Sorry, did I say normal?

Well, look again. There is nothing normal about this picture… I lived in a tiny little house I could barely fit in to. It had a giant fence around it.
There were marijuana plants growing in the garden.
Even at that age I was hiding a spliff behind my back but most damaging of all, and what I blame for all my subsequent troubles - I was forced by my parents to wear girl's shoes.

I know shocking isn't it? They are lucky I didn't grow up to become a transvestite comedian. That would have been a far bigger disaster than heroin addiction. I mean a comedian that dresses up in woman's clothes that could never work….

Actually my childhood was no more dysfunctional than millions of other peoples, who didn't grow up to be heroin addicts.

I was a bit shy and fearful as a kid but I did normal kid things. Played football in the back garden, pulled the wings off insects, ate lady birds and set fire to things. God, I loved to set fire to things. I would build Airfix planes then attach rockets and bangers to them and blow them to pieces. I had a passion for making bombs. I tried mixing all sorts of chemicals together from chemistry kits but they must have been safety tested because no combination of chemicals made anything vaguely explosive. Eventually I resorted to putting Ronson lighter refill aerosol cans on fires. Great fun.
I used to live near the army ranges in Aldershot so whilst the other kids were out collecting world cup Willie coins, I would sneak onto the range and collect live rounds of ammunition. Then my mates, a rag-tag collection of grubby kids, and I (similarly grubby) would go over the woods, build a fire and chuck in a handful of assorted bullets. I spent many a happy hour crouching behind rusty sheets of corrugated iron breathless with the expectation of pending explosions and hot lead whistling in all directions.

It's lucky none of us were killed. The bullets turned out to be armour piercing rounds. Not slowed down one jot by rusty corrugated iron.

Months later when my mum peeked under my bed whilst tidying my room, probably expecting nothing more dangerous than a well thumbed porn mag, all hell broke lose as she easily eclipsed Hans Blix efforts in Iraq and found a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

I remained obsessed with weapons and collected pen knives in quite an addictive way. My first school project was on the history of the flintlock rifle and my second on medieval implements of torture. Normal boys stuff? Or maybe someone should have called the social services at that point…

As I got older I remained painfully shy, I still played football in the back garden. I got in to music - Hendrix, Lou Reed the Sex Pistols. I wanted to be a rock star, still do actually (just beginning to accept it may not happen). And I still liked to set fire to stuff. As teenagers we once set fire to an old caravan used by the builders for their tea breaks. If you have never seen a caravan burn then it is quite spectacular. In seconds the flames reached 30 feet in to the air setting fire to some trees.. The fire brigade arrived and like all good arsonists we stood around with a crowd of people watching it burn, by the time it was out all that remained was the wheel base. Everything else had completely burnt, the tyres, the aluminium sides, the mugs, the whole lot.

Luckily for me, and the local fire services, Mother Nature stepped in and I started to get interested in girls. I was far too shy to actually talk to one so like all adolescent boys I made do with pictures of girls. There was no internet in the 70's so we had to use the Freeman's catalogue underwear section. Or if you were really lucky, a copy of Health and Efficiency. If you're a man of my age then you will definitely remember it. If you are not, it was a publication masquerading as a health magazine. It's main problem was that it had to feature the type of people who frequent nudist camps, I'm sure you've seen them  on the beach in Benedorm, fat balding business men playing bat and ball, old men with pony tails performing yoga. The very people who should really keep their clothes on.  So for every nubile young lady playing tennis there were at least half a dozen naked old couples playing bowls smiling at the cameras and looking like polished walnuts.
Despite this slight drawback the latest edition of H & E still commanded a high price on the adolescent boy stock exchange.

By the time I was 16 you could find me at student parties, upstairs in that bedroom where all the coats end up. Listening to Dark Side of the Moon and trying to impress the girls by rolling the best joint or making a bong out of the wardrobe. We rolled all sorts of joints. Being able to roll a good joint was the equivalent to having the coolest mobile phone now.
We rolled bigger and bigger and more and more elaborate designs. Toilet roll tubes blocked off at one end with five joints sticking out all around the circumference. They were all given names - helicopters, cones, brain death. We got stoned and arsed about played board games like Risk, a military strategy game that went on for hours. Not that I think a bunch of stoners would make the most efficient commander in chiefs. Most nights just making toast was a logistical nightmare.

Our favourite thing to do though was to wait until somebody got really stoned and fell asleep. Then we rolled up a sheet of newspaper in to a long cone, placed one end in the sleeper's mouth and lit the other. When the flames are really high you all start screaming and shouting fire, fire. The stoner opens his eyes and all he can see is smoke and a wall of flame right in front of his face. The utter terror and blind panic this induced was absolutely hilarious to a room full of stoned adolescent boys. 

Then I went on to take other drugs. Now, I don't think that cannabis leads to other drugs. Loads of people use cannabis but only a very few go on to become heroin addicts.  Cannabis doesn't lead to other drugs, it might smooth the way a little, but you do have to be going there anyway. You might as well ban KY Jelly because it leads to perverted sex. Again, it might smooth the way a little, but you do have to be going there anyway.

Do you really think that if there wasn't any cannabis less people would take drugs? Of course not, they would just take other drugs like speed or coke and then you would be saying cocaine leads to harder drugs.

You never hear people saying alcohol should be banned because it leads to harder drugs, but that's where I, and most people I know, got there first taste of intoxication. When I was very young my parents would go out and I would raid the sideboard drinks cabinet, stealing a swig of Dubonet or Cinzano Bianco, maybe even a Babycham.  We were clearly a classy family. Does any one still drink that stuff? At about 14 I would go with my mates to the Frimley Green football club disco. The painfully shy and insecure amongst us would bribe a local wino to go into the off licence and get us a bottle of Woodpecker cider. We'd knock it back with that ridiculous male bravado that is so prevalent with drink; it's somehow cool to be able to drink people under the table. This also happens with drugs but with heroin the winner also gets to rifle through pockets of the losers and sell the table.

Looking back, drinking was nothing to do with male bonding; it was just an effort to gain enough courage to talk to girls. Although I would hazard a guess now that a slurring, puking adolescent boy was not going to score more than a sober one. I blame a lot of my early drink and drug use on my insecurity around the opposite sex. Why I was so horribly shy and insecure is another story.  And probably one for the psychiatrist's couch... Could it be that I thought that women only stayed with men while it was convenient and then slept around behind their backs?

I remember my first alcohol blackout well (I know that statement is a bit of an oxymoron but it's on the chart so it's worth a mention I was 17 and intermittently attending Brooklands Technical College. Supposedly doing a course that my dad thought was a good idea - The Ordinary National Diploma in business studies. I know, I know, it sounds really exciting and cutting edge but surprisingly it was duller than junkie's eyes. I spent most of my time stoned reading Lord of the Rings whilst Mrs E E Ford Glencross droned on and bloody on about contra entries and trial balances.

As a quick aside, I never really knew what I wanted to do when I grew up. Actually I still don't. I hope I've worked it out before I retire. I once completed one of those career questionnaires and apparently my ideal job is working with the mentally ill. I can't think of anything I'm less suited for. Although working with comedians is close. Grown men who make a living out of being silly.

Anyhow, one night I went out drinking with Danny, a college friend. He still lived at home and we had planned to spend the night at his parents place in Weighbridge. We stagger back from the pub having consumed a concoction of pernod and crème de menthe. Not my favourite tipple but it was a drinking game and let's be honest, I'll drink anything. At some point in the evening, Danny had lost his key. So I wait out in his parents snow covered front garden whilst he climbs through a window round the back.

The next thing I know its morning and I am waking up in a strange bed. I get up and place my bare feet on a wet carpet. Uck! A faint smell of sick turns my already fragile stomach. I walk into the hall and down the stairs, which are, peculiarly, also damp. The lounge is a disaster area. The dining room table is smashed in half, right down its middle, now lying like a giant letter M in the middle of the lounge. Shattered ornaments litter the room.  Damp blankets are piled on the sofa next to a bucket that I'm too queasy to risk looking in. I feel totally bemused and am trying to piece these clues together into some kind of story. I'm playing around with a scenario where Danny slept on the sofa and surprised a burglar, when his mother suddenly appears in the kitchen doorway. I've not met his family before but she seems nice and invites me to join them for breakfast. Danny's father offers me coffee. He has a black eye.  Politely I don't mention it. And add paternal abuse to my theory. Danny is nowhere to be seen. I ask after him. I'm told he was very drunk last night and may not be up yet. I smile and nod sympathetically.

Breakfast is awkward. I am hung-over and with people I have only just met so I am keen to make my excuses and leave when Danny appears. Looking suitably sheepish. As any father beating, projectile vomiting son should. So I stay for another coffee. 

Gradually the truth emerges. Danny had climbed through the window, forgotten all about me, made toast, and gone to bed. His parents had arrived home later that evening to find me fast asleep in the garden. They brought me in and wrapped a blanket round me which I promptly threw up on. As his father tried to pick me up I punched him in the eye (which was a shock to hear as I usually only hit people when I'd been on the whisky). He fell back and smashed the dinning room table, there was a bit of a scuffle. Then I passed out. I managed to throw up on the stairs and in the upstairs bedroom before they finally got me to bed.

Strangely I never met them again. I don't know why, maybe my table manners weren't up to scratch at breakfast.

Although blackouts were a regular occurrence, I didn't think anything of them. Until I was confronted about them in rehab, I thought it was quite normal not to remember what you did the night before. If you are reading this thinking, it is normal isn't it? Then you might like to have another look at that chart, 'Onset of memory blackouts', appear in the Crucial Stage.

That was just one of many, and one of the few that I remember. As you can see, alcohol caused me some problems. Luckily though, by that point I had discovered more furniture friendly drugs …….

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At this point I feel I should make a confession. It's a difficult thing for me to admit and let's face it, being a drug addict the truth is never going to come easily…

I have never actually taken Ecstasy.

There, I've said it.

It's been hard to reconcile myself to this awful fact and I'm not sure I'll ever fully come to terms with it. However, I promised myself that this blog would be totally honest, so there it is. One of the most popular drugs ever and I've never taken it.

I can already hear a few sniggers. Clubbers nudging each other, pointing and laughing, but I've said it now.  I gave up taking drugs in 1986 just as Ecstasy hit the streets. Bloody awful timing to embrace sobriety. All my friends were loved up and I was furious. In mitigation I can only say that in my youth there wasn't any Ecstacy or XTC as the kids call it (apparently… I don't know, I was locked in a treatment centre. The only XTC I knew about were making plans for Nigel.  There was only acid - Lysergic acid diethylamide or LSD, And I've certainly taken plenty of that.

Oh yes, I did my time at the festivals back in the days when festivals were festivals. (Oh god, how is it possible to sound like such an old git when talking about 10 years of heroin addiction?) You've seen that bloke on documentaries dancing on his own in the middle of a field, long after the band has finished. Sporting a tie dye t-shirt, a painted face and a mystical stare? Well, that was me. None of this half arsed Glastonbury weekend baby's festival we get nowadays. Full of upper middle-class solicitors from Islington in their stupid ethnic hats. 'Oh yes, we're going on the Friday – Lily Allen is on...' NO! NO! NO!

I'm talking about Stonehenge. A real festival. With real bands like Hawkwind (nothing says credibility more than space rock and naked interpretive dance…), Inner city unit, Ben Harper. It was like a cross between an Indian reservation and a Hells Angels convention: tepees, chrome and black leather as far as the eye could see. A month long, police-free zone. Yes that's right…a month long. It was almost totally lawless. People did exactly as they wished. Most drugs were openly available although even here Heroin was not acceptable. One year there was somebody dealing heroin from a tent for a short while but when I went back to make my inevitable second purchase all that remained was a few hot tent polls and some smouldering canvas. The angels had dealt with him in there own special way. Apart from this strange moral anomaly rather like murders frowning on wife beaters in prison or alcoholics looking down on addicts, there was a general atmosphere of, "What the fuck, why do we need the government anyway?"

Police weren't allowed near the place. One year two coppers foolishly tried to drive on site in a marked police car. Within minutes they were engulfed by an unwashed, chanting, drug-crazed rabble, rather like a Pete Doherty fan gathering. Their car quickly halted and turned over. I don't know what happened to them but I still remember their panicked faces as they hung upside down by there seat belts. Clunk Click every trip. The horrible realisation dawning that for the first time in their careers, they were totally without authority.

Some years later when the powers that be had finally clamped down on the whole free festival thing. I remember driving past Stonehenge; it was the early hours of the morning before the Summer Solstice. Wind was driving rain across Amesbury and as my headlights cut through the gloom, I was amazed to see Stonehenge surrounded by coppers. They had joined hands to form a protective ring around the stones. Now I have seen some strange sights over the years at Stonehenge, some drug induced, some real, but that still rates as one of the most surreal.

How times change.

The last festival was stopped in 1984 and there were scenes of coppers fighting crusties on the news. It was a sad day, but the experience of Stonehenge, the drugs and the atmosphere, had changed me forever. It could have been that for the first time, I became aware that authority could be challenged and defeated. It may have been the sense of community and commraderie that bound us all together that summer but actually it was probably the vast quantities of drugs.

Years later Pulp released their single, 'Sorted for E's and Wizz' describing the (apparently brand new) rave scene. I am sure that it wasn't just me who knew exactly what they meant when they sang, "mother I can never come home again, as I seem to have left an important part of my brain in a field in Hampshire".

Just before we move on from this brief history lesson, I would like to address the two most common myths that have sprung up around LSD:

1.     If you take it you might think you can fly and jump out of a window.

2.     You can have flash backs many years later.

Now clearly I am no more of a Medic than I am a Historian but I have taken absolutely loads of LSD. I even tried injecting it once in a tent at Stonehenge - not recommended. However, I've never once flown out of a window. I've crawled in through a couple, but that's a different story.

As for flash backs….well, there may be more truth to that.

I was in my local library a few months before writing this, after not having taken acid for 20 years or so. It's an old library; you know, books on tall wooden shelves and all that. I reached up to take a book from a high shelf and, as I took it, the entire wall of shelving seemed to become alive. It began rocking and undulating in a really acid-like hallucination. I stood transfixed and, rather pathetically I have to admit, thrilled. When you haven't taken anything for 20 years, the prospect of a flashback seems pretty exciting.

There I was, clutching my paperback and soaking up the experience 'Wow, this is it at last…..my first acid flash back…'

And then the whole thing came down on top of me. Shelving, books the lot.

I was admonished by the librarian and had to be helped up by school children on a library visit. It's hardly sex and drugs and rock and roll is it?

But then, that's just another myth.

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