Drug Abuse

Part 2 CHAPTER TWO INTERVIEWS

Interview with an Addict (Stephen)

2. I came here now because I've got faith in Dr. (X) and Dr. (Y) and their method of treatment and their centre has - probably been the only way of getting addicts completely off of drugs and interested in something else other than just going around fixing and seeing other addicts. I think this centre is the only thing that will do any good and I think - it's a pity that it wasn't recognised by the Ministry as a Treatment Centre. I came along here about a year ago, I think I'm the Chairman of a Patients Committee now. I've been taking drugs since about five years ago when I first started experimenting with amphetamines, merely in order to htcrease my learning power. And since then I've gone on to various things such as Heroin — most drugs, I think, I've tried, actually. I've had one cure, which did no good at all, because the first thing I did as soon as I came out was to go and get a fix. Now I'm down to the minimum of drugs which I try and just keep to a day because I know that if I go anywhere else I shall just increase the dosage that I'm taking
. I don't know — at the moment things seem pretty down—.that's because I've got sepsis in both hands. . . so, you know,— things are pretty low at the moment, but then there Comes a time when things are fairly high, and one feels that one's getting somewhere, and that the centre's doing some good and you feel pretty good. That's all there is I suppose. One eventually gets drawn into the fight between taking drugs and not taking drugs, whether you intend to start out that way, or not.

PAUSE FOR ADMINISTRATION OF PHYSEPTONE LINCTUS

Ugh! God! this is the worst muck ever. It stops you getting a high on the heroin. Works very well, as well . .. after you've been taldng physeptone for a couple of weeks you can't get any effect at all from the heioin. You fix a grain, or two grains and you still can't feel it.

1. You seem to be annoyed that it stops you getting any buzz off the heroin. Do you want to get a buzz off the heroin?

2. No . . . I don't really. . I don't. . I found out the last time that I was getting the same buzz over and over again . . . and it gets a bit boring. One wants to get off if one starts just taking more and more because of the physical dependence — so it is a good thing — it's a pity it just tastes so foul.

1. You say you started using amphetamines to begin with to increase your learning power.

2. Yes, well, I find that they increase the intelligence quota by eight points, they also tend to slide the individual along the introversion scale, which is a bad thing — especially if you're an extrovert as I am; so you tend to get a sort of split personality thing going, and with methedrine addicts in particular, you get a paranoid schizophrenia thing developing which is very peculiar to methedrine and is very difficult to treat. And I'm sure not many doctors know; they just regard it as symptoms of madness when in actual fact it does have its own laws, by-laws and its own hierarchy of dependent factors in it. Unless you've actually come up against it you wouldn't recognise it; it has a lot to do with magic . . . it's very odd .. . it's very odd.

1. You say a lot to do with magic? In what way?

2.People seem to become aware of higher mental powers, They §omehow come in tune. Everyone on the same drug tends to be aware at the same time of the same thing, through some sort of mental transference — I don't know — it all sounds very odd. . . very weird. And, you know, unless I'd actually gone into it in some detail, I wouldn't really like to Say much more. That's about all' that I can tell you, I think except that I used to be a school teacher and gave it up because I started taking drugs again: I gave them up when I got married and I started taking them again when my marriage broke up.

1. Did your marriage break up because you started taking them again? -

2. No, I don't think so - I was smoking at the time - my wife started smoking then she decided it was evil - stupid cow! That might have been some contributory factor. No,
I think it was just that I couldn't make the break back - once you've crossed over the line, I think, into taking drugs, it's very difficult to come back again on to the other side. You're in a sort of nether state and you've got to find a way back through some form of work or something in order to come back, or through some organisation to help you back to co-existing along with everyday life.

1. It sounds as if at some point you decided to allow drugs to dominate your life?

2. Yes - so I did at one time.

1. How long ago was that?

2. I should say, twice they've dominated my life - that was at the height of my sort of, psychosis, and at the height of my junk addiction, and that would have been about three years ago; and two years ago. I got separated about four years ago.

1. At what stage did your marriage break up?

2. Oh - I think that was a sort of indeterminate stage - it was a sort of middle period in which I stopped taking drugs, actually and started straight life, and I'd made a lot of money, you know, I was working for myself, freelance artist. But, you know, after I got married and I was still trying to freelance, my wife didn't want that, and she had a nervous breakdown. Well, drugs came back onto the scene and it became a lot easier afterwards, to depend on them. And once you've been taking drugs, you know, it's always very easy to go back to them again. And its always easy to 1,e convinced that this time they're going to help you - that it's going to be the answer, but they never are.    '

1. And your Art work?

2. It helps to a certain extent in that you can do a certain amount of sheer physical work, you know, the boring part of any layout, just the filling in parts, that you can do with methedrine - it gives you the interest - you become con. vinced that whatever you're doing is absolutely great, absolutely marvellous - but unless you are able to judge your work accurately you find that you're just drawing a blacker, and blacker picture until in the end you've filled everything in and you've just got one sheet of black paint. It's very difficult, you know, it's not a drug to try. . . not. . . not really .. . no drugs. Oh my God - I sound very anti - don't I? Sometimes I'm very pro drugs - I'm very pro cannabis - cannabis is one thing that can help people. I'm sure that most drug addicts could break from their addiction if they were allowed legally to smoke cannabis. If cannabis was used as a method of withdrawal, I'm sure that would help a lot. That's the only thing I can say about it . . .

1. Of the drugs we've been talking about, the ones which have played the biggest part in your life are obviously herbin and methedrine.

2. Yes - and LSD - LSD I think is very good. Actually it's always convinced me when I've taken it that I've had to give up any other drugs I've taken. And it's always helped me to give up other dttigs.

1. Well, you haven't yet. . . how many times have you taken LSD?

2. I suppose, about a dozen times. I give drugs up, or I , think I've given them up, you know. I won't fix for a fortnight or so, and I think that's it - I've given it up - and then I take one fix, and I'm back again.

1. And you can still think you've given it up and take another fix?

2. I know - it's a barmy sort of state of mind, you know.

But most addicts, you'll find, are very similar -they think they've actually given it up before they've actually done so, you know. Their intentions are more than their actual acts. and it is part of the addict's life which he grows used to, I think - living with intentions rather than things that he's actually done. That's a nice depressing picture.

1. In exactly what context did you first start using drugs?

2. Well very much in the idea of a sort of hip analysis. A group of us were smoking and we'd occasionally take a few methedrine pills. And then eventually, being unable to get them, somebody introduced us to liquid methedrine, and using a syringe, and just the sheer thing about fixing, which is a very physical thing, sort of seems to take over, and for ...

1. Talk about the act of fixing.

2. There's something about the mystique of giving oneself an injection .. . I think. .. that is terribly self-satisfying. It's - if you like - a subliminal sex thing - it's a thing within itself. Something is incredibly satisfying in it to the addict to perform, and is always associated, of course, with pleasurable after effects, or nearly always associated with pleasurable after effects.

1. And sex - in your life?

2. Drugs tend to, I find, take over from and take the part of sex. There have been a number of affairs I've had in my life, during which my drug taking has decreased. You find that there are not so many women that take drugs as there are men. It's a curious sort of ... . almost homosexual experience, in a sort of monk-like way, I suppose, rather than in a perverted sort of way. I don't know, it's a very odd thing.

1. Obviously the most important drugs in your life are heroin and methedrine - have you always taken these together?

2. No - no, never. One always comes up over the other. Heroin, generally - I've taken that when I've found that I'm getting too psychotic, on too much methedrine, and I start to take heroin more as a tranquffiser, then I find that the lack of anxiety that one gets with heroin is pleasant The euphoria, the feeling that nothing matters anyway, anymore. That Sort of increases until at last one is hooked on heroin, and you're not taking methedrine. The two act against each other actually, and methedrine is used in narcotic treatment.

1. Where do you see yourself going from here - in terms of redeveloping your interests?

2. I don't know - I honestly don't know. I was hoping to get this centre to work in conjunction with Release. You know, I had some barmy dream about all the addicts being able to work together - for the sort of release of other addicts, you know - but that doesn't seem to have come off.

1. Well, there's no reason why it shouldn't; it's just that nobody has done anything about it.

2. I know - it's very difficult to get anybody, you know - and myself, as well. I know I tend to be enthusiastic about it one day and .. . you know, I'm off on a downbeat the next week, and so, things don't get done.

1. Do you find yourself bored a lot of the time?

2. Yes, a great deal of the time.

1. Is there anything you do enjoy?

2. I don't think I enjoy anything now - I don't think I enjoy anything at all, quite honestly, not really, not with the same intensity of enjoyment that one enjoys things when one is taking drugs - then everything seems great - everything seems worthwhile doing - one could work for ever on any one subject or any one project and it would seem marvellous. But, without drugs - no. It takes a very long time, a very long period of adjustment before one again starts to find something worthwhile doing without drugs being connected in any way.

Group interview with Addicts

1. Well, Dr. X was my own doctor - always has been First of all I got started off by a private doctor, Dr. A in North London he only charged IN. pet visit-- you] him do you? You were with him as well?

2. No, but I had a friend who was .

1. And that's where I got my prescriptions from until finally! confessed to Dr. X and he took over on the National Health.... How did you start off?

3. Yes, well I believe Dr. A was, compared to the doctors who were giving out private stuff, very cheap.

1. Oh yes, he was very reasonable you know - quite a good doctor really. He wasn't in it for his own profit, that's one thiUg I did dig about him -

2. But he gave an awful lot of stuff. ..„

1. He was rather careless . . . because, even when I went there, I wasn't really hooked (addicted) on it, but I became hooked as soon as I was with him, getting regular supplies which I wasn't getting before that - I don't think any addict was getting regular supplies, and was really hooked, before they went to any doctor.

2. Well, I was....

3. This is exactly the same with me because when I started , about nearly five years ago, now, I was getting about a grain a day, a sort of H and C (heroin and cocaine) you know, and after I'd been taking it about a month, you know, it was costing too much and the person who had first started me on it - a friend brought him to us and said, "Try a fix (injeo: tion), you must try it, it's fabulous", so we did and in the end this person who was registered with this doctor, Dr. G, had twelve of us on with him, and he just didn't have enough stuff for himself and all of us - so we all eventually, one by one, the whole dozen of us, got registered with Dr. G, who at that time was just starting up and he didn't know - like all the doctors at that time - hardly anything about drug addiction; but he wanted to do something about it so the only thing he could do was take us on. I started on 4 of heroin, 12 of cocaine which was 16 grains a day - I was only taking a grain. I hever took more than half of that - the rest 'knit of gave, lent, even sold, you knew, to those of us who took it -I only started one person ever, who had never taken drugs before. And I was cut down steadily, since then, I mean but it was only until a year and a half ago that we were really cut down. And now, I mean, I only take one fix a day. But I think the usual person, the person who does before he gets registered is taking very little and nowhere near the amount he gets registered for.. ..

2. I only got registered when I really wanted to come off . . . because I was getting eight and eight (eight grains of heroin and eight grains of cocaine) from this jazz musician. ... regularly - for nothing.

3. Getting what?

2. Eight an' eight.

3. Eight an' eight - yeh?

2. Well, it got up to eight and eight. And you know, well . I was so ill, and I wanted to get off, so I came to Dr. C then.

3. I suppose there must be loads of different stories, but this is with our group and there's at least a dozen of us, and that's how it was, the general story.

2, Well, I was pretty lucky getting it for nothing -„ or unlucky, as the case may be. . . .

3. I was very unlucky; the person was charging us, was charging us 10s. a fix, you know, and he used to make xis wait hours; and after he used to have a big fix of H and C he used to go through hours of sort of filling up the cracks in his door with cotton wool, you know, to keep in the bugs, and the men outside, out, you know, so that they couldn't look through and see him turn us on - I mean, you know he was really sort of flipping at that time.

1. How did you start off, Mike?

4.1 used to work in a Drug Manufacturing Factory.

2. Really.

4. Yeah, yeah, in X Road.

1. And you ... what . ..?

4. Don't have to say no more really.

1. You started off by getting the stuff from there, did you?

4. Yeah, yeah, we used to make it, you know — put it into the form that you get it now, the tablet form — it was just powder then. So we didn't really know what we were fixing at a go, you know. And there was about six of us who were doin' it and the other five got caught. The queer thing was I had some of the marks on my arms before I went there, but I just said I had an illness of some sort — blood transfusions and all that sort of scene — and they just said all right. I used to be in charge of the loading bay — the keys to the gate, you know. So it was all right for about six months, and then when these others started getting knocked off. . . I sort of emigrated out, like, you know.

2. Who did you go on with then?

4. Dr. C. .

2. Did you go on with Dr. C straight away?

4. Yeah, no one else would take me.

1. Did C look at your arms?

2. That's what happened to Michael and I — no-one else would take us....

4. Yeah, he actually gave me a fix straight there and then when I saw him.

2. C took photographs of Michael's arms when he first went.

4. Yeah — me too.

3. Was this within the last eighteen months?

2. About two years ago — two years.

3. When I first got registered the doctor didn't even look at my arms — but there were so many drug addicts you see who he had — you know, I mean, he had all his patients to do — two thousand patients I believe, a really thriving practice, without the drug addicts. We all called, at all hours of the day — midnight as well. And so the only thing he could do was to keep us on — to keep us, sort of, from buying it on the blackmarket, and from having to. .. to, you know, cans° crime to get it, and what not; you know, he just had to keep us goin' until he did join up with Dr. C, and they could start doing something about it.

1. But what reasons made you become a drug addict?

3. It's the same story isn't it, over and over again. 4:1 wanted to .. . it's as simple as that really.

1. I know I became one because of the depression, you know — used to get terribly depressed — in fact you know so bad that I would have done myself in, you know, if I hadn't gone on drugs.

2. Heroin's as good a way of doing it as any, isn't it?

1. Well, it's a way of, it's a sort of death because you become a complete zombie really —

2. Mmmmmmmm . .. quite, and numb. .. .

1. At least I did . . . yes. . . and in a way it's a kind of death — you really completely withdraw from life.

3. I only felt depressed really when I started to coma off —1 felt really guilty then, you know. Yeah, sort of punishing myself, you know, sort of coming off — I thought it was everyone else's fault before that — not being able to get it. I didn't think it was wrong getting it — I. . . I still don't, you know — I mean you are, you .. .

2. Physeptone is a depressant and if you're having a lot of that you're necessarily going to be very 'depressed at the time when you least need to be depressed.

4. But really Horse and Charlie (cocaine) isn't really my scene. I — I really can't talk about it 'cause. I . .. I've gone beyond it, or come back from it — or whatever you would call it — And it's acid (LSD) I really dig man, you know; I wish I'd gone on that in the first place. . , just wasted a lot Of time.

3. What H and all this ...

4. Yeah, because the experience was just a physical one' , and it didn't do anything to the mind.. .. 71

2. Absolutely the most uncreative thing you could pOssibly- - have.

4. . . I mean dead, you become soulless.

3. Well, I was quite content to, you know, to smoke. And both me and my friend used to smoke. . . I used to play banjo, he used to play guitar - and we were content. But two friends of ours brought this person who was registered over and they said you must try it. . . we would never have' went out looking for it, I'm sure of that. I was nineteen at the time, 'and, you know, we Were very envious and so we said, well, why not? We'll try it once - you know, we can try it once and then leave it. But. .. heroin ... you know, you just can't try once and leave it.
We do know people who have taken heroin once or more, who have not become addicted to the drug. We believe then is a certain type of person who will become dependent on whatever is most suited to his own particular need.
Someone who drinks beer does not necessarily become an alcoholic in the same way that the majority of people who smoke cannabis do not become addicted to other drugs.

Interview with an Addict (Suzi)

1. How long have you been a junkie?

2. 'Bout - um -3 to 4 years.

1. How old are you now ...?

2. 21 in June.

1. When you first started did it take you long to get hooked?

2. When I first started I thought it would be a glamorous way to die.

1.1 don't believe that.

2. Well, I did. I was miserable so I thought I would see what junk's about. So I tried to get it and I got some.

1. You set out deliberately - nobody offered it to you.

2. I set out deliberately - it took some time to get it -.1 got it The first time it was fantastic and I thought about it 72 and I thought this is what I need. And then I took scane . . . and I took some the next day . . . it wasn't until I got butted a few months later that I realised what was happening thqn.

1. Apart from what you say is a death wish, what was it that made you start using?

2. It was a kind of glamorous image thing. I wanted to bathe centre of attention. I thought I wanted revenge on this boy for doing this.

1. Which boy?

2. This boy . . . well, I don't know . . . spoiled all my illusions, disillusions. .. a very complicated story, but I left him . . . I was very upset by it. Also I'd helped a lot of junldes. I thought the only way to really help them was to take the stuff then I'd really know what it was about. I was also very curious. I also wanted to find out what kind of kick it was.

1. So you had had contact with junk before you started using, or wanting to use it?

2. Oh yes - I was very much against it. I was terrified of needles. But once I had tried skin popping and found it didn't really hurt, that kind of fear went immediately.

1. How many periods in the time you've been using junk have there been when you haven't used it?

2. I've been on and off it, on and off it, on and off it. Um - three years ago in May I got busted - was a week in Holloway - cold turkey.

1. They didn't give you any physeptone?

2. Nothing, no - nothing.

1. And how much did you come down from?

2. Can't remember- about four or five grains - quite a lot.

1. And you were using cocaine with it at the same time?

2. Yes, I was also using opium the whole time.

1. Would it be fair to say you were taking any drug yen could lay your hands on?

2. Well, the only one I was taking regularly was kind of H and Cote (heroin and cocaine). But at the same time.I suppose I was taking other things as well. Raw opium which was eating - a hell of a lot just before ,I got arrested, for about three weeks before that. And I had also. . I suppose I was smoking a bit, not so much. I was only really using coke and heroin. I stayed off then, I suppose, for about three months because I was in this convent at Spelthome St. Marys. I managed to get out of there. Then I went back on it.

1. Did you want to get out of there?

2. I didn't see any reason for staying there because I was cured completely.

1. And yet, after two weeks or so outside you apparently went back?

2. Well, I went back because I found when I went out that living was so different and that I was so miserable and nobody knew anything about the subject at all and it was still kind of inside me.

1. Well, you say you were miserable while you were off, junk ... I don't know, it seems you're miserable while you're on junk. Ate you any more miserable off junk than on?

2. When I get depressed I go back on junk. I was very de., pressed when I came back out because I was so bewildered by everything. I think it was very bad that I went back on junk then because I went up to Edinburgh then - I couldn't get very much at that time; or if I didn't manage to get enough of that I'd go to Glasgow and get some morphine. It was in very bad condition, raw morphine, unrefined - made me very ill indeed, but it kind of acted as a substitute.
used to go down to London every few weeks; I was on probation. I wasn't meant to go to London at all. So I used to be only able to escape down to London every other week. First it was only once a month - I thought I had found the ideal thing, going down to London every month, staying for five days, fixinglike anything, getting quite a nice buzz, then going back to Edinburgh and coming off it immediately. Then the month kind of turned into three weeks and two weeks and I found I was staying in London for a long time. This kind of went on and on and on and on.

1. When you initially came doWn to London to live by ' yourself, why did you comedown?,

2.1 went to art school.

1. You came down specifically to go to art school?

2. I left home; an old aunt who used to finance me died so I was financially independent. My parents were against me going to art school in the first place, so I said OK, I'll use my own money and pay for it. I had to go to one of those private ones because I hadn't time to apply for any of the others.

1. What did you expect to get out of art school?

2. Well, to get some kind of basic training so that I could do this theatre designing which is the only thing I want to do, and the only thing I have ever done which has kept me off junk.

1. When you have done it how long have you stayed off junk? Have you ever done it when yoteve been on junk?

2. Oh, I've done it when I've been on junk - yes, but the more serious jobs I've done, I've been off junk. A year ago I stayed off for about six months when I was working in Colchester.

1. Is that the longest time you've ever stayed off?

2. Yes. . . but this last time I suppose it was about five -- not much difference between the two.

1. Can you tell me right now what you think junk does for you?

2. It kills me.

1. It kills you - and you really want this to happen?

2. No.

1. You don't.

2. Not the slightest - there's no glamour in it at all. It's a thing you can learn fairly quickly. You learn that soon after you start, you start getting hooked. It's all a kind of illusion, all this image bit - it just doesn't exist, and then it's too late.

1 . Sa you're killing yourself and you don'twant to die. Do you have any specific reasons for wanting to live?

2. Yuh . I want to do a lot of things.

1. Such as?

2.1 want to design. I want to go to Mexico.

1. You think you'll enjoy these things?

2. Yes . . .

I. Do you know how' to enjoy anything?

2. Yuh ... I think so .. .

1. Have you ever enjoyed anything?

2. Yes, I've enjoyed working.

1. What at, theatre design?

2. But the people always hang one up because people in the theatre are so shitty.

1. Well, people anywhere can be shitty - do you allow things to hang you up?

2. I try not to . . . I don't want to use it, at all. . . it just chemically starts activating. . . part of me says, you know, just try it once more, and don't try any more. . . it'll be all right . . . so I try it again, and of course once I try it again, I go on using it. Basically, I'r . completely against it. I'd stop anybody using it - it's a very bad, evil thing.

1. You don't want it yet you still allow it to control you, even to the extent that when you're physically clear of it, you still return.

2. Well, I'm never mentally clear of it - I could stay off for • six months and I still get dreams at night . . . I'm back on junk and things . . . I wake up in the middle of the night just kind of sweating, you know .. . and that happens after about six months, still. .. I'll come off it, again.

1. What do you think would happen to you if you came off it, and stayed off it?

2. It would be all right but, you see, it would be there for the rest of my life - as an alcoholic needs alcohol, it's there for the rest of their lives; so is a junkie for the rest of their life.

1. Do you feel the need for a focal point in your lift so badly that this is perhaps the only stable thing in your existence?

2. At first, until it starts to dominate you, it's a kind of companion. . . it's something to do. . . relieves the kind of boredom

1. You talk about the boredom. Are you bored the wholetime?

2. Most of the time.

1. And yet you still say that you know how to enjoy things?

2. Only occasionally . . . sometimes manage to . . .

1. Could you give me your idea of what happiness is?

2. No.

1. You haven't got one?

2. No - happiness is about the only freedom, I suppose, in a way. Except with junk at least one has got freedom because nobody really cares anyway.

1. And you call that freedom?

2. No, it isn't freedom, but one has one's freedom - one can do what one likes. . . I suppose, but that's wrong.

1. But you don't appear to like anything you do at the moment?

2. No. . . the only thing that ever helps is responsibilities. . . when I've got a responsibility of some kind, then I've got a duty and that way I can kind of dedicate myself to something which keeps me hetter. When I've got no responsibility of any kind at all, nothing to look after or be in charge of ... there's no point in anything.

1. That's an oblique reference to the shop isn't it? Nobody said we were depriving you of responsibility for anything in particular, apart from the shop. It doesn't mean you go without responsibility; responsibility isn't always something that's given to you, it's something you take. (We gave Suzi the job of looking after our shop. After a few months she began taking methedline and cocaine and we had to give the job to somebody else as she was unable to do the work -herself.)

2. If people know it's your responsibility . . they can respect you for your responsibility.

1. That's a very naive way of looking at it, isn't it?

2. Its not. . . I want people to kind of look up to me and respect me.

1. But in spite of the shop and your responsibility in running it, you've still reverted to junk.

2. That's purely because I was . . . to junk, which has no relevance to it at all.

1. It was very relevant - you are not capable of running the shop while you are in the state you are in now.

When Suzi came to us she was seven months pregnant. She was using a large amount of heroin, but although she wanted to withdraw before her baby was born, it proved impossible to get her admitted into a hospital. She began to abort the child at eight months and was then admitted to hospital. While in hospital she decided to withdraw and , when she came out, after two weeks, she was ao longer using any heroin. We were able to find her accommodation and our junk-free social circle helped her get on her feet again.

In time she was able to accept small responsibilities in our ,organisation and moved into her own accommodation. But, eventually things proved too much for her and she started taking heroin and methedrine again. We were able to find her a good doctor and after a few weeks she told us that she wanted to do her own "cold turkey". Her doctor did not approve of the idea but Suzi persuaded him that it would be all right, and he agreed to visit her at home while she was "withdrawing". Suzi remained in bed for a fortnight without taking anything but a small amount of physeptone, which is a substitute for heroin, and helps to counteract the pain of withdrawal. She is working with us again and if she does relapse we feel that it will be a temporary setback and she will be easily motivated to withdraw again.

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