“It feels very special to be part of this”
|“You feel special because you know you’ve done something right” Image: HWC/Rebecca Corbett
“You become someone who you don’t even recognise”
Tina Normark represented Norway for the first time at the Nordic Homeless Cup in Stockholm in 2022.
“You feel special when they ask you because you know you’ve done something right. You feel special and you feel included in something that other people aren’t.”
When 38-year-old Tina Normark had complications following surgery that caused severe pain, she was prescribed medication to manage it. However, after a while, the strong medication stopped being the solution and started to become the problem.
“I got addicted to pills after surgery. I was having a lot of complications and had a lot of pain and doctors were writing prescriptions over nothing. I got as much as I wanted, and it ended in abuse, but I really thought that I had severe pain and I needed the medication.”
“I was really afraid when I was going into rehab when they were taking it away because I thought I had to live a life in pain without the medication. Then it turned out it was the medication was causing the pain. A lot of it. Not in the beginning but after a few years. It was beginning to be the problem.”
For five years Tina struggled with addiction. It was only when her family came together and decided she needed an “intervention” that she checked into a rehabilitation programme.
Rehabilitation and discovering football
|“I was going into rehab and that changed my life.” Image: HWC/Rebecca Corbett
“I was going into rehab and that changed my life. It was the Salvation Army’s rehab in Stavanger and very, very early on, after two weeks, they asked me if I wanted to play football. In the beginning I was very sceptical because I was afraid to get hurt, because I had a lot of pain and pain medication was part of my problem, but after maybe a month and I had been doing some strength training and doing some jogging and getting a little bit fitter, I joined the football team and got a whole new circle of friends there.”
After a year, the coach approached her and asked if she wanted to play for the national team. After being scared of playing, Tina now finds solace and escape on the football pitch.
“It’s almost the only people that I hang around with now. I tried to keep my old friends but it’s difficult because I’m at the football field all the time.”
“You forget everything else, even though my life is 100% better than it was, there are still things in life that you struggle with. But when I play football, I forget everything else. It’s not just on the football field, but all this with the new friends. You get a pause from life, from the real life. It means so much. It feels very special to be part of this.”
Before rehabilitation, life was very different for Tina.
Life during addiction
“It didn’t look good. It ended up that I did other stuff too. I didn’t have any boundaries. I have a son; at the time he was 14 and he found me passed out all the time. I was pushing boundaries, doing things that aren’t good. Things your child shouldn’t have to experience. I was neglecting him. I was neglecting myself. The apartment was a mess. I was a mess.
“It’s very hard to talk about, but in the end I was suicidal. I needed a lot of help. The child protective services were brought into the case. In 2019 I started on the road to changing my life, but it was last year [2021] that I really took measures to do it. So, for one year I was without drugs.”
|“In 2019 I started on the road to changing my life” Image: HWC/Rebecca Corbett
“It’s not easy, it has very strong powers. It can change your whole personality. Nothing else matters but the drugs. It’s the only thing that can make you happy. So normal things like family and friends – the only thing that mattered was the pills and maybe partying with other kinds of drugs. You become someone who you don’t even recognise.”
Despite her struggles with drugs and addiction, thanks to support from her family and friends, Tina overcame her addiction and kept custody of her son.
“I’ve been very honest with him almost all the time with what I was struggling with. I have a very good family that was around us. They took a lot of the burden with him when I could not. Now we have a really good relationship.”
Tina and her son even play football together; “he’s with the street football team in Stavanger and does the training with us.”
When I ask if he learns from her, she laughs: “He’s a very good football player so I think it’s the other way around!”
“He’s very proud, my father is very proud and my grandmother. I don’t think she fully understands what it is about but she’s very proud of me. She’s the only person I kept in touch with through all the bad periods. I could talk to her even if things were very shitty. I could always go there and eat dinner.”
As she goes back to play her final game of the morning, which will determine whether they go into the final, Tina turned and said: “Without the people at the Salvation Army, I would never been able to go through rehab, but with them, I can look up to them and be inspired by them.”
From the darkest place, life for Tina is now looking up. Now she is the inspiration, showing the next generation of players, and her son, that there is always hope.
Find out more about the Salvation Army’s work in Norway and how they’re using football to end homelessness and tackle social isolation.
Words: Rebecca Corbett