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How it feels to be an addict...
● <B>Tell me what it was like for you being a drug addict</B>
To find my dose was difficult. You do things you shouldn’t do, for instance stealing…. When I was working it was easier – I was able to get money. When I didn’t work I needed to trace here and there –
● <B>Can you give an example of what the tracement was?</B>
I stole from myself and my family – objects that I had in my possession. I could have done things that I don’t want to do. You have to in such circumstances because drugs – I consider myself as sick with it. As an addict I needed drugs to function…When I don’t have it in my system, I’m weak. I have reactions - I don’t get aggressive. But I’ll be on good terms with you just to get what I need from you.
● <B>What led you to try drugs?</B>
I wasn’t living with my parents. I was with two people who were doing drugs and they were the only two people I could sit down and have a conversation with. They smoked…I smoked gandia and they smoked brown sugar.
● <B>You tried brown sugar ?</B>
I tried it.
● <B>What was the sensation like?</B>
The euphoria] was powerful – despite it being disgusting I accepted it because my problems went with it. I forgot my problems when I was high. It wasn’t a reality.
● <B>The relief it brought wasn’t a reality.</B>
Yes. When I got deeper into it, I realized it worsened my situation. I thought taking drugs was a remedy but that’s not true.
● <B>What were you running from?</B>
From myself – there were things in my head that didn’t really exist. I judged others too much. I thought I was perfect…where there was freedom I was there –
● <B>You think drugs bring freedom – or actually slavery?</B>
Slavery…
● <B>But you were looking for freedom?</B>
I was young – I had the folly of youth in me. I liked to be where there was enjoyment. I wasn’t interested in facing difficulties. It was a bad experience that I went through. It was a bacchanalian life because no parents were around.
● <B>Drugs aided your seeking of enjoyment?</B>
No – it wasn’t all enjoyment – although at the start there was enjoyment. When you smoked brown sugar for the first time – it was clear that you got a sense of relief.
Yes relief – then over time I felt my health deteriorate. Over one month or two it had built up in my blood and I felt I couldn’t do anything without it. I needed it even to go to work. When I was not using it I felt symptoms - I felt weak, had diarrhea, my nose ran, I felt hot, cold. I was not at ease at all.
● You were still smoking brown sugar?</B>
Yes – I remember one afternoon I came home from work at lunchtime and I broke the pipe and smoked it – and got relief – then I could go back to work like someone normal.
● <B>I don’t understand you broke the pipe? You smoked it like… it was a joint?</B>
A joint – with the wrapping foil paper. There’s a percentage that stays in it – I smoked that as well. I felt relief. Over time I stopped smoking and started injecting. The product started to change. We got la blanche. I got the sensation of fear and I liked the sensation of fear.
● <B>What did you fear?</B>
To break through the barrier of fear – that was the sensation.
● <B>Like the thrill seekers – those who climb mountains – to confront fear…</B>
Yes to push myself through the barrier of fear. If I succeeded in jumping through the space between buildings…
● <B>You did daring things with the white powder.</B>
Yes.
● <B>For how long did that last? </B>
Well I stopped two months ago
● <B>But you stopped previously?</B>
Yes – more than once but I didn’t make an honest decision with myself. I did a program [at Terre Rouge]. I started with good intentions but then with the difficulties I had – I relapsed.
● <B>You couldn’t face your difficulties without drugs.</B>
Drugs won’t help me overcome my difficulties. I need to not take drugs at all.
● <B>It was not a solution.</B>
I was running away from myself, my responsibilities. It was a solution for a time – to forget but it created badness in me. I had no worries.
● <B>Can you describe the difficulties?</B>
The difficulties have changed…nothing is working out. I live with my wife in a house – where we don’t have a conversation… I can confront my problems. I confront them in silence – without a conversation. You need to have a conversation to know what you’re doing, what we need…now my problems are another…
I see when there’s no work – I was looking for work and didn’t get a job – I’ve realized when a drug addict doesn’t work he’ll be forced to steal to get his dose. And with stealing you get involved with the police. Unless you’re drugged you don’t feel normal… When you’re going to bed and you don’t have your first dose for the next morning, you’re stressing over your first dose the next morning.
● <B>You manage to sleep?</B>
You sleep half-awake with eyes half open and sometimes when you’ve done stupid things you’re watchful as you sleep. You’re stressed in case the police take you away. It happened that the police did come by to investigate me.
● <B>You stole?</B>
Yes – it showed me that when I do stupid things there are consequences – my family was already living with the consequences of my actions and they had to find money to pay a solicitor. Yes – all this made me think – the stage I was at – I felt myself no longer able to go on. My health wasn’t normal…
Drugs [long pause]…make you forget everything. You don’t have to remember anything – not your wife, your family, your children, you forget yourself – who you are. You put yourself in a ring where you can’t get out. You don’t think – until you can’t go on. You don’t go to work…when you think about it and how you can’t change it…even in your free moments you don’t do anything. You feel yourself caught…
● <B>Do you feel yourself free? – When you were speaking about free moments…when you’re an addict – aren’t you constantly thinking about your next dose – in this sense you’re not free.</B>
When you’re in drugs you’re not free at all – you don’t have a moment of freedom. When you’ve done it [injected yourself] you need to look for the next dose. You do it again. There’s a moment when I go home and there’s no regular time for going home…come around 4am I’m sick. I need a dose and I need to wait and until I get my dose I’m like a dead person.
● <B>Then what do you do to get what you need?</B>
If I have money I wait.
● <B>If you don’t have money?</B>
I need to take the necessary steps – I look for things that I can sell…You ask your family – after a time no one wants to give you anything. Sometimes a person will help you out because he knows you’re in a critical situation. He gives you something and he knows you’re going to buy drugs. One time he can feel sorry for you –
● <B>Then he’ll see you’re using him …</B>
Drugs make you lose everything. My family can tell you they’re fed up. I needed to make an effort to stop. When I made the decision, I made only one decision.
● <B>But you made more than one decision…What happened for you to relapse?</B>
Forget the problems – problems will always be there. I can’t say I relapsed because of problems. I wanted to try it just one more time – to see whether I could do it once. I think that in four or five years my body will still be the same…
● <B>You were experimenting?</B>
Yes an experiment – just today I’ll do it. But the next day I did it again and it went on.
● <B>You had the yenn again.</B>
I see that when a person has known drugs even for a short time – he can never take them again... Your body is disturbed by them. Once I’d taken the dose, the next day when I didn’t take it I had the same symptoms as in the past.
You realized you’re not cured. You felt yourself cured – so you thought you’d try again without getting the yenn. I’m just going to try.
Yes I’m just going to try - but you can’t – your system is already disturbed.
● <B>Then what happened?</B>
You become an addict all over again.
● <B>What happens is you need it again – and more? </B>
Each time I abstain and fall into it again and relapse – it becomes more fatal…
<B>Joan CORNELL</B>
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