Edges Magazine Issue 39 - I am not going back to prision

EDGES MAGAZINE Issue 39

October 2004

I am not going back to Prison

Paul speaks to Edges

When I was in prison, that was it for me, I knew when I was lying on that bunk-bed that I needed to change my life. Luckily for me a prison officer told me about T.H.O.M.A.S. and Pam (Prison Worker) came to see me and accepted me onto the programme. I came here seven weeks ago and honestly it has changed my life. I was a mess before I came here I was using heroin. I was committing crimes to feed my habit, hurting people around me, my girl friend, friends, just leaving a mess wherever I went. I was an addict and the drugs were the first things that came in my life. I didn’t care about anything, about myself, just drugs. They took a big part of my life.

When I was at school I was classed as a problem child. I was always messing around, fighting, being in with the wrong crowd, who I thought then were the right crowd. I just wanted to be with the ones I felt comfortable with. Then came the solvents, cannabis and progressed with the drugs until I ended up in prison. When I was at school I disrupted the classes, the teachers couldn’t handle me. I was always outside the class, always at my ‘special desk’ outside the Head Teacher’s room copying from a book. I think that what really frightened me about school was that I couldn’t do the work and if there was say, a spelling test, then I’d do something to get myself thrown out of class, so that I wouldn’t have to do the test.

Two years ago I was diagnosed as dyslexic also hyperactivity. I think these were the reasons for my behavioural problems. I found it frustrating when I was asked to read books and to read aloud. I get my b’s mixed up with my d’s and after reading for a length of time the words started moving on me. I used to think it was me being stupid and thick; the teachers used to call me that a lot. I used to laugh it off but I think it must have affected me, though at the time I just did something daft to take attention away from it.

My mates used to sneak off school, so I did and we used to hang around the shops, smoking weed and gambling. That carried on for most of my schooldays. I hated school, even when I left I was still hanging round with these sort of people, taking ecstasy at weekend with amphetamines. I had a gambling problem when I was at school, and fruit machines fascinated me. One day at school I went into the music room and stole an electric keyboard which I sold for money to play the fruit machines. I was expelled and I just dossed around.

My mum and dad said I had to start bringing money into the house so I went to the jobcentre hoping to get benefits, but because I was only fifteen I couldn’t get anything except £15 a week hardship money, but my parents wanted £30 a week. I started stealing to get clothes and things, to fit in with my mates and my drinking and drugs at week-end.

When I was 21 I went to prison for the first time and by then I was addicted to heroin. I remember being sent to Preston prison from Lancaster Magistrate’s Court and I was scared, I didn’t know what to do. I’d heard stories about it, but I was scared of doing my rattle. I ended up on D wing and I was just left to it. 23 hours a day I was ‘banged up’, I felt rough, that was the first time I had ever done a withdrawal and I didn’t know what was going on. It was horrible, hard to describe. Up night and day in a little cell 23 hours a day. But that didn’t stop me, I used to think about getting out and using. As soon as I got out I picked up again. It’s got me back in and out of prison a few times. I’ve tried a few times, different rehab centres, detoxes but I thought I could do it my way.

The difference this time is it’s like a Twelve Steps programme, a guideline for life. All the things in the 12 Steps book seem like they’ve been written for me. The disease of my addiction – denial. I had a problem. I hit rock bottom and I knew I had to get help. It was a nightmare, my family didn’t want to know me, my girl friend didn’t want to know me. I was sleeping rough, anywhere I could get my head down. I didn’t care, I didn’t bathe for weeks, I was a mess, my appearance said it all, when I was doing it I thought I was okay. My mates all looked the same so it didn’t bother me.

Some of the worst moments of my addiction were last year. I spent Christmas alone in a one roomed flat with nothing but a black and white TV. It was sad really. On Christmas morning I walked into the town where I lived and plonked myself on a motorway bridge hoping a police car would come along and see me, like I was going to throw myself off. I didn’t have the nerve to do that, but I just wanted help, and I thought it was the only way to get it. The day before New Year’s Eve I went into the town centre and picked up some bricks and started smashing windows. I was arrested and I thought I would go back into jail where I would be safe but they gave me a fine instead.

For me, jail has saved my life a few times, I was a mess and I felt comfortable there, a safe environment, no drugs or injecting my groin. My mum said just before she died that the only decent night sleep she had was when I was locked up behind a cell door, she didn’t have to worry about me overdosing or something.

I also have an anger problem. I don’t know where it comes from, but I’m nasty, by words, by violence, hurting with words. I’m ashamed that I hit my girlfriend, but I damaged her with my words. I think it was my own insecurity because when she said things to hurt me, and they were the truth I know now, I hurt her with my nasty words. I was sorry but I don’t think she believed me because I did it so many times.

But I’ve had enough, I’m lucky to be here doing this interview. I should be dead because of the things that I’ve done to myself. I’ve read in ‘Edges’ about others and I can relate to some of the stories. Suicide isn’t the way out. I’ve discovered a lot about myself but it hasn’t been easy. The Twelve Steps gives you an understanding of why we are like this and what damage has been done. Now things are positive, now I know that I can do better and I can have a relationship and other things that are missing from my life.