Junk - Melvin Burgess [85]
Methadone is the heroin substitute they give addicts to wean them off. Actually, it’s worse than smack in some ways. The withdrawal symptoms are worse and it’s more addictive. But heroin is illegal and methadone isn’t. So… I was gasping. I said, ‘Please, yeah, anything.’
‘Okay, I’ll go and get it. You pack your bag.’
‘What?’
‘Pack your bag. If you want some you can have it, but you have to leave.’ He held out the key. ‘Two minutes, Tar.’
I stared at that key, and I stared at him and he smiled. ‘Just… fuck off,’ I told him.
It was a near thing.
I was furious at the time but they know what they’re doing. They’re ever so supportive but they make you fight every step of the way. They know it’s not easy. I discovered later that Steve had been an addict for fifteen years. Fifteen years, and then he got off.
So it is possible.
There’s one of the counsellors here who used to be an alcoholic, a really bad one. He used to eat his own sick in the morning, so’s not to waste the booze. He used to wake up, and he’d always make sure he had a bit of booze right by him so he could have a drink as soon as he woke up. So he’d drink it and his stomach would reject it at once – vomit it up. But he couldn’t have that because that was all the booze he had. So he’d catch it in his hands and drink it back down…
You wouldn’t guess to look at him now; he’s a perfectly ordinary-looking bloke. Anyway, he gave up for ten years, ten whole years. And then one night he decided he was past it, he could relax a little bit. So he had a drink.
‘That was it – skid row. I woke up the next morning in the gutter. I knew there was only one thing would ever make me feel better again. So I did it. And I was on the booze again for four years…’
I remember Dev and his girlfriend once deciding to give it up and they booked this holiday to the Canary Islands. And you know what? They actually met a guy on the plane who was a dealer and had some on him.
That’s one of the things they teach you. You can never touch the stuff ever again, whatever it is, fags, booze, smack. No matter what happens to me, no matter what I do or don’t do, I can never touch heroin again. Not once. Because I’m not strong enough. Because it’s stronger than me. That’s the important thing I always have to remember…
They teach you things like that but most of the work here is therapy. We all sit talking to one another, about one another. You have to show everything. People listen. They don’t judge you. They’re not full of the bullshit you normally get from people who’ve never had the problem. And the other thing is – perhaps the main thing is, unlike all the addicts I know – they all really want you to get off.
We have all sorts here – speed addicts, heroin junkies, people on barbiturates, people on Valium. There’s a woman here about the same age as my mum and she’s been on Valium for thirty years. Imagine, stoned on Valium all that time. Her name is Nancy. Her doctor has a lot to answer for. There’s a lot of women like that apparently. Actually it makes me think better of my mum. At least she found a drug that was more interesting than Valium.
Nancy has a son about my age she doesn’t often see. They took him off her when he was eight. And, of course, I have a mum I don’t often see. So we have something in common. We go for walks around the grounds, and she asks me what it’s like being the son of an addict, and I ask her about what it’s like being a mum. Actually she doesn’t much remind me of Mum but it makes me feel good because I think it helps her. If her son hadn’t been taken away, he might have ended up like me, you see. So somehow, I’m useful to her just by being useless, if you see what I mean.
Nancy sticks up for me. Sometimes the other people pick on me because of Gemma. I’ve told everyone our story, so they know that she more or less ran away because of me. She’d never have gone if I hadn’t been there, so in a sense it’s my fault she’s a junkie. A lot of people say I ought to leave her. There’s