As a psychotherapist and counsellor, drugs of course feature in the lives of many of my clients, to varying degrees. Their stories inform my understanding of how we human beings seek pleasure, and give me some clues as to why drugs are the chosen route for many people, and what it’s like when they become dependent on them. But there are as many reasons why people get fucked up on drugs as there are people; everyone’s story is different. Although, when it comes to childhood memories, the rhythms of destruction, the patterns of pain, they are all in the same mode: the blues.

The mystery, though, is why two kids from the same family, for example, given the same level of abuse or neglect or deprivation, can have completely different lives – one gets hooked on the heavy drugs, steals to feed the habit, ends up in the stagnant pool of methadone (if they are lucky, or in prison if they are not), etc etc etc, while the other manages to avoid the pitfalls and leads a fairly stable life. There is always an element of character, of personality in play – of that “x-factor” that makes each of us unique, and capable of sinking or swimming when coping with that which the fates have in store for us.
Is it the case that someone with a drug problem has always experienced a bad childhood? No, not in the sense that is popularly imagined. For a lot of people, it comes as a surprise to them that the “happy childhood” they thought they had really didn’t give them what they needed; this happens most especially in families where feelings were never discussed; it’s a sort of emotional scurvy, warped for the lack of regular juicy nourishment. It is hard to appreciate that, for some people, this sort of cold upbringing can be just as painful as one with, for example, regular violence – because the only way of evaluating it is qualitatively, subjectively.
Someone who has got themselves swept away by the deep currents of addiction, and who chooses to swim to shore and get grounded, get back in the “real” world, has a long journey of discovery ahead of them, one which involves a profound re-evaluation of what their experience of childhood was, indeed what sort of character they have. Invariably, they are often gifted/cursed with an intense sensitivity, and any sort of healing work requires a full appreciation of just how sensitive they are. For many people, especially men, this is almost offensive, because such sensitivity can feel profoundly disempowering, emasculating. But the only way one can properly protect oneself and stop hurting, is to acknowledge the extent of the wound, get talking about feelings, get sensible, learn what circumstances rub salt in it and learn to avoid them, and then, use the sensitivity in a different way. There is often a profound soulfulness and spiritual quality to people who have been addicts – they’ve been stripped bare, and that opens them up to all sorts of creative and intuitive channels if they trust themselves and others. But, given the history of many addicts, that’s a big “if”.
As a general rule, we take drugs to try to control our feelings. When we stop doing so, our feelings go back to their natural state – ie uncontrollable. If we’ve a lot of feelings washing around, it can be like navigating through a stormy ocean, and that’s when we need support to deal with them, work them out, try not to capsize, and aim for calmer waters.
In some ways, it doesn’t matter which drug. The addictive pattern is the same whether one is smoking or drinking or shooting up. For many former drug addicts, smoking is the hardest of all to give up – because giving up nicotine means finally giving up an addictive way of thinking, of “medicating” our feelings. And that’s scary.
But in other, perhaps more metaphysical or symbolic ways, it matters very much which drug we use, in the same way that nothing is coincidental, everything has a meaning. If we take cocaine, it gives us a sense of being alive and exciting and fabulous. After cocaine, life is a bit flat, dull, lacking in excitement. If we get hooked on cocaine, it’s a really tough job psychologically to slowly get used to “boring” ordinary non-druggy life. We’ve got used to the jagged exhilaration. Like a homoeopath though, I’d suggest that what a cocaine user needs is excitement; their life does need to be more engaging, more full of risk – so get into hang-gliding, rock-climbing. Or politics.
When it comes to cannabis, I have come across plenty of people who have simply parked their lives for five or ten years getting stoned – doing absolutely nothing with their energies. It suited them; but it’s not a permanent state, and eventually people do move out of it, even if out of extreme boredom. But I am passionately against heavy cannabis use among young people, because among the most heartbreaking clients I worked with in London were people who suffered psychotic/paranoid episodes through taking too much cannabis when they were teenagers. It’s like the floor of your consciousness has given way underneath you – and you’re still falling. It’s really dangerous for some people, and the worst thing is, it’s not predictable who is – or isn’t – susceptible. And now that they are breeding cannabis with THC at astronomical levels, compared to the Sixties, I have no hesitation in saying I dislike it and will never support its legalization.
I used to smoke it. But if the urge behind smoking a joint is to be more social, to relax with friends, to have a giggle – well, is it really that difficult to find other ways of doing that? Similarly, with ecstasy, and the other social drugs, including alcohol: there are other ways of connecting with people, of getting close to people, of getting a warm fuzzy loved-up feeling. It’s not impossible, it just requires a bit of imagination to do it drug-free.
As for heroin – it’s the ultimate escape, the endgame, the most nihilistic of them all. Anyone going down that route has to make their minds up whether they want to live or die. It’s existential, it’s extreme, there’s no half-way house. Get clean or die. Choose life or death. Go through that journey, however, and fully commit to life, and afterwards things can be very rich indeed, very rewarding. What worries me about the treatment programmes in Ireland at the moment, however, is that switching to methadone alone is not the answer, psychologically – there has to be support and encouragement to move past the addictive stage, and it seems to me that the authorities are content enough just to leave the junkies on methadone, without doing the hard work of giving them proper support to get completely clean and living raw, but satisfying lives.
Nothing’s impossible. There just has to be a will to change.