Death of an acquaintance

I have a friend I've known for about two decades and during that time he has been a drug addict continually. I think he's about a decade younger than me and he's been married to a woman he met at a very young age. Each day he would intravenously take heroin and smoke crack. When I first got to know him he was funding his habit through the traditional methods of shop lifting, collecting and weighing in metal and other petty criminal activities. He's not a bad man by any stretch but his addiction forced him down avenues he undoubtedly would never have gone. His partner in crime was a heroin addict who sold small amounts to other addicts, all in their late thirties and upwards. No children were ever sold to and all were active addicts already so there was no victim as such. Given that we live in a small town a shoplifter can only expect a couple of years before all shop owners and managers know them and then they get banned. So, let's call him Jerry started selling crack cocaine. His partner in crime already had a network of customers and most heroin addicts smoke crack too so his business took off swiftly. Heroin addicts generally use the same amount every day and score at the same time, working around the other obligations in their lives like work and family. Crack, however is extremely moreish and very often an insatiable habit. In the town where I live the generation of addicts are getting older and most are jerrys age. There are a very small number of younger ones who have got involved but mostly it is just one generation that got involved with heroin in the 90s. Some were seeking solace following the brain battery of the rave scene and others took inspiration from the film Trainspotting which was set in 1980s Edinburgh. But in most of the UK heroin was very rare until the Afghanistan invasion saw the country flooded with cheap, strong brown heroin. This was pleasant to smoke and if cooked up with citric acid or vitamin c can be injected and in Leeds, where I had grown up, the recreational drug scene had shifted from the experimental use of psychedelics and cannabis to speed. So many took the habit of injecting onto the new wave of heroin. This delivers a much stronger hit than smoking it which is relatively safe though addictive. I lost close to a dozen good friends who had all been recreational drug users to begin with, exploring the many interesting and varied states of consciousness that drugs can provide. Sadly they ended up pursuing a single state of mind. Due to fluctuating quality and fluctuating incomes what cost ten pounds and could be handled easily one day might be enough to kill on another. I sometimes dream about my old friends who died and often wonder where their lives would have taken them. They were painless deaths for them but painful for their loved ones. If any young person is reading this and considering using needles I implore them to reconsider. Some of us got away with it but it was pure luck.

Back to Jerry our small town had gradually become a cocaine culture and heroin use was purely a habit still remaining from earlier life or a means to soothe the mind after crack use. His business took on all his freinds clients plus a load of new ones. When I first came across crack I was working away in my old home town and it was invariably stone or crack in other words. Down here people generally buy powder. They either wash it up in a spoon boiled with bicarbonate of soda which binds to the cocaine and is collected and smoked. Or washed up in ammonia to clean out adulterants and convert it to a smokable rock. This should be then washed in water and ideally left overnight however few have the patience and smoke it with ammonia still there which is of course poisonous. I know one guy who somehow flicked the hot ammonia in his eye which is now a milky white and he is half blind. The habit is not physiologically addictive but is incredibly compulsive and people go to great lengths to obtain money to buy more. It is insatiable and when it runs out a feeling of depression overcomes the user. You see them scouring the carpet for imaginary dropped crumbs. Being more expensive than gold only those with a lot ever drop pieces. A decent pipe is about ten pounds and heavy user's might smoke several dozen in a day. This means crime. Few people who smoke crack are able to work as it is a full time job.

Initially Jerry was out all day. Hustling and selling brown and white. This meant he was rarely home and he has two children. His oldest daughter is about 18 and his son 15. Ultimately his wife got sick of him never being home and though not a user became curious about the culture. Too many customers meant going out to meet them became untenable. He had been getting a lot of his product on credit and his use grew. His generosity found him ticking the closest. Soon he was in debt to well over £1000. He got a good beating one time and his head was swollen up like a bruised football. Whether he wanted to get caught to put an end to his dilemma I don't know but he became very reckless. His garage became a shop. Some would be quickly in and out but there was generally five or more people sat around smoking crack and heroin. His neighbours must have known what was going on. Some idiots what turn up in the middle of the night . Under pressure to repay the debt he grew ever more reckless. Finally he was arrested and is now in prison awaiting sentencing. The abuse his body suffered would have killed many a man.

So his family was left with far less money than they were used to.

Then last week I heard that his wife had a brain aneurysm and died. A sudden death. The children are now left with no mother and a father in jail for who knows how long. At 18 the daughter may well go off in to the world. I left home at 16. My stepmother had moved in and said either I go or she would. I couldn't let my father's new marriage break so I left. I had older friends and moved into a shared house. Whether jerrys children will be able to go out into the world and fend for themselves will have to be seen.

Drugs are incredibly destructive. The 90s rave culture saw many people taking recreational drugs. Some grew out of it, others moved on to harder drugs. It seems that the generation now leaving home are not so much into drugs. A small minority are joining the subculture but the majority here are in their 40s, 50s and even 60s. Whether the drugs are weaker or the users learned how to measure their dose I don't know. I know heroin addicts who have been doing it for decades. In of itself, despite being addictive and able to kill if given the right dose, heroin is not that harmful. An alcoholic who has drunk for decades is in a far worse state. But if any young person reading this is getting involved I would advise them to get out while they can. It takes over your life. It becomes your life. Everything you do revolves around it. There is some comfort in being part of a secret society. Largely invisible to those not involved.

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