Today we bid a sad but fond farewell to Toni, our Antidote drug and alcohol service manager who is retiring.

Toni was a volunteer with Project LSD, an LGBTQ+ drug and alcohol service that was set up in the 1990s. In 2002 it merged with LGB Alcohol Project and expanded to form Antidote. Toni joined Antidote as a trainee counsellor, later becoming our first full-time drug and alcohol worker, and then in 2007 took over as Antidote Manager.

Toni’s many achievements include developing Antidote’s first response to the emerging issues of chemsex in the late 2000s as newer drugs changed the issues our clients sought support for. They set up SWAP, realising a long-held dream to provide an intensive therapeutic programme for LGBTQ+ people experiencing difficulties with drugs and alcohol.

In 2015 Toni won an Attitude Pride Award, an honour which recognised ‘unsung’ heroes in the LGBTQ+ community, doing incredible work well away from the public eye. Later that year they were included in the Rainbow List of the UK’s most influential queer people.

Toni leaves Antidote having touched the lives of the many hundreds of LGBTQ+ people who have sought Antidote’s support.

From everybody at London Friend - thank you, Toni, for everything you have given to Antidote. Enjoy every moment of your well-earned retirement.