Congratulations to Margaret Walker, joint winner of Adfam’s Family Voices Competition 2025, with her brilliant entry “Friends. Just Walking Each Other Home”.
Family Voices is Adfam’s annual poetry and creative writing competition for anyone with lived experience of a family member’s substance use or gambling. The competition provides an opportunity for family members to share their story and creatively express their thoughts and feelings.
You can read Margaret’s winning entry below:
Friends. Just Walking Each Other Home, by Margaret Walker
Connected by chance, friends by choice
helping each other grow stronger
making sure they hear our voice
Hope where we felt none
laughter to chase away our tears
smiles we thought had gone
for some of us for years
Strength when we lost ours
keeping down that inner scream
safe to be vulnerable
turning nightmares into dreams
Words I heard that touched my soul
yet our world to you, must be unknown
“at the end of the day”
“we’re all just walking each other home”
Friends taking care of each other
connected no longer alone
just walking this path together
walking each other home
Actor Gina McKee reading Margaret’s winning entry at Adfam’s Carol Concert on 17th December 2025