Illustration by David Rappeneau

I interviewed 13 Hardcore Drug Addicts to understand the psychic intervention of drugs in their lives and recorded their responses.

These are their stories, in their words. Raw, Uncensored, Honest.

1. “One time we were riding on a motorbike and for some reason, I thought we were in a 50s movie where the bike is stationary and it’s the fake background painting that’s moving.”

2. “I used to go around ignoring many people thinking they’re a figment of my imagination. Once, my mom was asking me to study when we were on the dining table and I poked her nose while laughing because I thought she wasn’t real.The neurons in my brain were dying, I guess.”

3. “I thought my room’s curtains were waterfalls.”

4. “Ideas! They drove my mind. During my LSD experience, I was able to see things. It’s like I could control my reality, push it to be whatever I wanted. I could feel my childhood fears, things which didn’t let me be who I was. I could see patterns, artworks depicting an idea. I don’t remember what exactly but they were on the lines of love, rape, etc.”

5. “I personally just find drugs enjoyable. ART! As cheesy as it sounds, I like how it feels just looking at paintings or photos and reading poetry all day with tea, that relaxing weightless mood, and getting a popular article or poem. Although, it can get dangerous. One time we got super wasted at a party that I’m certain had I stayed and not begged someone to drive me home, I would’ve been raped or molested. Men will offer you cheap stuff, oh baby let’s smoke this joint together, lucky enough that I’m not as naive as they think I am.”

6. “My dad was a hard duty drinker and  even underwent a couple of surgeries for the problem. I lost him when I was 9. I was going along the same path, and just when my liver was on the verge of giving up, I got out of it.”

7. “I had a cousin who was a legit meth head and had to go to prison/rehab. He got clean, did well, even became a respected politician. And one of our uncles and his family told him, “you’re nothing but a junkie loser.” And my cousin lost the election that time because of the meanness of our relatives, he even relapsed. So drugs are escapism. Escapism from reality or from being poor or from being depressed. Even from being bored.”

8. “It was triggered by stress. My mother is/was a normal South East Asian abusive, if you know what I mean. She was a stoner as well, she idolised Madonna and being a rebel. University was stressing me out. My ex-boyfriend and I kept fighting, which was the last straw. Then I got prenant and had it aborted. Honestly, I don’t like to dwell on that part too much. Prefer to pretend it never happened.”

9. “The thing is that you start being dependent on them. They become a need. They become a part of your body’s functioning. A part of you. And the worst part is that you’re not fighting anyone or anything but your own self. The only way out may be legalizing drugs altogether or at least decriminalizing soft drugs. Giving people treatment and help instead of ostracizing them and putting them in jail.”

10. “I live near Shimla so trekking was something we’d do at least once or twice every month. We climbed the highest peak, a steep peak. We had around 15 joints filled with just marijuana on the hilltop. That too with cream or malana cream as it’s real name is. One of the best in the world. 15 joints of that lethal thing and four guys. We were sort of dead in the 5th one itself. But still, we somehow managed to smoke all of them. And we started dreaming. We started feeling as everything we saw was a dream. Everything happening around was a dream. We had an eerie feeling of deja vu. And there’s thing that sometimes when you start laughing once after smoking pot, you can’t stop yourself. All of us were laughing like crazy.

There was this one crazy guy who was smoking it for the first time and was way too excited. He had it and kept saying he was fine even after he was high. All of us thought of taking a nap and meanwhile, that crazy guy was nowhere to be seen, when we woke up. We found him sitting on the edge of a cliff about to fall down. It was foggy, and because of the high, he couldn’t judge how deep he was going to fall, because he thought it was a mattress of clouds he’d fall on. We crawled our way back somehow, after getting back to our senses. It took us around 8 hours to get down when it had taken just 2 to get up.”

11. “My friend told me that when I was in LSD’s trip, I wanted to jump from the balcony. I thought the world will end if I didn’t jump.”

12. “My father is an addict since his teenage years. Me, my mother, and my brother have a good time till evenings and the time my father gets back, the house becomes like no one lives here. He finds solace in having fights with us, and even with outsiders, most of the time with those in a lesser authority. He drinks at night but because it’s been so long, he now behaves the same even in the daytime. He is unemployed, keeps shifting his work, and buys whisky from whatever he earns. He has even stolen my mother’s hard-earned money. She has also been the victim of domestic violence. No doubts, he is clearly damaged, but not just him, the whole family suffers this disease. He is the one who consumes it, and then it consumes all three of us. HE HAS NO SHAME. I don’t see that man as a father figure.”

13. “Also, don’t forget drugs have a lot to do with social class – different classes and groups do/prefer/can afford different types. See rockstars doing coke and heroin, beach bums and island people doing weed, poor people getting more diluted dangerous drugs. I’m literally about to smoke right now, have work lol.”
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Avnika Gupta is a 19 year old female writer based in New Delhi, studying Sociology and Psychology at Lady Shri Ram College For Women. She believes in unleashing our hidden human potential by connecting to our raw nature through art and promotes using theatre, poetry and dance to heal the world, as these are those fireworks that fill our damp eyes with the reassurance of shared existence, which break our romanticized idea of wandering as solitary beings.

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