Ecstasy

I have been using ecstasy on and off for about five years. Its cheap, it's usually a lot of fun and its easy to get hold off. I love that buzz you get as you're coming up and you're dancing. The music in the club is pounding and the lights going mad above you. It's such an immense rush of elation and joy when you're in the moment.

Usually, that is. Once, I went out with a bunch of mates and told them I was going to double drop. They didn't want any, but I carried on. Things got a bit manic and I stayed up for ages. We never got a cab (just seemed like a waste of money) so started to walk home. The rest of the night is a bit of a hazy memory.

I woke up the next morning with grazes and cuts all over my hands and mud up my trousers. My mates told me I had been a nightmare on the way home, walking all over the place and trying to walk in the middle of the road. I kept stumbling and falling over.

I still do E. I still love the rush. I'm just a bit more careful about where I am, who I am with and how I'm gonna get home.

Cannabis

I came from a good family and I never wanted for anything, but what I got was never enough - I think that that was my addictive behaviour starting.

I started getting into trouble at primary school... I used to get bullied and then I became a bully. My mum and dad were freaking out because their little angel had turned into someone who just didn't care anymore.

I ended up getting chucked out of class [when I was 10]. I was stealing stuff from the janitor's office and stealing sweets. My mum and dad weren't happy at all.

I left [primary] school and during the summer I first took drugs with a group of local lads, we were all playing football and everyone stopped and started rolling joints and stuff and I smoked it and I was out of my head. I didn't enjoy it and I didn't like the feeling. I remember running home and scrubbing my face with a toothbrush 'cos I hated it. So I left it for a couple of months.

Nathan changed schools but things got worse
I was a bit of a loner to start with and I saw this group of older guys I wanted to hang about with who were running about joking and getting into trouble. My mum and dad didn't know how to control me. I used to get a lot of positive attention when I was younger, but as soon as I started getting into trouble I craved attention and it didn't bother me if it was positive or negative, as long as I was getting attention.

Eventually I started hanging about with these guys, I was stealing from shops and I started smoking cannabis all the time. I was sitting in class stoned and not listening to what was said.

I started getting suspended from school. From then I just went downhill doing anything. I was a bit different from everyone else and I was always looking for something and I found it in drugs, in cannabis at that time.

I went through school like that and I started taking speed and LSD and I didn't speak to my family at this point. I was sent to a child psychologist, I was quite glad, 'cos I was getting an afternoon off school. My mum and dad were freaking out - they couldn't handle that their son was like this. The whole family was having to see the psychologist so my older brother wasn't happy. I went downhill - my life just revolved around drugs and stealing from local supermarkets and stuff.

About 13 or 14 say, I was stealing from the local supermarket and I was getting caught by the police and stuff like that. Then, I started selling drugs at school - cannabis and amphetamines. I was taking amphetamine at school and snorting it before I went into class and snorting it in PE. I thought I was really cool, 'cos before drugs had always fascinated me. I always wanted to be this cool drug dealer or a cool bank robber. I thought by selling a couple of wraps of speed I was achieving my goal.

So, I carried on like that and then it was towards the end of school that I first took heroin. I injected and then I got expelled from school for selling [drugs]. My mum and dad were going mental - they couldn't handle that all their friends knew that their son got expelled for drugs. Even then I was not that worried - I was just worried about getting money for drugs.

The police came round to my mum and dad's house and searched it - it was really humiliating for them, but as I say it didn't bother me. My face was in the local paper and I didn't care.

They let me back to do my exams and I walked back in to school in my school uniform full of heroin, not caring about anyone. It's quite bad 'cos my little brother goes to that school now and he's had to go in after the reputation that I had.

Life at college
I went on to college [to do Highers] and I was taking heroin all the time and stealing from shops, stealing computer games and selling them, and scoring with older guys... injecting all the time.

I was going out with a lassie who found out I was injecting. We split up and we got back together and I promised I'd stop injecting, but I had no intentions of stopping.

My good mates I went to school with started finding out I was taking heroin, so slowly but surely they started drifting away. I just became the local junkie.

I thought it was an exciting lifestyle - it took away my feelings. Looking back it was just crap. I was injecting in college toilets, stealing, sharing needles with people I didn't even know. Lots of dirty stuff.

Nathan got sacked from jobs he had for using drugs
At Christmas when I was 16 or 17, I was sitting in my bedroom with one of my mates, injecting heroin, and my mum looked in the window and saw me and my mate injecting. That was the first time my mum realised I had a serious drug problem. She freaked right out and I ran away. I was so humiliated.

I thought I wanted to stop but, subconsciously, I still wanted more.
I moved into a flat in a skyscraper and my life started going right downhill from there. I was living next to people who sold crack coacine, prostituted women. I started going about with them and started using crack, doing anything I could to get money.

I got caught selling at this point and was up in court a few times. I started using to get rid of my feelings and to get out of bed in the morning. I didn't enjoy using anymore. I was scared of stopping because I was scared of withdrawing from heroin, so I carried on like that, robbing... and doing a lot of things I said I would have never have done.

Recovery
I'd just turned 18 and in desperation I sought help from my mum and dad to get into a local treatment centre. I went in there and I couldn't admit that drugs were a problem, I could only admit that heroin was a problem.

They said I had to abstain from all drugs in order to have a good recovery, and I thought no way, so I lied my way through the treatment centre and came out and just started using straight way.

I was smoking cannabis one night and the next morning I woke up and I thought well I'm not clean anyway, so I'll just take heroin and I'll start clean tomorrow.

I just started using all the time again. I was stealing £80-£100 a night from work.

My life was an isolated world, sitting in my flat with the curtains drawn. I was scared to go out because I thought people were after me. A lot of it was just in my head, I was just going mad. I couldn't get out of bed before I injected myself.

My life was a mess and my body was run down. I was well underweight. I couldn't eat. My mum and dad thought I'd been cured so they were going mental. I was doing a lot of crazy stuff. I was slowly and surely killing myself... my life was crap.

The final time I went back into a treatment centre, life was that bad, I was suicidal. I was in the treatment centre for six months. This time I surrendered. This time I chucked in the towel and said I know my way doesn't work, show me how to do it.

In there, I learned a lot about myself I managed to get clean and stay clean. My life just got better, slowly but surely. My family started speaking to me, started phoning me and having good conversations. I went out a couple of times for the weekend speaking to them, and then I left the treatment centre. I made a lot of good friends there - I never really had friends before, just people that I used drugs with. This time I had good friends that I had something in common with.

My life has totally changed around. I never thought I'd have got to the place I have. I always thought I'd have been in jail or in a mental hospital, or I'd have died if I hadn't got clean. There was me and a few of my mates using heroin all at the same time. One is on the run from the police, another one is in jail and another one died six weeks ago. It just emphasised the point to me how lucky I am by being clean. Anyone can get it as long as they want it. I didn't think there was a way out before but now I've found a way that I can stay clean through NA and I'm so grateful it's unbelievable.

I can speak to my family now, I can go into town with my mum for a coffee. If I'd have seen people doing that before I would have thought, look at that idiot - still looking down on folk when I was in the gutter.

I'm grateful to people who helped me get this way. It's not easy, you're desperate to get clean, so if you're willing to do anything you can get to get clean, go to Narcotics Anonymous, or see your doctor and try to get into a treatment centre.

If you would like to listen to Nathan's story click here to visit the BBC website.

Cocaine

A few, well cut, white lines. Five of us huddled in a scabby student house toilet with damp rising up the walls in Hanover. The base rumbling beneath our feet - literally shaking the mirror on the wall. £5 note up our noses and we were off.

It was a crazy, fun house party. We were buzzing and going a bit manic. Gurning and sniffing our noses like mad, but, still having a class time. Until, a girl who did it with us got a bit sketchy. She started to freak out and got well confused about where she was, who she was with and what she had taken. People started to suspect that the records it had been mixed with were dodgy.

I said she should go home. It was not a good place for her to be in. So, we called her a cab and it turned up quickly. She wouldn't get in. She was adamant she was staying. By now, I was holding her up. She couldn't even stand on her own feet. Her friend and me jammed her into the back of a cab and she took her mate home.

 I didn't really know what to do - she was clearly off it and couldn't have stayed at the party in that state. But, I felt terrible for treating her like a child and 'sending her home'. I spent most of the evening moping about because I was feeling a bit bemused by what had happened.

The next day I went and saw her and she thanked me for "looking after me". She felt she had completely embarrassed herself and felt bad. I apologised anyways because I felt bad. We laughed.