THE EXPERT –
June 19, 2022 – As a child, I suffered from cripplingly low self-esteem and insecurities. I was the subject of ‘banter’ at school, being called ‘chubby’ and people constantly pointed out my negatives.
So, when I was introduced to cocaine at the age of 18 from a close friend that I trusted, I experienced a sense of internal, overriding confidence immediately and euphoria that lifted me from myself.
After that first line, I became the person I always wanted to be. I was always externally confident; I had more front than Brighton Beach, but that was just a persona, an image that I projected to hide how I felt inside.
It was like someone gave me a super medication that completely transformed me, and it was a feeling that I’d been looking for my whole life.
Cocaine made me feel like I could conquer the world, but the joy was short-lived, however, and I soon became a prisoner to the white lines. I was unaware of it at the time, but on reflection, I was addicted to it pretty much immediately. When I wasn’t using three times a week, my brain was obsessing about it and my tolerance grew and progressed.
I was no longer getting high; I was using it to escape the plunge into incapacitating paranoia that came from the comedown – I was convinced that I needed lines to get back to who I used to be, before addiction. I almost always used it alone; for me, cocaine was not about partying.
I was exceptionally paranoid, scaring myself walking past mirrors, often finding myself staring through keyholes, convinced ‘they’ were coming for me.
The addiction was exhausting. I couldn’t catch a thought, and my mind was a million miles an hour. I would wake up each morning wondering who I owed money to. I was in a constant state of fear. What started as a bit of a boost quickly spiralled into a long, lonely, and dark journey.
