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Ross's Story
Ross, aged 34, is a recovered addict. Here, he explains his addiction.
"I was brought up in a really loving and respectable family just outside Glasgow. Although I had a happy childhood I had a really short attention span and I was always getting in trouble at school for talking too much.
My drug use started when I was still at school; the first thing I used was gas but I quickly moved on to hash and drinking alcohol. I loved the dark, illicit feeling taking drugs gave me. It made me feel like part of the underworld, which I thought was really cool.
As I got older and began going out clubbing with friends I started using speed, acid and ecstasy. When I tried cocaine for the first time I felt like I had arrived. Cocaine was associated with film stars and footballers, it was glamorous and expensive and made me feel like I was living on the edge.
Although my mates used cocaine too, I knew I was different to them as I always had to use more. It was really expensive so my mates would buy a gram of cocaine, use some on a night out and keep the rest for the next weekend, whereas I took a much as I could afford and never understood how they managed to leave some for the next weekend.
Cocaine quickly became my life - it was all I thought about. I stopped going out and would just sit in my darkened room on my own convinced that people were outside waiting to get me. The paranoia was unbelievable.
The times I could not afford it, all I would think about was how I was going to get money for more. I had jobs on and off; I would work for a couple of months to get money for more cocaine and then lose the job because I was so out of it. I was using about £750 worth of gear a week and began stealing to fund my habit. If I did not have the money dealers would often give me it on credit, which led to my parents having to bail me out and pay thousands of pounds back to the dealers.
I got an amazing job with one of the largest companies in the world, but not long after I started I was called into my manager’s office where the drug squad were waiting for me. I was caught with an ounce of cocaine after a colleague reported me. My hand prints were all over the bag, so I was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
My family were devastated and I was really ashamed. However, when I was released 18 months later I continued to use cocaine. I tried going to doctors and councillors but it wasn’t until a friend gave me the number for Cocaine Anonymous (CA) that my recovery began. I walked into a CA meeting and connected with so many of the other people there that it gave me the strength to come off cocaine.
I have been clean for a year now, have an amazing job and have just bought my first flat. I do as much as I can now to support CA and help others who are trying to beat their addictions. I was so selfish for so long that I feel it’s time I gave something back and hope by telling my story it will prevent someone else wasting 20 years of their life like I did."