Photo: Janine Wiedel Photolibrary / Alamy Stock Photo
Itâs Friday, way past lunch, and Iâve just arrived at work, my face covered in soot from freebasing black tar heroin all morning.Thereâs no need to explain my absence, as my diary is full of back-to-back meetings, scheduled with and accepted by friends with the same questionable work ethic as myself. Thinking Iâve got away with it, I walk right into one of the sweetest â but also loudest â members of my team. âOh man, whatâs that shit youâve got all over your face?â she asks, with enough volume to turn every head in sight.âOh, I⊠the chain fell off my bike on the way in and I had to fix it,â I slur, as those heads swivel back to laptops.âOkay, well, go and get yourself cleaned up.âMy Xanax and opiate-addled brain is pleased with that result. âWhat a fucking save,â I think, as I walk into the toilets and close a cubicle door. âWell,â I tell myself, âthis seems like the best opportunity Iâve ever had to smoke some heroin.âWhen youâre earning semi-decent money, the addictâs thinking goes, you can afford a semi-decent supply. Earn X amount and you can use X amount. Of course, I never thought I would arrive at such an equation. I started out smoking weed, steadily graduated to party drugs and, once I got a little too old for partying, found myself experimenting with downers to bounce back and recover for the working week. At that point, I didnât even know where to get heroin â thankfully, it was surprisingly difficult. Eventually, whenever I ended up using heroin â which was once in a blue moon â I went through street homeless people. After a few years, I found a plug through a good friend who was an addict, and naively added the drug to my comedown arsenal. Not long after, I made the grave mistake of using three days in a row, which, as every opiate addict knows, is the point of no return. Youâre physically dependent and you canât just stop. Congratulations, youâve just earned yourself a new full-time job: Heroin Addiction. There are no accurate statistics on how many people employed in the UK are balancing heroin addiction with their profession. âGenerally speaking, weâre in the dark about the true numbers, because theyâre the guys still trying to hide it,â says Kate Stockdale, a substance misuse specialist. âPeople will not access treatment services for numerous reasons, such as stigma, the naive belief theyâre in control and can stop when they so choose, fear of losing their job, denial they have a problem, etc.âAdded to that, it is extremely difficult to hold down a job while addicted to heroin, and those that do it wonât manage it for long â so although we donât have the numbers, it would be my professional opinion that those numbers will be very low.âIn November of 2020, a Public Health England report noted that drug users seeking treatment reported an increase in the average amount of days per month that they were in employment. When I started using more heavily, my situation was â unsurprisingly â quite the opposite. My work ethic plummeted and I became less and less interested in the job.Eighteen months later, I had around seven different escape schemes, each perfect for any time of day â including âa guy about a mile from the officeâ, so I could score on my lunch if I needed to. As you can imagine, my performance started to slip. Iâd gone from closing six-figure deals with mega brands in my twenties, to nodding off in the Monday morning sales meeting. Iâd had a good run â mostly thanks to those now-historical handshakes â but I knew it wouldnât be long before my time was up.The exact details of my eventually permanent homecoming evade my now-sober brain, but I remember the process started when a manager asked me where Iâd been all day. Knowing sheâd most likely clocked my bullshit by this point, I decided to just tell her the truth â and it felt really good.To my surprise, I think she was relieved I wasnât just a waster with a terrible attitude; that I actually had an âexcuseâ for months of total incompetence. I was sent home and spent the journey telling myself, âAt least I havenât been sacked,â labouring under the false belief that everything was fine. Before long, though, the crisis started. âHow did it get to this?â Iâd worry. âAm I really a junkie?âThe old cliche of âItâll never happen to meâ had become, âWell, Iâll be able to handle it,â and then, âWell, I can just stop.â Unfortunately, nobody truly realises quite how hard it is to âjust stopâ until theyâve experienced approximately four seconds of drug sickness.After some time off, I blagged a doctor into writing me a âfit for workâ note. I mean, I say âblaggedâ â the request is presumably so rare that the GP seemed more than happy to write out, pretty much verbatim, what I needed.A lot of great work is being done by UK charities and advocacy groups to emphasise the fact that drug users are vulnerable people and not criminals, with some police forces introducing âdiversion schemesâ, where users caught carrying a personal amount of drugs â including crack and heroin â are diverted to treatment rather than criminalised.Unfortunately, the government isnât quite so progressive in its approach. While the UKâs Public Health Drug Strategy of 2017 made plenty of noise around improving services, the government has slashed funding over the last ten years, to the point where a recent ÂŁ80 million package was criticised as a âdrop in the oceanâ compared to whatâs needed.The Dame Carol Black Review â an independent review of Englandâs drug policies, the second part of which was released in June â found that Englandâs drug treatment services are ânot fit for purposeâ. Having used these services myself, Iâve witnessed firsthand how they can quite literally make the difference between life and death â however, in my experience, there was ample help when I needed it.Unfortunately, I made the decision to go back to work way before this point, without any guidance or help. I had no comprehension of the situation Iâd be putting myself in, and the balancing act was near-impossible. Mind you, that wasnât to matter for too much longer, as a global shake-up at my company left me redundant.Two jobs, a 300-mile move and enrolling in a Masterâs degree later, if we began this story on the âFridayâ of my struggles with addiction, I can firmly say Iâm into the âMondayâ of my recovery. After many months using methadone as a maintenance drug and working with services to gradually taper down to the point that Iâm no longer opiate-dependent, I am one of the luckier ones. While recovery is a lifelong process, Iâm fortunate enough to have had the support network and treatment I needed to even make it this far.Since being made redundant, I spent some time away from my career, exchanging the fast-paced life of the big city for my sleepy hometown. Eighteen months on, Iâve just graduated from my Masterâs Degree and Iâm currently having conversations with various companies all over the UK about roles to restart my career. I couldnât be more grateful to those who have supported me through my struggles, and know just how lucky I am for a second chance. If you are struggling with any form of addiction, treatment services are available across the UK.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement