Part 5

TWO LIFE PARTNERS AT ONCE. They do say an addiction is like a relationship. Or more to the point, a bad relationship. Think of domestic violence. Did you know that one in three victims is male? Now I'll tell you a fascinating reverse-statistic. Only one in three addicts is female. Go to a few methadone clinics or NA meetings and that truth will become self-evident.

Anyone can become an addict - addiction is a condition dormant in everyone alive. It only has to be awoken by the correct chemical "light"... then it begins to smoulder and burn, eventually raging like wildfire!

I hope I have made clear the fact that despite dabbling quite heavily I did resist addiction's wily clutches for as long as I possibly was able. But every day iwth Libra was a day that I used - all the way through our liaison except at the very end when she stopped and I went on. In fact, one of the very first questions I asked her mother (after she'd driven us to score) was "Have you got any kitchen foil?" I was still smoking at this point and couldn't bear the thought of Libra butchering herself. Also, the fact ath she could overdose at any time truly frightened me. Smoking £10 worth of heroin takes at least a quarter of an hour because the drug first melts then must be coaxed along the foil in lines; an intravenous injection - once the vein is correctly located - can be done in seconds. The difference to the brain is like the difference between taking a shower and jumping into a huge, deep, hot bath. Both get you soaking wet and the same amount of water may eventually go into each; but there is, at least initially, a matter of degrees of wetness. And that's the only analogy I can come up with, I'm afraid!

While we were at her's the drugs came, of course, from her dealer. Everything seemed easy. Addiction was laid out on a plate. I only had to cough up £10 for every day I used. When I didn't use heroin, a tiny does of methadone or a couple of DFs (dihydrocodeines) were enough to hold me.

When Libra came with me to London, I initially had to brek through the reticence I still had against scoring every day. (Even when I'd used every day in the past the bag had lasted at least into next afternoon on nearly all occasions.) Whereas her dealers were also users and addicts, in my metropolitan neck of the woods heroin was nearly always sold by professional drug dealers. Fair enough, they had to fit dealing beetween taking kids to school, shopping, cooking and watching EastEnders and to this end were often exasperatingly unprofessional. I mean, does dial-a-pizza ever take two hours because he has to sign on for unemployment benefits or fit in a trip to probation on his rounds? And then have the cheek to take maybe £50 or more from you expect you to be grateful that he bothered to show at all? Of course not! But that's part of the junkie life. As Lou Reed put it: "One thing you lern is you always gotta wait."

(Click here to see the psychedelic Velvet Underground version) of Waiting for The Man.

Continues ....

(so sorry I couldn't fit this into less postings and less space... but ho-hum ...)