Saul had breached his bail again, and one of his conditions was to see me once a week, nothing new. Addict gets thrown off Methadone program, addict steals to maintain a habit while on Bail, addict gets drug worker and misses appointment because his dealer was late, addict goes back to prison. Just one of many cycles, treadmills, well furrowed repetitive patterns that the homeless Heroin addict knows well.
Saul had tried to take his life at seventeen by jumping off Beachy Head, a lucky ledge broke his fall, he never made the bottom and broke both ankles, leg’s, hip and damaged the base of his spine. He had grown up in a children’s home and had been sexually abused at an early age. As I read the notes one didn’t have to be a genius to work out this was a mental health problem that had initiated the habit to blot out the trauma..
There was no point in asking for support from the Mental Health Team. They would not deal with an addict as they said the clients behaviour could be down to the addiction, they wanted them clean first before an assessment could be made. There could have been many lives saved if the Mental Health Teams had worked with the Addiction agencies but a firm line was drawn.
I would say that all of my counselling sessions were dealing with post traumatic stress or some form of mental health illness. You can still have a good chat, start building a picture of someone’s life if you listen between the nods and ask gentle questions.
Saul arrived for his first session, I opened the front door, a beautiful hot sunny day, a young good looking lad stood in the doorway dressed very smart in some expensive labelled clothes. I asked him to take a seat while I got my notebook and went to see what room we had booked for us. Great, I worked in a five story house and we were booked on the top floor, the only saving grace being we could smoke in that room without being detected easily.
I didn’t know about his injuries until I suggested we sat on the small Victorian balcony five floors above the ground, the government agency I worked for was tardy to say the least, the client notes missing and all I had to go on was his court reports for petty dealing and petty crime. These clients are easy for the Police to arrest, low risk to them as usually too goofed out to be a threat and good for local statistics. Saul asked whether this session was a test, I enquired to what made him think that I was testing him, he replied, ‘Well you just me walk up five flights of stairs and now you’ve got me on a balcony which feels like we’re in mid air, the last time I was this high was to kill myself’ we laughed, the one thing that keeps you going in this job is a penchant for black humour.
Saul was a highly intelligent young man who had got to the stage where his upbringing was just too painful to confront or unravel so much that he wanted to quite simply die. Even after his jump off one of the most frightening cliffs in the UK he was up for doing it again so our initial work was around suicide and alternative ideas. The only thing he would consider was medication to help with his mental health, something to help him with his anxiety and a cosh for his memories. There’s not much on the menu for this sort of request and the options that might be effective are highly addictive and short term use.
At the time he had two doctors, one with a false name, one with his real so he could get enough Valium to help with his demons. Many clients have this set up as GP’s would never prescribe more than thirty milligrams and Saul had developed a sixty mill habit which was going up supported from buying them on the streets. This made his addiction problems quite complicated as he had multiple addictions. Nearly every Heroin client had a Crack habit as well but instead of smoking the Crack it was mixed with Heroin and injected known as a Snowball. Saul was the same adding to the complication, so getting any help from the Mental Health Team would have been almost impossible. There stance would have been what came first, the mental health or has the client got mental health issues because of the drugs he was taking. Again it would have been marvellous if they could have worked with us and looked at his issues together, alas.
I saw Saul for five sessions before he was at her Majesty’s pleasure again through petty theft to support his habit. If you’re on twenty pounds worth of Heroin a day, forty Crack and Diazepam and you run out of money one day you are desperate, so desperate there is almost a blindness when trying to get the money for the drugs.
One positive aspect of going to Prison is you will be detoxed, the Prisons have got some good drug workers who do phenomenal work only to be trashed when the client leaves prison with an HMP carrier bag, fifty quid and no plans for accommodation. Some of the clients are even met by their dealer to hook them back in.
I had left the Government agency where I first met Saul by the time he got out but still used to see him on the street. At first he managed to stay clean and I met him, bright, medicated with a view to getting off those drugs as well. He had a flat, girlfriend and had brought himself something to look after, a beautiful golden Labrador who he loved. He did let on to me that he was dealing but only on a small scale to save up to travel.
I didn’t see him on the streets for some time and one day thought I’d ring round and see how he was. He was dead, unfortunately he had got some very good Heroin supply and got a reputation for not cutting it so much as the other dealers. The story went the supply he was getting got stronger as he got a better reputation with his supplier and one day he cooked up a couple of shots for him and his girlfriend. He would have been sensible enough to use the same amount I know, but this particular strain was very strong which killed his girlfriend, too much for him to bear he made it to the beach at the bottom of Beachy Head Cliffs this time.
I didn’t know until after his funeral to which I was very sad, I would have loved to have said goodbye to him. Saul wasn’t a criminal, he was like so many others abused as a child which he found unbearable to live with the memories. He was twenty six.