Not a lot of people know but for around 12 years of my life I was highly addicted to class A drugs and at the age of 28 I had enough of that life and went to a walk in rehab once a week for a hour session.

They encouraged me to get a hobby I couldn’t think of one after 20 weeks my course ended after then I slowly slipped into depression for around a year and didn’t realise how dark it was till I was staring into the devils face, it was the darkest place I’ve ever seen. Didn’t really know a lot of people, contacts etc, I went deeper into depression I had help from the NHS after a year they said I have borderline personality disorder and clinically depressed they got me into group sessions weekly for BPD.

The course was called dialectical behavioural therapy it helped a lot Listing to other group members then again they told me I needed a hobby so I don’t know why but metal detecting came into my head I quickly went on Amazon and bought a Garret euro ace.
I loved it, I always remember the first day I put those head phones on all my problems in my head went away for hours finding nails bullets and buttons I loved it, I thought it was amazing I thought I could find everything.

I ended up going out with a lad called Zac I Meet by chance and became very good friends with him he had a permission and I was very grateful he invited me out and gave me a chance

It was a Georgian site at the end of the day I was buzzing with 3 Georgian pennies I spoke to Zac at the end of the day and he had over a 100 pennies with loads of silvers. I asked which machine is that? He said it’s a CTX3030 that night I went online and bought the CTX3030 from Joan Allen. Since then with all my hard work, going out every weekend , any chance I get I suddenly started finding amazing history and was very lucky to be front page of the treasure Hunter mag with my Roman lead ingot I found.

Then I meet my good mate Neil’s Jones that give me a lot of training out on a midweek searchers rally a few years ago, a lot of shouting at me (your coils is to high lol ) but I really appreciate the lessons Neil it totally changed my Detecting technique.

I had a Saxon gold coin the year after and a Saxon penny two years ago and loads of amazing finds. Luke Mahoney and Neil Jones recognised my passion and you can call it luck but it got me into the Joan Allen team which I am highly appreciated for! photos of my really cool finds can be seen below but seriously if anyone is suffering with mental health problems or any addictive personalities problems I would definitely get into metal detecting as it had a huge impact on me. It not only changed my life it changed the way I think changed, changed what I did with my time, changed my whole thinking patterns from negative to positive. It changed my whole lifestyle and now I wouldn’t change it!
See you out in the fields soon

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Jason Baker