Junk by Julia Eccleshare & Melvin Burgess

Author:Julia Eccleshare & Melvin Burgess [Eccleshare, Julia & Burgess, Melvin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Psychopathology, Psychology, Addiction, Drama, English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, Heroin Abuse
ISBN: 9780141928715
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 1996-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

Once she accepted that I wasn’t coming back we got to have some intelligent conversations. She still cracks up and starts crying sometimes, which is a pity because I’d ring up more often if it wasn’t for that. I hate that. It doesn’t do any good.

My dad’s okay, too. I try to have a normal conversation but it never gets much past the ‘How are you, what’s the weather like over there?’ kind of thing. Sometimes he tells me he loves me but it never sounds all that convincing. I guess I get on better with my mum, all in all.

Vonny and Richard come round from time to time. I don’t know whether it’s because they like us or whether they’re just keeping an eye on us. It’s nice. I like them. Even Vonny. Now she can’t be some sort of Auntie Thing, it’s okay. Mind you, they don’t know the half of it. I don’t tell her everything. Junk, for example. I don’t tell them about that. They wouldn’t understand. They have their drugs – hash, a bit of speed, booze. But junk. I dunno. One day, maybe I’ll tell them just to watch their faces.

Yeah. There’s a lot of drugs around here. Drugs are just part of life – pleasure, business, they bring you up and take you down, they make you feel good. They take you to another planet, sometimes. Sometimes you have to find your own way back.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, O-oh, she’s a junkie, she’s only been away from home six months and she’s a junkie already.

You poor brat, you’ve been brainwashed. Look, drugs are fun. They make you feel good, that’s all. Sure, they’re powerful, that’s why they’re dangerous. So’s life. If you’re in control, then it’s okay.

They never dare tell you that, of course. It’s not because they want to keep you off drugs. Oh no, they like it, they want you to. They just want to make sure you take the ones they want you to take. It’s all part of the big mind control. Tobacco, booze, medicine-good; hash, acid, junk – bad.

You think about it. What’s that row of little bottles in your mum’s medicine cabinet? How many is she on a day? How often do you reckon she’s clean – once every three months when the prescription runs out and she toddles off down to the doctor and gets some more? Medication, they call it. Thanks, I can prescribe for myself, I don’t need no experts telling me what’s good for me.

What about Cousin John puffing his way through twenty fags a day, filling the air with his poison, breathing all over his baby and watching it cough and having a good laugh about it. What about your dad, going to the pub every night for three or four or five pints? It’d be an education to take a scan of what his insides look like after thirty years of that. You don’t know what goes on after you’re safely tucked up in bed.

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