Men's Health Stories

There wasn’t much going right for me as a young boy. The only one who tried to keep me headed in the right direction was my mum. When I did mess up, I’d only be temporarily in trouble. She had too much on her plate to keep me from going wrong.

My mum married an alcoholic, my dad, who would drink so much that he would hallucinate. Pretty shocking for me as a young lad but it, as with anything like that, becomes part of your normal routine. Regardless of how far from normal the situation is. She also had to be the breadwinner, the cook, the cleaner, the grocery shopper, the family planner, and really all of it. Having a partner who was an undependable alcoholic, couldn’t keep a job, and spent any money he had on drink; made her road a tough one.

I went to the pub often with my dad who was supposed to doing other things like errands. I’d often be stuck standing outside for hours because I was too young to enter, no matter how cold it was out there. I saw how much fun he brought into the room, people looked up to him, and he had so many friends. It kind of made me forget that later in the evening things would be bad. At the bar though, I wanted to have that power that my father had too. I wanted to be the king of any room I stepped into.

The first time I learned about that power was when I had a drink of champagne on New Year’s. We were celebrating with the neighbours and I had a crush on his wife. With one chug I emptied the glass and over the next ten minutes the room started spinning, my arms and legs felt warm and powerful, and my head was flooded with euphoria. I went up to my neighbour’s wife and said I needed to say something to her and as she leaned over I kissed her on the lips. She was my girl now! They all thought it was funny but I was so serious. I ran up to my room and kept feeling drunker and sicker until I passed out. The next day I realised what I had done and was so embarrassed. I avoided my neighbours from that day on.

From that day forward, I kept finding alcohol and then marijuana as perfect social lubricants, and as a way to show how hard I was doing these things at such a young age. They helped me break my shyness and enabled me to be the big man like my dad was around people. I was doing terribly at school, all my mates were the hardest kids from class who were into drinking, smoking, fighting, and stealing. There were not many good futures open for a kid like me at this point.

As the years went, the soul-crushing poverty-stricken Glasgowtenements and my poor selection of close friends shaped me for what I saw was the best job in the world. Drug dealer. These guys in Glasgow were driving the nice cars, had the hottest women, had tons of money and drugs, and were simply the coolest, untouchable, baddest people in town. I had to have that life.

I was well into alcohol and drug addiction at this point and was becoming a career criminal. Turning to dealing was not a huge change for me. I was excited about my new career, even making good money early on. Unfortunately I got caught and my mum’s house was raided. Instead of giving up I was more focused than ever. Pretty much every time I went to jail or prison I learned a lot about the trade and met more like minded criminals. My eyes also kept getting bigger, I wanted to do more drugs, sell more,make more money, have bigger parties, have the hottest women…

I turned to international smuggling, going to India and bringing back the finest hashish, which I sold for 20 times what I bought it for. This gave me ample leeway to smoke a lot of it too. I started to have all the things I wanted when I first set out to do drug dealing, even my best friends growing up with me came to work for me. I was the king!

Then I hosted a birthday party in my twenties, a big bash to show everyone how big and bad I was. Unfortunately my best friend overdosed and died at my house. This was a tipping point, it pushed me over the edge. The cops were all over me about the death and my drug dealing. I was becoming more and more paranoid. My addiction was in full swing. I lost my drug dealing business, was put in prison, and all my friends had left me. Only my mum still cared to write and send me money. She still believed in my lies that I was turning my life around.

Once I was out, broke and homeless, I shared a needle with a friend of mine. He was at the hospital for HIV treatment. He got hard drugs from the doctors to manage his pain. I eventually passed out and thought I had died, it was completely pitch black. Then I realised I must have gone blind. I began to pray to God to help me. Over and over and over again until I broke down with tears streaming down my face. I had lost everything. I was on my knees asking for forgiveness and a way out of my horrible life. That was when I saw it, a tiny crack of light.

It turns out I had passed out in the hospital bathroom and the light was off. I wasn’t dead and I wasn’t blind. That break down was an epiphany for me and that tiny crack of light was a significant symbol for my recovery. No matter how bad it was I knew I had that tiny crack of light that filled me with hope that I could beat addiction. It was hard but 17 years down the line I am finally happy with who I have become today.

This story is written by talkhealth expert Mark Dempster.