p06-07 How I/wired.qxd
29/10/04
8:02 pm
Page 6
How I became | an ex-addict
Aged 24 years, Natalie realised her heroin
addiction was ruining her life and her family, and
decided to do something about it. Drink and
Drugs News follows her story.
Natalie started smoking cannabis when she
was 14. This rapidly got out of hand and she
also started taking acid and valium. She
became pregnant when she was 15 and
managed to stay away from drugs until she
was 17, when she started taking ecstasy.
At 18, she was drinking a lot and taking
speed, supplied by her dealer boyfriend. It
gave her plenty of energy and helped her deal
more effectively with being a mother. Her
boyfriend returned from a spell in prison with
a heroin habit. Natalie started to use the drug
two or three days a week, then every day. She stopped taking her son to and from
school, stopped going to bed, washing and
putting on clean clothes. Her son witnessed
everything. Although Natalie had reached a
stage where she hated her boyfriend, she could
not leave because he was her supplier.
At one time, her father, boyfriend and most of
her friends were using heroin. She couldn’t face
a life without it. Finally, her mother gave her an
ultimatum; Natalie decided she must quit.
She picked up the phone and called a local
treatment agency which also offers harm
reduction services
“I was using one-and-a-half grams of heroin a day.
I stopped using heroin two months later, three
days before the detox assessment.
During the assessment, I was asked what I
expected from the detox. I said, ‘What I would
like is just to be normal and have a happy life.
Do you think that’s too much to expect?’ I
really thought that it was, but he said ‘no, not
at all’. Four months later, I received a phone
call from the hospital, informing me that they
had a bed for me. I pointed out that I had
been clean for four months.
The heroin withdrawal wasn’t too bad
initially, as I was cutting down slowly. I was
also drinking a lot, which may have helped to
mask some of the withdrawal. I was drinking
at least three pints of lager ever night. Every
three or four days, I would binge drink, with
anything from spirits to lager to wine, to the
point where I would drink myself unconscious.
I had trouble sleeping and this lasted
about two months. Sometimes I couldn’t
sleep at night, so had to sleep during the day.
It was all so chaotic. I was disorientated, very
shaky inside. I didn’t know whether I was
coming or going or what was happening. It
was like being put back into the world after
being locked up for a couple of years. I could
deal with the physical withdrawal, but the
mental was difficult.
My family supported me and took me to
places whenever I said I couldn’t handle
things. I had so many things going on, I was
scared, worried about messing up again. I
had these feelings rushing around, but I
didn’t know what they were because I had
suppressed them for so long. I couldn’t
distinguish between the feelings of hurt and
was sitting in my room one day,
crying, withdrawing, and I’d had
enough. I just got the phone. When I
told the receptionist that I had a
heroin problem, it was the first time I’d told
anybody that I was a heroin addict.
I was assessed by a treatment agency
worker three weeks later. He said to me,
‘You’ll do this. You’re gonna do it.’ I thought
he was just saying it to make me feel better.
When I started the pre-treatment program-
me the following Monday, I was so nervous.
During the meeting, I met an ex-heroin user
who had been clean for sixteen years. She
talked to me and I was just in awe. I couldn’t
believe that she had done the same as me. So
much sounded the same. From that moment,
I didn’t feel so alone.
I attended pre-treatment once a week for
two months. During this time, I also started
going to Narcotics Anonymous meetings. As
my time with the agency and NA progressed, I
felt a sense of belonging. I felt I had something
in common with those around me. I also start-
ed to understand my addiction and realised
that my behaviour was part of my illness.
I was horrified when the agency
suggested to me the possibility of a detox at
a local psychiatric hospital. I thought detox
was for ‘down and outs’, not for me. But I
thought about it more and finally decided
that I did actually need to detox from heroin.
The agency arranged an assessment
appointment for me.
Meanwhile, my father helped establish a
reduction program, weighing out a certain
amount of heroin each day for me, each portion
progressively decreasing in size. At the start I
6 | drinkanddrugsnews | 1 November 2004
‘I was horrified
when the
agency suggest-
ed to me the
possibility of a
detox at a local
psychiatric
hospital.
I thought detox
was for ‘down
and outs’, not
for me. But I
thought about it
more and finally
decided that I
did actually
need to detox
from heroin.
The agency
arranged an
assessment
appointment
for me.’
anger and I had to relearn them and what
they stood for with my counsellor’s help.
The agency provided me with telephone
numbers of people who had been through
treatment and were willing to be contacted.
They helped a lot. I did all sorts of things to
try and stop thinking about heroin – ironing,
cooking, washing the dishes. I read a lot of the
literature I was given and kept thinking I want
this, I want this, I really want this. I was tired a
lot and bored, very bored. I didn’t see anybody.
I ate a lot. I was irritable and sensitive.
At the beginning it was difficult avoiding
my drug using friends – they were phoning
me and wanting to come back into my life.
And that was hard because I wanted to be
with them but at the same time I didn’t. And
I was jealous that they were still using and
still doing it and I wasn’t. My ex-boyfriend
was very persistent and kept leaving letters.
But I burnt them and did everything I needed
to do to keep myself ‘safe’.
It was strange trying to re-establish a
‘normal’ life. I was so used to gouching out
every night in my clothes that I had forgotten
the process of going to bed. I was thinking one
night, ‘well, what do you do? You must put
your nighty on’. It’d been so long since I’d done
that. I put my nighty on and I got in bed and I
thought, ‘well, what do you do now? Right,
people set their alarms don’t they?’ So I did
that. The feeling was so strange. It was also a
strange feeling when I stopped using heroin
and became aware again of simple things, like
the taste of food, birds singing and springtime.
Next issue: Natalie wins her life back, with
the agency’s help.
www.drinkanddrugs.net