I’m now 30 years old. I started taking drugs when I was 14. I didn’t have many interests at school and started socialising with older lads because I looked older than I actually was and started going into pubs etc. I originally began smoking cannabis, no class A drugs at that point. I left school at 16 and had many different jobs. As long as it brought a bit of money in I wasn’t bothered. This carried on till I was about 20 and then a few of the lads that I used to hang around with were dabbling with harder drugs. The crowd of people I was associating with dragged me into using heroin. It was simply offered to me, and at the time if something were offered to me, I was going to try it, not realising the long-term effect it would have. I’d say that heroin has completely dragged my life down over the past 10 years. Because it’s over such a long period of time you don’t really notice the effect it’s having on you. If I went from how I was at 20 years of age straight to how I was at 30, it would be a big blow to me and it would have been easier to realise that something needed doing about it. Whereas a space of ten years is a long time. It slowly drags you down. You start not looking after yourself and slowly but surely, every part of your life goes out of the window, until you end up as just about as low as you can get. Even when you are at this point it still doesn’t hit home. It’s a very unpredictable drug, which takes a strong grip and takes control of you. It makes you happy in whatever circumstances you are in. Even if you know the circumstances you are in are bad, you accept that that is ‘where you are’, that’s how your life is. You make the best of what you have got, even if its nothing, you make the best of nothing! The thing that made me decide to come off heroin was the time factor. You don’t realise that its caught up with you, 10 years have passed, and you realise that all your 20’s have gone and your now into your 30’s. Your whole world is in one carrier bag that you drag around with you. I suppose it’s after that period of time that it actually starts to register and hits home. I had to do something about it; it’s as simple as that! Nobody can make you stop, or point it out to you. You have got to get to the stage where you can draw it to your own attention. I knew there was no way I could do it on my own so, the only option left was through a rehab. I had given it up on my own before, but only for a short period of time, but staying away from it altogether was a totally different matter. That is why I am now in rehab and take one day at a time. |
