Monkey On My Back

The Expulsion from Paradise

He was fine when he was taking heroin

He was happy, content, functional

The problems only arose once the money to buy it disappeared

He would do anything to get more

It started with shoplifting

You can only shoplift for so long though, you become known

You have to travel to new shopping places

Until you cant travel any further

The shopping places became exhausted

Next step was friends and family

Nothing was safe from his sticky fingers

He had no shame, it didnt matter who got hurt, she made sure of that

he had been expelled from paradise

He had to get back there

I learnt that there was nothing he wouldnt do to get back there

A rich addict is a luckier addict

Fuel for the machine

I was 22

He had a big dick

The kind that stabs at your insides, makes you hurt

He would fuck me for hours, like a machine

That was the beginning

I didnt know at that point what was fuelling the machine

My addiction was big dicks

The sex got me hooked

You can't compete with her

I took in strays as a child, I guess thing's dont change that much

I thought I could help him

I really did

I didnt know you couldnt compete with her

I asked him what it was like

I asked him for some, just to see what he would say

Probation

He got caught shoplifting. Previous to this he had probably gotten away with another 99 crimes. Not bad odds huh?

He got sent to court, was given a fine that he couldnt/wouldnt pay and was put on probation for a few months. After all the courts could see he had kept out of trouble hadnt he.....

The police would arrest him a lot but they could never quite get the evidence, he even took the police to court once (and won)for false imprisonment.

I took him to the probation office, waited outside for him.

He came out, eyes all watery, jumped in the car smiling as he wiped the tears away. Laughed as he wiped, about how he had fooled the probation officer.

I don't know what world probation officers come from but it certainly wasnt the same one as him. They didnt have a clue.

It's suprising what effect a few man tears can have. People just dont expect grown men to cry.

I knew what I was getting myself into

His mother said to me "as long as you now what you are getting yourself into"

" yes" I said

Of course I didnt really, I'd never known anyone who had taken heroin, the only drugs that I had been around were the softer kind.

Anyway, people can reform, and he definitely had. People can kick the habit, he was the proof of that.

I can't tell you how many times he kicked the habit, I lost count....

Jif Boy

My lovely new (non addicted) parter had taken me out for a meal recently, we walked through cobbled streets on the way back to his car. There was a guy on his knees ahead of us, he was emptying out his pockets onto the pavement looking panicked.

Amongst the pocket rubble on the pavement were 2 Jif lemon bottles.
There is only one reason for a 20 something guy to be carrying bottles of Jif lemon around with him, and I'm pretty sure that it wasnt because he was on his way home to make pancakes.

We crossed the road. I don't have the energy to try to help another addict.
I mentioned to lovely (but not in the know) partner that we had just passed a Junkie. He was fascinated, and detoured the car to drive past Jif boy again.

Have you ever

known the levels that a heroin addict will go to to get a fix?

His friend (also addicted) got a job as a salesman, part of his job was to collect money on a Friday evening. After the second week of working he was violently mugged........on a Friday evening of course.

He reported the incident to the police, they believed him. I would have believed too, after all who would think that the salesman would have arranged for his friend to place his arm on a pavement edge and then break his arm by stamping on it, punch him in his face a few times and that they would then spend all of the money on The Drug?

They were at a level where a small con wouldnt work anymore.

I would say he had an A level or two

when I met him, in cheating and lying.

He told me that he had had some problems in the past.
He had form.
He told me he was re-formed now.
They were just petty crimes he had commited, an accumulation of petty crimes.
He told me he had had drug problems.
They were over now, he was clean, prison had worked for him.
Drugs are bad.

I believed him.

He had been sent away for his crimes, to a ~~CFYC - College for Young Criminals~~ young offenders institute
This is where I believe he gained his first couple of A levels.

I've never really understood why they gather all these 'children' together in one place, so that they can learn from each other. They don't really stand a chance from that moment.I don't have the solution to what should happen to them, but I know grouping them together is one of the worst possible things to do. It's a networking club for crime.

The prison system helped to make him what he is today. He's been educated there ,spent most of his late childhood there, and will have spent almost all of his adult life behind bars.

Finding a monkey on his back

He had a hamster. It lived in a small cage, it had a diet of toast scraps and slept on a bed of newspaper. I came to stay. It lived a plush life then, with seeds and fresh vegetables and exercise sessions on the living room floor, it had proper bedding then, the kind made especially for hamsters.

It was running on the living room floor that day (I always feel sorry for hamsters made to run in those balls)his hamster got the run of the floor. It scuttled under the cabinet, and stayed there. I pulled out the drawers at the bottom of the cabinet ,on my hands and knees, and reached in to feel for the furball.

My fingers found something else, lots of things,long and thin and hard things. I pulled one out. It was a needle, it was one needle out of many needles, some had been opened, some were in sealed packaging. Along with the needles was a small bag of white powder and some tin-foil.