Julia

May 2023, I’m speaking with Julia over a Teams call; we have arranged to talk so that she can share her experiences of addiction and recovery with me.

She sits down across the screen from me and adjusts her headphones, I can hear her voice clearly, she has a Scottish accent, but I can’t place where it’s from. She tells me that she has moved around a lot, she was born in Glasgow, but then moved to Ireland, France, and London.

Not that I should be, I am surprised by her age, she is 28. We haven’t been speaking for long but already I get a sense of her intellect, she holds a passive and effortless authority over the conversation which is rare for someone of her age.

We introduce ourselves to each other and start by chatting about how Julia found herself in our supported housing service in Glasgow.

“I studied, I went to university, I have a fine art degree. It wasn’t until covid hit that addiction set in pretty bad, before that I think I was able to manage it, but during covid I was in isolation and things got completely out of control and it hit me as a surprise”.

Julia is articulate and considered, when I ask her a question she pauses in recollection, answering mindfully with purpose.

“I kept thinking I’m not an addict, I’m not an addict because no one wants to be an addict. I had this stereotype of what an addict was in my head – they inject heroin, they smoke crack, they are homeless, they are much older than me. I held these stigmatising views of what addiction looks like, and they made me highly judgmental of myself and other people.

These stereotypes are built up through the media and the TV but now I realise that addiction is so much more complex than that, addiction can manifest itself in a whole range of different ways it’s not just as simple as drug use”.

Julia tells me that she is still trying to figure out who she is now “being in active addiction you don’t really know who you are very much. It’s kind of coming to that point again where you are trying to figure out what feeds your spirit.”

Julia has internalised some of society’s negative attitudes of addiction and holds a lot of stigma towards herself

“Addiction feels shameful and embarrassing for me, it’s self-harm but it’s a solution at the same time, It took me a long time to accept I am an addict; I was angry. I was thinking where have the last 4 years of my 20’s gone. I am stuck in these rooms with people much older than me, ex heroin users, that’s me being judgmental. I was angry and in denial.

I completely isolated myself and portrayed that everything was ok, I didn’t speak to anyone about what was going on with me, I judged myself so heavily, I shut myself off from people. It makes you feel like you are separate and different so I would isolate myself and use more and it would fuel a vicious cycle.”

Julia explains that the stigma she has experienced makes her feel less than, angry and ashamed, she explains how she did not choose to be an addict.

“I think people in general are quite ignorant about addiction and dependency, I remember when I was a lot younger driving through the area that is renowned for drug use with my friends’ parents, and they referred to it as scumsville.

Obviously, everything is on a spectrum, but people are not educated about addiction and there is a lot of discussion still to be had.”

We speak for a while about how Julia accessed support for her drug use. She said that she felt she was treated fairly and with respect from her GP and the services she accessed, she felt like she was treated no differently from anyone else, “it was just what it was, matter of fact, going through a process doing their job and that was good enough, but I suppose it could be pot luck with who you see and in what area”. She has accessed several different services over the past few years for her mental health and also for her substance use but was often met with being left on a waiting list.

She speaks about her auntie and sponsor who were both instrumental in her recovery, she tells me that they were both non-judgmental and that she was able to speak open and honestly which is what she desperately needed at that time.

Julia stopped using drugs several months ago and we talk about how she feels now.

“Being in recovery makes me feel free but in a lot of other ways it makes me feel small, labelled and categorised, you can’t do this, and you can’t do that, I can’t do all the things that my friends are doing, they can use recreationally but I can’t be around that, so I feel like I miss out on a lot.”

I think I can use my experiences to my advantage, but it still frustrates me as it’s not what I have chosen, it feels like crawling out of a hole, it feels cold and prickly and uncomfortable, I spent so long hating myself that starting to love myself feels alien.

Julia is keen to put the last few years behind her and is very much looking forwards, she is conscious of not getting defined or labelled by her past experiences.

“I am looking forward to reclaiming my life, and I want to tell people that have been through similar experiences as me to not get stuck in the trap of the label and being defined by their addiction, there is much more to us than that”

Julia studies Fine Art at University and has stayed connected to her creativity throughout her recovery. Instead of sharing her picture alongside her experiences she preferred to share some of her artwork.