UnTouchableDrug addiction
Before you read this
Some of the stories on this page talk about mental illness and how hard it can get. You do not have to read them now. Support is listed at the end of this page, and it is there any time.
Becoming dependent on a drug is not a failure of character, and it happens to people who were given something by a doctor as well as to people who were not. Help exists and you do not have to earn it. A GP is a good place to start, but you do not have to go through one — you can approach your local drug treatment service yourself. FRANK (0300 123 6600) can help you find services near you, at any hour. What treatment looks like varies: talking therapies such as cognitive behavioural therapy, substitute medicines such as methadone for people dependent on opioids, detox, self-help groups, and harm-reduction services including testing for hepatitis and HIV. It can happen at home or as a residential stay.
This is a plain summary, not medical advice, and it is not a substitute for talking to your GP or your clinical team. For NHS information about drug addiction, speak to your GP or call NHS 111.
People who have talked about it
2 stories, each one written in our own words from what the person said publicly themselves.
DJ Fat Tony
DJ Fat Tony's mother found him unconscious. He was diagnosed that day
Content note — this story covers a subject some people would rather choose when to read.
DJ Fat Tony had been in denial for a long time when his mother came to his house on a Tuesday and found him unconscious on the kitchen floor. She got him to hospital. He tested positive for HIV there and then, and they kept him in. He says he wanted to go home, and did not have the strength to go anywhere. He was in hospital about four months. By the time he was diagnosed the infection was very far along — he was told he had probably been living with it for around a decade, his viral load was enormous and his T-cell count had fallen below a hundred. He was put in isolation, in a room where staff came in wearing masks. He was also coming off drugs at the same time, which he thinks made the deterioration worse. The infection reached his brain. After repeated lumbar punctures he became ill enough that doctors put him into an induced coma to bring the swelling down. He was in it for months. He remembers coming round with his mother holding his hand and not understanding what had happened, and being told over time that he had pneumonia and had nearly died. What he says next is the part that matters most. It did not stop him. He came out of hospital and went straight back to his old life, thinking that since he had not died that time, he would die the next. He says he never dealt with any of it and carried on using because of the shame attached to it — and that he used the word HIV rather than AIDS because it sounded nicer. Asked how the shame gets smaller, his answer was simply: by talking about it, and making it open. He says he had not discussed it with anyone before he put it in his book. Nothing here is medical advice. HIV treatment today is very effective, and someone on treatment with an undetectable viral load cannot pass the virus on. Support for anything in this story is listed at the end of the page.
Sarah Hiscox
Sarah Hiscox was eight when a doctor first prescribed her sleeping pills
Content note — this story covers a subject some people would rather choose when to read.
Sarah Hiscox was eight years old, and not sleeping. Her mother took her to the local doctor, and the doctor prescribed Mogadon — a benzodiazepine sleeping tablet strong enough, as she puts it, to knock out a horse. She was a small child. Speaking to Davina McCall, she was clear that she did not go looking for it and her mother did not question it. A doctor had sanctioned it, so it must be all right. In her house, she says, pills were simply everywhere and helping yourself to them was normal, which is part of why none of this struck her as remarkable until she sat down to write a book about her life and started remembering. She was prescribed them for about a fortnight. She notes that current guidance measures courses of sleeping tablets in days rather than weeks, and that two weeks is a long time. When the course finished the nightmares came back. By twelve or thirteen she was taking pills she found in the family bathroom cabinet after school — sitting there, as she describes it, alongside the ordinary contents of any bathroom. She says she was addicted to them by thirteen, and that when they ran out she became physically ill and had no idea why. Nobody had told her that stopping could do that. It did not end there, and she has written about where it went. What she returns to is how early it started, how ordinary it looked from the inside, and how long it took her to see it — which is most of the reason she decided to write any of it down. Nothing here is medical advice. If any of this is familiar, support is listed at the end of this page and none of it will ask you to explain yourself first.
Where to get help with this
You do not have to be in crisis to talk to someone. These are free, and they are there day and night.