#45 - Chris Sylvester - Heroin Aged 12, Crime, Trauma, Accountability, Hepatitis C, Cocaine, Manipulation, Homelessness, Drug Dealing, Working the 12 Steps & The Power of Second Chances

Transcript

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This is a Renew Original Recording.

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Hello and welcome to the Believe in People podcast, a 2024 Radio Academy Award nominated podcast, to talk all things addiction recovery and stigma.

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Today we have Chris Sylvester, whose journey into heroin addiction started at only 12 years old.

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Chris sheds light on the silent struggles endured by those battling addiction.

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Chris recalls his time in the prison system and finally talks about becoming the founder of Getting Clean, an organisation to provide a platform for individuals in recovery.

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Chris, thank you so much for joining us on the Believe in People podcast.

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No problem, can you tell me a little bit about yourself and what brings you to this chair today?

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Tell me a little bit about your journey.

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So I'm Chris Sylvester.

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I'm an addict in long-term recovery, and I first started using heroin when I was 12 years old.

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I was introduced to it in the high school toilets.

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Wow.

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At that point in my life I'd had lots of issues growing up.

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I found it really difficult, didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere like I fit in.

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Didn't really feel like I belonged anywhere like I fit in.

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I've learned a lot more about myself since I've been in recovery but at that point I just really struggled learning in a conventional way.

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So I do a lot of truancy, internal truancy and bunking off.

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And on that first time that I was introduced to heroin I was knocking off a mathematics class because I really struggled.

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And I always remember being in a cubicle and hearing someone next to me, hearing two voices, sort of whispering, hushed voices.

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I remember hearing lighters flicking and then tinfoil rustling and strange smells and me being me, found myself in there moments later.

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12 is a extremely young age.

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Some people don't start smoking, cigarettes or even drinking.

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You know when you when you hear about them stories with children, they're kind of around around that you know those early years.

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Was that your first experience of any substance then?

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Or had you been using alcohol before then?

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Because I mean, I don't know, based on your age and stuff, the 80s especially, you know glue was quite a prolific thing for young kids to be doing.

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Was there anything like that before the heroin, or was it straight in there?

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Yes, I had experienced other substances, solvents, alcohol, um, but no, ever really did it for me like everyone did no um, but growing up where I'm from in leeds there were lots of evo stick on bounce lots of people glue, sniffing lots of other solvents, um, and we used to steal t-pegs.

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I always remember we used to go into a stationery shop on Armley Town Street and then Greengrocers, because we'd nick the Tippex and then we'd go get the little bags from the Greengrocers and we'd have a little sniff of Tippex thinners.

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So I tried other substances and that were pretty much, I'd say, from around age 11, being smoking, weed, taking trips, all different kinds of stuff it's still such a young age to be experiencing them sort of things.

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Tell me a little bit about, like your home life with your family and and was there anything that was happening there?

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that was the reason for me to be using these substances at such a young age, I think definitely there were a sort of an influence by my father who used substances um my, my home life.

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It were a little bit strange.

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So my mum and dad going way back, when they got together they met at an engineering firm in Leeds and then they both opened up their own business, which were a custom engineering business sort of after Easy Rider film came out, you know with Dennis Hopper and all these choppers.

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And my dad were a really talented engineer but he took a lot of substances, a lot of amphetamines and he potentially had undiagnosed mental health issues for a long time as well, and it was quite ignored.

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For that generation, mental health wasn't the way it is now.

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Now, we're all in tune with our own mental health.

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Back then it was crack on, wasn't it?

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Yeah, well, this is it.

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Do you know?

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We were all in tune with our own mental health.

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Back then it was crack on, wasn't it?

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Yeah, well, this is it and there wasn't any sort of awareness or understanding.

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So my dad sort of left my mum.

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They went bankrupt.

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My dad left my mum for a younger lady and we went from having two businesses to living in a council house and then my dad set up another business, which were quite successful, and I'd go stop with my dad on a weekend and my dad had no boundaries, no discipline, no, structure he were.

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He were crazy with my dad, he were.

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A right laugh, don't get me wrong.

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Well, this is it.

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Sometimes it's a case of like for some parents, especially in that situation, is they're more bothered about being liked, especially when they're not around as often you know.

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Sometimes you see when parents split up that the dad kind of wants to be the fun dad.

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Less rules with dad than with mum, and things like that.

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And it's interesting how far that can go, especially to to the point it did with yourself.

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So yeah, most definitely so.

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Like a typical weekend, I'd see me and my dad going out shooting shotguns um, watching 18s, uh, and eating junk food and, as I got a little bit older, I'd smoke weed with my dad and that's what we'd do, and I'd take amphetamines with him and stuff like that.

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But he was more like my best friend and he were always like that, rather than being a dad um, which, in his maturity and as he aged, he did become um was he a young dad to begin with, then, or I'm not quite sure.

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I don't think so.

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No, I think there would be an average age, my mum and dad.

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But I think the impact of my dad leaving my mum and my mum sort of having a change of life and being bankrupt meant that my mum were depressed, sort of clinically depressed, uh, in my informative years and, like I, I'm able to now look back at that and understand that that had a major impact on my development.

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Um, because I want that maternal connection my grandma used to have to come over and feed us both, you know she used to have to open curtains.

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She used to have to do what my mum um would have been doing because my mum won't able.

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I love my mum so much and she's always been there for me, same as my dad, but I think that my environment growing up definitely influenced my tendencies to be, so intrigued and want to take drugs because that I was obsessed with Scarface, I was obsessed with gangster films.

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It were all.

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It's one of them things where, like I used to, I were obsessed with Scarface, I was obsessed with gangster films.

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It were all Things that you shouldn't be.

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It's one of them, things where, like I used to say this, I remember playing like Grand Theft Auto 3 when I was like 10 or something.

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I'm like, oh, 18, I can get away with this, but it's now as an adult.

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I'm like I wouldn't dare let a 10-year-old play Grand Theft Auto.

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Do you know, because you worry about the, I guess maybe not necessarily immediately, I wasn't exactly going to go do the things in Grand Theft Auto at 10 years old, but you wonder how it can have an impact on your long term, which kind of sounds like what has happened to you in a way of being influenced by these characters like Al Pacino, scarface and things like that.

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It does have that.

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Do you know what?

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The one for us as teenagers was Green Street?

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Did you ever see the film?

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Green Street yeah football hooligans.

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Yeah the football hooligans.

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That was a massive influence on us as teenagers, to the detriment of, I mean, one of my friends, lee.

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He actually, you know he was beaten to death outside shops up on East Hall and sometimes I wonder if that's because the message of Green Street is no matter how many there is, you stand your ground and you fight.

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And there was only him.

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Him and his mate, I think there was and about 10 of these lads.

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Instinct should have been to run away, but I think the pride and the influence of that film of standing your ground and fight was the thing that had the impact on him.

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So it goes to show that these things do have.

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I mean, that's just me summarising of what was going on in our lives at the time, but it just goes to show that these things do have a massive influence on us in a way, most definitely.

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So at that point, when I'm sort of first introduced to heroin, everything that I was lacking as a person, you know, as a child growing up, I was given instantly.

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So, like I had, all of a sudden, I had these friends.

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I was part of a I'll say that, I know it but, um, I had people that sort of had the same motivation as me every day, they were like-minded and all this stuff that I had going on internally, you know, not feeling like I'm good enough, feeling like I don't fit in, feeling like I don't belong, confusion.

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All that is taken away because I've got wrapped up in this blanket of heroin, this warm thing that's supported me, and that were it From 12 until 13, just using constantly in toilets.

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Until that sort of came about, I started committing crime to fund my addiction.

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I was excluded from school and I had to register as an heroin addict at Leeds Addiction Unit, and I always remember going there with my dad 19 Springfield Mount, just behind the university, and my dad just not knowing what was going on with me, and queuing up waiting to see doctors with people that sort of I was looking up to, always influenced by people drawn to people that had issues and problems.

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Because I did, and it's laws of attraction, isn't it?

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It's like negativity attracts negativity.

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I think there's a thing as well I've spoken about this with someone before about drug use it's a culture and you know, like any, you know you will gravitate to people with them, like-minded opinions, and and I guess that's part of the harder thing of getting recovery as well for a lot of people it's not just giving up the substance, it's giving up a culture, it's giving up an identity, it's giving up a lot of friends, it's giving up, it's giving up all those things that have, kind of, you know, in some way have made you who you are, for better or worse as well, goes beyond just the substance, just going back to it, because obviously you were so young, at what point did you realize?

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because that you was physically addicted to the substance so I think, um, I remember because the quality of erwin you know, compared to what it is currently.

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Back then it was really, really strong.

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And I remember rattling and withdrawing from heroin in my school uniform, you know, like going to school thinking I'm going to get some money.

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You know what I mean.

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How are we going to?

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So you knew in your head, if you took more heroin, the rattle would stop.

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You were knowledgeable enough of that do you know something?

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it were all a game.

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I accepted that I was poorly, but in a way it was kind of like a badge of honour.

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It was strange.

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It was like this is who I am.

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You mentioned it, and this is who I am.

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Like you mentioned the identity, you know like, and this is who I am, and it's part of it.

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Um, and it's something to talk about, my friends are.

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I'm hanging out, I'm rattling.

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You know what we're gonna do it's almost cool to sit doing with the.

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Yeah, I remember.

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I remember the first time having a hangover and going to tell my friends they had a hangover and it was like he was almost excited to have a hangover.

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I imagine it'd be similar in that sense.

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Like I'm rattling it feels like shit, but I'm buzzing about it as well, in a weird way.

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And it's like, oh, what are we going to do?

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And again it's that light in my heart.

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And then it's like, oh, we're going to.

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The thrill of it.

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And that's where nicking teachers' handbags, nicking video, we could from school, banging all those as dinner monies together to score and like the only thing that I remember from that period of my life sort of academic knowledge or anything that I learned is this and I still remember, it's the only thing I remember oh three, seven, oh six, what's that?

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That's a drug dealer's number.

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Yeah, he used to switch on at three o'clock, yeah, and there'd be queues and queues of people waiting for him.

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Wow, and that's the only thing I can remember.

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I remember being in trouble, but like there's no moment, no, like eureka moment, where I've learned something and it pennies dropped and it's like oh, I remember that.

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The only thing I remember is that phone number from that period of my life.

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That's crazy, and it's an analog phone and it's not even a digital it's an old analog phone, yeah, from 1996, 95, 96, something like that was there a lot of was?

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obviously you said about your friends.

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Was there a lot of you that was in this, because I know you said it started with just the three of you in the toilet, oh yeah.

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So it decimated my community.

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Did it win?

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You know what I mean?

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It sort of.

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There was a massive boom in the late 80s to fund war in Afghanistan against Russia and lots and lots of it found it's way into the country, mainly to the north west, liverpool and Manchester, and then to Leeds.

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So I remember as well.

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It was trendy, it was cool, you know, like heroin chic you had models that were mimicking being heroin addicts.

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You know what I mean with all the makeup.

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Not the most glamorous of films, but like Trainspotting come out and it's like that's us, that's what we do, and like that identification again, something to identify with, it glamorises it.

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I know there's messages in there that kind of say this is the reason why you shouldn't be taking heroin, but there is something in there where you kind of what I was saying about Green Street you see it and you associate yourselves with it and you look up to it and you kind of aspire to be it, despite the message at the end of it being don't take heroin, don't be a football hooligan.

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You kind of ignore the final message bit and you see all the glamorisation of the rest of it.

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Don't you, it were, all it were all.

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At that point it were all glamorous and like again, I remember I used to have to wear a blazer and I used to have to put my foil in my pocket and I always used to get soot on my white shirt and I'd have my little tooter.

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Do you know what I mean?

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It's a little box that I had so it didn't get squashed so I could toot my and get squashed so I could took my gear.

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I'd have a little flicker lighter.

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You know, I'd know how to foil, how to like get the foil just right so I could run gear down it and it were all like.

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It were like a toy to a kid and it were just way that things were and it.

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But it gave me, like I say, it gave me an identity, it gave me something.

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It's just who I was and people knew me for that.

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Crazy, did your mum, and I guess was your mum aware of it.

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So the first time that anybody became aware of it, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on.

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That anybody became aware of it, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on.

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My dad sort of really Cos I'd left my mum's to live with my dad and I remember my dad waiting one day because he'd opened some mail that I'd received because I'd made an appointment with Leeds Addiction Unit for somebody to come out and see me to start the proceedings of registering, and this one to tackle my addiction.

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It was to get medication Like part of it.

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This is what you do and this is what everybody's registered.

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Now you know, and he were there and I kept thinking you need to go, you know, because this drug worker's coming now, steve Redknapp, he was called and he'd just hung about.

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And he hung about and he didn't go.

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And then that's how it became common knowledge Because it was like, okay, fess up.

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Now this is what's going on with me.

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But my dad and mum were so confused as to why I was behaving it's interesting that your dad was confused because from what you tell me about your childhood there with your dad and the amphetamine use and the cannabis use I'd be thinking of.

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Well, of course he's moved on to heroin, do you know?

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But this is the thing they want that knowledge within my dad.

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My dad never had any involvement with heroin.

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Heroin didn't know anything about it.

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Yeah, yeah, he was more.

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He used to take amphetamines to stay up, days and days working, doing, doing jobs so he was using it as a, I guess, for productivity, rather than just like recreational, yeah, so I think a bit of both.

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Yeah, um and looking, my dad definitely was an addict, sort of in how he was and what I've learned about addiction.

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But he just didn't have any concept or any understanding or any ideas of what was going on with me taking heroin because it wasn't ever part of his world, so he didn't know.

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I remember gouging out in front of my mum and my mum not knowing what was going on and saying you need to go to bed, you're tired, and I'd just been tooting gear.

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You're going for withdrawals.

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She thinks you've just got a bit of flu sort of thing.

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Go have a load home, this is the thing I'd be.

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I wouldn't ever be in bed rattling, I'd always be out, I'd always be out and sort of.

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I went through lots of withdrawals when they became aware of it and it became a bit of an event, if I'm honest, because they'd be like they'd make special allowances for me and like, oh, we go to the seas, to seaside, for weekend, we'll get a Chinese takeaway and it's and I remember my dad saying I'm getting sick of this.

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Now do not.

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I mean, do you know?

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Like it's a bit of a game that we're playing, because I wouldn't really ever ready to stop taking drugs.

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But I'd have it get to a point where it'd have to happen and I'd have to go through withdrawals and complete a detox and then be straight back at it because I didn't want to change.

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You know, it wasn't like there were anything in me that said, oh, this problem's getting out of hand.

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It was just a game, yeah, and it went from smoking to injecting pretty quick.

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I was going to say what age did you start injecting heroin?

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I'd say that we're about 14.

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Wow, even that is very, very.

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I remember going to hospital and getting abscesses lanced.

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Wow.

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As a kid, we're like getting them all squeezed and drained from misses, from injecting.

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And did they know what it was from as well?

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Yeah, Like I say, it was just a game, because they want the support available, they want the Leeds Addiction Unit, but they want the education they want the understanding.

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they want the awareness Because even from a social services perspective and a safeguarding perspective you'd think that that would have been.

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If you're having to drain absences from a 14-year-old boy, you'd be thinking right, we need to, and you know where them absences have come from At 14, you would have struggled to pin me down to one address Ah, okay, because I would have just gone, just moved from place to place as well.

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Yeah, I was just gone.

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And then I started from the age of 15, started going to prison constantly.

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So just in and out of prison.

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And what sort of things was you going in and out of prison for?

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So the first time I went to prison that was for stabbing somebody.

00:20:21.194 --> 00:20:31.594
Jeez, that nearly killed a man in Bradford.

00:20:31.594 --> 00:20:32.016
And you was 15?

00:20:32.016 --> 00:20:32.419
When I was 15.

00:20:32.439 --> 00:20:43.859
So I moved to Bradford with my dad, to his girlfriend's in another attempt to get clean and straightaway replaced my heroin addiction with just drinking alcohol and then I'm world's worst drunk.

00:20:44.731 --> 00:20:49.317
I've become very violent and I always had something to prove.

00:20:49.317 --> 00:21:04.877
So from being this child growing up and feeling like I had these inadequacies and there was something wrong with me and this lack of connection Kids are very narcissistic, in fact, that they can't understand other people's feelings or what's going on for anybody else.

00:21:04.877 --> 00:21:11.499
So me, growing up without this connection to my mum made me form this massive ego.

00:21:11.499 --> 00:21:22.830
You know, it's like they say that an ego's formed the first time that a child sees itself away from its mother and it's like a survival mechanism, you know.

00:21:22.830 --> 00:21:33.800
So I've got all these confidence issues, but my way of dealing with that is being overly sort of confrontational and to seem like I'm really confident to be really challenging.

00:21:33.800 --> 00:21:55.597
But inside I've got all these sort of issues where I don't feel like I'm good enough, where I'm struggling, and I had a real problem learning as well in a sort of conventional way, sitting down and doing something from a textbook, but pretty good, mechanical learning and being shown how to do things and picking things up.

00:21:55.798 --> 00:21:59.339
And even back then they didn't really cater to different learning styles.

00:21:59.339 --> 00:22:01.719
It was just this is how we're teaching it.

00:22:01.719 --> 00:22:10.516
You either learn it or you don't, whereas now there's all the differences of visual learners and there's things like I don't even know the kinesthetic learners.

00:22:10.516 --> 00:22:15.175
There's all these different types of words or methods of how people learn differently.

00:22:15.175 --> 00:22:18.589
But back then I imagine it was here's the curriculum, here's how you're going to learn.

00:22:18.589 --> 00:22:20.817
If you haven't got it, you're fucked, you know.

00:22:21.211 --> 00:22:22.134
And this is the thing.

00:22:22.134 --> 00:22:31.034
Isn't it Like I got more from school by standing up and taking mickey out of teacher?

00:22:31.034 --> 00:22:34.461
Yeah, you know, because it being class clown made made me feel like I value.

00:22:34.461 --> 00:22:35.883
Yeah, you know, I made people laugh.

00:22:35.883 --> 00:22:40.058
That made me feel good, I'd be very challenging, very confrontational.

00:22:40.058 --> 00:22:41.750
That's why school didn't last right long.

00:22:41.750 --> 00:22:49.265
School was just an opportunity to get more drugs and and then, when that ended, it'd be just to graft.

00:22:49.265 --> 00:22:54.162
So, like I said the first time, I went to prison for stabbing somebody.

00:22:54.162 --> 00:22:56.615
What was the context of that?

00:22:56.615 --> 00:22:57.357
Why did it happen?

00:22:57.357 --> 00:23:02.241
It was just daftness, absolute daftness.

00:23:02.241 --> 00:23:04.778
We went trying to underage drink.

00:23:04.778 --> 00:23:12.653
We were already off our heads and a fella hit my mate for no.

00:23:12.673 --> 00:23:13.635
So we're like we're gonna get him.

00:23:13.635 --> 00:23:14.277
Do you know what I?

00:23:14.297 --> 00:23:37.922
mean so we ambushed him on way out, um went and armed ourselves and come back and put a brick through the window and then, when he come, stabbed him, you know, and I ended up in Doncaster for I think nine, ten months on remand and then I went guilty to a Section 20, which is a wounding without intent.

00:23:37.922 --> 00:23:42.119
And when I did that I'll always remember Judge Coles.

00:23:42.119 --> 00:23:51.679
He remitted it back to youth court and when he did that it meant that I'd already served the maximum sentence that they could give me.

00:23:51.679 --> 00:23:58.817
So I went from looking at a 10 stretch To maximum being able To be imposed on me 12 months.

00:24:01.519 --> 00:24:02.782
Very lucky yeah.

00:24:05.343 --> 00:24:09.700
I was the first young offender To get tagged in Bradford claim to fame.

00:24:09.750 --> 00:24:12.157
Yeah, I was going to say that one like a badge of honour.

00:24:12.659 --> 00:24:29.511
One of them and yeah, so I got tagged, but upon release just went straight back to crazy living, you know, and it were only a matter of time before I were using class A substances again what was prison like back then, though, because now.

00:24:29.571 --> 00:24:38.616
I think from my knowledge I've had this conversation with friends where they say, oh, there's pool tables and TVs and they can do all this stuff in prison.

00:24:38.616 --> 00:24:48.435
Now I was like, yeah, because prison's more about rehabilitation than punishment now, but back when you was younger I imagine it was a little bit more about punishment than rehabilitation, so we didn't have TVs.

00:24:48.596 --> 00:24:58.179
No, there were pool tables, okay, and I knew lots of people anyway, yeah, so it was like it was very territorial back then.

00:24:58.179 --> 00:25:01.630
So if you were from Leeds, you're stuck with Leeds lads and it was like.

00:25:01.810 --> 00:25:06.037
South Yorkshire lads Doncaster, sheffield, barnsley they all stuck together.

00:25:06.037 --> 00:25:15.241
But Doncaster, sheffield, barnsley, they all stuck together but the majority of the time it would just bang up.

00:25:15.241 --> 00:25:17.709
It were a remand jail it would bang up.

00:25:17.709 --> 00:25:21.449
It was pretty much like a youth club.

00:25:21.449 --> 00:25:23.153
And there's some people that I'm in recovery now.

00:25:23.153 --> 00:25:25.762
One of the guys that's in recovery we've had mates together.

00:25:25.762 --> 00:25:27.821
He's in recovery now and that's amazing together.

00:25:27.821 --> 00:25:29.352
You know he's in recovery now and that's amazing to see.

00:25:29.352 --> 00:25:32.916
But we're just kids detained.

00:25:34.330 --> 00:25:36.439
Not necessarily really knowing the severity of the situation.

00:25:36.439 --> 00:25:37.894
You wasn't either at that point.

00:25:37.894 --> 00:25:39.358
This is the thing, it was just a game.

00:25:39.378 --> 00:25:43.432
That's what I mean yeah, that's what I think it comes back to a lot of the times we've at that age.

00:25:43.633 --> 00:25:48.218
everything's a game, everything's a bit of a laugh and everything's an experience, isn't it Positive or negative?

00:25:48.218 --> 00:25:49.278
It's an experience.

00:25:49.278 --> 00:25:56.385
Doncaster, here we come yeah yeah, yeah, lads on tour after Doncaster Prison and they were like this part of it.

00:25:56.405 --> 00:25:57.106
who's on wing?

00:25:57.106 --> 00:26:02.501
Yeah, Madness, but being released that first time.

00:26:02.501 --> 00:26:12.506
I'd say it were only four months before I was back taking heroin, and that were in Bradford.

00:26:12.506 --> 00:26:19.000
So I moved back to Leeds and then got back into crime with people that were in addiction around there.

00:26:19.410 --> 00:26:24.563
Was there anything in the prison in terms of like for achieving abstinence?

00:26:24.563 --> 00:26:26.257
What was the methadone programs?

00:26:26.549 --> 00:26:27.272
Or was it a case if?

00:26:27.272 --> 00:26:33.760
You just rattle it out, and so they give you, they get, so they put you on a detox wing.

00:26:33.760 --> 00:26:42.557
Okay, which were a right laugh yeah which one big dorm, big, massive tv, because you didn't have tvs.

00:26:42.557 --> 00:26:49.046
But in that dorm you had the TV, and not only that, you had MTV on it do you?

00:26:49.046 --> 00:26:49.465
Know what I mean.

00:26:49.465 --> 00:26:55.201
So all music and I understand things now as spiritual awakenings.

00:26:55.250 --> 00:27:14.309
When my body's coming back to normal detoxing and stuff like that, but being so sort of influenced and connected to music and stuff that were going on Whenever there's a music quiz on now, when I hear a song and it's from that year, I know, you know, yeah, it's 1998, yeah yeah uh, doncaster, do you know?

00:27:14.309 --> 00:27:18.118
I mean, that's when that come out, yeah but it were like it were a laugh.

00:27:18.179 --> 00:27:37.750
But the medication they give you, they give you something called brittle effects or lefexidine I've had a lefexidine yeah, so they're non-opiate ones and what they do is they sort of influence your endorphins to come back naturally, so they like speed up your withdrawal, so you go through it, but it's like the biggest.

00:27:37.750 --> 00:27:41.537
There's a physical aspect, sort of an opiate addiction.

00:27:41.537 --> 00:27:47.170
Without a doubt I understand that, but I think the biggest thing within it all is the mental addiction.

00:27:47.190 --> 00:28:01.996
And whenever I was in prison I understood that the thing within it all is the mental addiction, and whenever I was in prison, I understood that the game were up and that the rattle had to get done, and the rattle were always easier in prison than it were out in community because you couldn't give in to the temptation of going to your dealer and getting couldn't score.

00:28:01.996 --> 00:28:03.313
Couldn't get a graft, couldn't score.

00:28:03.574 --> 00:28:05.493
Simple as that so you just had to.

00:28:05.493 --> 00:28:09.159
You had no other option but to do it, yeah you make best of it.

00:28:09.230 --> 00:28:09.853
Do you know what I mean?

00:28:09.853 --> 00:28:20.852
I get that yeah um, but when you're rattling it, community, you know that somebody's got gear, yeah, and you know that you and, and then rattled, the sort of symptoms are heightened by that.

00:28:20.852 --> 00:28:32.300
You know it's like, but in reality, when you've got to get it done, you've got to get it done and that's something that stayed with me, that mentality towards dealing with it.

00:28:34.113 --> 00:28:38.278
Because that's something that I don't understand, and I'm sure there is logical explanations for it.

00:28:38.278 --> 00:28:53.259
But when lads are coming out of prison after five, six years and they're on a methadone programme in the prison, so the methadone programme then continues in the community, and I'm just thinking how could this person not get clean, how could they not get off the methadone in prison?

00:28:53.259 --> 00:28:55.020
This is the thing.

00:28:55.020 --> 00:28:55.821
How is that?

00:28:55.821 --> 00:28:58.064
Why have you done five years of methadone in prison?

00:28:58.104 --> 00:29:09.372
Surely if there's any time to get off the methadone it's in the environment, but maybe that's ignorant of me to think like that but ignorant of me to think like that.

00:29:09.392 --> 00:29:13.921
But I do wonder, yeah, well, I think that when we look at people, we've got to look at individuals and, like for me, I identify as an addict.

00:29:13.921 --> 00:29:18.179
I understand what that means now you know I'm an addict in long-term recovery.

00:29:18.961 --> 00:29:29.329
But without recovery, you know, anything that I can take that changes how I feel, yeah, that fills this void that I have within myself.

00:29:29.329 --> 00:29:32.218
I'm gonna get it, I'm gonna take it.

00:29:32.218 --> 00:29:45.519
And it's like if you can score in jail, you know, like anything that you're taking on top of your meds, you're only gonna boost it, do you know?

00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:48.928
So't know People, addiction's a funny thing?

00:29:48.928 --> 00:29:49.609
Yeah, absolutely.

00:29:49.609 --> 00:29:51.676
And people become conditioned.

00:29:51.676 --> 00:30:05.378
You know like an amount of time that I've spent in meds queues, in prison waiting for my methadone, because it's just what I did, it's what I did in community and it's what my life is, you know, and I were packed up on medication for a long time.

00:30:06.250 --> 00:30:07.395
Yeah, I understand that.

00:30:07.395 --> 00:30:12.821
So coming out of prison, then back onto the gear four months later?

00:30:12.821 --> 00:30:14.355
How old are you at this point?

00:30:15.029 --> 00:30:17.278
So there I've just been, 16, 17.

00:30:17.278 --> 00:30:20.419
Still really young to have gone through everything that you've gone through.

00:30:20.419 --> 00:30:21.141
He's a kid.

00:30:21.141 --> 00:30:22.213
This is the thing.

00:30:22.213 --> 00:30:24.910
He's a kid, I'm a kid, I'm a child.

00:30:24.910 --> 00:30:36.980
And the thing is I've had no sort of development, so I hadn't had any education, I hadn't had any positive social influence, I've just been conditioned by my environment.

00:30:36.980 --> 00:30:40.178
So it's like these behaviours are only going to continue.

00:30:40.178 --> 00:30:47.759
And it's still fun, it's still exciting, it's still a game, you know, and it means that it continues.

00:30:48.172 --> 00:30:51.589
At what age did you get to where it wasn't exciting anymore.

00:30:51.589 --> 00:30:56.058
It wasn't fun where you realised that it had been taking its toll on you.

00:30:58.336 --> 00:31:12.656
At the age of 20 and being a bit of a career criminal, so doing petty crime, and then sort of graduating to burglaries and stuff like that and then being involved in selling drugs.

00:31:12.656 --> 00:31:26.259
Um, at that age, like I always remember, I lied at court to get to armley jail, where I'm from, because at that time I had a girlfriend who'd been bringing me visits we call them fat visits.

00:31:26.259 --> 00:31:30.900
Girlfriend who'd been bringing me visits we call them fat visits, so she'd been bringing me gear up to Doncaster.

00:31:32.830 --> 00:31:33.994
Really easy to get in.

00:31:33.994 --> 00:31:34.778
Do you know what I mean?

00:31:34.778 --> 00:31:43.763
Really easy back then to get in, and my thinking is I've supported her throughout my addiction in community.

00:31:44.691 --> 00:31:46.640
She can support you now you're in prison.

00:31:46.640 --> 00:31:46.820
Yeah.

00:31:46.970 --> 00:31:58.896
So I make her transactional yeah so I make her life easier, I'll blag it to go to wamley, because when you're at court they ask your date of birth and your address and then group four.

00:31:58.896 --> 00:32:03.614
I'd go off that and then look at how old you are and they just send you to wherever.

00:32:03.614 --> 00:32:06.701
So I just added a year on, do you know what I mean?

00:32:06.701 --> 00:32:17.911
And I remember being 20, going to armley jail, um, and thinking that you know everything was going to be great and it was just a massive culture shock.

00:32:17.911 --> 00:32:22.155
So doncaster marsh gate is a new build private prison.

00:32:22.155 --> 00:32:28.825
Armley is an old castle run by Her Majesty's Prison Service.

00:32:28.825 --> 00:32:32.215
Big difference the inmates looked huge.

00:32:32.650 --> 00:32:36.096
I'm this little kid do you know what I mean Still not mature, still not grown.

00:32:36.096 --> 00:32:42.654
And whenever I'm trying to contact my girlfriend she's not answering my call.

00:32:42.654 --> 00:32:47.815
And then I start hearing after a couple of weeks that she's working on beach.

00:32:47.815 --> 00:32:49.721
So she's selling her body now.

00:32:49.721 --> 00:32:53.681
So I introduced her to heroin.

00:32:53.681 --> 00:33:00.942
I was the one that gave her her first go and I was the one that sort of supported us throughout her addiction.

00:33:00.942 --> 00:33:03.438
So she had a job.

00:33:03.438 --> 00:33:13.481
When I met her, you know, she had ambition and all that were taken away and she was selling herself to get money to fund her habit.

00:33:14.250 --> 00:33:28.009
And then she got involved with another guy you know who was allegedly pimping her out, and it was just like it was the first time where I felt accountable for anything and I really thought about anybody else other than myself.

00:33:28.511 --> 00:33:32.363
You said, obviously, when you were a kid, the ego, you're not thinking about other people?

00:33:32.403 --> 00:33:32.664
are you?

00:33:32.905 --> 00:33:37.381
this is the thing this is the first time you're starting to look at the impact that you're having on others.

00:33:37.671 --> 00:33:39.617
I never thought about the victims of my crime.

00:33:39.617 --> 00:33:42.490
My needs were always greater.

00:33:42.490 --> 00:34:20.081
But when it come to sort of looking at how this girl were having a work on B and sell herself to raise money for a drug up it which I potentially introduced to it and it really at home, and that what first time where I thought things that good and I also learned that I'd got hepatitis C from injecting with dairy equipment and equipment and it were like that would have wake up call, but it wasn't enough to stop me and the game started upon release.

00:34:20.731 --> 00:34:47.887
I got out of Everthorpe, but then at that point I'd been hanging around with lads and there'd been a shift in me and I'd been sort of awoken by bassline bassline music and niche and castle locos and everybody had these tapes and they were all listening to this music and I had these sort of notions, these fantasies that I was going to get out and I was going to be involved in this.

00:34:47.887 --> 00:34:48.454
I was going to get out and I was going to be involved in this.

00:34:48.454 --> 00:34:51.259
I was going to sell ease, you know.

00:34:51.791 --> 00:35:01.601
I was going to go to Castle Ocos on a weekend, sort of not be involved with heroin or crack and sort of stigmatise that a little bit.

00:35:01.601 --> 00:35:03.795
And that's what happened.

00:35:03.795 --> 00:35:08.333
I practised my dance moves do you know what I mean?

00:35:08.333 --> 00:35:18.865
And I got out and did a bit of raving, started selling pills, got a driving license, got a new girlfriend, got her pregnant Do you know what I mean?

00:35:21.190 --> 00:35:22.956
What happened to the other girlfriend then, upon release?

00:35:23.157 --> 00:35:35.264
I saw her once and like I had a resentment towards her because she'd not supported me in my sort of mindset mentality.

00:35:35.264 --> 00:35:45.896
She hadn't supported me, she hadn't been there for me, the amount of sort of crime that I'd committed to fund our habits in my mind, I looked after her.

00:35:45.896 --> 00:35:46.818
Do you know what I?

00:35:46.838 --> 00:35:48.891
mean, yeah, if she was an addiction as well.

00:35:48.891 --> 00:35:53.974
If she's having to, as you said, work on the beach, she's just going to be thinking about herself on her own.

00:35:54.173 --> 00:36:12.956
Well, it's kind of almost regressing to the way you was and not thinking about other people addiction source, that you're selfish, yeah, nothing else is like she's not going to care about even prison issue in that moment no, and started that had already started when I was in Doncaster because she'd stopped bringing them up and she'd say I'll send it in a card.

00:36:12.956 --> 00:36:16.164
And I'd get a couple of cards, birthday cards where she'd craft it in.

00:36:16.164 --> 00:36:16.690
Do you know what I mean?

00:36:16.690 --> 00:36:20.380
But then she'd start lying to me oh, I've posted one.

00:36:20.380 --> 00:36:22.693
And I'd be like, well, I ain't got it.

00:36:22.693 --> 00:36:25.798
It's because she's got an habit that she's feeding herself.

00:36:26.259 --> 00:36:29.585
I mean, I don't know if you hear from her now, but how do you feel about that now?

00:36:29.585 --> 00:36:37.697
Like looking back at that, thinking that you introduced her and how your influence probably changed her life's trajectory by introducing her to heroin.

00:36:37.697 --> 00:36:41.920
When we talk about things like resentment and making amends and stuff.

00:36:41.920 --> 00:36:43.355
How do you cope with that?

00:36:43.355 --> 00:36:44.992
Now, those thoughts so.

00:36:45.514 --> 00:36:52.034
I work a 12-step program and that allows me to be able to deal with that stuff.

00:36:52.034 --> 00:37:08.297
Um, she's on a list of amends that need to be made, um, and sort of if I see her, I'll make, I'll make that amends, and sort of see if there's anything I can do to rectify or amend what went on.

00:37:08.297 --> 00:37:10.012
But I do.

00:37:10.012 --> 00:37:12.920
I have a lot of guilt and shame about a lot of things that I've done in the past.

00:37:12.920 --> 00:37:20.699
I can imagine, yeah, you know, and how I used to live and sort of that's a motivating factor for how I am today and how I live today.

00:37:20.699 --> 00:37:28.780
But back then, you know like it was just when I bumped into her and saw her upon release, it was like, oh yeah, do you know what I mean.

00:37:31.150 --> 00:37:33.148
Straight back to being that sort of selfish man, yeah, and like I was focused on me.

00:37:33.148 --> 00:37:38.655
I was focused on Stone Island, I was focused on Mitsubishi's, I was focused on whatever I could do.

00:37:38.655 --> 00:37:41.635
You know what I mean these material things.

00:37:41.635 --> 00:37:48.318
Do you know me again filling this void with summer having new identity?

00:37:48.338 --> 00:37:55.081
this is who I am so moving into and selling ecstasy and, like you said you know, following the flight baseline and things like that.

00:37:55.081 --> 00:37:57.217
How did that change you?

00:37:57.217 --> 00:38:00.070
You know, because you said you're stigmatizing, I suppose, everyone in crack.

00:38:00.070 --> 00:38:02.679
Now he's look glamorous, don't they?

00:38:02.960 --> 00:38:04.626
and this is that lifestyle looks glamorous.

00:38:04.626 --> 00:38:06.351
So tell me about that like that.

00:38:06.351 --> 00:38:15.295
So yeah, it's like I was really influenced by music, so I'd always be playing music and I'd always be there'd be a soundtrack to it.

00:38:15.295 --> 00:38:16.358
You know what I'm saying?

00:38:16.358 --> 00:38:18.074
There were a soundtrack to it.

00:38:18.315 --> 00:38:19.298
It's like being in a movie.

00:38:19.630 --> 00:38:23.356
You've got to think about the soundtrack behind you and the soundtrack to the life.

00:38:23.730 --> 00:38:25.733
Yeah, and this is my life.

00:38:25.733 --> 00:38:29.681
That's how I used to live, because I never had a relationship with myself.

00:38:29.681 --> 00:38:30.824
I didn't know who I was.

00:38:30.824 --> 00:38:35.585
I was always looking at other people that I aspired to be like like Al Pacino and Scarface.

00:38:35.605 --> 00:38:40.909
Yeah, finding something you can identify with, like Sean and Replica yeah, how would they act in this situation?

00:38:41.150 --> 00:38:41.994
what would they do?

00:38:41.994 --> 00:38:42.952
Yeah, do you.

00:38:42.952 --> 00:38:47.420
You know, like you know, and that's I never, never won me.

00:38:47.420 --> 00:39:05.032
So I started selling drugs At that time, learned how to grow cannabis, I started selling cannabis skunk and I started.

00:39:05.032 --> 00:39:05.653
I did all right.

00:39:06.333 --> 00:39:09.077
Was you using heroin at this time, or did you just have a kick to that at that point?

00:39:09.476 --> 00:39:15.463
So I was just smoking endless amounts of bud, taking drugs.

00:39:15.463 --> 00:39:21.768
I was sneaking off and smoking crack, though, because I knew other people that were doing that and because they were doing that, that were all right.

00:39:21.768 --> 00:39:22.228
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:39:22.228 --> 00:39:22.849
You know what I mean.

00:39:22.949 --> 00:39:24.329
It almost gives you the past, doesn't it?

00:39:24.329 --> 00:39:26.195
Yeah, this is it.

00:39:26.195 --> 00:39:26.836
You look for it.

00:39:26.836 --> 00:39:28.000
It's like you say.

00:39:28.000 --> 00:39:34.701
It's connections, though, and being with people and finding that again, going back to the culture of it, really Most definitely Finding a culture.

00:39:35.990 --> 00:39:38.498
But I stayed away from heroin until I was stabbed.

00:39:38.498 --> 00:39:39.722
Do you know what I mean?

00:39:39.722 --> 00:39:56.599
And because of what I was involved in with sort of selling drugs, I ended up getting rammed off at road, um, and, and being attacked by four masked men with uh axes what target it was.

00:39:56.641 --> 00:40:06.434

#45 - Chris Sylvester - Heroin Aged 12, Crime, Trauma, Accountability, Hepatitis C, Cocaine, Manipulation, Homelessness, Drug Dealing, Working the 12 Steps & The Power of Second Chances

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