Dad offered me my first crystal meth like it was a cup of PG Tips
James Lubbock is just a normal student – his father is a middle class, middle-aged and very well respected Jewish coin dealer.
Until one day James’ father Richard unexpectedly hits the gay club scene of London – trading in coin dealing for drug dealing.
As James gets to grips with his new reality, will he save his broken dad or be dragged down with him?
This is the incredible true story of the UK’S biggest crystal meth drug dealer and his son. In an excerpt from his book Breaking Dad, James decides to sample the crystal meth his father is selling…
Weed: OK. Everyone smokes a cigarette at some point, so smoking a joint was never such a leap.
Pills: hmm, all right. Everyone pops a pill for something at some point, be it paracetamol or Valium. What’s the difference if there’s a little MDMA in that pill?
Cocaine: snorting something up your nose seemed like taking it to the next level – there was no routine comparison in daily life for it that I could think of, but so many people did it in the circles I moved in, in the City, in media, advertising and marketing, that it couldn’t be wrong or dangerous, could it?
But I’d never envisioned smoking something from a crack pipe. That, for me, was one step too far, it felt like a destructive move, something you would try if you got in with that mythical wrong crowd your parents always warned you about, something you would do only if you’d lost all self-respect. But when it’s your own dad offering you a puff, the context completely changes.
When he invited me to have a try, it was like he’d asked if I wanted a cup of PG Tips – it felt like there was no danger. It couldn’t have been a safer environment: I was in my dad’s home, it was stuff my old man was smoking and, come on, if he’s doing it then why can’t I?
To my mates like Jake and Will, Dad was both a legend and a laughing stock. He had killed the buzz of illegal things we could do as a rite of passage as well as made some of them possible. And here he was doing it again. Offering me an experience I had never tried before. There’s also no denying that that moment before you do something new for the first time – whether it’s jumping out of a plane, driving a car on your own after passing your test or taking a new drug – the novelty itself enhances the adrenaline rush.
So I admit, beneath all my frustration with Dad I was both curious and excited to try the meth. It might even take the edge off this moment, I thought.
With my mum terminally ill and my dad now a drug dealer, you won’t be surprised to know I was feeling a little vulnerable. I felt like things were out of control, and that’s when drugs can seem awfully medicinal.