Cocaine Addiction

Looking back I can see that my husband and I were unashamedly yuppies, positively grovelling at the feet of people we met who we thought had social status. We always maintained our circle of friends at the primary school, for the sake of the children, but thought we were destined for better thngs – if only we had more money we could leave this dull suburban life, really take wings and fly.

We both had little expectations from our parents – other people’s parents we saw had set them up in their homes, grandparents paid tuition fees and any little extras. I envied them their security, their money, their depth of family history but was determined all the same to make an impression in their world.

Finally, my husband got the promotion that we needed, a move interstate would help cut the ties, and launch us into a standard of living with better social contacts. We put every penny we had into a spacious entertainer home, and furnished it on tick – I didn’t mind my husband not coming home until late – he was bringing the money in, and I was selecting the people we needed to befriend to climb the social ladder.

We put the girls into the best of private schools, regardless of the money it cost, on top of our home mortgage. Life was starting to look good, as I mixed and mingled with people of heritage and class. I lapped up the fashion shows, the lazy extended lunches – then casually, one of my friends offered me cocaine.

Perhaps I had known that some of them used it, but I didn’t want to go there. Ashamed I might be of my working class origins but some their values had stuck with me, and doing drugs was a no-no. Only the dregs of humanity did drugs, and were in need of compassion for having had an unfortunate life that had made them turn to drugs. But of course cocaine was different, not like ganga or speed, just a little perk me up to counteract the tedium of life. I made up my mind – a wee smidge of cocaine, now and again, would enhance my social status.

To my surprise it hit me like the thunderbolt that Latin lovers speak of – from that first hit – I was hooked. And so the problem began – how to stretch the family budget to include cocaine. I would have been better off with a lover, who would at least have paid his own way, and covered my expenses, but cocaine cost me. I could see it was a problem but, godammit I was hooked.

It wasn’t long before I was waking up in the morning thinking about how soon I could score some coke after getting the girls off to school. With my husband already long gone into the city, I fussed and fretted around – didn’t make the girls proper breakfasts, didn’t eat anything myself, and hurried the girls so much that they sometimes forgot to take things that they needed for school.

Once I got my fix I was fine, but gradually it became a real hassle to have to pick up the girls in the late afternoon. Waiting in a line of cars outside of the school entrance door was bad enough, if there was any delay or complication, it made me fume inside. If I was picking up other girls as well as my own, the high spirits and schoolgirl giggling set my teeth on edge.

I thought I was doing fine, until I started to get panic attacks, and bouts of feeling depressed. Still I kept using the coke. One evening my husband came home early, went in to see the girls, and they told him that they had gone to bed unwashed, and without any dinner again. My husband stormed into the bedroom where I was lying down, and demanded to know what was going on. I told him I was ill. He said he would take next day off work, take me to a doctor. I refused to go, said I would be fine.

My husband didn’t seem to be very happy as he made up a snack for the girls – when did you last do any shopping he said, there’s no food in the house. He made me promise to do better, feeling exhausted I agreed.

Things went downhill from then on, I thought I had chronic fatigue – I couldn’t keep up with social events – declined invitations, didn’t bother to dress up or do my hair when doing pickups from the school. All that was important to me was to score cocaine, I was snorting it twice a day. I couldn’t keep up with the social scene, didn’t want to be bothered with chores.

One day I didn’t feel like taking the girls to school, so they rang their father at work, and said something’s wrong with Mum, she won’t get up this morning to take us to the school.

I was so fortunate that my husband had a handle on things – he came home right away and erupted into a rage – told me that he was sick and tired of the life we led – said he wouldn’t be part of it any more. He’d put in for a transfer back to our home town and it had been accepted. He was taking the girls back with him – I felt numb with shock, then burst into tears. We thought about what to do and I agreed to go into a comprehensive, residential rehab program.

Twelve months later, and I feel reborn, a complete new person – no more drugs and a totally different attitude to my values in life. Now I cherish every minute that I have with my girls – and with my husband, Joe – caring for my family is now my number one priority.

I have two sons, both addicted to drugs, they mostly use cocaine. I thought I was a good father to them, so I want to know why they have both turned out the way they did.

The youngest one lives with me, he’s made a pigsty of my home – I can’t make him do anything to clean up the mess that he leaves around – I’m getting too old to keep the place clean and tidy – it really gets me down.

The other son has got a partner, lives the other side of town. Two grandchildren – now going to school that I haven’t seen in years. Whether his partner still uses I don’t know but she was the one said I couldn’t see the children any more – I think she was scared that I’d call in the welfare and have the kids taken away. I don’t drive anymore so there’s no way I can ever try to get down there and see them.

Some people say it was because their mother died early and they couldn’t cope, that they use coke to deal with their grief about their mother that they never got over. Have to admit I’ve never gotten over it myself – walking home late night from work, she was hit by a drunk driver. It went to Court and all he got was a couple of months in jail – I often saw him driving around. Once I saw his car and drove after it, meaning to get hold of him , and break his arms and legs. But it was someone else driving his car, he wasn’t even a passenger. Funny, after that day I never saw him or his car again.

Mind you, I’ve always had a lot of anger – I lost my own father when I was young – he was killed in the war, I never could come to terms with my father not coming home, when other father’s did. I always wanted to know why it was that my Dad died when he was a real good father, and I knew from what my mates told me, about their fathers after the war – they didn’t treat their kids real nice – a lot of them were drinking – and slapping around their kids.

Then I got married, to my wonderful wife – never knew she was sleeping around behind my back. I never mentioned it to the boy’s when a neighbor finally told me, I just thought to keep in the marriage, for the sake of the boys. Then, of course, she was killed.

It was a few months after that my eldest boy wanted to talk – said he had been around town a while back – and had seen Mum with another man – he wanted to sort it out in his head, what had been going on. He couldn’t think about the grief he had for his mother’s death with this still bothering him. So, I thought I’d do the right thing, tell both boys straight about it, and I could see the pain, the conflict in their faces. I often wonder if I shouldn’t have made up some story to keep her memory sacred.

Then things started to get difficult with both of the boys, the oldest one said the accident was my fault – I shouldn’t have let Mum work late at night, or left her to walk home on her own. Well, it was her choice to work, not that we needed the money – I made sure there was housekeeping after taking out my gambling money. A bloke’s entitled to have some money of his own – I never smoked, didn’t drink much – and now my son was blaming me for putting my wife is a position where she was working late at night.

I have to admit that I got hold of him and strapped him with my belt. He stayed away for a week that time, camping over at a friend’s place. By the time he left school, went up to the mining, he was more like a stranger to me.

I guess I made it up better with my younger son, he went quiet, rarely went out, left school and never got a job. One day I got angry with him, for his lazy ways, and he fronted up and was going to hit me, but I ducked and moved away. Since then we never talked about him getting regular work or paying me some rent.  He just comes and goes as he pleases.

So here I am deprived of my grandkids, and with my younger son driving around on his motorbike, either drinking or using cocaine, and seems like there’s nothing I can do to begin to sort things out. I feel like I did the right thing as their father – so what I really want to know is why my boys both do drugs.

A nagging headache had increased all afternoon, by five I was exhausted. Then Mary popped her head into my cubicle – said let’s go for a coffee on the way home. Why not, I was in no hurry. We met up at a coffee shop a short distance from my home. You look tired, said Mary, any way I can help? I laughed, yes, I said – sort my marriage out. Mary looked wary. Said, I’m not sure that I’d know what to say – marriages go through some difficult times – it’s best to hang in there I guess – perhaps get some marriage counseling – that might sort things out. She looked at her watch, made her excuses, leaving me alone to finish up my coffee.

It made me all the more depressed that Mary had run off – perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned about David and our marriage. But I so much wanted to talk about it – someone to tell me what to do. We’d only been married a while – no kids, it was a blessing. Not that I didn’t want a family but now I wasn’t so sure – not with David having a cocaine habit that was gradually dragging me under. I dreaded going home – never knew what to expect. I think my greatest fear was finding him dead of an overdose. This last few months he’d been using so much that he rarely got into work.

Slowly I made myself walk out to my car, to face the short drive home.

Our marriage should have been perfect – a modern home in a classy suburb – both in well paid jobs. Most of our young neighbors were dinks – like them we had started to enjoy the lifestyle that you get with a double income, and no kids. But that was the honeymoon time – and the honeymoon was over.

I sat in the car on the driveway, thinking back to how it had been. How could I have not realized that David had a problem. Not that he mentioned it before we were married, but somehow I should have known. How can you get to marry someone that has a habit and not know. It had been a whirlwind romance, David swept me off my feet. He was in chemicals – making a pile of money, and I was in line for a well paid job, when I finished my training.

I was happy in my marriage. True, David was often tense and moody, but I put that down to the pressures of his job. I tried to be a better wife, and be more attentive to him. Sometimes I felt more like a mother with a difficult child – but I felt happy, in love and needed.

Until one afternoon, came home early, saw David’s car on the driveway, the front door was wide open. Thinking to surprise him, I quietly opened his bathroom door – and there was David, snorting cocaine, kneeling on the floor.

David was full of explanations – and convinced me there was no problem. David didn’t use cocaine. A friend had asked him to keep some for him, and curious, David had taken just a tiny bit, to see what it was like. Of course, I wanted to believe him, but I often caught myself wondering.

His mood changed completely after that, no longer polite, it was as if he didn’t care anymore – but I still cared for him. I read up some information about cocaine – and the more I read the more I knew that David must be using – it was the only explanation.

All the mood swings that I’d put down to him being in a high pressure job, being tense and withdrawn for no reason – cocaine must be the cause why he often took time off for what he said was symptoms of the flu. I started looking through the house whenever David was out – six months later I found cocaine, hidden in a pair of new shoes in a shoebox at the back of David’s wardrobe.

I confronted David and it was all downhill from then. He accused me of being dishonest, sneaking behind his back, in any case, I might as well know that he used cocaine quite a lot – not that he had a problem – he was in control – if I wanted to be his wife, I’d better get used to it. I suppose that was the end of my marriage – but I didn’t see it then.

I wanted to save my marriage. For all it was a shock, I thought I still loved David enough to stay and work things out. Before I had been happy to call up David’s boss whenever he was sick, now it made me feel dishonest, I hated doing it.

So, here I was on the driveway, I knew what I was in for – David hadn’t gone into work today. The house would reek of tobacco, lately he was smoking two packets a day, and never opened the windows. Now that I knew that it wasn’t flu, it made me feel sick to see David lying in bed all day when he should have been at work – burning holes in the bedside cabinet when cigarettes would fall out of the ashtray, still wearing yesterdays clothes, spilling coffee and staining the bedroom carpet. Of course I had tried to talk but it only made him angry and abusive.

With a deep sigh, I got out of the car, walked to the front door – yes, I would stay just one more day – and then I would make a decision.

It wasn’t Wilmot’s fault that he got into cocaine dealing – bad luck that the cops seized his marjuana crop when he so badly needed the money. Wilmot owed  everyone – that’s how Wilmot lived – mostly in other people’s houses.

Like with me, I got no problem with Wilmot – he’s good company – he can stay anytime he likes – but I usually tell him to move on a while when it starts bothering me that no matter what you say to him – he never parts with any money. Then a while later he shows up again – sure Wilmot I say – you can have the spare room if you like for a while.

Leastways that’s how it used to be between Wilmot and me – no, things were never quite the same after Wilmot got into the coke.

Yeah, it was real bad luck about the marijuana – just coming into bud – about fifty plants Wilmot said – all gone up in smoke – well, that’s if you believe those cops don’t take it for themselves. Down in the swamp he had it, no one ever goes there. Wilmot nurtured those plants – had them all staked out just fine. And then the cops were using a helicoptor looking for nothing in particular. They chanced to see Wilmot’s crop of weed looking unusually healthy and green for the time of year, went in and took the lot.

Wilmot was concerned – he had a payment to make on the vehicle he was driving around in and buying off a friend. The friend had got to the stage of demanding his money with menaces – if Wilmot didn’t pay up now, he would come over, repossess the car and give Wilmot a hiding, just to teach him a lesson.

So Wilmot felt up against it – he needed a vehicle to do the deals, occasionally to sleep in.

Wilmot needed money – so he took up with cocaine, took it around to the people he knew and didn’t have a problem. Paid the dealer, took some more, and hawked it round the street. There was an issue when Wilmot took out of the money enough to pay the car – he wasn’t used to dealing with people who put a gun up his nostril when asking for their money. But Wilmot was resourceful – said he would make it up no worries if they would only give him another packet. Wilmot saved his vehicle and got into serious dealing in coke.

What Wilmot did with his money I couldn’t begin to guess. A few months later he was back, lodging in my house – on the strict condition that he didn’t bring home cocaine. While he was staying with me Wilmot got arrested – selling coke to a nark – trust Wilmot to be the one who would try and sell coke to a D.

I cleared out Wilmot’s few possessions and got used to the idea that it would be at least two years before Wilmot would get out and come knocking on my door.

Late the next evening, a knock the door and I was knocked off my feet. Two men with guns, in black balaclavas were demanding that I hand over the drugs. I only had a few shreds of cannabis, I said the place was clean. One of them placed his foot on my back, held me down while the other one ransacked the place – and glory be if he didn’t return with a swag of pure cocaine. In an instant they were gone.

It’s made me think when Wilmot gets out I won’t let him in again – it’s not so much what happened to me as what those crooks might have done. What sends shivers up my spine is how things might have turned out for me if they hadn’t found the coke.

After Wilmot’s crop got busted there was a while there when I thought I might try growing some cannabis myself, down at the end of the swamp, but then I changed my mind. Looks like the RCMP these days is pretty hot on marijuana – for anyone whose interested – these are some statistics that you might like to read. Pot plant seizures in Canada