One drug - a green liquid in a beaker - is an addictive opiate that takes users at least five weeks to come off. Another - a brown powder in a syringe - is an addictive opiate that takes users five days to come off. The liquid is methadone. The powder is heroin. One is legally prescribed by doctors. The other is illegally procured from dealers. What, they’re asking in Britain’s drugs capital, is the good of that?

By Mary Braid

Published: 19 July 2000

Alex Clark, a 38-year-old from Ruchazie, a run-down council estate on Glasgow’s east side, sits in Marco’s Gym and reels off a long list. They’re the names of neighbours and relatives, all smackheads, and all dead, ruined, or on the run. Alex’s cousin Danny, who has been on heroin since his teens, is the one on the run - somewhere in England, hiding from dealers to whom he owes money. In his case, flight was sensible. A few months back machete-wielding pushers put another cousin, Aldo, in the city’s Royal Infirmary for owing a few hundred pounds.

Alex Clark, a 38-year-old from Ruchazie, a run-down council estate on Glasgow’s east side, sits in Marco’s Gym and reels off a long list. They’re the names of neighbours and relatives, all smackheads, and all dead, ruined, or on the run. Alex’s cousin Danny, who has been on heroin since his teens, is the one on the run - somewhere in England, hiding from dealers to whom he owes money. In his case, flight was sensible. A few months back machete-wielding pushers put another cousin, Aldo, in the city’s Royal Infirmary for owing a few hundred pounds.

Meanwhile, Alex, after eight years on heroin, is seeking salvation through weights and stomach-wrenching sit-ups. It has been three months since he last shot up, and his abstinence has made his older brother Andrew, who is 39, proud. “What’s great is to see Alex with his two sons again, because for a while there he lost them,” says Andrew, whose skinny frame and hollow Celtic eyes are so similar to Alex’s that the brothers might be twins. “And it’s great to hear him laugh again. There’s not much laughing when you’re using.” Alex, still a little jittery, came off cold turkey, just as Andrew did two and a half years ago, following his own eight years on smack.

When it comes to kicking heroin, however, abstinence is not, generally, the Glasgow way. As in other parts of Britain, methadone, prescribed by GPs, is now the orthodox medical treatment for the 8,500 “jaggers” who have turned Glasgow into Europe’s heroin capital.

Widespread prescription of liquid methadone, taken orally as a heroin substitute, was introduced in the Eighties to curb the spread of HIV by needle-sharing addicts. But the strenuous promotion of methadone - an addictive opiate, just like heroin - as a medicine angered some communities, already drowning in drugs, and at least one in four Glasgow GPs still refuse to take part in the scheme. Methadone, none the less, has emerged as the treatment king.

Addicts, it seems, just can’t get enough. In 1992, there were just 140 Glaswegians on methadone prescription. Today, around 3,000 visit their chemist every day to swallow the sweetened green liquid provided by the state. There’s a waiting list to join the programme and Greater Glasgow Health Board has plans for further expansion. Last month a government drugs-advisory group held the Glasgow scheme up as a national model, after stricter supervision appeared to cut fatal methadone overdoses. This month, the first research into methadone in Glasgow sings its praises, claiming it reduces injecting, overdoses and crime.

Andrew Horne, of the Glasgow Drugs Crisis Centre, is among those who argue that methadone clearly reduces the harm heroin does, both to society and to the individual user. Dispensed in a non-injectable form, it is, he says, better for the health of addicts and also protects society from infection. “Methadone or heroin injected into the groin - which would you rather have?” he says.

Horne also argues that daily supervision of addicts on the methadone programme brings users into daily contact with services that can help them. There are no statistics to reveal how many addicts are helped by methadone to become drug-free. Horne says a large proportion of addicts simply grow out of opiate use, but he insists that the methadone programme does help significant numbers to kick their drug habit. “It is a stepping stone,” he says. “The best way to detox is to use a substitute drug and do it slowly.”

All of which would be dandy, except for critics’ claims that there is no evidence the opiate is actually doing what many presume to be its principal job: ie helping addicts to come off heroin and other drugs. Last year a record 152 people died from overdoses (mainly heroin) in the Strathclyde region, 52 more than the year before. Methadone, some warn, has now become just another dangerous drug swilling round a city infamous for “polydrug” misuse.

For their part, the Clark brothers hate methadone. Alex and Andrew’s brother-in-law, Davie, was prescribed it after five years of injecting heroin. It was supposed to ease his withdrawal and help him kick drugs. Ten years later, at the age of 33, he is still on methadone. It’s the same story, they say, with the rest of the old Ruchazie gang - at least for those who are still alive. Most have been on methadone prescription for years and - despite the scheme’s rules against using other drugs, enforced by urine testing - they continue to inject heroin and take other drugs.

The main difference between the opiates is that methadone, while it does not offer the intense high that heroin does, is longer-lasting. Addicts on the programme should not need to dose more than once a day, while heroin addicts come down much faster and need to “dose” at frequent intervals. But compared to heroin, they say, methadone is boring - a Volvo against the preferred Ferrari, and, therefore, treated just as a “top-up” to heroin.

“The health board would consider Davie a success story,” says Alex bitterly. “He does not inject or take other drugs. But he’s like a vegetable. He used to have a good head on him but now he just sits at home all day.”

Alex’s brother Andrew took methadone for four weeks when he broke with smack. “It did take away the aches and pains of withdrawal, but psychologically the benefits wore off in days - and coming off was worse than it was with heroin,” he says. It takes five days to come off heroin but five to 15 weeks to kick methadone, which is a consideration for addicts, with jail a constant occupational hazard.

Alex complains that drug centres never treat the individual addict but simply prescribe methadone to everyone. He relates how, three months ago, after 14 days without heroin, he went for medical help. “I wanted to stay off,” he recalls. “I had a house like the one in Trainspotting - there was nothing in it. A drugs counsellor took just 10 minutes to decide methadone was for me, though I told her I was already detoxed.”

Despite Davie’s experience, Alex admits he was tempted: “By then I was gasping for anything.” So he went along to his local methadone group. “There were 15 of them there, all slumped forward,” he says, now laughing. “I was introduced and - shit! - I realised I knew most of them.”

Alex made his excuses and left and finally gave into Andrew’s pleas that he join Calton Athletic Recovery Group, a hard-line abstinence group based in Denniston, in Glasgow’s East End, which was famous for a while as the technical adviser to the film of Trainspotting. Calton, which is bitterly critical of the methadone programme and currently embroiled in a funding row, is where Andrew came off, and where Alex is now trying to kick his habit. Some days are hard, but it was peer pressure, Alex says, which sucked him in in the first place. Now another peer group, he believes, can help rescue him.

Calton offers football, half-marathons, daily work-outs, and group-therapy sessions. Its controversial director, Davie Bryce - who is a hero to his fans and a bloody-minded svengali to his critics - believes exercise stimulates endorphins suppressed by years of addiction. As Bryce, a former heroin addict himself like everyone at Calton, earthily explains: “You don’t get better sitting on your arse.”

Calton is supportive, but tough. And Bryce, in track suit and trainers, is scathing of the suited professionals who blame addiction on poverty, giving addicts too many places to hide. Calton’s mantra is individual responsibility. “I used to blame social conditions and Thatcherism,” says Bryce. “I blamed everything and everyone, bar drugs.”

The health board, and a host of Glasgow drug centres, claim methadone helps addicts, as well as society, by stabilising them until they feel able to tackle dependence. But Calton bans all drugs - prescribed or otherwise - including alcohol. To Bryce, prescribing methadone makes as much sense as switching an alcoholic from whisky to gin.

“Methadone is not a treatment,” he says angrily. “It is a method of social control, introduced to contain HIV infection.” During the Aids panic, he says, the authorities had to reach the drug-taking population and methadone was the carrot that lured addicts in. Bryce reluctantly allows that methadone might have a very short-term application, if addicts moved off it before dependence set in. “But it’s not used as a means of getting people into detox,” he argues. Another Glasgow drugs counsellor, who does not want to be named, agrees. “You get these reports about methadone working miracles, but I don’t know anyone it has helped come off. Its an inexpensive way for the health board to look like it’s actually doing something. And no one takes the board on now because we all rely on it for funds.”

The study into methadone’s effect on the behaviour of Glasgow addicts - co-authored by Dr Laurence Gruer, public health consultant and the driving force behind Glasgow’s methadone programme - makes no assessment of methadone as an addiction-busting drug. Gruer’s fellow co-author Sharon Hutchison, of the Scottish Centre for Infection and Environmental Health, says that a drug-free life is the long-term goal of methadone programmes. But the study only covered addicts’ first 12 months on methadone - too soon, apparently, to expect long-term heroin users to become drug-free. But the question arises: if methadone brings such dramatic improvements to addicts’ lives, why are so many of them still relying on it, years after their first prescription?

Professor Neil McKeganey, of Glasgow University’s Centre for Drug Misuse Research, does not argue with the social benefits of methadone in curbing infection and crime. A £3m methadone programme looks good value when set against the £194m of goods that Glasgow addicts steal annually to fund their habits. It is generally accepted that given free methadone, addicts do steal less.

“But the big question has to be what effect, if any, is methadone having on heroin addiction,” says McKeganey. “And the truth is we don’t have any evidence either way.” McKeganey says that when psychiatrists were responsible for the care of heroin addicts - before Aids arrived and public health and infectious diseases consultants took over - they were largely sceptical about methadone as a treatment, as countries including France remain today.

McKeganey agrees that short-term use of methadone might stabilise an addict. “But stability is not an end in itself,” he warns. “Methadone should be the point from which other things take place and that’s not happening in Glasgow.”

From his own interviews with addicts, he believes that for some, the opiate may create an even stronger dependence than heroin. Professor Russell Newcombe, a drugs lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, argues that because of the longer withdrawal period, methadone may, in fact, extend addictions by years. Yet there are no studies into the long-term effects of the drug.

Meanwhile Calton’s members believe that, secretly, the health board has given up on addicts, convinced they cannot be saved, or that saving them would cost too much. Janis, who is 29, finally came off heroin five years ago. “I had sold everything,” she says. “I slept rough on the streets. Eventually I joined a methadone programme, lying that I wanted to kick heroin just so I could get more drugs.” It was a year before a urine test revealed she was still using heroin and other narcotics.

“My habit just got bigger and my life got out of control,” she says. “I thought the only way you got out was to die. That was all I was seeing around me.” Bryce laughs that the health authority likes schemes that are “non-directive and non-judgmental” when directive and judgemental are just what addicts need.

“I wanted someone to tell me how to get off and stay off, ” remembers Janis. “I didn’t want someone to ask me what I wanted to do. How would I have known, the mess I was in?” Fundamentally, she says, she needed role models to show what was possible. That finally happened when she saw a Calton presentation in prison.

Janis, understandably, wants more abstinence schemes. But even drugs counsellors who support methadone projects, warn that Glasgow’s expanding scheme is facing problems because of scarce long-term rehabilitation programmes. “We have them on methadone but we can’t get them off,” says one drugs-project manager who prefers anonymity because he, like most others, relies on health-board funds.

Alex, meanwhile, struggles on with the daily sit-ups at Marco’s Gym. “I worried at first that it was all too late to get clean,” he says. “But I believe now that had I gone on methadone I would be sitting in the house just like [my brother-in-law] Davie.”

http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article266397.ece

a few years ago i wrote an article which won me a place with 3 others out of hundreds of thousands, to create a magazine for the BBC’s new project ‘BLAST’; aimed at promoting the arts to young people in the United Kingdom. i saw the call asking us young’uns to write and tell the bigshots at the BBC, Dazed & Confused Magazine & Livity Studios why WE were so damn worthy of being picked. I wrote my application fucked out of my face; I had just done a hit of heroin to sink a battle ship (infact, because i was so determined to finish the piece, the next morning i woke up with a bruised forehead where i kept repeatedly hitting the keyboard) and had drunk so much vodka and grapefruit I’m suprised I could even type. Is that saying something? Because I got picked. The BBC took me off to a hotel for 2 weeks in Tottenham Court Road. I worked at Livity Studios in London, went to Dazed & Confused Magazine, worked with the editor. Why am I mentioning this?

I don’t know. Maybe because, all the while I was working down there, I was a heroin addict. And I sat writing and typing and interviewing people for the “MAGAZINE” and all I could think of was why the hell they had let a junkie like me infiltrate their shiney-clean BBC publication. Jesus, the photo of us on the back of the magazine features me in shorts and short sleeves. Yes, I have razor blade cuts and stitches and bandages all over my legs, but are you telling me nobody saw my track marks all over my arms? J-E-S-U-Z.

Everybody, visit this  http://www.bbc.co.uk/blast/writing/magazine.pdf     take a look at Naomi Cave, junkified, 15.

I know every engineer on every train
All of their children, and all of their names
And every handout in every town
And every lock that ain’t locked
When no one’s around.

Dylan lovingly woke me up at 7am by continuously ringing my phone until I answered it. Even when I did, I was still half asleep I couldn’t understand a word he was saying. Just caught something about him wanting to meet later, which might be a bit tricky as I have my appointment to get a repeat prescription at 2.30pm and after I need to see Danny about getting in touch with the police. Danny is my ECHG (English Church Housing Group) Support Worker and she is absolutely wicked. So lovely. Coincidently, she used to work with my sister when she was in a childrens home. She probably finds it no suprise that I turned out the way I did if she remembers anything of what my sister told her and how she behaved. My nanna is 82 and gets up at 5.30am in the morning, makes a cuppa tea and tidies up. I don’t know how she does it. She came in at 7.30am to see if I was up and suprisingly I was due to Dylan, but I acted as if I had arose all by myself. I didn’t hit the sack until about 3am. Managed to drift asleep at the computer and drop a can of special brew all over her wooden floor. I always do that. Did it last time I was here but at least it wasn’t all over her computer this time.

The reason I was so like that is because yesterday I was bored at mine and popped out for some cigarettes when I bumped into my mate Charlies Mum. Charlie lives near me and is also a user, alongside her Mum. Her Mum asked if I could help her score. I said yes. And decided to do so myself. I scored 2 x £20 heroin and 1 x £20 crack cocaine. I ended up doing both bags within 30 minutes of each other and straight after I had to go pick up my 60ml of methadone. THEN meet Dylan for a drink. I had a couple of vodka & red bulls to try and perk me up but I felt as if I was going to fall asleep. It was awful. I had to stand up to keep myself from dozing off. I had been using this great vein on the inside of my left wrist but on the second hit, I completely missed it all but because there was white in it I didn’t notice. What a waste. Never mind. I’m not a huge crack cocaine fiend and there is a little tiny bit left over.

I don’t know how the fuck I support my habit. My Momma says I’m one of these people that “Always falls into the shit but comes out smelling of roses” She is right. I do. I always find my feet and if I’m going cold turkey, I always come across money. I can’t figure out whether that is a good thing or not. Probably, otherwise I would have a criminal record the length of my arm by now.

My grandad is giving me a lift home in a couple of hours. I hope HE hasn’t been in my flat. I am petrified he will have stolen my TVs or even worse my sewing machine that cost a penny short of £1,000. That is my livelyhood. I hope not. I’m frightened to open the door. Or what if he is waiting with a knife to stab me? Snap out of it Naomi! If he hasn’t stolen my sewing machine I’m going to get cracking on some bags and some clothes, I need to make some extra cash for Christmas Clubbing Money. All those festive Do’s to go to… I can’t miss out.

Oh well. I’m going to carry on listening to oldies radio stations and dancing around the room trying to shed some of the many pounds I’m putting on. I dropped a lot of weight now my appetite has come back. Its probably natures way of keeping me well over the freezing cold winter period. Because as it stood a month or so ago, I was setting myself up for pneumonia said my mother, a registered nurse who is very well qualified to predict such a thing. Aparently, I was a prime candidate. I still am. Great. Just finished a pint glass of sherry and feel as if my esophogus is melting away from the excess stomach acid that is cascading up it. Know what I’m going to do? Pour another sherry? Are you crazy? I’ll have something less acidic, like a Special Brew.

i got home, back to him, having not given a snippet away to my family about what had happened. when i take a picture, i will post it. of my phone (it was a samsung slide-y one, which he snapped in half, literally. and just for dramatic effect, the cracked screen is covered in blood where he ripped it out my hand), the big deep cut in my hand, etc.etc. ALL of which I blamed on myself. I invented some kind of stupid accident. Even though they were pretty good, they instantly translated the “i accidently” into “i was drunk and…”. When I got back from my Nans, after the last post, he was there. And he was a complete bastard. Not even remotely remorseful. He started again. So I did what I should of done and when my Momma rang I told her on the phone, and the only thing that stopped him from ripping that out of my hand and stamping on both it and I was she quite audibly said for his benefit “if you fail to pick up the phone i’m coming round with your sister as well as ringing the police”. I made him leave. I felt terrible. I still feel terrible. For making him go at about 10pm at night. But I couldn’t risk what would happen next.

His fury over the fact I am now on a methadone script and don’t need to score drugs to stay well caused him to be very nasty. Despite the fact I was on a script, I was being forced into getting money for his habit. How was that fair? It was as if I should never of bothered fighting to get on one in the first place. I worried about how, when I had kicked him out, he would support his drug habit. Since he was putting down a floor at mine, he had a key, which he supposedly left in his Dads work van. I am hoping he did, otherwise, since I am not at my flat, he could go in and steal whatever/trash it/wait in the shadows till I come back and stab me. I know he hasn’t gone to work, but has he really left it there? Or is it in his pocket?

The night after I made him leave, I heard nothing from him. However, my mate Dylan saw him coming down the stairs from my flat door. He didn’t knock or anything. But now I know why. At first, I heard that and thought he maybe just thought about knocking to reconcile, apologise etc. but got to the door and backed out. Why no, he went into my shed which is right next to my front door. From there, he stole my laptop, sold it, and proceeded to go back to the very same spot and cheekily do the drugs he had purchased with what should of been MY MONEY since that was my property he pawned. How perfect was my shed… out of the way of the harsh elements and even better, right as you open the door you are greeted by a lovely comfy chair that just literally screams to wandering, drifting ex-s “rest your weary bones”. What would of made it only slightly more perfect would of been if there was a working light bulb in there but, ha, there wasn’t. I realise now the git was shacking up in my shed until he found a place at the local homeless night shelter. I heard lots of noise but thought it was just my neighbours. No, it was him. He didn’t even have the sense to remove all the drug paraphenalia from there so he could at least deny he wasn’t in there, and therefore wasn’t the one who stole the things that were in there.

I’m rather bloody frightened. When I’m out walking, for example to the chemist, to my Nans… I’m looking around everywhere. The first night after he left I was walking back from the chemist when I saw him walking away from the direction of my house. My heart was racing. Not sure what I was quite scared of, I don’t think he would do anything in public, but thats it. Its dark at 5.30pm and not that many people are about in all the places I walk. I carried on walking and he chased after me “Two words… two words”. I looked at him, without saying a word. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. Sorry” I just walked off. Tonight, while I was walking to the chemist, I saw him. I’m 99% it was him. From afar, the clothes were the same, the way he stood. It was. As I got closer, it was him. I started to worry why he was just waiting in such a spot. Was he waiting to see me go to get my script, so he could go to mine and do god knows what? I am frightened to go back to my flat and find out. Instead, after getting my script I met Dylan and had a drink in The Vine at the top of Burleigh Street. Quite a wanky place. Tries to be posh and in the heated smoking area outside, there were these complete tossers from a nearby company. A young Asian man, late 20s. Talking about his office cleaner to the group “Give her whatever hours. I don’t care if she does 4, 5, 6 hours just as long as I don’t see her. All I want to see is her timesheet, but not her. The last person I want to see or have to talk to is a bloody cleaner. So whatever you do, make her leave by 5 as I never want to set eyes on her”. Dylan had his back to this loud man and turned right around to clap eyes on him to see what such a prick could possibly look like. The man knew this and was quite embarrased. We weren’t listening in, his voice was bellowing and he was showing off. I wonder what company they were from…. double glazing sales? When I’m having a shit day, I love little snippets like this that remind me of just how really shallow and crappy the world is. I didn’t stay long there. After, I walked to my Nans. Stopped off on the way home and bought myself some Choco-Banana Pocky, Turkish Delight for Nan and a Walnut Whip for Grandad. He just picked the nut off the top and left the rest till later. I want to swipe it but thats greedy of me since I purchased it for him. I could justify it by telling myself he is diabetic and shouldn’t be eating stuff like that….?

My prescription has run out so I shall have to see my lady at the doctors so I can get another one. I did actually slip up the day after he left. My mate came round at about 10pm and I was steaming drunk by this time…. I celebrated my new found singleness by buying loads of booze, magazines & cigarettes (he never let me buy them as aparently they were a waste of money), yummy blackberries + strawberries and pizza. And she knocked and offered me a snowball. I said yes. I don’t think I would of done if I wasn’t so under the influence. That is no excuse, its my fault, but I refused one the next day when I was entirely sober. I felt very guilty actually. I feel as if I’ve let myself down big time. BIG TIME. No, come on, just a slip-up. Start again from now.

I do feel so guilty that he has to go and find somewhere else to live. I worry about so much. He is in the local homeless night shelter which he was in before. He said the food is excellent (and he said mine was crap so hey, in that department he will be ok) but the only downside is its open from 7.30pm-9.30am and your kicked out inbetween. Sucky, especially since Cambridge library is under refurbishment at the moment. I wonder what he does all day. I can’t see him going back to work yet. So has he gone back to a life of crime? Of shoplifting etc. etc.? He won’t kick his drug habit. I know he won’t. All I know is, at least now I don’t have another heavily addicted vein to feed. 

My dad was a manic-depressive alcoholic self-harmer. He never hurt me or my sister but he sometimes did my Mum. I remember her being so frightened of him arriving back home at night, that she would put up a bed in my sister and I’s bedroom. I remember her reading us Bambi as he staggered through the front door and up the stairs to their room. Her voice trembled as he reached there; she wondered what he might do when he realised she wasn’t in their bed and in our room. All she ever done was try to protect us. Luckily, he just collapsed into their double bed. She continued to read us Bambi, whilst crying. I was 4, my sister 8. I fell asleep before she finished the book.

I never wanted to be like my Mum. But last night, I got beaten by my so called friend. Pushed over and through a huge glass bowl vase I have been lovingly painting. Cut my hand badly. Badly. He smashed my phone apart so I couldn’t ring for help.

He won’t go. I’ve tried to make him. Please, go, please go.

I’ve started a new script. Apart from being beaten, I haven’t given in. I haven’t used. I won’t I refuse. I won’t. I am at my Nannas now. I’m going home. Where I’m going to get a kicking. I know it.

Its my 20th birthday today. October 1st 1987. Its also my best friend Tom Bs birthday. I still say best friend even though I haven’t seen him in ages, but since secondary school, which was St Bedes, we were great friends. There were four of us; me and him, my best friend Helen who I have known since I was 7 (our mums are best friends, so are our sisters) and Joe Minervino. Our birthdays all fell within one week of each others, and in me and Toms case, on the same day- same time, same hospital, same year. We were never apart. Joe killed himself not long after his 18th birthday, which we never expected and devestated everyone that knew him. Helen… I don’t see her much anymore. She is 5 months pregnant, an alcoholic who is being given a couple of years to live. Everyone knew at school us 3 would turn out as wasters, end up dying… but not Joe. The injustice…. he is the one gone.

I have been depressed all weekend. When I woke up this morning I had nothing but one card and it served to make me feel even worse than I did. Birthdays are for celebrating the birth of someone special. All I have been doing recently is destroying my family and friends… I’ve been doing them no favours. My nanna is 81, and up until recently worked full time, was full of life, vivacious. Now, if she calls and I miss it a couple of times, the next time I answer and its her, I am greeted by hysterical crying because she has been racking her brains about the possibilities as to why I am not picking up, and she assumes the worse, that I am dead. Its horrible to see how I have, and am, ruining such a wonderful lady. She has stuck by me while I have had this ‘problem’ much more than my own Mum or anyone else. And I fear as if she will soon be gone. She has started to give up, and I know it. And I still don’t do anything about it. It’s.Not.Enough.

This morning I had 3 20bags of brown and 2 20bags of white. Now waiting for me at home (I’m at my nans with my twin nieces, who are 5, my sister, mum, nan, grandad) is 3 brown and a white. I’ve been doing far too much white recently. And I’ve just recovered from the worse abcess ever. When it burst, I cannot describe the amount of stuff that came out of it, and for 2 weeks I had 2 gaping holes in my arm, you could see right in. I have killed my veins so I can’t get anything. So I’m missing hits of light and dark (snowballs) all the time. In my experiences, misses that contain crack with brown are so much worse. I’m due about 5 in the next month I’m sure. I’d be rushing home if I could get a hit easily, but I’m losing so many I don’t need to get excited about it.

Everybody I meet is telling me I’m so thin, I’ve lost so much weight. I’m used to being curvy, 10-11stone usually. Now I am 9 stone, so even though I haven’t noticed my family have and all my friends. I’m constantly getting put down. They tell me I suite being curvy better. I used to have bad problems with overeating and purging. Now I don’t have the appetite for anything. I go days without eating. The only calories I get are from special brew. I have noticed things I took for granted; the things your body does, like heal itself are no longer present. Cuts I make in myself take ages to heal and they nearly always 99.9% of the time get infected and I need antibiotics. I am run down, big time.

There is a cake, loads of more food…. I’m expected to stand around all cheerfully with my Mum singing happy birthday at me when today I met her she sent me a text message saying “You look like an absolute tramp. You are so skinny and you look like a hobo. You don’t have that sparkle anymore. You are nothing nowadays” She has been calling me these types of things for ages. Doesn’t she realise the more she says that the more depressed I get? Not blaming her or anything, but it doesn’t help.

I will write more tomorrow hopefully. There is so much to note. Things have been nuts recently but since my family are about (even though they read this journal) I don’t want them to see. I can handle them reading it tomorrow, or the next day etc. but I just want an easy day. My 20th birthday has been horrible. I just wanted to hang myself. I really can’t stand this anymore. My habit is at least £100 a day and I can’t fund it anymore. I can’t cope with the alcohol either. I want to wake up and not be physically dependant on anything. But instead, I wake up to ice cold beers I have set my alarm at 5am to get up for, so I can place them by my bed for when I wake up at 8am. Then I inject a big fat hit of heroin and crack. Then its to finding a way to get money to get more drugs. Please. I’ve had enough.

What was all that rubbish about life being good?

i don’t have time to write about whats been going on but i can assure you i have been doing myself no favours. got myself a taste for crack, snowballs to be precise. i am puking up blood and have been for the past few days. ive lost too much weight. my body is in such a mess, it is just so disgusting.

i will write something with some substance, soon. i promise. at the moment i have to go drink.

i am at my nannas house and i suddenly started to cry as my mum, sister and my twin nieces left. for days already i have been walking around in a daze. i just cannot shake off the feeling that i really want to just die. please give me an answer god, what should i do? will things get better? shall i hold out?

i had to laugh as i walked into the conservatory to have a ciggarette… there against the wall between my grandads bookshelf and his bureau was his shotgun. a coincidence? i doubt it.

yes, life is good.

i went through an awful time a few weeks back. i was a witness in court alongside my momma and sis and a few others and it really took it out of me, physically and mentally. it was horrible. i dont know why i bothered. they got off anyway. i say i will never do it again but i couldnt just sit back and let them get away with it, even though they did in the end.

my arm. i have an awful infection from 3 weeks ago. the gear was awfully filthy with terrible black bits in it, and i actually skin popped as opposed to mainline so there was no blood in it. 7 days ago it started to swell, get sore, go boiling hot. my mum being a nurse checked it a few days ago and was so stunned. i went to the doctors and now im on 2 flucloxacillin + 4 penicillin 4 times a day. mum said i hope this teaches you a lesson. does it? yes, for once. i got cut off my methadone ages ago so i have to use, but im down to less than a ten bag a day. i use only when i get ill. for once, i am feeling good. happy even. i desperately want to get onto subutex as methadone still made me feel as if i was on gear… no motivation, lethargic. and i cant go through with cold turkey. i tried last week but lasted 2 days. i just cant do that without detox + rehab, not yet.

good news? I HAVE A FLAT! my own, again. but this time, im not going to fill it with waifs & strays and junkies and drug dealers. ive not told anyone. ive had a couple staying with me for 4 months, who have never paid me a penny in rent… and they are just expecting they are coming with me. are they? NO WAY. i think they know it. but i have done so much for them and i cant do it anymore.

anyway, this place is beautiful. its absolutely massive. huge bedroom, huge living room, huge kitchen, beautiful new bathroom, balcony. ive started to paint the ceilings white. i am having seychelle blue for the front room and lemon fizz for the bedroom. i have no money to get anything else so my worker has helped me apply for a community care grant so i can get a cooker, fridge, bed, sofa, carpets. i feel so positively happy i really do. this is make or break for me. my own little home. and it has the cutest little name too does my street.

im going to start writing again regularly. well, im off to buy more decorating supplies. im doing up most of the interior myself. ill show you pics later.

i managed to use the vein on the back of my arm. for the past few weeks constantly. i thought my god! for once my body is not letting me down, but after the first week it clearly let me know it had. my whole right arm from mid-forearm to shoulder is numb. its terrble, i have been poking it with pins, as in syringes, right in as far as they will go, no feeling. i try to pick up things but i cannot do it. there is literally no feeling there. i can still get the vein, just. i cannot feel as the pin goes in, and it takes a while to find a vein. but after every one, nearly after everyone, i get the most dreadful pins and needle all throughout my hand upwards. i cannot do anything with it. luckily, i have had somebody with me to get my hits because my right arm spasms so much and i need them to hold it still so i can get the hit using my left.

i think something is up with my vein. i did a hit today and didn’t feel it for about 3 minutes, then suddenly it hit. when i put it all in, the pain in my right forearm was so unbelievable, like something was building up in the vein. i think my hit was stuck there (i left the torniquet tight on as i lept up because of the pain and didn’t even think about removing it)  and it finally got into the stream.

im in debt, ive lost even more. my body cannot cope with this.

i went to the a&e and my nose is broken. it hurts so much. i was at the doctors today, for another reason, and everybody was giving me so much shit because i have a big bruise on my chin, a split lip and a busted nose… nobody would believe the truth, they are convinced i have a boyfriend that is giving me a kicking. people giving you shit in the doctors surgery? well this just isnt any doctors surgery its the access surgery. appointments between 9am-2pm and 2pm-5pm you just drop in and wait to see a doctor and nurse. since none of us junkies and alcoholics can keep appointments, this surgery is exclusive to us, so we turn up when we want as opposed to making appointments we will never keep. its hellish. from 2pm i was waiting, until 4.06pm and everybody was drunk and fighting in the waiting room, and dealing drugs.

imagine my happiness when i looked in my pocket, found my cashcard, went to the ATM and found I had £100 in there. oh yes, the first i did was go to the dealers and get 3 Brown. it was crap, really crap, i did it all from 8.30pm by 5am in the morning. what a waste. anything to help me nose though. it hurts so bad.

i must go to the hospital. my best friend helen, 2 days younger than I, is in there. she is heavily jaundiced. consultant says she has 3 years maximum if she carries on drinking like this- which i am sure, she will despite the fact she is supposed to be going to rehab on the 31st. i cross my fingers though.

i am trying to give up drinking. only had a couple of special brew today which is good. only 9 units. ive decided i should go back on heroin. at least on heroin, im placid. whenever i drink, which is always, i feel like my Dad and as much as I love[d] him, i can’t put my twin nieces through what he put me and my sister through.

i sat with the doctor and a student nurse, which always embarrasses me. i just must seem like a textbook case of a nutter. i wasnt really using, not like i did when i didnt have a methadone script, and i told him this. he was very pleased and smiled. drinking? he smiled, seemed pleased. obviously, if you read the below post you will realise i lied and wangled my way through it.

i hadnt seen any of the old group so when i came out the first thing i done was go over and speak to them. i had a lot of money on me so i done 3 beer runs, which ended up costing me altogether £36.11. when id run out of money, nobody got me one back! how about that! i should of remembered all i was to these people was a meal ticket. while we were standing chatting under the bus stop (how hip and cool!) this little short black fellar comes over or rather, swaggers over with little bits of paper in his hand. “Here we are everybody, Dean is back in town man. Dean is back in town. Ya’ll take the number, call us and we will hook ya up, aiiiiight?” I had to laugh. It was if somebody came over leafleting for a concert or band. Oh well, they are leafleting for our best interest in life, I suppose. Still… I nearly pissed myself laughing.

Everybody said how well I looked, and I think I did. Owed to the shit load of slap and the tight figure hugging outfit I’m sure. As soon as I was back standing with everybody, the people I had been ignoring for so long, I actually missed them. Or rather the lifestyle. Not of them, the lifestyle that meant I got to hang around with them. The lifestyle that is heroin. I miss not giving a damn. I miss not giving a damn at all. I miss how good it makes me feel.

Well, I don’t have to miss it for that long. And I ain’t, I’m grabbing my coat and I’m going out trudging for some gear. I’ll never stop this, will I?

I have to see the doctor tomorrow at the Drug & Alcohol Dependency Unit. I haven’t seen him ever since I actually started a methadone script, so all he has got to go on is what I have told my keyworker whom since I now have a community script (I pick up from a pharmacy), I haven’t seen in bloody ages. And when I do see him he scribbles down a few notes- that are so unimportant. I know they are unimportant because while I do not lie to him, I do not tell him about certain things. Like when he asks about my heroin use i say “oh its fine, loads better. im not using as much” which is technically true, if you compare it to me old £80-120 a day habit. Now I’m only using £40. And when he asks about my drinking “still have a drink when you get up?” “oh no, i just drink normally now,” I reply. Which again, is technically true. I don’t drink when I get up, I drink when I wake up… I put my cans of Special Brew and my Vodka bottle and Grapefruit juice carton beside my bed before I sleep ready for when I wake up. Drink when I get up? Pfffft… I wish. I need 2 cans of brew and 2 triple vodkas before I can even muster half the strength it requires to get up and evade the inevitable vomitting fits for a little while longer. Then, by the time I’ve got up, its about 4.30pm and I go to the chemist then the pub for 5, which is where I drink socially with everyone else who comes in for a pint after work until about 9pm. Hahaha. It makes me giggle how us addicts can justify our habits. Ooooh, did that rhyme? But nah, this is the REAL big doctor. He should be just as easy to convince as his time is precious and he will wave me in and out and not care whether I’m telling the truth, or be able to tell if I am either. Not much I want… a reduction in my methadone- I’m on so much it’s making me go over (overdose) everytime I have a hit of smack that is about £15 worth and mixing with the alcohol, its making me constantly tired. AND I WANT SUGAR FREE METHADONE! I have no fillings and perfect teeth and I want them to stay that way. I was checking out a measure I use for my methadone and I noticed that since I forgot to wash it out, the little bit of methadone left in the bottom of the cup had crystallised into sugar and rock hard. Yum… no wonder so many junkies on methadone have rotten and/or missing teeth. If they don’t give it to me, I’m giving up methadone and going back on heroin full time. If my lifes going to suck, I don’t want to look like pure shit on top of it and have bad tooth pains. I don’t worry about sounding shallow, because I probably lead one of the most shallowest lives around. All I care about is getting money to get dope to please myself so I feel OK. Well, thats not strictly true but I can see how others might think that.

New Years Eve was as predictable as it always is. It started out in The White Swan, with my sister, Momma, her partner and her mate Jackie. I couldn’t actually bear how boring it was, so at about 10pm I split for a little walk down Mill Road. I went to the store to get some cigarettes and who should pass me but Kearen & one of his mates, spending New Years Eve like any other self-respecting junkie, wandering the streets with a can of Tenants Larger in their hand. I stopped and had a bit of a chat with them. His mate was from Preston, where they both grew up on the same estate and began taking heroin when they were 12. Get to know them, and you will realise they never had a chance. Kearen bless him took my number as he insisted he wanted to take me out. “Umm…. would you like to go to the pictures with me sometime. And for something to eat afterwards?” so I simply replied “are you asking me out on a date?” in quite a sarcastic voice, as I found it quite amusing. I gave him the number, as I know he probably would never ring anyway. No offense, but why would I want to team up with somebody else who has problems just as big as my own? Before I departed, his mate cadjed a £5 off me which I didn’t mind as I had £100 in my pocket anyway.I went back to the pub, realising I had been gone for over an hour, and started sinking Tequila shots. I was having quite a laugh after a while, most at the expense of my sister who was so trollied she began speaking or should I say singing every sentence Soul-Like in a and I quote “in a tribute to James Brown”. Odd. Not odd, must of been all the booze, ya think? Anyway, we went over the road to another Pub, this one that plays Jamaican music. I hate this place. I won’t explain now but we have to go to Court in March because of an ‘incident’ that happened at the White Swan in the summer. Basically, I’m a witness to a good kicking as are my Mum and sister. The people that done it are nasty bits of work, completely vile and unethical. They go to this pub a lot and so do their friends. I KNEW THERE WOULD BE TROUBLE so I told my family not to go. Lo and behold, there was trouble. Actually, we managed to keep the situation quite down. But as the count downs went 5,4,3,2,1 no hugs, joyous shouting… just MY FAMILY fighting. Yes at midnight we had the biggest fight. After a while, I suggested we leave because it was just getting silly. We weren’t having a good time because it had been spoiled by these completely disgusting people.

 Taken from the blog archives. This was from June 2006. Hopefully, this isn’t going to be the norm for 2007.

when i went to robbies house, chris was sitting there. everytime i walk in and he is there i hear this western stand-off music playing in my head. i really cannot stand chris. he is about 30 and has been in prison for most of his adult life. as much as i hate him, his sentance was really unjust. anyway, chris is so so up himself. he isn’t that intelligent at all so he really shouldnt be. he has his own computer company that he claims is turning over hundreds of thousands yet he lives in a grotty council house and rides a 250cc moped thats from the late 80s… he talks down to everybody and thinks he is the bees knees. he used to really fancy me and we went out on a date. i wasn’t interested, i really wasn’t. especially when (he lived about 2 minutes away from me at the time) one lunchtime i popped in to say hello and he took off his shirt and asked me to pick his spot that was really annoying him. “eeeeeeeeew no way!” i squeal and he continues to reach around his back and crane his neck to see if he can pot it “oh please, its really getting to me. ive been trying to pick it for ages” RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT. goodbye. so yeah, basically, he hates my guts because i turned him down. he really does. he tries to belittle me at every opportunity and because i studied computer programming we have COMPUTER WARS where we try to outwit one another on the topic. he hates it because although he gave robs a computer, he always asks me for help even though chris lives seconds away and me half an hours walk. chris talks down to you as if you were thick as shit, quite simply.

Anyway, bex kept on whispering she wanted to score. i said i would do it for her but i would have to do a 2 hour walk, so 4 hours in total, to get it. we all went out with the dogs to the park and i watched chris and rob as they challenged these 3 little 12 year olds to a football match, and lost miserably. we went back to robs where we sat all night. they were just rolling one joint after the other and chris was deliberately missing me out, as he always does. it didn’t bother me too much as i dont really smoke green. he got a big mirror off the wall and started to make 3 lines of cocaine. when i say lines i mean big thick fuckers like you would never believe. i used to do cocaine all the time when i was 14, 15. i first tried it when i was 12, curtosy of my sister. then i started buying it in big fuck off quantities when i hit 14. now, i hate it. i hate uppers. lines were so big nobody could get theres up in one. becky was the last to do hers and she said “chris, can i split mine with naomi?” he scoffed “you do what you want with it. but if you dont want it, ill have it”  i didn’t actually want any. i hate it nowadays. she split it in two and it was far too big so i made her cut it again. then i did it, but only to fuck him off. ha. after that round, they did more and more, but i never asked for it again.

uppers sucka. rob is a puff seller and they had just got a nine bar, so were pretty broke. bex really wanted gear but robbie didn’t. well, he has been on it for 25 years. he wanted it, but was staying away from it. they couldnt afford it so they struck a deal with Nick, my ex-mate who lives next to my Mum. he is putting up some drug dealer in exchange for gear. cunt. the bastard owes me a tenner. i have a bunch of his stuff and he aint fucking getting it until i get that tenner. anyway, they gave nick a tenner and an eigth of puff for a twenty bag. we had to go 4 ways on the gear, we saved some for rachael, so it was pointless. i didnt even feel it. i stayed over that night, as did chris. i dont know why… he lives seconds away. but he hates me being there, he really does. he just likes to see me go before he does. we all slept in the same room, me and chris in chairs.

i had no money so when i woke up the next day, i was clucking. rob n bex were ok as they have their methadone. i was ill as fuck i can tell you. we watched the footie and i was just squirming in my seat. i offered to walk to the supermarket to do their shopping, thats how much i couldnt bare being sat in their house. i couldn’t go back to my flat, as my landlord found pins and wanted to talk and i couldn’t go to my families. so it was rob and bex. at the supermarket, i rang john, this dealer from london who was down for the day. i pleaded with him to tick me a bag of gear. my money run out and he didnt phone back. so back at robs, i rang them and offered to give them my very sexy phone in return for 3 20bags. they said yes. i was so ill by this point i was rejoicing. when i got there, and got picked up by this hunky white driver, turns out they were only giving me 2. deal was i had to pay them back thirty-five quid. no problem, as i was going to work the next day. i got back to robs and of course, i had to split the bag 3 ways. i kept quiet about the second bag but staying again that night, the next day i felt guilty as hell, though i dont know why as they were on 60ml meth each and 4 valium and 3 codeines. we walked into town, and pass my flat so i said i had some gear in there. so i had to split my twenty bag again. i dont even remember having my hit. we had it at 12pm and we woke up at 3pm. crazy! i get pissed off with them because they have tons of money and always take gear off me. that day i had fifty quid and spent it all on gear. i shared it all, minus 3pounds worth of heroin that i needed for the morning to get me through work. that morning, the landlord came round and the two dogs were barking like crazy. i looked like shit and didnt want to answer but he made me open the door and he went nuts because they were there. later on at work i had a go at him because he interferes so much, so much. ill write about him sometime. anyway, that morning, becky tried to get me to give her my gear, even though i had bought them all that the day before. plus they were hungry at 1am so i bought them both a takeaway which cost me twenty-two quid. anyway, i get pissed off because they are on combined five hundred quid a month plus all their drug dealing money,…. and they have never once given me a tiny bit of gear. i bought an eigth of gear once and we had it in a day and a half. they never give me fuck all yet take, take take off me. its annoying.

i had a dirty hit the other day. i was waiting for my dealer to come over and was so desperate i cooked up loads of old hits. you know, ones i had lost. so basically, congealed bloody hits. i do at least ten pound hits at a time as my tolerance is so high, and those hits barely do anything, i need a 20bag hit to get a gouch. anyway, i cooked them up and fuck, i nearly passed out there was so much. but almost instantly, i knew i shouldn’t of done it. a dirty hit was inevitable. it came on about 20mins afterwards and was so fucking awful. the pounding headache, sickness, shakeyness. not nice.

yesterday i was so desperate for gear i rang D and offered to swap my beautiful THREE HUNDRED pound tv with built in dvd and video. he gave me a twenty pound bag for fuck sake. i had to go meet him, he usually comes to the house, and we arranged for him to get the tv later, which he was going to give to his sis. i had to go in the pub where i used to work to do my gear. they had these new motion sensitive lights in the ladies so while i was cooking up, the lights kept going off and i was left in pitch blackness as there are no windows in there. i had to keep going out the cubicle. i was really brazen, going to the sink to get water with my syringe out in full view. i must of been in there for an hour. i did the whole bag in one, and then the wash. there was a massive wash obviously. i then went out and spoke to the landlord about working there part time. he was chatting to me about a huge property he owns. he wants me to take it on, live in it and rent it out to escorts. i used to have my own escort agency with a man who ran a pub. it was great, i manned the phones and looked after the girls. the money man…. it fed my heroin habit nicely, but it fucked me up in the head. i didnt like making money off the girls, so i packed it in. now he is running a brothel above his pub and making a mint. oh well, never mind. i’d rather not be a part of it. i would take that property on but i want to move to bradford asap to get away from it all. i got a call this morning from a bloke wanting to rent his apartment. 250 a month… wicked! im going to do it…  i hope. i got a call from my dealer wanting to pick up the tv. he was outside my house so i had to go home asap. it broke my heart watching him put it in a black bag with his mate. they spoke to me and couldnt believe how old i was. his sister is 16, she will of had that tv installed last night and be made up. oh well… i never watched much tv anyway so never mind.

im at my sisters. i did the last of my gear this morning. my track marks are hilarious. they are so friggin obvious. the veins on my hands, you can see them so well because they arent covered in individual punctures…. just long red scar tissue marks. they are like long cut scars. i cant stand cold-turkey. it drives me to the point i nearly kill myself. really, it does.

i love staying with my nieces. they are so beautiful. it breaks me heart to know they are so innocent and oblivious to it all. i just hope they never ever do something like this.

im going to pick up my baby sewing machine from mums so i can get working on clothes. how i think i can work while clucking i dont know! i got told that sammy r is planning to rob me of my laptop, stereo etc. etc. he is such a nasty bastard and i was made aware by a close friend of his that is an absolute fucking nutcase. stood at the old bailey for football hooliganism. i wish i had never met those people. they are the kind of people that upon finding no laptop at my flat, would torture me and make me go pick it up from my mums. i want to leave my flat…. im under a contract so how can i do that? i dont know.

i know im going to go and get more gear, and not just stop now. i actually need to be handcuffed and not allowed to leave. i need something to knock me out…….. completely. oh god its monday. great.

I didn’t turn on the news today or anything, infact, I stayed swiftly away. But 3 of my friends called to tell me that S. Hussein had been executed. It is still the holidays, I barely have anything to do apart from catch up on my clothing orders, so I have been browsing my favourite blogs, checking them out and seeing how things are treating people. Unsuprisingly, the former Iraqi Dictators execution seems to be the topic on the majorities list. My Momma rang me this morning and told me what she had seen on the news; him being led to the gallows by men in balaclavas. Me and my Mum seldom agree on anything; but today was different. She begun to tell me how she couldn’t bear, despite what he had done, to see a life being snuffed out on order. And you know what- me neither.The crimes he committed along with the other people in power were absolutely attrocious. I simply cannot comprehend how somebody obviously intelligent can have such a warped mind and believe that he (especially being religious and thus believing in the sanctity of life) has the power to choose who lives and who dies. And we will never find out. I have read reports by journalists, protesting against people who say the death penalty is barbaric- one of the report titles in the Daily Mail English Newspaper said ‘Killing Masses of People Is OK, Hanging A Tyrant Is Not’

 from original blog archive may 06 before i started my methadone script, and was using around £80-£100 a day. this post speaks about when i purchased some methadone off a friend, thinking i would be able to detox on it, as it was my twin nieces birthday and i didn’t want to be using on it, or at their party which fell the day after.

I spent the only money I had yesterday on 2 bags of gear. My last 2 bags of gear, or so I told myself. The day before I caved in at 11am, after having gone just over 24 hours without a hit. I woke up at 9am and was feeling fine. Probably because I didn’t get to bed until 5am and that was because I was smoking a .5 bag, which I started at 2am but couldn’t finish too quickly as I was gouching out, totally beyond my control. I was going to save half for the morning but I thought ‘fuck it- do it all and start your cluck tomorrow’. Funny cluck, because I planned to take 30mil of methadone daily. Decided the best thing to do was wean myself off gear using methadone- though I had no money to buy anymore so I was relying on my scripted mates to donate some here and there. Hopefully. Anyway, I had been staying at my grandparents house as opposed to my own home because… well, I don’t know. I just felt happier there I guess. Today the weather was beautiful. In England, the winter is so long and drawn out. January, February, March… horrible months. Dull, cold… its as if the spring will never get here. But today, like yesterday was gorgeous. I took my methadone and I felt great. I went to meet my CPN (psychiatric nurse) in the street to pick up a letter I am to give to the welfare office to support my claims for benefits. I am still without any income… funny really, as I keep on managing to feed my heroin habit which is damn bloody expensive. I want to cry when I think how much I have spent. Anyway, he told me I looked brighter, and I bloody felt it. It was a combination of the weather (aside from PTSD, opiate dependancy and severe depression I swear I have SAD- seasonal affective disorder) and the fact I had not taken gear. Never mind the fact I had not a penny to my name to buy it so couldn’t anyway… it was still an accomplishment because I always find a way to get money. And I hadn’t. I saw my sister and my nieces (whose birthday it is well, right now actually) and I felt so happy I was bouncing about all over the place. Then I got a call from my ex-workmates asking me to go to the pub where they would buy me a drink. So I went there and that was nice. One of them asked me if I had any cash yet and I said no, so they slipped me £40. Instantly, I nearly recoilled in horror and was ready to push it back in their face but fifteen minutes before that, I kid you not, I had a call on my mobile which I didn’t pick up in time from one of my many dealers. He always calls to let you know he is in town (he drives down from the capital to sell his wares to us filthy scumbags). From the moment I took that money, I couldn’t get away from the pub quick enough.

Cut to here. I rung up, asked for 2b and stood on the corner of my old street where I grew up for 50minutes, when finally the driver comes along and I hop in his motor. Admittedly, he did give me ‘da two fattest bags ni-o-me’ but still, it didn’t compensate for me having to stand on that corner for 50 minutes. It looked like I was either a) touting for business or b) waiting for drugs. It was horrible, and I saw so many people I knew. A good few knew what I was up to which made me burn red with shame. I quickly rushed to my grandparents to down the dinner she had cooked and then pegged it to mine so I could do my gear. It is funny, I was feeling fine. Not ill at all. Well, I wasn’t physically 100% understandably, but because I felt more positive than I had done in a long while, I didn’t feel the sickness. But as soon as I got that money, kaboom, my guts started going and on came that clucking feeling. Crazy. I often wonder how much of it is psychological.

Tomorrow… tomorrow… tomorrow. What have I got. Lots of things. Got to think of how I can get some money, because I need more gear. I can’t be sick at my babies birthday party, can I? Thats just not on. And I must go put in my welfare claims. I can’t even do it when I’m on gear, so if I’m clucking… god forbid!

This first post is a mess. I wanted to present my life in a really wonderfully written style like bella de jour at blogspot. Then it dawned on me, you’re not a semi-high class hooker, you’re a junkie. An 18 year old junkie who is going nowhere, worryingly and particularly fast. So yes, welcome to my junkylife blog. Here, if you remember, you will be able to read about what it is like to be a teen hooked on gear. God, why would anybody want to. The worlds depressing enough. Christ, I am babbling. I know its my blog but I don’t want to put potential readers to sleep. Talking of sleep, I’m going to do a bit more gear, which means no sleep for me, just catnaps here and there. In between gouches. I hate heroin. Best piece of advice I could give to anybody: don’t touch gear. I used to sparkle. Now… now… nothing. Haha. Right, I’m actually signing off now. Finish my gear and watching a streetcar named desire. I’ve run out of smokes. Bugger.

It seems like it happened about a hundred years ago. That is how much my life has changed. But in fact, it has barely been a couple of years. I went to Laila’s house and sat on her bedroom floor- it was a small room- just enough space for a single bed and a desk at the other end by the only window. When you entered the room, you had to stand straight up against the wall to your left so the door could close. You really had to inhale if you were large or it would not be able to close- that was how small it was. Cosy, is the polite word us English would give it.

I am still sitting here trying to write the best I can for the University of Hertfordshire 3,500 word Story Competition. I have been working on this since late November and I have used up nearly a whole notebook with plans and story variations. The hardest thing I am having to deal with is the word count. Every time I get into Word I am nowhere near finished the story when it peaks about 3,000. But I am enjoying the challenge. I am used to writing novel length pieces or articles for the local press I am involved with… this is something I am having to learn to do- condense everything into 3,500 words and make it every bit as powerful as I would something that was six or seven times that. Anyway, the theme is VISION. They just gave you that to work on so its up to you what definition of Vision you choose to go with and work upon.

1st prize £1,000 2nd prize £500 3rd prize £300 4th prize £200

£1,000 £500 £300 £200 The winner will also be able to apply for the UH Writing Award three-year scholarship to the University of Hertfordshire, study commencing in 2007. You can go visit the competition page here. It is a brilliant opportunity- that being the scholarship. It would be my dream to bag that. I doubt I will but I am going to have a bloody good pop. Deadline is 15th January so I better get cracking. I’ll publish what I have wrote soon.

Dylan was the only one to get me a present I didn’t know about, and he got me more than anyone put together. Not that I mind, Christmas for me now is about my 4 year old twin nieces. Getting gifts doesn’t excite me anymore, nor does Christmas dinner, the amount of booze my Nan buys and the amount you are allowed to drink, the parties… the only thing I get excited about is my babies, Bissy & Mimi. Just seeing them with all their gifts is what makes me happy. I saw them on Christmas Eve and bless them, they pointed to under the tree and said “Naomi, there are too much presents here. Far too much. No space, no way. We have no more space Santa can take some back, yeah?” Though, I’m sure they weren’t thinking that once they opened everything.

Anyway, Dylan got me LOST DVD BOX SET SERIES 1 & 2!!!!! Not just Series 1, or Series 2, BOTH SERIES 1 & 2!!! That alone would of cost him a fortune. I looked at them in the shop and I didn’t even think about asking anybody for them considering they were £39.99 each. Too out of my league. Anyway, I opened that last and I didn’t know I was getting that. It was a small heavy box and I thought it was going to be a box of sweets or something! When I pulled off the wrapping I screamed. Screamed so loud the kids got really scared and Mimi started crying because it frightened her. God I felt awful! Nothing a cuddle couldn’t cure though. Anyway, he told me about “TO THE LIGHTHOUSE” and told me I had to read it. Not for the story, but for the beauty of the writing and the beauty of the words. Whatever that means. I am going to start reading it but at the moment all I can do is sit glued to LOST. I have watched 24 hours worth already. Wow, what a waste of time. Oh well, its the only show I love. Don’t bother with TV otherwise. Only use it as background noise. Makes a room seem less lonely if that makes any sense!

I felt that it was a book, I knew what it would be. At least I thought I did.

And I felt the other gift which I could tell were two CDs wrapped in one bit of paper. When I opened this again, I went nuts. It was “ANOTHER SIDE TO BOB DYLAN”  and The Pogues “RUM, SODOMY & THE LASH“   I cannot stop listening to them. This year I actually loved the presents I got. Loved them. Weren’t much but Dylans meant everything to me. I ordered him this t-shirt and when it arrived I tried it on and it wouldn’t even go on my head. My Momma let me order it on her card when I gave her the money and she complained like fuck when I had to return it and wanted to get another one before I got the refund. Wasn’t allowed, so I’m waiting for the shirt to arrive. He probably thinks I am just lying and haven’t got him anything. Xmas eve was a disaster, the night before my sister washed the bags I made for his daughters in her machine, washed for a 4th time because the fur was long pile and it was malting big time. When I got around in the morning the lining which was a light pink was dyed bright purples around the hem! I couldn’t believe it. I know she didn’t put them on the low wash like I asked. So I had to go work extra fast sewing a bit of ribbon around the hems to make sure it wasn’t visable. Needless to say, Dylan didn’t have time to get them later so was very pissed off, and for obvious reasons I can’t swan around his wifes house and give him them. Things are complicated with him. I feel awful. I feel like hanging myself for what I have done.

 Today I have had to endure being pushed, shoved, knocked into things, tutted at, sworn at… which can only signify one thing- its the run up to Christmas and I went to the mall to buy presents! Big mistake leaving it all so late. It was pure hell. I lost count of the amount of times I said ‘Sorry’ for accidently stepping in somebodies way and have them tut and comment on my lack of spacial awareness. Don’t you just hate the Christmas Vultures. Yes you know who you are; you ruthlessly dash about knocking down anything and anyone in your way, you won’t even think twice about snatching a toy from the hands of a child who has just picked it, the last one, off the shelf and you tut tut tut at everyone and make Christmas Shopping a truly horrible experience for everyone who DARES to cross your path. Anyway, I actually managed to get some things. JUST. Vintage Pink Kitchen Pots for Caroline my sister, plus a beautiful double bed size Pink Fur Throw. My twin nieces, Barbie Walkie Talkies and a kids electric guitar each (its this totally wicked guitar with tons of Aerosmith stylee noises- since they are 4 i opted for a pretend one). Nanna, loads of special brew and figgy puddings and Palmers Cocoa Butter. Going to get her a wok though. Couldn’t resist treating myself to 2 beautiful corsets from Warehouse SPOTLIGHT @ Debenhams. My mum convinced me to try on a red one (very 50s looking, which I ultimately purchased, its under the cut) and I never thought red and red hair would go together, but alas, according to her and the shop assistant it did, so I got it. And I also got a beautiful beaded one. Still have loads more to buy for however. Which is proving tricky considering Read the rest of this entry »