News

Young people who have misused drugs describe how they have been able to tackle their habits, with the help of detox services for teenagers. Linda Green hears their stories.

At 17 Kim made the brave decision that she wanted to come off heroin. Unfortunately the drugs agency she went to was unable to help her because she was too young. With no services for younger drug users in her area, Kim had to watch in frustration as her older boyfriend was helped to get off heroin while she went on using.

When, some months later, she was told that a new drugs agency for under-19s had opened in Halifax, West Yorkshire, she went straight round to see a worker.

Kim, now 18, has made enormous progress since that first chat at the HX1 Lifeline Project. She has been supported through a detox programme on to the heroin substitute Subutex, a high dose of buprenorphine, and has been off heroin for several months, apart from one brief relapse.

It has been a long haul for Kim who started using marijuana and ecstasy at 14 after discovering that the man she’d grown-up calling “dad” was not her real father. She ran away from home, got expelled from school and ended up living with her boyfriend who introduced her to cocaine. She ended the relationship and got off cocaine but her next boyfriend was a heroin user.

She says: “I tried to get him off it but then I had a go of it and a habit slowly picked up.”

By the time Kim turned up at HX1, her drug use had forced her to quit her job and she was desperate for help. Fortunately, she has been very happy with the service she has received. “The support has been really good. They tried to find out what would be the best way to get me off heroin and what would be the best time to get me off it.

“They also warn you about certain things. Like I’d smoked heroin until the last two weeks of my habit when I started injecting. When I came in to see the doctor she told me that my arms weren’t right for it because I was too thin.

“I like seeing the doctor here because she speaks to me properly whereas if you go to a normal doctor and tell them you’re a heroin user and you want to get off it they look at you like there’s no hope in the world for you.”

Kim likes the informal atmosphere at the project and the fact that HX1 is prepared to liaise with other drugs agencies. She explains: “Without my boyfriend getting off heroin I couldn’t get off it and vice versa. But here they understand that with us two living together they need to sort something out, so my worker will ring my boyfriend’s worker at the adult service and say ‘Kim’s going on a substitute this week, can you sort something out for Bradley?’”

On the occasion when Kim did relapse, she says the support of her key worker was vital in her recovery. “I was very depressed. I came in here and cried my eyes out. I needed to hear someone say, ‘it’s not that bad, you’ve done really well, this is just a hiccup’, and that’s what they did. With their support, I’m confident I will be able to stay clean in the future and start college in September.”

Catrina started using cannabis when she was 12. She dropped out of school at 13 and began smoking heroin at 16 when she was living in a hostel. She then met a teenage boy who told her that injecting heroin would give her a much bigger buzz.

After several months of injecting, Catrina realised that heroin had taken over her life. She says: “I couldn’t go a day without having heroin, I started to rattle, my legs were aching, it was really bad. I got really lazy, I wouldn’t go out, I just stopped in bed all day. It got to the point where I decided I’d had enough.”

On the recommendation of a friend, Catrina visited the Lifeline Kirklees Young Person’s Service in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. She was assigned a key worker who helped her to detox from heroin.

She says: “They were really good, they asked me how I felt and what I wanted to do. It was hard coming off though. You get really emotional because you can’t have no heroin for 12 hours. I couldn’t have come off without their help. The best thing was that my key worker was really proud of me for getting off it.”

Catrina’s prescription of the heroin substitute Subutex is gradually being reduced and she is confident that once she comes off, she will be off for good. “I got offered some heroin yesterday and I said no. That was a real test and I know I’ll never go on gear again.”

Martyn took cannabis, ecstasy and speed when he was at school. But it was only when he started smoking heroin at 16 that his drug use became a problem.

“I lost contact with all my proper friends and I got mixed up with some dodgy people, thieves and other unsavoury characters,” he explains.

Martyn managed to fund his heroin use through his job and says it’s a myth that all drug users turn to crime. But in the end he realised that he had to stop taking heroin.

“You’ve got to face it if you’ve got a problem, instead of kidding yourself that you haven’t. In the end I went to the doctor’s and said that I had a problem and he referred me here.”

Martyn, then 17, went to the Lifeline Kirklees Young Person’s Service because the adult service in Huddersfield had a four-month waiting list. He was helped to come off heroin on to Subutex and his prescription has now been reduced to 0.8mg.

He says: “I’ve been lucky with my key worker, he’s really good. The best thing has been being able to get on a prescription and getting support from someone who understands what’s going on.”

Martyn, now 18, is looking forward to coming off Subutex completely and has this message for young drug users. “The service here is great if you want to use it, you’ve just got to want to use it. They can’t make you stop taking drugs, you’ve got to want to do it for yourself.”

All names of young people in this article have been changed to protect identities.

My life

Sophie Goody, 17, describes how epilepsy affects her education and relationships.

In September of last year I had my first epileptic fit, except at the time I didn’t know it. I remember thinking that I was being really silly as the fit began, that I was just over-tired or something but then I fell off the bed and that’s the last thing I remember. When the story was being told back to me by my friends I found it really funny but for them it was difficult to deal with. Looking back I think I should have been terrified like them but I wasn’t. When something big like that happens to someone it seems that other people are more frightened by it than you are. I know that was true in my case - my sister says that finding me having a fit was one of the scariest experiences of her life.

Immediately things changed as I was tired, suffering from bad headaches and further fits but I still didn’t know what was wrong. Eventually it got to breaking point and after various tests I was diagnosed. You’d expect it would have hit me like a bombshell but I was detached from the situation and I kept being told how well I was dealing with everything. I’d just begun my AS levels and new people had started at school. I took my medication, tried to get on with things, and meet these people. However, it wasn’t that I easy. I was still having occasional fits, I was exhausted and not coping very well with my work. I didn’t get to know many people because I was so in my own world. Everything got on top of me. I suddenly realised I wasn’t coping with it at all, everyone still told me how impressed they were but I knew different. I was suffering from bad side-effects from my medication and became really sad and withdrawn. I was having a delayed reaction - it was hard to say to people that, two months after my diagnosis, I was suddenly finding it hard. I felt isolated, my parents were trying anything to make me feel better. They told me I could move schools or even leave - I was tempted, it seemed a good way out. But instead I took some time off. At first nothing changed, but during Christmas I had a lot of time to sort things out and it did get better.

The fact I’ve got epilepsy is, of course, always in my mind, but somehow it still hasn’t sunk in. But I hope that the worst is over now and I guess it’s up to me to make sure that it is.