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| I am 23 and was
born in Preston. I had a rough background with my mum and dad always arguing,
my dad beating my mum, so they split up. I lived with my mum and I found out my
dad was an alcoholic, he had been into rehab. He came out and he looked well
and I started going to see him. Then I decided to move in with him, probably a
mistake. My mum didn’t want me to go she was crying. I was 15 years old
then when I moved in with him. I was drinking a bit when I was with my mum but it mainly started when I moved in with my dad. Then I started drinking heavily, smoking cannabis, drinking Temaza linctus which made me go a bit crazy. I was just doing mad things you know burglaries, and things like that. I started taking Ecstasy and took it for quite a while, then I was introduced to heroin. I hated it at first, it made me spew up, feel dizzy but I took it again and just kept on taking it. After I’d done it for a couple of months I got the taste for it. I quite liked it and then I started doing crack, they came together in my eyes so I had to have both of them. It all started when I had no money and no drugs, I started doing sneaks, you know going into people’s houses while they were in and doing burglaries and robbing people on the streets and that just to get this brown powder if you will. I’ve done a few prison sentences and they weren’t helping; detoxes and that they didn’t help me at all. I got into Jockeying and drugs, wherever I went drugs just followed me. I started taking drugs just to keep my weight down, I was okay I’d got a job, just keep my weight down. But then it got bad I was robbing people who didn’t speak English, taking their money, fighting, allsorts, but the life style didn’t work out. I came back to Preston and then it got really bad. When I became a jockey I was sleeping on the streets at the back of the Royal Preston Hospital, park benches generally bumming about. I thought I’m going to have to make something of myself and I went off to Doncaster racing school. They accepted me because of my height and my weight and they told me to wait a month. But I didn’t look after myself. I was taking heroin, ecstasy, basically anything. Then I went to Doncaster for twelve weeks and loved it, absolutely loved it. At first I was a bit wary of the horses and for the first five weeks it was hard, my legs were weak, I was weak, because of all the drugs. At the training school first of all they sat me on a horse, then taught me to walk a horse, to rein a horse, push out a horse to come out of the stalls. I did everything, everything to do with horses, mucking out, and I loved it all. It was the best twelve weeks of my life. After that I went to Wales with a trainer, but it didn’t quite work out because I had convictions. The police came to Wales and arrested me, and I went to prison. When I came out I went straight back into it working with another well known trainer. He saw a potential in me, I was breaking in all the new young horses, but at the same time I was still taking heroin and crack. I thought it was alright , I got my licence and I had my first race at Wolverhampton. It was the best day of my life. All the people- me in the parade ring walking round, I felt on top of the world. But inside I was hurting because these drugs still had a grip on me, wherever I went they were there. But I stayed for 18 months and I had two rides, you know donkeys, useless things but I was pleased. But it got to the point where I wasn’t getting up in the morning, you know staying up smoking crack, just try ing to be Jack the Lad, not thinking of the consequences. Then I started getting angry at people you know, just snapping at them, for little things. There was this lad who said I had been bumming off the evening mucking out of the stables. I hadn’t had any heroin that night, just crack and I had been drinking, he lived in a little caravan round the back. I went round put my fist through the window, dragged him out and battered him. He told the boss and I argued with him and got sacked the next day. So I had to leave, but luckily I went to Newmarket, probably the racing capital of Britain. It’s just a wonderful place and I loved it there. For a few months I stayed off heroin and crack, I was drinking heavily. Just one night I was in this club and this guy asked me if I wanted some cocaine, and I took a little bit. The next thing I am in his house, he got a pipe and then I was smoking heroin again. Before I knew it I was back where I was before. I was back on heroin, still going into work, no energy, but I thought that I was okay, but looking back now, I wasn’t, I was a weak, frail, little boy, because of this drug. I just wasn’t getting up for work, I was tired, getting angry at people easily, I just need my heroin and crack. It didn’t last. I came back to Preston, I had nothing. I was on the streets, then I got my own flat, I thought that would be a move forward kind of thing. Didn’t work. Moved into a high-rise flat on Moor Lane, the worst thing. I had dealers all round me. It didn’t work before I knew it I was dropping off bags of heroin and I was getting paid in stone. It was just a big vicious circle, and I lost that flat basically because I was having parties, I was on the streets again. I didn’t see any way forward. I thought this is me I’m going to be on the streets for the rest of my life. That’s me I’m just going to end up a dirty smelly bag head all my life. I went to prison, I did an attempted robbery on this lad and I got twelve months. I got my habit in prison, it was there in my face all the time, it was hard for me to get away from it. To-day I know it was me, I wanted the drug and I would do anything to get it. So in jail I was taking it regularly. Then I saw my CARAT worker, he saw the state I was in, he knew I had no family, nothing out there and he mentioned THOMAS and the word rehab. I asked him what he was on about, I’m not a druggie. He told me to just look at my file, it was all down there. He asked me to give it a trial and so I came to THOMAS. This is the best move I’ve made in my seven years of drug-taking. I wished I’d done it earlier, maybe I wouldn’t have lost as much. I’m here to-day and I think I’m doing alright, yea, my mind’s changing, the way I’m thinking is changing. I can have a good laugh now without taking drugs. I don’t need them no more, I’ve got good people round me. Friends that I can actually call friends, I’m just looking forward now, I’m going to try to get back in touch with my parents, get a nice flat, get it homely so that I can actually call it a home, not a dirty crack den where all dirty junkies come round. So yea I’m just looking forward now to life after coming into THOMAS. |
