When my beautiful baby confessed that she was addicted to heroin it came as a relief as I had known for some time and didn’t know what to do about it. We cried and shouted and then hugged and I promised to stand by her, whatever. I have relatives that are addicted to drugs and one was really sick with AIDS at that time so I was scared more than I have ever been before.
In my naivety, I thought we would go and get some treatment and this would all be over. We had a family meal and talked about how we were going to tackle this, through lots of tears too. I took a week off work, as did my daughter and, with my younger kids, we moved into my Mum and Dads so that everyone could support each other. God, it’s laughable now.
Nothing can prepare you for how horrific a “rattle” can be, I was expecting flu-like symptoms, not the chronic diahorrea and prolonged vomiting she suffered, along with delirium, sleeplessness, achy limbs, sweating and other problems that went on for almost two weeks. I sometimes slept at the foot of her bed, or bathed her or sat with her on my knee (even though she is a lot taller than me). The vomiting was so bad that I rang NHS Direct and they sent us to A & E at 3am one morning. As I carried my emaciated daughter through to the GP centre the staff on reception did not meet my eye or offer to help me –a distraught mum carrying her teenager like a baby in her arms- the GP was barely civil either, until I challenged him. I have challenged people’s judgement of “junkies” from that moment.
We went back to work, me relieved and her using again almost immediately. My belief that we could face anything as a family was really being tested. Its sole destroying when you know that your baby is in the next room “chasing the dragon” just so she can manage to work to buy more heroin. I still struggle to buy foil because it felt like I was helping to destroy her if I did. I went through irrationalphases like sending her to her Father or banning her from having her “boyfriend” round but this just made it worse. She once got a new boyfriend, although he turned out to be a dealer and I really liked him!
Then we entered the treatment treadmill.
Once again I went off all optimistic, to an appointment with Impact on Oswald Road, and they said counselling can take months before a client is ready for a heroin substitute. That was probably my lowest point, because I had built myself up for a miracle cure and now I finally got it- there isn’t one.
When “we” finally went to the prescribing clinic, they suggested a DF118 detox, we didn’t even get past half way before I knew she was using again!! Back to Oswald Road, Do not pass Go, Do not collect 200. It felt farcical. Eventually she was prescribed methadone, but her 1st dose (after she’d been titrated) ended up in a carrier in the back of my Dad’s car and she couldn’t go to work that afternoon ‘cos she was gauched on the sofa all afternoon. The Consortium were not very supportive to the problems of attending regular appointments and work and so even though she had worked from the onset, she had to leave work.
I am unsure of how many times we yo-yoed through those doors, but some-one went with her to almost every appointment or pick-up, my Mum, me or my sister usually. We called the methadone medicine and treated it as a family problem, although it was sometimes hard to remember why we were fighting so hard for this person that didn’t always seem as if they wanted to get “better”. Eventually she did.
Looking back I see that I was absolutely barmy at that time, drinking like a fish and running myself ragged chasing around all night finding some-one who didn’t want to be found, sitting up worrying or boring my neighbour to death with all my worries, disbelieving every word that my daughter said, investigating everything, totally neglecting my other kids. I felt neurotic, bloody angry, heartbroken, guilty, unable to control things, stupid, tearful, sorry, and even more anger. I felt like a caricature of a single mum, a rubbish mum. I’m meant to protect my kids from evil things like this. I wanted to run away my self, but once I accepted that this was happening I think it got a bit easier.
Sometimes I hated her, I always hated the heroin.
