What drugs did to my family (From The Northern Echo)

What drugs did to my family

6:03am Wednesday 6th June 2007

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THE scene would certainly have shocked most loving mothers to the core; for one in particular, then almost broken, it brought about a revolution. She knew her son was taking heroin - he had eventually admitted it - but when she saw him shooting up right there beside her in the car, it caused the scales to fall away. This was the soul-destroying point when she was forced to make a choice: from that day on, she would abandon both her twins.

"It was only when Nick injected in front of me in the car that I thought 'wow, your mum's love and your mum's money isn't going to do anything here'," says Elizabeth Burton-Phillips. "Severing contact was very hard for me, but I always said 'hold on to the fact that you're loved and always will be loved'."

What made Elizabeth reach this stage was pure and simple desperation. She'd watched her children, Nick and Simon, turn into monsters thanks to drugs, and having done her best to help them, she knew deep down that she had failed. Then, with the threat of going bankrupt and with her marriage on the rocks, husband Tony - the boys' stepdad - said 'it's either them or me'. Though, at the time, this broke her heart, she now admits that he was right.

"Good on him that he did it because I think if he hadn't, we would have lost everything, including our home," says 56-year-old Elizabeth, who lives in Berkshire. "He could just see everything going down the Swanee. You've got to reach that point of understanding that addiction consumes their lives, changes their personality and corrupts their morals. Who can be normal when they're in the control of heroin?"

Yet Nick and Simon weren't the types to start on drugs. They had a loving mum and dad and every privilege they could want, but at the age of just 13, when friends were into smoking cannabis, they tried it too and soon got hooked. Of course, their parents didn't know - what teen would share the information? - and so throughout their school careers, their habit flourished. When she looks back on how they fooled her, Elizabeth feels she was naïve.

"In my mind I had this preconceived idea that it affected everyone else, but it didn't affect me," she says. "You've brought your kids up properly so why would it happen to you? I had quite a narrow vision, but I've learned that that's not the case at all."

The family moved from Reading to Bath, where Nick and Simon joined a more exclusive school. Yet far from stopping taking drugs, they only upped their daily intake, until at last the situation came to light. "Things came to a head in the sixth form - straight talking, confrontation, promises that it won't happen again," explains Elizabeth. "Wouldn't any mum, any family presume that if you've been caught, that's the end of it?"

But it was far from being over. The twins left school and set up home, the thought of freedom on their minds, yet soon were drawn into a world of even more excessive drug use. Those they mixed with were taking heroin and they started smoking this as well. Elizabeth has her own ideas about what led them to this step.

"I think it's very important to make the point that their decline into heroin addiction was brought about by two factors - one was their mental state, 'we'll try anything once', because of their use of cannabis, and the other was that they were targeted by a heroin dealer," she says.

From there the twins were on a course from which there was no turning back. They both lost jobs because of their addiction, becoming careless of their fate, and as the heroin took hold, they turned to crime so they could buy it. Then one day Simon made a choice - fed up of keeping it a secret, he told his mum about his habit, though not that Nick was also using. Convinced that both the twins were clean, this tore Elizabeth apart.

"It was very, very shocking," she recalls. "Wow, that was such a big bang, a big blow because you automatically think 'what have I done wrong? Where have I failed?' One has to respect that he had the guts to come and tell me - he could have kept it quiet for much longer - but it was shocking and devastating to hear."

And so began the painful road of doing all she could to help. She picked up countless unpaid bills, supporting Nick as well as Simon, despite not knowing why he struggled, and put her money and her faith into a host of different treatments. Yet nothing ever seemed to work, and as the weeks and months wore on, the situation only worsened. At last she learned of Nick's addiction - and felt the only thing to do was wait for news of both sons' deaths.

"I thought they would both die and had prepared myself, so when the police came to the front door, I was prepared," says Elizabeth. "I talk about being in that dimension of grieving and being relieved at the same time."

The tragic ending to the story was not exactly as she'd thought. While Nick did die from his addiction - he hanged himself while high on drugs - his brother Simon clung to life. He was so shocked by what had happened that he finally committed to getting clean, and three years on from losing Nick, he has stayed faithful to his word.

Although unbearable at first, Elizabeth's grief did slowly lessen, and with encouragement from friends, she wrote a book about her ordeal. She hopes that others can be spared from going through what she has suffered. "I think the thing I would encourage is constant communication," she says.

"I think parents can't afford to stick their heads up their backsides and think that everything will be fine. It's very important to educate yourself and for your children to be educated. There's no point in being in denial and thinking 'it's not going to happen to my family'."

What she has learned from trying to help when faced with children who are addicts is that it only makes things worse - you just facilitate their habit. She says the hard thing to accept is that they have to help themselves.

"If the situation has gone too far down the line and it becomes like ours was, you have to understand that if you follow the route that we did, you're just going to end up bankrupt and in real trouble," says Elizabeth. "The book is there to help families draw on our experience and use it in whatever way will help them."

Mum, can you lend me twenty quid? by Elizabeth Burton-Phillips (Portrait, £14.99). For more information, visit www.twentyquid.com

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