Trigger warning
My name is Liv. I'm 26 years old.
My hobbies are basically anything creative, and anything to do with books, painting, reading, writing. I play the ukulele, and I do a lot of musical theatre related things.
Liv’s story
I used ketamine for about five years, on and off, roughly. I sort of always had addictive tendencies throughout childhood and adolescence anyway, and sort of started on other substances a lot younger. I was 18, I went to university and it was just the easiest drug to get in Birmingham, where I was living. And my friend introduced it to me and I was kind of, you know, whatever was in front of me with given to me I was going to take. So I continued to take it mostly due to mental illness. I struggle quite severely with various diagnoses, and yeah, mostly to numb reality, to escape from the life I was living. Trauma as well played a big part in my drug and alcohol addiction.
At the time whilst using it didn't really particularly notice anything, it was more when I quit that I started to realise my bladder was not as, it just wasn't quite the same as it used to be. You know, frequency of needing to go to the toilet was increased, sort of some pain here and there. I'm very, very lucky that it was just that, really, because I was completely unaware of the health implications.
I've experienced an awful lot of overdoses, both intentional and accidental, and particularly on mixing ketamine and cocaine, along with prescription drugs and alcohol. I experienced seizures as well. And at the sort of the rock bottom that got me into recovery, I lost consciousness because of an intentional overdose. And my dad had to perform CPR on me whilst waiting for the ambulance, and I was officially dead for a few minutes. And then I was on life support in a coma for a few days. And, yeah, that was kind of the worst of the worst. And I'm still quite traumatised by being on life support and waking up struggling with a tube down your throat is, yeah, that's definitely a rock bottom if I've ever heard one.
I would say that that I've never felt I fit in anywhere I was, especially school. The way I describe it is I feel like I wasn't made for this world. Like I'm sort of learning how to live in a world that wasn't built for me. And that's extremely challenging. Yeah, I definitely underestimated the part my feeling of being very other and sort of different from everyone else. That was, yeah, drugs helped me fit in when I couldn't.
Ketamine and others influenced my life, very, very negatively in terms of relationships. I've sort of never really had even a sort of close friendship last more than two years, because I would always end up becoming too much of a, you know, a liability or too much of a, you know, dependency. But especially with ketamine, because it's so sort of psychedelic and other worldly, it very much did not help my detachment from reality and my dissociations and hallucinations, you know, sort of the line between what was my mental illness and what was drugs became extremely blurred. And I would say most of my symptoms were worsened by ketamine. And I found it quite difficult to stop using when I was using it daily, not just because of the physical dependency, but because of when you come back to reality it's very different and you don't quite want to be there.
So I went to university at 18 and yeah, just completely I mean, in terms of progression, my drug use went from only with friends to on my own. It meant that I, unfortunately, had to give up my course, it was in English and writing, and writing is something that is a huge part of my life. And I did love aspects of it, I just wasn't well enough to be there. Yeah, so sadly, I had to leave that course.
I was under Reach, from the age of 18, until two years ago. I was also under We Are With You, which is now With You. I didn't really know I was an addict, I just thought that I was someone that enjoyed having fun. And so it was my Reach worker who I basically owe my life to because he said, you know, there's an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting two doors down from your house. And he went, you've got no excuse that you can't go because it's by your house. And so I went to a meeting and I haven't stopped going to meetings since and I've been in NA (Narcotics Anonymous) for about two years now, and in AA for about a year or so. And yeah, those rooms saved my life.
I am in recovery. I've come off of everything except from the medications prescribed. What made me quit was the fact I knew I was going to die because I did, essentially, and there's a pain about dying that I cannot explain to anyone because there aren’t words for it. But it's a very, very scary place to be. And what I suddenly saw what I was doing to my dad was a huge motivator, because he used to live his life waiting for that phone call, not knowing whether I was going to be breathing in the middle of the night and come check on me, and no parent should live like that. And, I was also denied access to my beautiful nieces who I have a really amazing connection with. And they’re now back in my life, and that's one of the biggest blessings of recovery is my dad also can now sleep at night without worrying that I'm not going to be in there in the morning.
My dad was and is my biggest support network. He's just been fantastic. In his words, he knew I needed time, space and peace, and security. Because I never had any of those when I was growing up with my mother. And he provided those, and that was sort of the environment I was able to recover in, unlike every other one I'd been in before. He drove me to meetings whenever I asked him to, you know, he's my best friend, and yeah, definitely wouldn't be here without him. Family is a huge motivator but also just I want to live a life worth living now. I don't want to live in that hell where, you know, nothing else exists except from drugs. Whereas now I've got so much in my life that I didn't have before.
I'm in the best place now that I've been in my entire life with my mental illnesses, with my neurodivergence, with basically everything sleep routine, health, you know, just basically every single box that could be ticked, as in, in terms of improvements, yeah. I was somebody who was self-harming daily and had more suicide attempts than I can actually count. And I haven't been in hospital in the last two years since I quit. I now have a sleep pattern, I'm a morning person now, which I never thought would happen, I wake up at 7AM every day.
You know, I'm starting a nursing course in a few weeks. I'm quite heavily involved with some volunteering work, especially to do with lived experience, recovery from drugs and alcohol addiction, which is wonderful to be able to be paying things forward and giving back and helping my community, which is something I never, ever thought I would do in active addiction because I was me centred. And I go to a musical theatre group, and that's a huge passion of mine that I haven't done for years and years and years that I'm now doing again. And just things like, I was always a bookworm growing up, throughout addiction I barely touched a book. Now I read like two books a week because I make sure I have time to read.
My health has improved massively, you know, I no longer have gum disease symptoms. I no longer have chronic nosebleeds. I no longer have horrendous heart palpitations all the time and sweats and shakes and, you know, all of that. And I'm able to go to bed at night feeling grateful for the day and things like a cup of tea or or the smell of a new book. I don't isolate, I used to be completely on my own and now I try and do things most days. Just because you feel like you want everything to end, doesn't mean things aren't going to get good in the future. I spent my whole life thinking I wouldn't make it past 16, wouldn't make it past 18, wouldn't make it past 20. And now I'm focusing on positives and making my health better and actually living a life that's worth living. But yeah, addiction isn't the end of the road. It doesn't have to be.
If I could give any advice to someone who's using ketamine, is to educate yourself about what's the consequences or possible consequences of it can be. Because, you know, I've met so many young people who've got, you know, catheter bags already at 21, and that just shouldn't be happening, it's just heartbreaking. And that's why I count myself lucky in terms of that. Harm reduction would be my biggest piece of advice, because I don't think it's particularly, what's the word, realistic, to say I would just, you know, quit and go to NA, and you're going to be fine. Reduce it slowly if that's what works for you, learn what works for you. Make yourself aware of the especially the urological consequences. But also the psychological ones as well.
My harm reduction sort of tips if you're a recreational user, make sure that you can use around other people the best you can, being isolated is always a bit bit more risky. Maybe try and be aware of mixing it with other substances. Because yeah, in my experience, that doesn't end well. Having, some naloxone around is always a really great piece of advice, because a lot nowadays, especially ketamine, is mixed with loads of different things and particularly some, you know, opiates like fentanyl or synthetic opioids. And the naloxone will treat that side of an overdose if that's happening and there aren't really any downsides to administering it if someone's in a sort of crisis. To be fair, when I was using drugs, I didn't actually know you could get your drugs tested. And knowing that now, I think that would be a really great piece of advice for anyone who's a recreational user or already any type of user. Try and get them tested, especially at festivals, I think that's become a more popular thing. You can also, through Reach and WithYou, get your drugs tested through them, which is great. Yeah, because you never actually know what you're taking really.
If you or someone you know is struggling with ketamine addiction, you are not alone. Free and confidential support is available:
- BCP - WithYou
Call 01202 558855 or visit wearewithyou.org.uk - Dorset - Reach
Call 0800 043 465 or visit waythrough.org.uk/reach