My son my beloved Nicholas stolen from us because of you, in your evilness,
offered him peace, normality and sleep so that he could escape the harshness of
his life.
He believed what you offered because he needed all the help he could get, and
‘society’ was not understanding and seemed bent on punishing and judging
him you offered him peace.
He did try, for our sake, to pull away from your powerful grip. He went to
rehab counselling once a week, used methadone instead of heroin and then
discovered drink could offer him the same as you, and so moved on to what is
crazily seen as a more ‘acceptable’ habit. He was no longer a drug addict, but
a ‘social drinker’. And so you, the drink, took over what was already a
weakened system, a body frail and weak, in pain mentally and physically.
How easy it was for you to achieve your goal. You offered him rest from the
voices in his head, his painful body. He needed sleep- he slept- for good. You
took him away from those of us who loved him, far away from home. I
couldn’t say goodbye. I never said goodbye but a few hours before you died we
spoke on the phone and told each other we loved each other.
Love must win.
Letter to “Brown” aka heroin
You derailed my life for so many years Anxiety, tension, fear, confusion.
I tried to manage you, control you, obliterate you, it was such a waste of
time. You won completely in the end.
You took him and in return you gave me a coffin. You took my beloved
son forever. But you also gave me bloody minded determination.
You gave me back my other son, the “lone “twin.
You gave me the voice to speak out, you became my therapy as I wrote
about what you did to my family, my life.
I exorcised you in my book, you demon. I let go of the evil you brought
into our lives and I found strength, an inner strength to expose you for
all that you do the others, you merchant of evil and destroyer of lives.
One death gave life back
One death gave renewed hope
One death gave peace of mind
So you didn’t take everything, in the end I overcame you, I fought back
and I won dignity, I won compassion, I won understanding, I won self
respect.
You are sly, manipulative, and cunning; I am decent, honest and tell the
world, what you do, why you should be dead. One day, you will pay the
ultimate price. One day----------P.S. Oh by the way, I am now really at peace, content, happy fulfilled. But
you will never feel emotion you will only destroy, watch your back
though because next time it will be you in the coffin.
FOREVER TWINS ‘TO NICK’ LOVE SIMON
When life began, there was one split in two.
A single egg broke in half, bringing me and you
We began weak and young and grew to be strong with love
And matured naively, but that love shone above
Through the good times and bad there was always love
Giving love and happiness to all that we loved
I’ll never know why you left me that day and will wonder forever,
‘cause it causes that pain I feel empty now, that emptiness will never
leave
Wanting you, loving you, not knowing how to grieve
Give me your strength through these next few years
Because being with will take away the tears I cry through the day
and the night
And feel that nothing will turn on that light
I love you and mourn you until I despair
And know that in heaven it will only repair
Please forgive me as I forgave you.
As I know as a single I will always be two.
S.M. March 2004
WHO ARE YOU, YOU CAME THROUGH OUR DOOR LIKE AN UNSOLICITED MAIL DROP, BUT
UNLIKE THAT MAIL DROP YOU STAYED AND BECAME FOCUS TO MY SON.
HE READ YOU AND WANTED TO KNOW MORE ABOUT YOU, BUT DECIDED TO TRY YOU AT
YOUR CORE. THIS WAS NOW TOO LATE TO PUT YOU IN THE BIN, LIKE HE WOULD AN
UNWANTED MAIL DROP.
YOU ONLY LET HIM READ THE BITS YOU WANTED HIM TO SEE SO HE WOULD WANT TO SEE
MORE, BUT THAT MORE WAS KILLING HIM FROM THE FIRST DAY HE READ YOU.
BUT NOW HE HAS READ YOU FROM COVER TO COVER AND THINKS TO HIMSELF ‘I NEED
TO READ THE NEXT CHAPTER’/’BOOK IN THE SERIES’ SO NOW HE CAN’T PUT YOU DOWN.
YOU WALK WITH HIM EVERY DAY, EVERY WAY, HE IS ADDICTED TO YOU. SO WHAT WHEN
HE FINISHES YOU, YOU WON’T LET HIM GO, AND YOU WILL PUSH HIM FURTHER IN UNTIL
THAT DAY THAT MY SONS BOOK HAS CLOSED FOR GOOD. I NEVER ASKED FOR
UNSOLICITED MAIL TO COME NOR DID MY SON, SO WHY DID YOU COME? YOU KNOW
HIS POST-BOX DOES NOT RECEIVE ANY MORE MAIL SO LIKE THE PARASITE THAT YOU ARE
YOU MOVE ON TO THE NEXT AND THE NEXT AND THE NEXT.
TP
Heroin
You crept into my son’s life and took over his mind. He was lost, so
was I. You changed him into someone else my son was lost in this evil
drug.
He came and went into personalities, one life I was in and one life I
wasn’t. He avoided my face and visits when you had him, how lucky
were you!
He followed you and left me.
You destroyed my family and you have no conscience in what you
do.
But my son is free and you are still evil.
You caused pain and tragedy in the family but guess what – we are
still fight on and are still stand strong.
GP
Heroin
It’s now a year or two since I last wrote to you; not because I’ve forgotten, or thought any less
about you, but because I’ve been very busy learning all I can about you and your nasty ‘friends’
I now know in great detail about how you operate and the effects you have on those who use you,
and I’m still passing on this information to all of my friends and others who will ask for it.
Together we are finding ways of minimising your control over people and giving them strategies
to resist your approaches and relinquish your hold.
For those who manage to get free of your clutches we’re even developing communities of these
people, who can support each other to stay free and tell those still imprisoned that freedom is
possible and can be lasting.
So I’ve kept my earlier promise to you, and we’re steadily gaining ground and devotees. Some of
your friends have tried to supplant you but we’re learning how to disrupt them too and I believe
that eventually we’ll triumph together and only a small minority will see any sense in befriending
you.
So watch this space for my next letter, It may be the last I need to send you !
To Drugs (including Alcohol)
You are all around us; you entice us into your trap. You seek out our
weaknesses, looking for that chink through which you can invade our whole
being, our bodies our minds, our actions
You are deceitful; you appear in many guises – our friends, our families, our
heroes, our music, our culture, then pretend you are the answer to our woes, feign
happiness, relaxation, serenity, carefree times, beauty, and solutions.
But once you are in you don’t let go. You grip more and more tightly, forcing
your will upon our weakest selves. And the battle really begins.
As in all stories of goodness versus evil the battle is never straight forward
however, you may gain some points along the way but we shall win the war.
Your points gained will strengthen us and we’ll fight you even harder until we
have destroyed you ultimately.
Dear Heroin,
It’s me Robs Mum- surprised to hear from me? I bet you are! Did you
really think I’d let you take my son and I’d simply go off and lick my
wounds – well guess what -WRONG !
Yes I did go and lick my wounds and rage and shout at this world but
after a time I planned my campaign against you as I promised you. I
read everything I could about you I went back to college to study
addiction and recovery and most important of all I started a group for
people who were struggling against the hold you have over their loved
ones. There’s loads of us now.
Are you feeling comfortable? You shouldn’t be because our numbers
are growing, we are talking to each other, the services are listening to
us and more and more people are being made aware of your dubious
‘charms’ and what your deadly embrace means.
You’ll be sorry to hear that you did not destroy us as a family – you
actually made us more of a family because we united against you
Did you know that as well as taking from me you actually gave me
strengths I did not know I possessed and much more compassionate for
others. It’s not an even exchange- how could it be- but you didn’t have it
all your way My life has changed but it’s not all bad, just different from
how I anticipated it.
How do you like the sound of this- as well as being a bereaved mother I
am now a qualified drugs worker so be very sure I am watching you –
watching and waiting!
This is not my last letter to you so enjoy wondering when I’ll strike next.
Lost in a haze
(Drink, weed, gear) you crashed and burned before your time.
You were too young to go; I loved and cared for
you,
but your
addiction, ensnared you.
I still love you ache for you, but you are gone and hopes and
dreams are dashed.
Heroin
I was happy, oh so happy, until you entered my life. You sneaked in
through the back door like a thief in the night. What did you steal?
You stole my son, my life. You destroyed his dreams and ambitions
my delightful, charming son. You changed our family life forever,
even blighting my beautiful young daughter’s teenage years,
leaving bitterness and loneliness where joy and laughter had once
dwelt.
Well don’t think I won’t fight back, because I will. You may be
powerful I’ve seen what you have done. I have seen the many lives
you have destroyed, and the families torn apart. But I have seen
the challenge taken up by love and courage, far more powerful
than yours. I have seen love overcome, and accomplish the job left
undone by your destruction
We parents wont let go, we’ll take up your challenge and fight with
all our strength until the bitter end, and even then one more of us
will pick up the gauntlet and continue. You will find no respite
from us, believe me we will win in t he end. That is our promise. The
promise of all the Mums and Dads whose lives you’ve tried to
destroy. We will hound you until the end and we have won.
Dare I say thank you?
Thank you for the journey of addiction
Of the twins to heroin
A sad journey for them
But a learning curve for me.
To realise I was not to blame
To realise that I could release myself from self blame
To see beyond my emotions and to see clearly what my purpose should be –
To love and support my wife
To keep our home and ourselves together
And to try and protect our lives to the best of my ability to save our marriage.
The journey has taken me to rock bottom
But it has also brought me back to the top
Through self belief and conviction of what I felt was so important in my life.
All the support, all the finances and emotion
I now realise was NOT to the boys but to LADY HEROIN
And so, no blame to them
This journey gave me an inner strength I hadn’t realised I had
Dare I say Thank you?
T B-P 2008
You are DRUG
You pretend to be
Delightful Recreative Unlimiting Great;
But I have discovered how to spell your name properly
Deceitful Repulsive Ugly Grave.
I smelled you in the haze of my teenage haunts;
I saw you in the eyes of my classmates;
I read about you in the history of Hong Kong.
You took two of my friends.
The years rolled by and I told my son about you.
But somehow, unknown to me, you found a way into his life.
Pretending to be
Delightful Recreative Unlimiting Great,
You were
Deceitful Repulsive Ugly Grave.
You appeared in his teenage haunts, his class mates, Hong Kong.
But YOU are the abuser, you took our son.
Too late....you were too, late,
For he had already done ‘some good’
And he had already found a belief
That kept a place for him ‘on the other side’
...whatever happens.
We were going to see our son.
Now we’ll see him on the ‘other side’
In the meantime DRUG
I’m inspired by Jim....and I’m schemeing to do ‘some good’
I know how to spell your name;
Deceitful Repulsive Ugly Grave.
I’m going to tell people about you.
G.S.
How or why my grandson ever allowed himself to be taken by this
evil drug and destroy my daughters and grandchildren’s lives is
cruel. For all of us when we come to the day of your birthday and the
date we have implanted in our minds of that fatal party it’s a
constant reminder to us. The parties and Christmases that you are no
longer there, only in our minds and thoughts and they will be forever
with us. Love Grandad and Nan and family
Your loved one will always be with you, in your heart, your mind, your soul,
your memories. You will eventually remember the good times and not just the
bad, these memories will bring a smile to your face.
You are not responsible for the death. It is unlikely you could have done
anything more. Even if you could have prevented this who knows what might
have happened the next day, the next month, the next year.
Life is at a terrible stand still. You do not want to carry on, but you will
eventually be able to carry on living and laughing
Remember your loved one for the wonderful person he/she was, for all the joy
he/she brought you. Be thankful that he/she will be close to you forever more.
Let Down
I feel let down by the medical profession who don’t help you or me
By your family who wouldn’t believe me when I said you had a problem
By my family for not being around to support me
You were out walking the dog, you got called into hospital following abnormal blood
tests, and you died 4 weeks later. How could a 40 year old man die? Why couldn’t they
do something? Why were you given a plate of pear? In hospital for lunch, why wasn’t
anyone looking after you?
I chucked you out of the house, I’m sorry, I couldn’t live with you anymore, you weren’t
yourself, you weren’t ‘right’. I had to protect me and the boys from any more suffering. I
still don’t know what else I could have done, I tried x x
Life didn’t begin at 40
You should have been happy and enjoying village life with your wife and 2 wonderful
young children. But instead you worried about money and jobs, you didn’t share your
problems, you hid them in a bottle.
Why oh Why? What a waste!
A lovely kind man, annoyingly generous, but proud, too proud to show that things
bothered you.
People described you as laid back, almost horizontal but inside you weren’t. You were
troubled.
Why? What s the worst that could happen?
Well it did, you died. You left me without a husband, shocked confused and tortured by
guilt. You left your kids without a daddy, your mother mourning a son and your friends
lost and bewildered.
What a waste!
40 years old, what an idiot, you should have known better.
I’d like to think you’d found peace, but I think you’d be furious with yourself about how
you let us down. You did let us down by drinking and dying but you though t you were
letting us down before, which wasn’t the case.
When did you have the first drink out of a bottle? What made you do it? Where was I?
What were you thinking?
I feel I let you down, so I will try and make it up to you by raising the kids as you would
have wished.
For almost four years I didn’t talk to you, let alone say goodbye before you left
us. Even though I am no longer your daughter in law my love and respect will
always remain.
Sometimes I thought if you didn’t smoke heavily and drink then you would have
lived longer. Am I blaming you? I teach my children not to smoke and drink
because I witnessed your suffering before you died and I witnessed your guilt
that you put on yourself before you died.
I may have lost the last four tears of your life but I can imagine how hard it was
for you and everyone. C said to me that he had spent 10 years of his life knowing
his grandfather as a dying man. In fact I have never known you as a healthy
man. The Ina I knew was unable to walk, was on a breathing tube and was
unable to speak properly. Inside this dying man was indeed an intelligent man
who had served his country well in the Air force, a proud father to three sons and
a wonderful husband to his wife.
Attending the Drugfam conference today I realise that my grief of losing you is
no less than I would have felt if I had lost you in the Air force service. No matter
how, you are gone
Love K
‘My James’
To my boy-now a man
Drugs took you from me at the age of 15. Your body was still here, your voice still heard
but the little boy you were was gone.
You stole, shouted, took no responsibility for your actions from the outside looking in your
soul was lost- all you cared about was your ‘next fix’- how you got it didn’t matter- who you
trod on to get it didn’t matter as long as you got ‘your fix’
I remember the pain when drug dealers knocked at my door – you hiding away and letting me
suffer- again not taking responsibility
Our world was threatened and you didn’t seem to care- you were wrapped up in your own
world- a dirty world full of drugs alcohol and crime. You said they are my friends- they
were not friends – they bled you dry and preyed on your naivety- you became one of them‘a dealer’
Then all of your world came crashing in when your life was in danger and you had dragged
us in. They knew where we lived and the knocks at the door came, the phone rang and they
said your name. I didn’t care about me but I was desperately worried about your little sister
and you What had you done to us? We got away and paid your debts, handing over money to
SCUM – I believe this saved your life. You moved away Nov 2009 at the age of 19, - 4
years of suffering coming to an end.
Now one year later we have celebrated your birthday and finally some of my little boy is
back in the shape of a man.
I am sad for those lost years and the parts of you that have been lost forever- but god I
am thankful I did not lose you forever. I have stopped asking why and thank god that I still
have you.
Time to move forward at last. No matter what a mother’s love is totally unconditional.
Love always Mum x
M
I think of you often, a song can remind me of you, a face in a crowd that
may look like you,
I remember you as a young boy always energetic and
smiling. You grew into a young man with passionate views and thoughts.
You were loved by your family and friends, but you got caught up with
heroin and it took over your life, you changed and your life became a
dark secret. My heart ached when I heard of your death and all I
wanted to do was get to your Mum and family and comfort them. I
could see her heart was breaking and all I wanted to do was bring you
back to her. But I couldn’t! I will be there e for her whenever she needs
me and hope you will look down from heaven and protect her and those
who love you.
Missing you AW
M
Where are you? Are you safe? Are you in a good place? Are you being
looked after? Do you still strum your guitar play your harmonica get lost
in your music? Do you still laugh that manic laugh that gets everybody
laughing with you? Do you still sit in pensive thought putting the world
to rights in your mind? Are you surrounded by quiet calm what is it like
where you are?
When the radio switches itself on and the CD player makes its own
selection and plays your favourite music was it your invisible hand
reminding me your not that far away really and when I look at your face
on the big picture of you that adorns our wall & kiss my fingertips then
press on your paper lips, do you feel the love that I send?
Do you get the text messages that fly from my phone? Do they reach
through to heaven the place you call home? My dreams that you visited
so vivid & real where you as happy to see me as I was you?
Love you always
Mum x