DOSE:	repeated		Amphetamines
			Heroin
			Methamphetamine
			Benzodiazepines

BODY WEIGHT:

180 lb

I started using amphetamine sulphate recreationally at the age of sixteen. At this time I also used LSD fairly regularly and smoked cannabis.

Amphetamines only really became a problem for me around the age of twenty. I can only describe it in this way; I began to 'understand' speed. I found that I could direct its effects, at least that's what I thought at the time. I don't think it would be inaccurate of me to say that I fell in love with amphetamines. I carried on with my life, went to university, got a job and settled down with a woman. All the while maintaining my love affair with amphetamines, and managing it successfully, so I thought.

At the age of thirty I decided to go back to university and embark upon a degree in Liberal Arts. At this time my wife fell pregnant. Cracks had started to appear in our relationship and I think my wife thought getting pregnant would fix things and change my habits. I felt the timing was unfortunate, but was happy that I was to become a father.

As time went by and my studies at university progressed, my consumption of amphetamines grew and grew until for the first time I conceded that my habit was out of control and that I was addicted to speed. I was an arrogant young man and this flaw was accentuated and exacerbated by my freewheeling use of amphetamine sulphate, methamphetamine and MDMA. I began buying high end goods on my credit cards and immediately selling them for cash. I also began embezzling money from my place of work and applying for hardship grants at university. All to pay for my gargantuan appetite for amphetamines. I was regularly going without sleep for a week. I began to lose weight at an alarming speed. I became incredibly suspicious of the motives of everyone I had any contact with.

Whenever I was sober, which was becoming a rare event, I was wracked by hunger pangs, so severe that I actually found it very difficult to eat anything. Like a madman, which I was in fact swiftly becoming, my solution to the dreadful hunger I felt when sober was to take more speed, in larger doses and I began to introduce it intravenously. My GP, alarmed at my sudden and severe weight loss sent me to hospital to be tested for various forms of cancer.

At University I became unrealistic in the standards I set for myself. I had always had a desire to do well but now I became obsessed with always having the best marks. I did actually manage to maintain a high standard of marks right up until we broke for the winter holidays.

By now I was very seriously ill, both physically and mentally. I began spending days on end away from home living in my Audi or staying with dealers. In order to sleep I now had to take handfuls of benzodiazepines and heroin.

I came to the attention of the police, I was driving around crime ridden, impoverished neighborhoods in an Audi that looked out of place and with well known dealers and villains catching rides in my car. Finally on Christmas eve I overdosed on heroin in the disabled toilets of a supermarket. I was brought round by paramedics, surrounded by cops. My first thought was that I had a fair bit of heroin and methamphetamine on me and would certainly be going to jail. The paramedics said I needed to go to hospital but that I would be free to check myself out at any time. The cops stood me up and cuffed me, then drove me to the police station. A cop drove my car from the supermarket car park to the station. I was searched and put in a cell. To this day I have no idea what happened to the drugs I had in the pocket of my jacket. Whatever happened to them, wherever they went, for once I didn't miss them. The police actually did me a real favor that night. I wasn't charged with anything, they kept me in a cell overnight for my own good and then let me go the next morning, Christmas Day.

I drove home to my pregnant wife. I hadn't been home, seen her or spoken to her for over a week. She was relieved to see me, I stayed sober. The next morning, Boxing Day her waters broke. She wasn't due til' the 9th of January. To this day I think she somehow subconsciously induced her labour prematurely. I was home, and she didn't know how long I'd stay or even how long I'd live.

My daughter was born that night. I cut the cord, and when I held her I was overcome with the realisation that this beautiful, precious, innocent child deserved so much more than I was. I felt real, genuine human emotions for the first time in what seemed like a lifetime. The emotions I felt weren't synthetic, psychotic emotions designed by chemists and cooked up in a dirty clandestine lab. They were real emotions, desperately real and utterly heartbreaking. What had I become? How could I let such a beautiful, innocent child come into the world at such a disadvantage.

I decided in that moment of time that I would do whatever I had to do to become the father my precious little girl deserved. For three years I tried to be that father. I loved my daughter, I never doubted that and neither did she. I doted on her. I dropped out of university, and my wife went back to work fulltime. I took care of my daughter and engaged in an out-patient rehab programme. I would like to say that I stayed clean and everything worked out great; but it didn't
.
I started to use again. To start with it was just a little, here and there. little by little, the monster stealthily took back my resolve, piece by piece plucked away my good intentions and mocked them. I got iller and iller, thinner and thinner. My grasp on sanity became ever more tenuous. Eventually, desperate and psychotic I left my wife and child. I couldn't bear to be near my daughter and my relationship with my long suffering wife was over, she had had enough and quite rightly wanted better for her daughter and herself.
For some time I lived like a wildman in the woods. Then I was sent to a psychiatric hospital. I was diagnosed as suffering a drug-induced psychosis. After having a physical medical examination, I was diagnosed as having malnutrition. I was anorexic and had scurvy! I had become so deficient in essential vitamins, especially vitamin C that I had a condition most associated with sailors in the Royal Navy 200 years ago.

I was stabilised on anti-psychotic medications and slowly brought back to some semblance of physical health. I have family in Australia so I decided that in order to give myself the best chance at recovery I would go there, where I would be out of the way of my routine temptations and addict associates. I sold what few possessions I had left and bought a ticket to Perth Western Australia. I spent some time in a residential rehab there and then spent 2 years in the wheatbelt working on a sheep shearing team. I regained my health and most importantly my peace of mind.

To have found peace of mind once more has been the single most important part of my recovery. It is something I am very grateful of. I fought very hard to regain it, very hard indeed. There were times I thought I'd be better off dead. Suicide was an attractive option but I had to think of my daughter. Today I am sober and live a drug free life. I don't have a relationship with my daughter. Her mother wanted to be absolutely sure I had changed my ways before she let me back into my little girl's life. Unfortunately it took me a few years to find recovery and stability. My little girl's mother and I agreed that it would be best for our daughter to let her approach me and instigate a relationship with her father if and when she wants to.
It's very difficult for me, very tough, but I want what's best for her. I live in the same county as her and I'm on speaking terms with my wife's parents, so I'm kept up to date with all her news.

I would like to end this little story of my experience with amphetamines by saying that my brother had very similar experiences as me. His demons were speed and booze. He has a little girl too. But he lost his battle and hanged himself when his little girl was two years old. I'm now doing my best to be a surrogate father figure to his little girl.

I would never take it upon myself to lecture anyone about morals or tell anyone what they should or shouldn't do. We all have to find our own way in this life. I would however urge caution when it comes to seeking solace or comfort or whatever may be lacking or missing in a person's life in the false reassurance of substances.

Exp Year: 2012	ExpID: 97173
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 30
Published: Mar 1, 2017	Views: 2,760
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Amphetamines (6) : Various (28), Overdose (29), Families (41), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11)