Kiri’s story - part two

Life was horrible. it was getting harder and harder every day to live, just to keep going. My partner at the time was soon in prison doing three years and seven months for burglary. So here I was all alone trying to survive when I’d no clue how to.

So I decided to ask my mum and dad if I could do my detox at home. Raw, no medication, and they agreed. So the next 7 days were horrendous – god it was so hard.

The sickness, the diarrhea, the stomach pains, the leg aches and leg irritations, the hot and cold sweats, the no sleep, the constant craving for heroin because I knew it would stop all this pain.

But it was hard for my mum and dad too, watching their daughter going through all this. It broke my mum’s heart and my dad lived upstairs all week, he couldn’t bear to even look at me. I was finally clean but it was the beginning of the battle, not the end. The hardest part was next. Trying to stay off heroin.

I had made the biggest mistake in not changing my friends. I thought I could still associate with heroin addicts and be clean, but now I know that’s not possible. So, after all that hard work, within a few weeks I was using heroin again.

At first it was only on paydays, as a treat I used to tell myself. Then it went to weekly, then every few days and before I knew it I had my habit back and I was back to square one. Another partner using drugs and I was back on drugs – it’s not a good combination.

I’d let everyone down. Yet again I was stealing and lying. Yet again, after promising them and myself I wouldn’t do it again. But I’d let myself down the most. All that pain I had just gone through went out of the window.

Yet again I didn’t care who I hurt or what I did. All I was bothered about was getting money for my drugs, taking my drugs then getting money for the next fix. It’s a roundabout. That’s all you do, day in, day out, 24/7. You don’t care how you look, dress, smell, where you live or where you sleep. Your family and friends don’t matter unless they’re giving you money for your drugs.

You turn into a horrible, spiteful, deceitful human being who doesn’t feel or live – you just exist. Even if you want to, you can’t get clean and stay clean for anyone else except yourself. You have got to reach a point in your life were enough is enough and you are ready to take the plunge and change your behaviour, your friends, your daily routine, everything.

For the next few years my life carried on the same – drugs, crime, court. Lost family and friends, had new partners who yet again were heroin users. I lost homes, lived on the streets and looked like I was dying most of the time. Then my life went on an even more drastic downhill spiral.

I thought it would be a great idea to start selling heroin.

First I was doing it just to feed my habit and it seemed so easy. But I never had any money, I was still always skint. I realized that my habit had nearly trebled because I was buying weights of heroin at £600.00 a time. I was better off in other ways, like clothes and toiletries, I had got off other users in exchange for heroin, but financially I was the same.

I had never looked as bad as I did, but it seemed so easy. Even though everyone would say “be careful” I’d say “don’t worry I won’t get caught, it won’t happen to me”. And where did it land me? In Barnsley police cells and then court and then straight in HMP Newhall for 16 months.

The day I got busted I’d got ten point four weights of heroin left to sell and there was around £260.00 in cash. There was a great big bang at the door and, before I could do anything, I was slammed against the floor with a boot placed on my back and my hands pulled behind me and up my back.

My flat was surrounded and there were 12 police officers searching my place. They had already found the heroin as I couldn’t have hid it, I didn’t have time. It was on the fireplace and with the cash in my purse on the floor.

To be continued….click here to read the first part of Kiri’s story.