Hate crime

Jm: When was the first time you were using every day

P: Well it was probably about, I’d say about 8 years ago now

Jm: ok, 8 years

P: yeah, when I started using it every day yeah,

Jm: So eight years ago, so we’re 2012, so 8 years ago we’re at would be about 2004

P: yeah

Jm: and what’s the most amount of bags you reckon you’ve been using a day

P: well, when I was at my worst I was doing about, probably about a teenth a day, which is probably about 8 bags a day

Jm: so when you first realised you were using every day, you said it was 2004, what time in the year was it, you reckon winter, spring,

P: no is was summer time it was cos I was in prison and I start using in prison and erm I was, I was in denial a bit, and er didn’t think I had a habit, even though I was using most days, I always thought I was in control of it, and I er came out of prison and before i knew it I had a habit, and then I started and I wasn’t using a lot I was just using probably about 2 bags a day then

Jm: ok so we start off about here. And it was still the summer when you came out of prison?

P: it was er beginning of winter when I came out of prison, so yeah, in the six months I was in prison I would say er, I went from using a bag a day to 2 bags a day and when I came out of prison for about a year I’d say I stayed about the same doin about 2 bags a day

Jm: so that was up until about winter of 2005, and then what do you reckon happens after there

P: and then the quality of the gear came in and it wasn’t as good, and erm I was erm having to use more and er I was going through a stressful time and er I was homeless, my life was erm like in disarray, and er, you know, I started er, using a lot more then, I started stealin and you know doin everything I could to fund my habit,

Jm: ok, so it was about 2 bags a day about winter 2005, what happens next,

P: I reckon I doubles the amount I was using,

Jm: and so how sharp should that line be then d’you reckon>?

P: erm, very quickly,

Jm: so when you were up around 4 bags, how long to you think you hung around at this level,

P: I was just getting in a relationship with somebody then, and I erm, I think I tried to minimize, and I think I stayed like that for a number of years, about 3-4 years,

Jm: so you think you were at this 4 bag level until about 2009?

P: yeah, yeah

Jm: and so when you do you reckon that changed again,

P: I erm, I split up with my partner, became homeless again, I had, erm my life wasn’t in order, and er, my habit escalated again then, and it went from using 4 bags a day to probably 6 bags a day….

Jm: and so that’s when you’re hitting about 2011,

P: yeah, I was doing a lot of gear then, and I wasn’t on a program, and I wasn’t getting you know, any other help, and I didn’t really know how to get help and tackle my problems, 2011, you know I er, I started to realise that er that I wanted to make changes to my life, that I was fed up of bein homeless, you know, living in disorder, I decided it was m y time, a couple of my friends had got themselves on a methadone program, and I erm decied that I was gonna try that and you know tackle that, and I’d say probably in June 2011, I erm, brought my bit down, even though I was waiting to go on the program, I brought my habit down from 8 bags a day to about 4 bags a day,

Jm: and you did that quite quickly?

P: I did, yeah I did yeah, the quality of the gear again yeah, quite good,

Jm: that helps?

P: yeah, that helped, and at the time I was travelling to get my gear, wasn’t getting it from , so the quality of gear was better, and I was er goin up to North wales to get my gear, and you know I started using less, but I still really wasn’t saving any money, cos I was catchin trains up and down and round and back, and erm, travelling expenses was, er, expensive, I’d say er, you know, beginning of 2012, I decided hat er, I’d had enough, and I really wanted to er, sort myself out, get some order back in my life,

Jm: and what do you reckon you are on now?

P: now I’m on 2 bags a day,

Jm: can you remember when it was you got on the methadone.

P: erm, it’s only recently, I been on the methadone probably, 2, 2 and a half months,

Jm: has there ever been a time when you’ve gone right down to zero?

P: nah, even when I’ve been in prison I’ve always used, isn’t hard to get there

Jm: So can you remember the first time you realised you were using heroin every day?

P: yeah I can, very vivid, erm I can remember I was a little bit disappointed in myself, and a little bit scared, and I always knew that er, I wasn’t gonna become a statistic, cos I’ve always been a bit careful when I use drugs, I mean you know be a little bit careful who I use drugs around, and er, and I wasn’t injecting, so i had no worries of dieing or anything like that, and I er you know had no major concerns other than not wanting to become a junkie, and you know I wasn’t injecting so in my eyes I sort of said to myself I’m not a junkie, I’m not injecting , I’m not flat out, so things could be worse, so i’m not a junkie, just a druggy, I dunno where that, it made some kind of sense, but it did

Jm: it does make sense,

P: that was when, er, everything started to go wrong for me, and then er I was in and out of prison,

Jm: and so it was in prison that you first realised you were using every day?

P: I was still in prison yeah, no I mean I’d just come out of prison.

Jm: you’d just come out of prison?

P: yeah

Jm: so you noticed that you’d get a cluck in the morning when you were out of prison?

P: yeah

Jm: can you remember what first occurred to you the first time you

P: I thought I was ill, I thought, you know, at the back of my mind I was thinking ‘you got a habit’, but I was in denial, and I was saying to myself no you haven’t got a habit, I got flu or I caught a bug, y’know and I was justifying it myself that way, and for what I’d say, a yea, or maybe 2 years I was a little bit in denial, knowing but not admitting it do myself, and you know that was his part, this period, you know, for two years I was sort of knowing I had a habit, but a little bit in denial, and y’know, not fully admitting it to myself,

Jm: around this point do you remember having any conversations about the fact you were using every day?

P: no, I was still telling everybody that I didn’t have a habit, and I was er still denying it to every one, even to myself I was lying to myself, I knew it in my head really, but yeah, admitting it to myself was something else then, I mean if anyone asks me friends or anybody, I’d say no, I’m not a smackhead,

Jm: do you remember the time you admitted it to yourself that you had a habit?

P: yeah, that was when my life started spiralling out of control, I was finding it difficult to function and I was erm, to live and erm, to find my way in life you know, and that’s when I, when I sort of, how do I say it, I exceeded and said to myself I have got a habit, and my life sort of, I just accepted it, and then my habit got worse, then, because I sort of accepted it, you know and er realised, that I did have a habit, it wasn’t a problem and I was becoming an addict, and that’s when my life sort of went up to there,

Jm: and erm who were you hanging out with at this time, was it only other heroin users?

P: erm, other heroin users, and other crack users, and you know, other offence committers, you know, all the riff raff of the world,

Jm: is there anyone from out of that scene who you were in contact with at that time?

P: no, I was hiding from everybody who wasn’t doing it, and I was sort of and I thought like I didn’t belong among em, and i sort of shied away from them if I saw them, people who I knew who wasn’t using I’d hide from them, cos if they didn’t see me I wouldn’t make myself known, so I was sort of like a shell at that point,

Jm: can you remember when it was you tried to hide away from people who wasn’t part of that scene?

P: it was when I realised I had a habit, yeah it was then, at the beginning, and right the way up until it got a lot worse I was like that,

Jm: and when you look back at this person who first got the habit, what do you see that person as like?

P: a shell, I wasn’t living I was existing, I wasn’t happy I was depressed, I didn’t have no organisation or nothing, or anything in my life, or any stability, and I was sort of losing hope, and struggling, and then I sort of stayed at that level for a number of years, and I think it was probably about 3 or 4 years, and then my habit, I sort of accepted that habit, and then my habit got a bit worse then, everything was going wrong then again in my life, you know I sort of increased again, and went up again,

Jm: so now we’re going to move on to this bit here, so you said you had a girlfriend at the time, so what was life like at that moment? Describe life at this time to me?

P: erm, it was good, but it wasn’t, I was er, I was hiding it from her,

Jm: so was she not a user?

P: no, she smoked cannabis, and er, she dabbled occasionally, and er she knew I used, but er, she didn’t know to what level I was using, so all the tinme I was in a relationship with her I was, it was like I was living a lie, because er I was er, hiding from my family, hiding from everyone really, and er, you know I was er, I was sort of in a shell I was, and er, finding it very difficult to er, break out of it and I couldn’t talk to nobody about it, had nobody to turn to, so like this period here, it was very rocky it was, it had ups and downs, lots of ups and downs, and er there was er, it wasn’t until I split up with her that, I was devastated for her that, I was devastated at losing her, losing my children, and erm I sort of er, it spiralled out of control again, and it went even worse then,

Jm: and in this bit here what were you doing for money?

P: I was at the time I was, I was fiddling, I was, I was labouring, erm, I was stealing,

Jm: what sort of thefts were you doing?

P: shoplifting, burglary,

Jm: take me through like a standard day, when you woke up around this time what would you do?

P: I’d wake up in hte morning, I’d say to my misses I’m popping round my mates house, I’d go straight away, have a dig,

Jm: around this time it was a dig or a boot?

P: a dig yeah, and then I’d go to my mate, yeah, let’s go and make some money, and er, every day was like this, we’d go out and one way or another, whether it was like, breaking scrap out of a building, you know, committing offenses of some sort, I would make sure I was funding my habit one way or another,

Jm: how much do you reckon you’d be pulling in every day at this stage?

P: some days hundreds of pounds, and hten some days 50 60

Jm: so if you doing an average thing, average of earnings, so on average which do you reckon it was?

P: 50-100 I’d say,

Jm: so at this stage, when you went out on the raise did you just have one partner in crime or a few different people?

P: yeah, yeah, I had one partner in crime yeah,

Jm: would you quite often call it a spar yeah?

P: yeah, yeah,

Jm: is that a welsh term, cos I don’t think I heard it elsewhere?

P: yeah yeah

Jm: and htrough that time you just had the one spar then?

P: yeah yeah, we was like partners in crime, we both had habits, we both had similar circumstances, you know our lives related a lot too each other, so we sort of er teamed up and er, we decided we could make more money if there was 2 of us than one of us on our own

Jm: did you both have particular skills or?

P: yeah yeah, you know I was more of a burglar type and er, a creeper type person, and he was er a bit more in your face type of thing and er, you know er, a bit more blatant, but yeah yeah, we definitely had our own skills,

Jm: so when you woke up in the moring would you always have some gear left over?

P: yeah yeah, I’d make sure that I had er had something to wake up to, yeah, yeah I’d make sure, I wouldn’t come home unless I had something left over, to wake up to in the morning,

Jm: you’d always work at night?

P: yeah, work in the day and the night, and this was when the relationship withmy misses became rocky, she thought I was having affairs, I wasn’t having affairs, I was out stealing, to pay for my habit

Jm: but I suppose you couldn’t tell her that,

P: couldn’t tell her that, and that came in between my relationship with us, and erm, things got a lot worse then,

Jm: so moving along here, what happened here that..

P: I split up with my misses, I ended up admitting all this to her

Jm: how much of a surprise was this to her?

P: It was a shock to her, but it explained a lot of unanswered questions, you know, where I’ve been adn what I’ve been doing, you know, home come I didn’t come home some days, I’d be home at 7oclock in the evenings, some days I wouldn’t come home til half eleven at night, you know, er she decided like she didn’t wanna be no part of that, and we split up and I at the time I promised her that I’d sort myself out, like I’d, I couldn’t see a way of doing it, and i was in a routine, and, er all my life consisted of at that time, was getting up in the morning, sorting myself out, and then going and makin money so that I er, had something in the morning and something to go to sleep with at night, 35:12

Jm: and how many times would you be using through the day?

P: sometimes, it depends how my money was, if you had a really productive day and you know, sometimes I’d use 6 ,7,8 times a day

Jm: and when you were burgling, did you sell it yourselves? How would you convert it into money?

P: erm, well, I’d sell the stuff myself, yeah and erm it all became like err, like a routine type of thing, it was like part of he act type of thing, goin out and stealin was just part of, part and parcel of then, goin out and selling it, going and findin someone to score, you know it just took up so much time in the day that I just didn’t have time for nothing else,

Jm: like a full time job?

P: yeah, yeah,

Jm: well would you sell it at, pubs? People?

P: People yeah, other people who i knew through council estates, just stuff like that yeah, other drug dealers,

Jm: and so in this bit your use was obviously going up, how did you finance this? Were you just spending more time on the raise or?

P: well we started taking more risks, and doing bigger things

Jm: like what?

P: like doing commercial burglaries and stuff, doin shops and smash and grabs, yeah, and it went from, just yeah, burgling, every day yeah at a house, burgling stuff like that, it went from that ton burgling shops, big franchises, vans full of fags, and stuff like that, and er it started becoming a little bit reckless, because I didn’t care who i’d hurt in a way, it was like nothing else mattered, and it sort of went from then to there then,

Jm: and at this time, who were you hanging out with?

P: we had a little syndicate then, you know we had about four or five of us, you know, we’d work together and one of us always had a plan, idea of something, something we wanted to er, turn into money,

Jm: so describe around here, so where would you normally wake up,

P: I’d wake up in different friends houses, sometimes I err, wouldn’t wake up from the night before, it depends, I er, I was sort of in and out of squats I was, and er, sheds and anything, anywhere I could find a place to get my head down, with different friends sometimes, you know, different associates,

Jm: so in the morning you’d wake up, sort yourself out, would there be people around where you’d woken up or would you have to go and find them,

P:it depends, sometimes I wake up on my own, sometimes I’d wake up with somebody else, I’d sort myself out, then I’d say come on then lets go and make some money or if I woke up on my own I’d go looking for, you know I always had my one friend who I always, he’d be the first person I’d go looking for, but if I couldn’t find him I always had other people who I could turn to and say look, I got a little raise lined up, have you got a little raise lined up, it just went from there,

Jm: and so for this bit here, it seems you’d levelled off here, what happened here? Why do you think you stuck up at that level?

P: I was stealing lots of money, that was as much as I could smoke, as much as I could use, you know it wasn’t doing me any good, I was erm, I was feelin ill, i was drinkin every day as well, erm, you know, erm er, it was a roller coaster for me at the time, when my life was really out of control, and I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to begin, I thought that was my life mapped out for me and there was no other way of changing it, and I sort of accepted the fact that this is how I was and er yeah, and er, and I didn’t really make any attempt to change, and it wasn’t until like I was sleeping rough, and I was er approached by some Christians, from a church, and er they offered to help me, and er gimme some support, they sort of pointed me in the right direction. And they was the ones who helped me get in this dry house, and er they was the ones who said to me you can put your life back in order, and made me see some sense out of it out of the madness, of what I was living amongst you know,

Jm: and erm going back to this time, when you were using this time, how would you normally feel straight afterwards, as soon as you hit it home, how would you feel?

P: erm, never happy, always depressed and er, never felt fulfilled, you know erm, you know at this i was just using drugs, not to get high, to feel normal,

Jm: were you managing a gauch around this time,

P: erm occasional, when it was, erm, usually if I had a spell when it was rubbish gear, like a month, and then something nice came in, then yeah, I would get a gauch,

Jm: was that what you were aiming for?

P: I wanted to get off my head and forget about you know, the sorry state that my life was in,

Jm: so this point you said your partner wasn’t a user, but when you split up with her, were there any other non users you were chatting to, talking to, in contact with,

P: no, not really, i’d say hello, tar a, to people, but not spend any time with no,

Jm: and were you ever speaking to your mum around this time?

P: no, my mum had sort of given up on me, and she was, I was speaking to her, but I’d hide from her because you know she could see that I’d lost all my teeth, I was unkept and er unclean and er, and it used to worry her seeing me like that obviously, it used to hurt me, her lecturing me, and er I just sort of, decided that I had to er separate myself from her, and try and er fathom out my problem myself,

Jm: so what happened here? Did it literally all start with the Christians,

P: yeah yeah, it was yeah, I started getting help from these Christians,

Jm: and now tell me about what happens, so, where was it where you were when these Christians found you and had a chat with you,

P:I was begging, I was begging in town, and I was approached by these, you know, these group of people, they said look, you know you do realise you don’t have to be sleeping rough, and I said, well you know, the council won’t house me, I can’t get in any hostels, you know, what else can I do, and er they said, you know, we open our churches, one night, every night different church every week, and they told me to turn up at erm, the soup run, and I’d be er picked from there about seven o clock, and taken and erm, given a meal, and er a bed for the night, so they started getting a bit of normality back in my life, it also meant that I started to bring my habit down then, and because I used to have to get my fix before seven o clock, thought I could go and relax in the evenings, which meant that I wasn’t out in the night times and so I wasn’t you know, committing offenses, and er, you know, I’d get up in the morning and erm, they’d drop me back into town, I’d go and get a couple of racks of clothes from a shop or something, sell them in a pub, I’d sit beggin all day as well, I’d probably make hundred pound, hundred and fifty pound,

Jm: you said that when these Christian guys found you, you were begging, why at that point were you begging and not going on the raise?

P: yeah, yeah, I started begging because erm, now I was starting to run out of options, of shops and er, I was getting followed everywhere round town, it was just becoming impossible do er do anything, I was sort of forced into, having to bring my habit down,

Jm: and why not burglary at that point?

P: because I was being followed all the time, I was being followed round town by store detectives, so it was just becoming even more difficult, more and more known to the police,

Jm: you said there was about four or five in your crew at that time, what about them?

P: they were in the same position to me, yeah, they were, we were well known to the police, there wasn’t much we could get away with no more, and we was getting roped in for stuff we wasn’t even doing any more, getting harassed all the time, it was it was, we had no real other choice really, well I had no other choice, some of them, they still in the same place they are, its where I was, I sort of separate myself from them I do, and I’m sort of in a hostel, my life’s going in a different direction,

Jm: do you ever see them these days?

P: I don’t bother with them really,

Jm: do you avoid them or do you just not see them,

P: I say hallo to them at the shop, talk to them yeah, but I don’t want to spend any time with them, I quickly erm, move on,

48:09

Jm: and erm, what else about this time, so when did they get you into the dry house?

P: it was only about 2 months ago,

Jm: and for most of this you were still sleeping rough?

P: yeah, and sleeping in the churches in the nights,

Jm: and you’d wake up, you’d usually have something to sort yourself out in the morning?

P: I’d wake up in the morning, I wouldn’t use in the church, obviously, but I’d wake up in the morning ill, they’d drop me in town, I’d go straight to the toilets that’s in town and sort myself out, and then I would beg then, all day, to fund money, before ten o clock so I can sort myself out again, and at this point I was trying to get on a program, with attending appointments and waiting to be put on a methadone script, and erm, trying to get my life in order, I was getting support from the church people, from the homeless people as well, from other homeless people , I started, er, not haging round with the drinkers, and I decided that I couldn’t afford to er drink and use heroin , so drink become a second, and heroin become a first and even though I continued to use heroin, and I brought my habit down, and thats when I started to get a plan back into my life, and rty and sort of, make my life a little bit better than it was,

Jm: so now we’re gonna talk about the binge you went on about three weeks ago, tell me about the day the binge happened, when did you first get on it this day?

P: well what happened I bumped into a mate I hadn’t seen in a while, he had a few hundred pound, and he said to me come on, we’ll go, had a party type of thing,

Jm: where was it?

P: My friends house, we went to my friends flat, smoked crack, and then he’s bought erm, a quarter of heroin, quarter of an ounce,

Jm: and the way you were feeling, before you bumped into them was it different, could you have seen it coming there,

P: well no it was er, I was sort of having a bad day, and you know I was still trying to make some sense, trying to bring some order to my life, I was a little bit on the brink I think, starting to give up hope I was er, and I thought to myself why am I trying, I’m not getting anywhere, and I bumpen into him and kind of went off the rails and it was only for a night or 2 I spent with him, then I thought to myself, what am I doing, I’ve just, all this work that I’ve done, I’ve just blown it all out of proportion, and for what, I was on methadone, I didn’t need to use, and er I , and still now I find it difficult to break the habit, I still use in the morning, and when I go to bed at night, so I’m still using twice a day now, on top of my methadone, I think it’s breaking the habit it’s, I find it difficult you know, they’d offered me some counselling, and I’m thinking of taking it you know, yeah so, really er, some days I’ll wake up and I don’t use, and I use once a day, and thrn some days I’ll use twice a day, if I use twice a day now I feel like I’m letting myself down,

Jm: So the guy that you went on the party with, did he feel like he owed you?

P: yeah, yeah, cos I’d sorted him out on numerous occasions, when I was doing well and I’d have a good raise, you know I’d looked after him, you know, couple of time he’d been bad and I’d helped him out, and he sort of like he was returning the favour, and you know, it wasn’t his fault, it was my fault cos I said yeah, but it was definitely that he felt like he owed it too much, and er you know he was doing it as a friendly gesture

Jm: how did you find getting back, was it quite hard to get back down afterwards?

P: no it wasn’t cos I was like stable on the methadone anyway, I think like the methadone, cos I was on like 70 miligrams, the meth was holding me, and the meth was stronger than the gear really, I gauch off of it because like I do it on top of my meth, I think If I hadn’t of had my methadone that day and I’d have used I think I probably wouldn’t have gauched,

Jm: so now you’re on the meth, are there any days you don’t manage to score, don’t manage to get any,

P: yeah, there’s still days when I’m skint, and I’m not able to get anything, but usually I’ll bump into friends or someone who’ll help me out,

Jm: so I suppose the advantage of spending so much time up here is that there’s quite a lot of people who owe you one,

P: yeah,

Jm: does it hold you the 70 mil?

P: yeah it does,

Jm: so you wouldn’t be clucking if you just

P: no, I wake up in the morning now and I don’t have to use , (some inaudible) I only use now if I’m having a bad day, you know so, I use once a day so, so like I sadi I’m still trying to get out of it, I got so used to using, you know the methadone is working for me and holding me, it’s hard to break the habit, you know I’m using and I’m still trying to tackle that problem,

Jm: do you think much about trying to knock it on the head entirely,

P: yeah,

Jm: whats the thought process you get normally when you think about quitting,

P:erm, I feel as every day goes by, I feel a little bit stronger, and a little bit closer, to achieving my goal, you know, definitely, and I find that the less time that i’m spending around people whose flat out, and the more normality that’s coming Back into my life, the more will that its giving me to want to be different, I want to make the changes, you know erm, so yeah yeah, so I feel its not going to be a long way away, in the distant future that I’m gonna be able to say and look at myself, look I’m not using any more, and only on methadone, and even my doctor at where I’m prescribed my methadone, he seems to think that, cos the program that I’m on at the moment, its only a six month program, and he’s already talking about it, sending me to CAU, for an extended, cos he feels that, he’s not going to be able to tackle my problems within 6 months, so you know, I’ve been open with him that I’m , I’ve told him exactly how my life is, how my life has gone, and he seems to think that I’m in need of a bit more help like, than this program is able to offer me, so that’s good, to know that er, I got that help there, is a big weight off my mind,

Jm: yeah?

P: yeah, definitely, erm, I gotta be honest, I like I said the more I’m spending time around straight people, the more i’m wanting to become straight, and er, the more I, the more normal things I want back in my life, that haven’t been in my life for so long, you know, like er waking up in my own place, erm, paying my rent, erm, you know, getting a job, you know I started, erm, doing work with homeless people, only voluntary work you know like, but er, starting to get a little bit of normality back in my life now, and you know, things are starting to get a little bit better, a little bit brighter,

Jm: excellent, that’s great, that’s the end of it then,