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In June 1996 I first got busted
for supplying Heroin. At this time I lost my job through the Police
going in to work and some people had been finding out what I was up
to. I actually thought right, I'll move town and get myself together.
I was in a using relationship with my boyfriend at the time; I thought
that if I moved away everything would be fine. It was the company I
was keeping; it was where I was living so for some reason we moved
down to Stoke-on-Trent with all good intentions of building a better
life for ourselves. We stayed at a YMCA hostel, because we
didn't have an address we couldn't get a job, because we didn't have a
job we couldn't get a deposit for a flat, so we went back to selling
drugs again. I thought things were great for a few months, the money
was back again, the drugs were no problem, even though our lives were
absolutely total chaos, we didn't realise it at the time. Again,
I got busted for drugs in October 1996. At this stage I was sent to
prison, to Risley Remand Centre, and it was the first real time I'd
had to experience going without drugs and withdrawal. The first three
days were an absolute nightmare; I'd never known anything like it and
the reality of my addiction really started to hit me in the face. The
other three weeks of my prison time weren't too bad; my boyfriend was
smuggling drugs in for me so I was able to keep up my habit. I had no
responsibilities, I was with all my using friends in there and I
suppose I had quite a good time and a good break. I got released from
there, I was sent to a bale hostel in Liverpool. Things were even
worse in there; all the girls were prostituting themselves. I couldn't
go out doing any kind of criminal things for my money because I was on
bale and just out of prison. I didn't want to go back and so I could
have seen myself slipping in to prostitution if I hadn't had my
boyfriend there to support me with drugs. I ran away from
there after a few weeks because it was getting too heavy, and I wanted
to be back in Preston with my boyfriend. Things were okay for another
couple of months, so I thought. By okay I mean I had my drugs, but
everything else was falling down around me, my family didn't want to
know, we were living from flat to flat, I wasn't taking care of my
appearance, all that mattered was that I had my drugs. Things
went really down hill when my boyfriend was sent to prison in December
1996. I'd never really had to do things for myself before and I also
thought I was different because I didn't have to go out shoplifting. I
wasn't injecting so I thought I was a bit different and I had things
under control - how wrong I was. By this stage I was left on my own
and I had to turn to crime, shoplifting, fraud, robbing peoples'
handbags, any way that I could to get my drugs, I'd go to any lengths,
it just didn't seem to matter to me as long as I had my drugs there.
These few months were an absolute nightmare, I started
injecting drugs, living here and there, like I said I wasn't taking
care of my appearance, my personal hygiene, my clothes; at one time
these had all mattered to me, I'd always liked to be smart but this
didn't seem to matter any more. I was known for being like a local "smackhead",
that didn't seem to bother me. All my decent friends didn't want to
know me. The only reason that I wanted to know people, or vice versa,
was really for what we could get out of each other, stabbing each
other in the back, nothing else mattered at all. I just didn't care at
all for anybody apart from my drugs and myself. |
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