This article is inspired by a headline in last weekends Evening Chronicle. It was actually on the front page. It told the story of yet another accidental heroin overdose. I was quite surprised that it made headline news. Smack OD's normally go unreported. It's just another dead smackhead, you see. Not many of us care for smackheads, do we?
Funny, I was in the library yesterday reading a book about smack. Sorry, but I can't help being so obsessed by the stuff. You see I was a smackhead once. In fact I've not been clean long - this is day 151 without. So all this writing I've been doing recently is what flows from a rehabilitating mind, a mind that's recovering from six years of the mental torment that is smack addiction. Just so you know.
A short time ago, I was asked to write an article about 'People's conceptions and misconceptions of a drug addict.' That was back when 'creative writing' was all new to me, and I didn't really give it much thought. I reckon I could write a much better piece on the subject now. However, 'drug addict' is so generalised. 'Drug addict' to me is a smackhead, a speed freak, an alcoholic, a cigarette smoker; and people's conceptions and misconceptions of one type of addict may not be the same as those of another. To write a piece on that…well, it could be a book. So in this particular article I'll give you the conceptions, the misconceptions and the truth about smackheads – because that's my favourite subject. Call me boring for going on about it all the time but it really does take over your life. It's all I write about, it's all I talk about, it's all I think about; and I don't even do the stuff anymore. But even though I've let go of the smack, the smack will never let go of me.
If you're a smackhead and you're reading this, you may not agree with everything I've got to say on the subject. I guess that depends on which stage you're at with your addiction. You see, you don't just get addicted and that's it, you go through phases. I can't speak for everybody, I can only relate my own case history; but I reckon I've been at every conceivable phase of smack addiction including the one that was on the front cover of last Saturday's Chronicle. I was one of the lucky ones that made it back. Nine out of ten times you come back out of a smack OD. The young lad in Saturday's Chronicle was the one in ten that doesn't.
It's interesting to note that people can pass half an hour or so of conversation slagging off smackheads; but unless you've been there yourself you can never really understand what the smackhead is going through. When they say 'It's really hard…' they're not joking. It is. But all you smackheads out there who are nodding their heads in agreement – if you've never been clean for any length of time, then even you don't know how hard it really is.
I'd like to make it clear that I've only been clean for 151 days (at the time of writing) and I know that's not very long. So please don't think that I'm being big-headed about what I've achieved, because I know that the worst is yet to come.
So here's a misconception. You do a detox, then that's it. No more addiction. Right? I wish! This addiction will be with me for life. I will fight it in my head every day. Sure, there must come a time when it gets easier, probably after the first year or so, but I'd like to tell you about a good friend of mine back home. She's called Jane. She had a bad habit for about five years back in the eighties. Back in the days when smack addiction was relatively new. (Fact – in 1985 there were only 8,819 registered addicts in the UK.) Back in the days when 'needle exchange' was a knitting move. It was one glass syringe between three back then with only one needle, which got sharpened on the back doorstep. I hope you don't think I'm joking, because I was there, I saw it with my own eyes.
It goes without saying that Jane got Hep B. But she found the strength to change her life and she got herself clean. For six years. Then she relapsed. That was five years ago and she's still stuck now. The fact that she relapsed after six years of being clean will hang over me for the next five years and seven months.
So why do people get into smack? The truth is I don't think anybody gets into smack for just one reason. It's a mixture of things. Like I say, I can't speak for everybody, but this is how it was for me:
I've been 'game-on' for a buzz since I was 14, and I'm now 29. Back in the early days it was dope, mushrooms, acid, and gas – you know the score. My partner in crime and I had two golden rules throughout our experimenting career – no heroin and no needles. We used to say that legs would be broken if one of us ever caught the other one out.
Then I got into speed pretty heavy. I lost three and a half stone in six months. Raver! But you can put the weight back on after speed – I also lost a couple of things that I'll never get back. One was a girl; the other was the confidence that I used to have so much of.
After what I did to myself with speed, I was feeling a bit stressed. I'd lost my job through the speed so I was bored as well. And all those mates that I used to go raving with were all doing smack. So that's stress, boredom, peer pressure….just one more thing needed. It killed the cat. It nearly killed me. You get this attitude 'you've tried one buzz you may as well try 'em all'. Just so you can say you've done it the once, just to see what it's like. So you try smack once, just to see what it's like. You try digging once, just to see what it's like. You convince yourself that it's 'just another class A drug'. Ecstasy is class A, so is LSD. You've tried those, so why not try smack? All that 'Heroin screws you up' and 'Just say no!' business with Zammo back in the eighties was just propaganda, right? Misconception!
So you try smack once. All your cares melt away. So you decide that you'll do it again. But remember, this is a really addictive drug, so you'll just do it once a week, then you won't get a habit, right? Misconception!
In case you don't know, this is how smack addiction works. Like morphine, smack is an opium-derived painkiller. It's the strongest painkiller you can get without a prescription. Your brain produces painkilling hormones called endorphins. But if you feed your body smack every day then that part of your brain switches off – you don't need the endorphins because you've got smack. Then when you've got no smack and you've got no endorphins, then it hurts. Cold turkey.
OK, so that means that if you don't do smack every day then your brain won't stop producing endorphins then you won't get a habit, right? Misconception! This is stage one of your addiction, the mental stage. You don't have to have a physical withdrawal to be a smackhead. But oh no, I wouldn't listen. I knew what I was doing. I wasn't a smackhead. I didn't turkey. In fact, I still joined in those conversations laughing at how stupid the smackheads were. No drug was ever going to control me. I had it sorted with drugs. I knew how to use and not abuse. I could handle it, right? Misconception!
Yes, you can control smack. But I'll guarantee this, whoever you are, even if you've got the IQ of an IBM mainframe, if you dabble with smack then it will start to control you. You might just play with it for years, depending on what else is going down in your life, but it will get you in the end.
Then you move on from the foil to the needle. The word 'addiction' takes on a whole new meaning. You're no longer chasing 'the gouch'. You're chasing 'the rush'. And part of that rush is when you pull back the plunger and see blood. If you're a smackhead and your habit is on the foil, please, please, please don't ever dig it. If you think you've got a problem now, it's nothing compared to when you start on the needle. Don't let it be you on the front cover of the Chronicle.
Once you've started digging, then you go through the greedy phase. No matter how much smack you've stuck in your arm, it's never enough. You just can't seem to get that 'gouch'. Last year I spent a £3000 bank loan and put £1700 on my credit card in just over a month. I was spending £80-£120 a day on smack. When you're digging a sixteenth a day, then you start needing a sixteenth a day, just to get you through. It's during this phase that you'll discover that you really will do anything for smack. When you're left with only one option, you'll take it, whatever it is. Some of you 'new recruits' to the habit may say 'I'll never get like that'. Yes, you will. I did things I thought I could never do, and here's another couple of case histories from back home:
Jim was 17 years old, with an £80 a day habit. He grabbed an old lady's handbag at a bus stop, but she wouldn't let go. He yanked it off her, she fell over and hit her head. Then she had a heart attack and died. Jim got four years for manslaughter, but now he's out and back on the smack. His family had to move out of the village that five previous generations had lived in.
To be really honest, I never really liked Jim anyway. But I do know that he didn't have it in him to rob an old lady before he sold his soul to the devil that is smack.
John was 22. Turkeying one night, he's grafting a house for his next bag. The owner of the house came home unexpectedly, saw John and came at him with a chair. John took the chair off him and beat him to the ground with it. The chair broke. Jim picked up a hammer. The Home Office said no release for 18 years.
Before John got on the smack, you couldn't meet a nicer lad. He was a talented footballer, the sort of lad that would bend over backwards to help anybody. Now he's bending over forwards on his wing for extra baccy….and for smack, of course.
There's another phase you go through with smack addiction. It's called the suicide phase. Make or break time. You can't see anything else in front of you except more of the same and you just don't want to live. There's just no point in carrying on. I'm lucky, I got through it. Too many people don't.
I could say 'sod ya, learn by your own mistakes'. But that's not why I'm writing this. I want people to learn from mine. All you people out there in your late teens or early twenties, especially the ones that are 'game-on' for a buzz, who laugh at the smackheads and say they'll never do it, please remember that I said exactly the same at your age. Jane didn't think it could happen to her, neither did John or Jim. I didn't think it could happen to me, and although I don't know it for a fact, I guess the guy on the front cover of the Chronicle didn't think it could happen to him. So please don't think it can't happen to you.
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