EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 14

Aug/Sept 1998

ON DRUGS FROM THE AGE OF 14

My name is Michelle, I am 22, almost 23, and from the age of about 14 I started using Cannabis. Basically, the circle of friends I met during that time, progressed on to using hard drugs, it was par for the course that I'd come to experiment with them. You start off tooting it as a social thing and ultimately, you end up injecting. You think you can control the situation but the drug ends up controlling you. All your resources and your money that you get your hands on goes on your next fix.
So its very difficult, also having a partner we are both responsible for getting ourselves into this situation. A lot of people say did he get me into the drugs. No. I got myself into them just the same as he did. You justify each other using, one of you may be thinking about your next fix, the other may be doing really well and not thinking about using the drugs and just a glance, a look at each other and your back to square one. Ultimately, you want the support of somebody to help you, who you love, to get through it, but it can often backfire.

At the moment I am using between two and three bags a day, so that's £20 or £30 per day. My Giro unfortunately is only £36 per week so you can understand it is very hard to fund my habit. It is shoplifting that funds my habit. I know people who have gone down on the beat or whatever. But the bit of respect I have left, I can't see myself doing that, my life is already in a mess without making things any more complicated. Mainly it was my partner who was shoplifting, I was covering for him, he's been remanded in prison for a week and that's sorted him out. So ultimately I was left on the outside

I am now on a Methadone script. Some of the people I know, they are friends. I can only class perhaps two people as proper friends, but the people I associate with obviously, all do drugs, because that's my life. So it has been very difficult, my partner was inside for a week and I really wanted to use all my willpower to get myself better, but with the friends coming round they were thinking that they were looking after me whilst my partner was away. You know, they were coming round with bits of food for me and one thing and another, they were also coming round to do the gear. With me being very weak-willed, I gave in to it. I wanted the Methadone to help me but a detox from Methadone is going to take 3 weeks whereas a detox from Heroin will only take a week. I was selling my Methadone to buy Heroin so that I could get the Methadone out of my system and then do a detox just from the gear. It would be easier and less painful and not take as long. When my partner came out I was just using gear. He'd done his withdrawal, his rattle, and I wanted to carry on using the gear instead of the Methadone, but of course, when he saw me, he started using again. I feel partly responsible for that.

In the past I was using up to £90 of Heroin per day. Then I stopped injecting because it was such a large amount. I went back to tooting, but I am an asthmatic, that was causing me health problems and giving me panic attacks. Then I lost my job; I was working at that time, so my habit had to calm down. And obviously you know that when you're tooting you have to start taking more and more and more to get the same affect, so when you start injecting you think its brilliant because you can get smashed off just a couple of pounds. Whereas now I am using it, I'm not using to get smashed, I wake up in the morning and I have to take my £10 worth of Heroin and a hit just to feel normal like you to get through every day.

When I grew up, I had a fantastic upbringing and I was doing very well at school, all A's, B's and C's so I am the proof that if it can happen to me then it can happen to anyone. I'm the person you'd least expect to get into this circle of people and lifestyle, but its happened.

left arrowback button {short description of image} {short description of image}right arrow


. Material Copyright © 1997 THOMAS (Those on the Margins of a Society)
THOMAS is an integral part of Catholic Welfare Societies, Registered Charity number 503102