Drug hell for family (From Barry And District News)

Drug hell for family

A 14-YEAR-OLD Barry girl has spoken out about the hell her family has gone through because of her older sister"s addiction to heroin.

The youngster has written a poem to her 23-year-old addict sister, telling her how drugs have affected the family - and pleading with her to kick the habit before it is too late.

The teenager, who does not want to be named, sent the poem on Tuesday to Eastwood Park Prison near Bristol, where her sister is being held on remand for a number of drug-related crimes.

The 14-year-old refuses to visit her sister in prison and feels that a poem is the best way she can communicate her feelings.

She said: "This is the first time I"ve told my sister how I feel.

"When she reads the poem she will probably cry because she"s very sensitive, but I don"t think it will make her stop taking the drugs because nothing else has stopped her."

She said: "I have had loads of arguments with my sister about the drugs but sometimes her body is so low that she just doesn"t have the energy to speak.

"She has taken my clothes, and when I was 12 she was begging me for the last pennies in my money box so she could buy drugs.

"I used to be scared of her.

"I love her but she just needs to come off it. I"ve told her "you"re not my sister if you smoke smack"."

The youngster added: "Seeing how my sister has upset my mum has put me off taking drugs.

"Just the look of her, to look at someone so insecure and so desperate, I wouldn"t want to look like that just for a tiny buzz."

When asked if she had a message for her sister she said: "Just get off it - do it for mum and the family, but most of all do it for yourself."

Her sister starting taking drugs when she was just 13. She began smoking cannabis, progressed onto pills and moved onto heroin when she was about 18.

Her mother said: "She would stay out all night and when she was 14 she started stealing from supermarkets to fund her drug habit.

"When she was 18 or 19 I found her in the bathroom curled over on the floor with no pulse - she had a spoon and a sponge in one hand and the needle had fallen out of the other hand.

"She had to be resuscitated in the ambulance.

"I thought I had lost her and for a few seconds I wish I had - because then the battle with heroin would be over."

She added: "I"ve never visited her in prison and never will, and she knows that.

"In a way I"m lucky that I"ve just got one child on heroin. I know a family that has already lost their son and now their daughter is on it too."

Teenager's poem to her heroin addict sister

When you take your drugs

you think you look big.

But if you don"t stop now

I"m gunna have 2 start to dig,

And look down on you

Six feet under.

The look in mum"s eyes,

She"s just startin" to wonder

What turn you took wrong

From your spliff to your bong

Now to your smack,

Don"t you wish you could turn back?

But times have changed,

Now you"re locked up in chains.