WEBVTT

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-Me trying to find
happiness on Class

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A drugs was just something
that was never going to happen.

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I think people found
it too difficult

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to be around me in the
end, because they-- there

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were certainly some people
that felt like I wasn't going

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to live for that long, and so
they didn't want to-- they kind

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of felt that if they
withdrew from me,

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it would make the process easier
for them when I wasn't around.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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When I was a teenager, really,
up until the age of about 16,

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I was a real loner.

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Real loner.

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I had a really good
family background,

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I was from a fairly
well off family.

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I never wanted for anything,
but I hardly went out at all.

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I was aware that I was gay.

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And I didn't feel like
I had anyone to talk to.

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The first time I
ever smoked cannabis

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was when I was
probably about 16,

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and that was at
my friend's house.

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That feeling of feeling
shy, and awkward,

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and insecure completely left me.

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All of a sudden I could be
that person at the centre

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of attention, and that
was, you know, I loved it.

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I started off by walking
around there, and in the end

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I'd run round there because I
knew what was waiting for me.

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From using cannabis with
the guys that I did,

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they introduced me
to their friends,

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who introduced me to other
things, as well as cannabis.

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Something like ecstasy.

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I felt utterly elated
and euphoric initially

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for quite a while.

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But then as time went on, I
had to use more of the drug

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to achieve the same effects.

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The same with cocaine.

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At the peak I was
addicted to Valium.

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I drank an awful lot of alcohol.

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I would quite often
take things like speed,

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and I smoked heroin sometimes.

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I got quite into smoking crack.

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With the people I hung
around, crack was considered

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to be kind of like a dirty drug,
whereas ecstasy and cocaine,

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it was OK because you
could take that at a party,

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but you couldn't stand
at a party smoking

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a crack pipe because
it wouldn't do.

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I kind of say that smiling
because everything that I said

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I would never do, I
did without exception,

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and I kind of constantly shifted
the goal posts, if you like.

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I wanted to get that
feeling that I discovered

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that I'd never had, and I never
was able to recreate that.

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Deep down, I was
deeply, deeply unhappy.

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And me taking any type
of drugs wasn't going

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to kind of cure that happiness.

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Far from it.

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My drug taking led me into
a psychiatric hospital.

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I became extremely depressed.

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In the end, I wasn't
able to leave the house.

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I used to self harm a lot.

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That, in the end, I didn't
consider that to be strange

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behaviour, that was kind of part
and parcel of my living at that

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point.

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And my family, as
well, it affected them

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in an enormous way,
because a lot of it they

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had to experience first hand.

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I would basically emotionally
blackmail my father.

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I'd make him, basically,
give me money,

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and today I love him very, very
much and I'm very close to him.

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But that's just
an example of how,

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regardless of how I
feel about anyone,

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in the midst of my addiction,
I walk all over them.

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The second to last time I ever
used drugs, I was at home,

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and I felt really,
really, severely low.

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I remember pouring myself
a pint of white wine

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and taking a handful
of Valium tablets.

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And I told myself that
if that didn't give me

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the feeling that I
was wanting, then

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I would put my hands in the
air and surrender, and just

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do whatever I had to do to
kind of sort my life out.

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And for about two minutes, I
got that feeling that I wanted,

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and I was so excited
to have that feeling.

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I phoned my dad up,
actually, because it

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was the only way I could hold
a conversation with anybody.

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Otherwise I felt so
disgusted with myself.

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And during this two minute
conversation with my dad,

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that feeling that I'd gotten
back for those two minutes

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went.

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It disappeared, and it was just
replaced with this hollowness

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and emptiness again.

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And that was when-- that was
basically when I gave up.

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There was an
opportunity for me to go

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to treatment and to rehab, and
so I took that opportunity,

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and basically then
followed 9 and 1/2

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months of in-patient treatment.

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I don't believe that I
would have experienced

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any of the mental health issues
that I experienced, had it

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not been for the drug taking.

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And the reason I know
that is because when

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I stopped drug taking, all of
those symptoms never returned.

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If there's anything that I
could change about the past,

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I wouldn't.

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And that's a
difficult thing for me

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to say when I consider the
pain that some people who

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are very close to me and
people that I love very much

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have been through.

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I wouldn't be here
today, and I wouldn't

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be the person I am today if
it hadn't been for the things

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that I went through and
for my drug addiction.

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

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