EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 37

April 2004

  Prison & Drugs –

I have had enough


Gary Tells His Story
 
 
I am 28 years old. I come from Newcastle and I have been in prison a few times. I first started taking heroin when I was eighteen . I went through a bad patch when I split up with my girl-friend who I’ve got three children to. Someone came along and offered me some heroin. I knew what it was but I didn’t really know what it could do to you. I didn’t know how low it could bring you. I took it for ten years before I came to realize that I wasn’t getting anywhere with it. I was off heroin in prison but when I came out I tried to get off it. But it was everywhere I went, I just couldn’t get away from it.

My father died from cancer when I was in prison and that was a massive blow. My mother had died when I was quite young. And he had brought me and my sister up. After he died I just wanted to change. I knew that heroin was no good for me; I knew that prison was no good for me. I knew that the life I was leading was no good and when he died it made me realize all this.

I had been in local prisons, but then I landed up in prison far away from my own home. I was put in touch with a CARAT worker who suggested a rehab. I’ve never been in a rehab before, it’s been suggested to me before. But I didn’t think that I was ready. This time I thought if it meant changing my life and coming off drugs. I thought that I would give it a try and so I came to T.H.O.M.A.S. it’s opened my eyes being here, it’s done a lot for me, having people around and having people helping me. I’m now looking for a better life and I’m very open-minded, I’ve always been able to ask for help. It’s a good thing that’s happened to me. I’m very proud of where I am and I’m glad that I am at T.H.O.M.A.S. Without them I would have been back on the streets using within two days of being out of prison.

I first became a father when I was 17. I was very young, we got together and we had twins, which was double-trouble for me. I wasn’t ready for that. I had no money behind me so I went back to what I knew was best, I went back on to the streets and to crime. I was too young, too stupid; I wanted to be with my friends rather that in the house with her and two kids. Everything turned sour, because I wasn’t with her I was out taking L.S.D., smoking Cannabis, taking Speed. I put a lot of pressure on her because I wasn’t around and we split up. When we split up there was a big row between her family and me. I hit rock bottom then. I wasn’t on heroin at that time, but after the split I was introduced to heroin.

When I was growing up it seemed that everyone around me had more than I had. Everyone had a mother, and other things. I was jealous and I caused a lot of resentment. I was jealous and angry because I thought what have I done to have all this bad stuff. I felt that I had been a victim all of my life. I have had all sorts of bad things happen to me. I lost my mother and when I was four years old my brother died, and then I found my Nana dead on the settee. All this stuff round my family, it seemed like I was surrounded by death. I didn’t really know my mother but, I felt that I had lost what other people had. I suppose I was angry or jealous, I couldn’t really pinpoint the feeling but I felt that the world was against me not letting me succeed in life. It was like me against the world, I felt that I had to become a person that I wasn’t, I became a bully in a way.

There wasn’t really much school life for me. When I went to secondary school, it seemed the teachers were always on strike, many afternoons I had to go home because of the strikes. When things got back to normal I didn’t want to go back. This led me to sneaking off school hanging around with my friends, sniffing glue. Pinching from the shops, causing trouble in the shopping centres, getting locked up for it. I led an unruly life getting banned from the shopping centers. My father did his best to control me. He grounded me, but I climbed out of windows and got back in through the windows, I think he realized that he couldn’t ground me. I was being a menace, to myself, everybody, school when I would jump off buses on school trips. I was never in care, but when the police picked me up my dad would let me stay in the cells for a few hours before he came to pick me up. He thought that it would do me a world of good letting me sweat it out for a while but it wasn’t. It made me more of a villain. But I was lucky, he always got me out and I was never put into care. I was 18 when I first went into prison and for ten years I was in and out of prison. It got to the point where my friends were taking bets on when I would go back in. I only lasted a few months before I was back in again.

The first time I went in prison I was scared, but after that it didn’t scare me anymore. I found prison life pretty easy. My father’s death affected me. Now I want to stay clean, go to college, get a job. I don’t know what kind of a job I want because at the moment I’m confused. All my life I have had danger, maybe if I could get a job with some danger in it. I would really like to go to college and become a deep-sea welder, but I will have to see how things go.

 

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