With ketamine use rising across the UK, many people don’t realise how quickly physical and mental health problems can appear with regular ketamine use. As part of our national Know Your K campaign, we've been speaking to people affected by ketamine.
It got me wrecked and that's what I wanted - I wanted to be wrecked. It was naughty, it was exciting, it was different.
Emily first tried drugs at the age of 14 when she smoked marijuana but hated it. She started drinking during this time, but it wasn’t until she was 18 when she used drugs again.
Initially it was cocaine which was then replaced by ketamine.
Emily describes herself as a ‘really sociable person who is up for anything’ and wanted to go on the ‘fastest rides’.
“When I first did cocaine at a party, I remember thinking, ‘oh, is that it?’” said Emily.
“But I kept accepting it when it was offered and before I knew it, I needed it for a night out.”
In her late teens and early 20s, Emily got into the raving scene where the use of ketamine was widespread, she says.
She admits that she was initially scared of ketamine because she saw the effect it had on people that were using it at the raves.
“These people didn’t know what was going on and I thought to myself I didn’t want to be like that,” she said.
However, during one rave, she ran out of cocaine and was offered ketamine.
“I loved ketamine from the first time I used it – it really hit me hard,” she said.
“It got me wrecked and that's what I wanted - I wanted to be wrecked. It was naughty, it was exciting, it was different.”
Though she would do both cocaine and ketamine, slowly over time, ketamine took over as it was so much cheaper and she was ‘guaranteed to get a proper good effect’.
Emily quickly grew a tolerance to ketamine so had to use it in large quantities which led to crippling abdominal cramps. She was rushed to hospital on a few occasions as she didn’t realise it was the ketamine causing the pain.
Doctors thought they may have to do a urinary catheterisation because she wasn’t fully emptying her bladder.
“I did it from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to bed,” she said.
In her mid 20s, Emily started selling ketamine with her boyfriend at the time. They took huge risks in getting a hold of ketamine.
“We were just going around festivals, around Europe just doing and selling drugs. You can put ketamine in water and then steam it to make powder. I’ve taken litres of it on ferries. I even bought it back from Cambodia. We found a chemist there who was selling vials of it and we brought a load back in hairspray bottles,” she said.
In the subsequent years, from the age of 28-34, she used crack and heroin but ketamine was always a constant.
The combination of crack and heroin is what Emily says ‘broke’ her and led her to enter rehab at 28.
“Crack made me so hyper and put me on edge that I needed ketamine to come down,” she said.
After coming out of rehab, she switched from ketamine to heroin because of the damage ketamine was doing to her body.
“Heroin is more dangerous in the sense that you may overdose on it but of all the drugs, ketamine is the one that has by far the worst long term consequences,” said Emily.
Emily said the next seven years were ‘horrific’.
“I was just absolutely feral in Bristol where I lived for 13 years, things got really dark,” said Emily.
“I was homeless. Stealing constantly. I'd never been a thief, but when heroin came in, I'd do anything for that drug. I also did weird things on webcam, which was very degrading and latching on to people with drugs - I did whatever it took.”
“My weight dropped to seven stones. I am 11 stones now.”
She was taken in for a few weeks by a man who was dying as a result of his drug use.
“We had this chat one night and he said his mum never got to see him clean, she died whilst he was using. He said ‘if you have any help, take it because you will regret it’. He managed to persuade me to contact my mum.”
Emily says she was ‘completely broken’ at this point.
“I was in active addiction for 17 years. The only break I'd ever had was the three months, that I was in rehab when I was 28.”
Emily moved to Thailand for rehab because a friend of her mum’s knew someone who had opened a facility there.
Emily stayed there for four months.
When she came back to the UK, she moved to Hereford where her parents lived. She knew she could fall back into addiction if she went back to Bristol.
It was in Herford where she found Turning Point.
“I was there for every single recovery skills group and now I am peer mentor” she said.
“I am taking things really slow and working to build a firm foundation. I just need to get well.
Emily will be three years sober in February.
Initially, the damage to her bladder led to doctors suggesting that she might need to have a bladder removed.
However, she had a procedure called cystoplasty (bladder augmentation) done which has greatly improved her life. Before the procedure her bladder was only able to hold 85 millilitres but now that has increased to 750 millilitres.
She describes it as a ‘miracle’ that she hasn’t had to have her bladder removed.