But this time it’s to help them build a new life. The ex-nightclub doorman served time after being found in possession of 50 pills and 40 wraps of amphetamines.

It was while Stacey, who now works at a community project in the Black Country town of Brierley Hill, was in the back of a police van that he found himself changing. He told New Life: “I was in the back of the van with another guy who'd been caught with only one pill.

“In desperation, I deliberately spat my pills out on the floor after trying to swallow them as it would then be impossible to prove whose they were.

“Normally I didn’t care about anyone but me, but when the policeman asked if the pills were mine I saw this incredible fear on his face.

“For some strange reason I owned up. I now firmly believe God was at work in me then.”

Stacey, who at the age of 36 is a grandfather, started his life of drugs, drunkenness, violence and sex in the early 90s.

But his life is completely different these days, as he has found himself in a full-time job encouraging people develop their self-worth and build their confidence.

“It’s a weird experience on both sides when someone I know from my past life walks in for help. But in a strange way it helps to build bridges and shows we are real people,” the married father-of-three said.

He recalled: “While I worked in clubs, everything that went on became part of me. Seeing people getting glassed and stabbed was the norm, you just numb to it. I saw some really horrific things to say the least.

“But I had no interest in drugs until I started work at the rave.

“A friend finally wore me down and I tried it once to shut him up. It didn’t do anything for me, but the next day I found myself buying about 20 acids. I tried again and this time I enjoyed it.”

Stacey soon progressed from a pills ‘runner’ to a fully-fledged dealer, a crime which finally caught up with him on attending a massive rave at The Sanctuary in Milton Keynes.

The date of January 21 1995 is etched in Stacey’s memory as he keeps the £16 ticket in his wallet to this day. It was a night that saw him arrested for possession of illegal substances.

After Stacey’s release from jail in Bedford, his brother Peter Edwards, who had become a Christian, got him to visit church.

“Whenever it went quiet I would always make a kerfuffle just to embarrass him, but after being led to the front at the end of one meeting, the question I was asked, ‘are you going to accept the Lord as your Saviour,’ kept ringing in my ear and I remember challenging God to prove himself.

“On leaving church, the words I was left with at my first meeting also hit me: ‘It takes a man to stand by the decision of living for Christ.’

“Next day was an horrendous day for me and I blamed God. On the Monday night I remember smoking my usual spliff, which I always needed.

“But instead of waking up groggy and horrible next morning, I shot up out of bed.

“Then I thought my mum was in the room but as I looked round the door was still shut. I gradually realised that what I could feel was not a human presence but the presence of God.

“I grabbed my clothes and ran out to my brother’s house. I banged on Peter’s door and shouted ‘God’s real!’ He smiled and said he knew, but I said: ‘no, you don’t understand, I really mean God’s real.’ He said: ‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’”