamine is in schools. I started using drugs when I was 11, and I know kids are still using it from speaking to people,” he said. “We need to get education into schools and raise awareness with the NHS, too. If a young man comes into A&E with UTIs, that’s not normal. They might be using ketamine, whether they admit it or not. There needs to be a flag so that an honest conversation can happen, and people can get the help they need before it’s too late.”

Oliver reflected on how access to education and support might have changed his trajectory. “I don’t think I would have stopped entirely if I’d had that growing up,” he admitted. “But it would have made me think more about what I was doing to my body. I would have still taken it, but that doubt would have been in my head, a little voice saying, ‘Slow down, this is addictive.’

“I always grew up knowing crack and heroin were the ‘naughty’ drugs – everyone knows a crack head or a smack head is hooked. But there isn’t that same perception around ketamine. I’ve been to plenty of festivals, and it’s everywhere you go. It’s really addictive, and I would have taken it still, definitely, but that doubt might have stopped me going as hard at the start.”

Since starting his advocacy work, Oliver has already seen tangible results. “People just started reaching out, and I’ve gotten a good few people into rehab,” he said. “It’s going really well – the meetings now are seeing 20 to 25 people per session, and it’s only been running for two months. It really shows there’s a need for it.”

One case hit him particularly hard: a 15-year-old who contacted him through TikTok. “They were peeing blood, and I didn’t really know what to do, because they were up in England,” he recalled. “That broke my heart. If you’re peeing at 15… I mean, I was peeing at 18 or 19. By the time they reach 19, they could be in the same position I’m in now – bladder removal, facing potential kidney failure. With ketamine, you don’t have years to mess around. The damage happens fast.”

He paused, reflecting on the younger people now seeking help. “It’s crazy – I’m only 25, I’ve been in recovery for nearly two years, and there are people my age, even 18-year-olds, who need recovery. In rehab, everyone was 40, 50. But with ket, you don’t have the luxury of time; you deteriorate so quickly.”

Despite the weight of it all, Oliver sees the trust these young people place in him as a responsibility. “It can be a bit much sometimes, but I know they’re reaching out because they trust me and they need help. I’ve always said I’d love to be what Alan was to me – that little guide at the start, helping someone take that first step.”

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