For Terri and Stuart it is the smallest, simplest things that mean the most to them.

Making dinner, walking their daughter to nursery, arranging a birthday party - these are the mundane, daily events they thought they might never be able to experience.

The couple's spiral into heroin addiction had a desperately destructive impact on both their family life and health: their daughter received into care at birth while they both have contracted HIV.

But Terri and Stuart's story is one of triumph - their little girl is back in their care and they are determined to stay together.

"It might sound like a boring life to some people,” Terri said.

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"But I love taking my daughter to nursery, picking her up, making her dinner… Having a life that we never had."

The 36-year-old met Stuart 12 years ago not long after her older children, two sons, had been received into local authority care and she had turned to heroin as a way of numbing her profound feelings of loss.

From the first moment she tried the drug, she said, she was hooked.

Stuart was already addicted; he had been using various drugs from the age of just eight.

The 44-year-old said: “From the age of eight I was taking one substance or another.

"I got into heroin because I used to go out from Friday to Sunday. I used to take ecstasy when I was at the dancing, then take Valium for the comedown, so we could go out again the next day. "There was no Valium one day, so I took a line of heroin to make myself feel better."

Glasgow's club scene was initially the backdrop for his drug use before the problem began to be a part of everyday life.

He added: “You would go out on Friday night, then take it on Saturday morning, then again on Sunday morning for the comedown.

"Then you would be taking it on a Wednesday, when you weren’t even going out. Then a Thursday.

The Herald:

"Then you’re not even going out at the weekend, but you’re still taking it.”

The couple's commitment to one another was both a curse - and a blessing. While they took drugs together, they also pledged to quit together.

In 2016, the couple decided to stop using drugs. They received prescriptions for Methadone and began attending groups run by the charity With You, formerly known as Addaction.

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Terri says: “We’ve always been this way, we are a team. When one of us wanted to come off it, that meant it was time to do it together.

"No matter what it takes.”

A few years later, Terri and Stuart discovered they were pregnant. They were overjoyed - but just two months later they received devastating news.

Teri said: “I fell pregnant in November.

"We were clean by that point but we were both diagnosed with HIV in January. Thanks to support from With You, we stayed clean through that time.

"We didn’t relapse when we found out about the HIV.”

They also didn't relapse when they found out that the local authority planned to accommodate their daughter - who The Herald has agreed not to name - immediately at birth.

It was a horrendous wrench for the couple but they were determined to have her returned to their care and once again turned to With You where they had help to prepare for, understand, and cope with often intense and difficult social work meetings.

Terri said: “I felt deflated after the meetings but I knew I could pick up the phone to With You.

"I would talk to With You during the walk home, and by the time I got home I would know ‘I can do this’.”

Now their daughter is home and Terri’s sons also come to visit their mum and step-dad on weekends.

Terri says her little girl gave her the strength and determination to change her life and her daughter was recently returned to her care.

She is now planning a third birthday party, which will be themed on the movie Frozen and attended by all of her nursery friends... and Princess Elsa.

She said: "If you’re not ready to get clean, you’re not going to get clean. I was ready because of my daughter.

"I didn’t do it for my sons, I had a second chance with my daughter.”

Stuart adds: “People come up to me and say I’m looking brilliant. They say they want to get clean and ask the best way to do it. I always tell them: With You.”