Springboard to a Future?

A Springboard to a Future?

i) Burning Up

'Tepid, humid, sticky summer drizzle spilt over Nottingham, early evening ' the first rain for day's in the endless heat of August 2003 did little to allay the oppression. The rush hour traffic crawling up Mansfield Road humming in the distance, on flight to the outskirts of the town. An occasional horn blurts out in interspersion to the rumble and pollution looming over the City and rising in the distance, further fuelled by the weeks' temperature. Over St Anns the chop and drone of the police helicopter already unmistakable even at this time of the day ' adding a bitter dissonance to this gritty symphony as it completes its urban circuit.
A girl - perhaps, of no more than nineteen years of age - but her face already lined, ravaged and worn - is handing the crumpled tenner she's just sold herself for- now to seek her reward down a litter strewn alley off 'St Anns Chase.' A man in sports gear, his body adorned with the gaudy gold jewellery of greed takes the note and hands her the one miserly cellophaned wrap of Crack Cocaine. Life lived out through the white smoky haze of the gauze pipe ' the exchange of a never-ending agony.

There have been a lot of stories, factual and otherwise about drugs, sometimes glamorising them, sometimes victimising the society we live in for spawning such monstrosities. We don't need another one of theses and so this book doesn't attempt do that, but shows perhaps my endeavours of me and a few of the people that would become my friends and our experiences in trying to get away from that lifestyle in a therapeutic community. I would like to hope that it could offer emotional insight into us all, regardless of whether we've experienced the horrors of drugs ourselves. We all have our own issues ' our own crosses to bear, our own inner traumas and strife. People who take drugs are no different they've just found another route ' have another option of avoidance ' of course in the end it's more painful and just generates more dischord. These are some of my experiences, opinions and views - what to make of it all is for you to decide.

ii) "Last Days On the Frontline

Two years ago to this day, I was in a terrible mess. I had been living in St Anns in Nottingham for about 2 and a half years on what you would call the frontline for drugs, prostitution, guns and all the related crime that goes hand in hand with the driving forces of the sink estate economy, Crack Cocaine and Heroin.

August 4th 2003 and I woke up, cider bottles, everywhere, pipes that had been dismantled, ripped apart to scrape the chalky cocaine deposits and syringes full of congealed blood, some of them probably still containing Heroin mixed in will the hardening sticky dark red deposits now forming inside them. I'd generally not drunk alcohol heavily over the past couple of years, although I'd had my moments ' judging by the blackouts, mess and sheer volume of green plastic, this had been one of those weeks. Summer 2003 was more than a scorcher and the temperature seemed to rise and rise with the associated humidity and oppressiveness of our own brand of English heatwave. The residents of the estate had been swilling in a sea of alcohol and violent outbursts were becoming commonplace as we sweltered under the heat.

As usual I was covered in crack spots on my face, my injection spots were raw and harbouring infections, but with the added month of white cider consumption it was like my whole body was in a constant perspiration of poison. Since June, I'd worsened and worsened, not so much physically but mentally the lifestyle was taking its toll. My flat which at some points had almost seemed like an oasis of cleanliness and safety (a factor that meant I always had some street girls of my choice stay round, feeding and plying my habit, 'til one or either party got sick of ourselves) in the block, had now become a stinking den and my previous carefulness had been replaced I'd let anyone in who offered even the smallest amount of drugs. My door had been kicked of by C.I.D and not replaced and at one point all I had was a settee blocking it. As I became weaker, I was better prey for the rest of the addicts that roamed about the complex; it was an easy stop on from scoring on St Anns 'Chase' or back from the beat.

There was some camaraderie on the street, but a lot of people who had no regard for anything but themselves. In July, I'd done a social security blag and got about £400 ' I was seen scoring a bit too often for my own good on that day and was also knocking back the 'White Star.' I got robbed and beaten with a wooden stick, my mouth smashed to bits ' I should have gone to hospital to have stitches but all I could do was go and bang up the remaining two bags of brown I had left in my pocket.

Two days later, I came out from my flat and bumped into some other of the complexes resident's three lads, these weren't users but I'd had an argument with them and they fancied themselves as tough guys. Seeing my face already wrecked they gave me another beating, I lay in the road, sweat pouring from me ' more blood pouring from the original wound that was now gaping again. All I could do was walk to Mansfield Road and buy as much cider as I could muster with the shrapnel in my pocket. I think I got about 5/6 litres, which I drunk ' and took various painkillers for the next two days. I blacked out for a day after this binge ' and the box of about 500 co-proxomol I had my bedside had almost magically. I was frequently suicidal especially when drunk, had I taken them all?

The fear, the panic, the desperation, the recent beatings, the insane heat in the flat, lack of food and my mental and physical health waning ' had it been enough for me to take the tablets? Was I on the way out? I couldn't remember. As I began to feel more and more progressively ill ' I went down to the local resource centre. You could use the phone for free, the woman behind the desk, who last year I'd, taught office skills to grimaced when she saw me! What a state! Probably stinking and reeking of drugs, stale cider and vomit, dried blood forming a mask around my mouth and face. I couldn't bear to stand up for long ' I phoned the 'Ley Community' firstly whom I'd recently turned down and asked then to give me another admission date. This time I was completely desperate. I phoned my drugs key worker at the John Storer Clinic ' I told him about the Co-proximal. All he could say is let's hope you haven't taken them all ' we both knew that with this type of overdose it was all too late to do anything. I suppose this is what it took for me to get down and ask for help, I said that I'd never go to the 'Ley' under any circumstances: I couldn't thing of anything worse. It was a 'boot-camp' and 'authoritarian regime' ' no music, no reassurance, confrontation groups and 14 hours of daily structure with no respite or time to yourself. What's more it was long term man ' an average programme length of 60+ weeks. I suppose at this point I had no option, it would be death, prison or becoming some kind of an invalid on a psychiatric ward. Or like one of the mentally ill that has their flat turned into a full on crack house whilst they get left with crumbs if they are lucky! The later was probably my greatest fear and it looked like that process was already beginning to take hold.

So back to August 4th 2003, my last day of my full on using, I was again reeling from a complete blackout. For some reason my giro had been paid into my bank account over the weekend early and what had seemed like a miracle on Saturday had been dispensed into white smoke, cheap cider and a few bags of gear. I was skint and I don't know if I'd lost £20-30 also. I'd had a few of the girls over in the evening smoking crack and doing gear but I was so drunk I couldn't remember anything ' I checked my trainers and socks as it was customary habit to put money down there when you were in uncertain situations, which was constantly in St Anns in recent times. Nothing ' I woke up crazed still from the White Star, carbonated madness bottled and sold to the desperate and lonely. I kicked out Tracy and Christina Guy ' who of course knew that Monday was my Giro day and I should have had money, they couldn't believe that it had been paid into my bank account over the weekend. "Fuck ya ' then! ' "Never sortin youse out again, ya bastid! It's ya Giro day, ya greedy bogger Christina snarled.

They left pretty sharpish, leaving behind a collection of pins, still red with claret that they hadn't managed to bang up yet. I felt a sweat and wave of sickness pull me over; I made a cup of tea with offish milk and went to lie down for a few minutes, whilst I waited for the rattle to take hold. I think I may have passed out for ten or so minutes in the wraps of nausea, when I awoke the one thing on my mind was gear.

Propelled by the insanity, I reached over for the table, couple in ash, bloody rags and the pins. I went over to the draw, brimming with burnt out lighters and pulled a clean works from the back. I also found some citric and a clean (ish) filter. I wiped down a spoon with a styrette and squeezed out the contents of the three or four pins that had been left to congeal in the warmth of the summer's heat. Worms of thick blood eased from the pins and were soon reassembling into liquid under the heat from a blackened lighter. I managed to fill my pin with the blood and hopefully gear with some difficulty the filter clogging with the sticky sickly deposits. I spent the next five minutes finding a clear vein near my wrist and then pushed the thickening stuff in, with some pain. In a few moments, the taste in the back of my mouth confirmed the presence of at least some Heroin, relieved I sat back and sipped the now cold tea and dozed for a couple of minutes more.

When I awoke I was still rough, I had no money and also needed a pipe. Most of my possessions were now sold, but the one thing that had kept me going was my PC, (or one I had lent from the local resource centre.) I'd kept like a kind of a mad diary and bits and bobs of digital recordings of me playing my now pawned guitars. At the end of the day the circulation in my arms was too poor for me to play anyway, some loss.
I was reading JG Ballard's 'High Rise' and the de-generation it foretold made warming parallels of my own demise and decay in the Nottingham City Council 'low-rise' I inhabited. The PC would have to go ' I picked myself up and made my way down 'The St Anns Chase,' one of the dealers would surely buy it. If only I could get them to part with the bags first, else it would be a nightmare to carry.

Down the 'Chase' 'Bum' as his street moniker ascribed was loitering around Westville Gardens. He called himself 'Bum' in relation to having the 'bum ting' or Yardie for the good shit! The reality was that 'Bum's' gear was rarely anything but 'bum' indeed. It was second rate and cut with all kinds of crap. They heady days' of £5 bags in the late 1990's that would have you drooling all day long were a thing of the past. This probably had to do something with the progression of my own habit, but also due to quality. Today's £10 bags ' where no you could only buy one of each (Spend £20 ' 1 for a white (tiny rock of crack cocaine), 1 for a dark (.2g of gear) were the way things were on the Chase. (It was all about fleecing the working girls straight after they'd made a raise on the beat.) The two drugs in the space of five years had become synonymous with each other, one to bring you up, and the other to take you down and round and round in the endless circle of misery.

Bum saw me, "Steve¦ he smiled with a couple of gold teeth accentuated even more by the thick gold chain. "Wha'da ya sayin'. He can see I'm desperate and rattling, "computa? Eh? ' " I give ya three of each. " I don't need to barter anymore it's a skank but it's good enough, I ask for a bag now, but he refuses. I tell him I can't take everything at once. "One minute. He whistles to one of the flat windows on Westville and a skinny youth come out. "De yout' will come and tek wa ya can't carrie. That's it we're set, I'm weak and struggling back with it, the walk down the chase seems to take forever. Barry the young white lad is struggling with the monitor two. After about ten minutes Bum grabs a plastic wrapped bag from up in the corner of a balcony beam and gives me the things. I walk bag, pleased but dejected at the same time ' there was a hell of a lot of work on that computer and some music files that would be lost forever. Anyway that's what goes around with living life in the moment, for now I'd got want I wanted and what I needed.

Back at the flat I had a couple of pipes, vomited in the sink and then cooked up. I was that bad I did the both bags at once. It was getting harder and harder to get and vein in my arms and my hands were just lumped up with potential abscesses, I went near the wrist again. It was a clumsy hit, but after about a minute and some pin's and needles sensations I felt it. I relaxed and time stood still for a couple of hours more. I had delayed the pain of living once again, but it was only going to be forestalled for so long.

After about half hour of relative shut down, I still felt awful ' I phoned my Mum and explained about the place in the Ley and new admission interview. She had helped me before last year when I had a real bad bout of Hepatitis, but I'd let her down, getting a taxi back from Birmingham to Nottingham when I had a big cheque through. She said I could come and stay at hers until I got a place in there. She could tell by my desperation that I was serious this time.

I went to see an alcoholic who lived in one of the bottom flats and cadged some Librium from him for the journey back to stabilise with¦¦..that was the last time I injected Heroin¦¦¦2 years ago now¦¦¦..