Needle work

I‘ve been lucky. Having used most of the substances that can divorce you from reality, I am only left with a reliance on alcohol and cigarettes. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for my fellow hostel residents. To say I was shocked at the level of drug taking when I got here would be a gargantuan understatement.

I rather gauchely and uncynically refused to believe all the clichés and stereotypes about homeless people and drug or alcohol abuse. Now that my eyes have been opened I can see that the two are as closely linked as Members of Parliament and creative accounting.

It’s a shame when the views of the gutter press seem to have some faint grounding in reality. I feel disappointment, alarm and sadness at so many lives held under the cosh of illicit drugs. I don’t know why I should feel so alarmed – it’s not as if I have skipped through life without being aware that a lot of people choose to lessen their grip on the world at almost every opportunity.