EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 28

January 2002

 

I STARTED TAKING DRUGS AT SCHOOL

I’m Simon and I’m an addict. At the moment I’m with the T.H.O.M.A.S. Organisation.

My life on drugs started when I was at school. I began by drinking cider and smoking cannabis. I was twelve when I started drinking. I never liked school, I just didn’t enjoy being there. I was rebellious all the time and I just wanted to take drugs. At the start I was just doing drugs at the weekend, but then I moved on to smoking cannabis at school.

I developed a really bad problem with sniffing gas. I ended up doing that everyday. I was really mad on it until I lost a good friend of mine. His name was Glen. That stopped me from sniffing gas. He was about thirteen or fourteen when he died. It was through sniffing gas. He was found on a embankment, another friend had left him. It made me feel scared.

I then moved on to dabbling with Speed. I would take it at weekends and then smoke cannabis to come down off it. It just went on until, by the end of fourth year, I was on heroin. The first time I ever tried it was with a friend. I fell in love with it straight away. I knew by what I felt inside of me that I would take it again. Every bit of money I got went on to heroin from then on. This carried on until I left school.

When I left school and started working I was doing heroin everyday. I felt like it was in control because I was paying for it all with my own money. It wasn’t long before I started losing jobs. I began to steal off people, especially my family. They were easy targets. I feel loads of guilt about doing that. I’m ashamed of myself but that’s what heroin did to me. Everything that I said I wouldn’t do when I started using heroin I did. I said I would never steal for it, I stole. I said I would never use needles, I used needles.

As time went on and I progressed it just got really desperate. My first ever detox I did at my mum’s house, using Beta blockers. I was off it for eight months. As I had these blockers inside of me I couldn’t take heroin, but I was hammering everything else. I switched drugs from heroin to crack really. I was also back on speed, going out every weekend, taking big amounts of speed, ecstasy tablets and crack cocaine. My head became even more messed up. After eight months I stopped taking the blockers. I ended up going back on heroin again.

It just ended up where I would do a detox and then go back on heroin. It got to the stage were I was really desperate – shoplifting everyday, robbing all the time, selling drugs to fund my habit. I got involved with a girl as well who was a using addict. I’d only been with her a month or two when I got her pregnant. She got to three months and had a miscarriage. I felt like I was to blame for that because I didn’t stop her using. Both of us were really bad, we didn’t care who we hurt. We were digging each other up with gear. It was just mad. We were living in dirt flats with needles all over the place.

I split up with the girl after about thirteen months. I thought I would have a better chance of getting off it if I wasn’t with her. I got worse, I was just bang at it everyday.

All I was doing while I was on heroin was the same thing everyday. I would wake up in the morning, go out and rob a tenner, then go and get a bag. That wouldn’t be enough so I would go out again robbing to get more heroin. It just wasn’t normal. The only friends I had were people I would graft with or put money together for drugs with. I was on my knees.

I wanted to get off the heroin and get back to a normal life. I heard about this place in Rotherham, so I went over and had a chat with a guy called Andy. He became my key worker. I kept going down to show him I really wanted to get off it and I’d had enough. I ended up going to Gisburn Park in Lancashire. I was supposed to go down for ten days and do a detox, then come back to Rotherham. But I decided to stay at Gisburn because they had a day programme there. I got a flat in Barnoldswick and went to Gisburn for day care Monday to Friday.

I thought everything was going alright. I was at Gisburn for about three and a half months. During that time I had a couple of lapses. So, something wasn’t working for me. One day I got it into my head that I was going to use again. I cashed my book in the morning and set off to go back home to Rotherham. I knew it wasn’t right what I was doing but I just couldn’t get it out of my head. I got a phone call on my mobile and someone brought me here to T.H.O.M.A.S..

Here I am now at T.H.O.M.A.S.. I’m really enjoying it. It’s a good project. I’m a month clean and I’m back on track. I feel happy. When I was at Gisburn I was either buzzing or on a downer. Here, I found a level in myself. I can live my life without drugs. It’s a good feeling to wake up in the morning, have a shower and a bowl of cereal. It’s the simple little things that were impossible while I was using drugs. I don’t think I knew what a shower looked like when I was using drugs. Today I’ve got a choice and today I choose not to use.

I plan to go to Blackburn College when I leave T.H.O.M.A.S. to be a qualified welder. I hope to get a flat in Blackburn and make a decent future for myself.

 

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