Diary of a Drug Fiend

264 The Diary of a Drug Fiend It was impossible for either of us to put forth the slightest effort without the help of the drug. It seemed logically impossible that we should be able to stop drugs by our own efforts ; and we knew only too well from experience that we had got to a state where even a few moments delay in taking a dose might result in complete collapse and death. “T shall leave you children alone for an hour to get | settled in, and then we might drive down and have lunch in the country, don’t you think? But of-course ' you'll be needing heroin all the time, and I notice that you have a plentiful supply, so there’s nothing to worry about there. It’s not taking the drug that does the ' . harm, it’s the not knowing what you take. SoI brought you a couple of charts marked off into hours ; and what I want you to do is to promise to make a cross in the proper space every time you take it.” The condition was easy enough. What we had been dreading, in spite of what Lamus had said, was the forcible suppression which we had experienced at Barley Grange, and which had brought us to such extremities. | But Lala’s last remark removed all our apprehensions. The matter was left entirely in our own hands. All we were asked was to keep a record of what we were doing. , I couldn’t see how the fact of putting a thing down could make any difference to the act itself. At that moment King Lamus came in, and kept us amused for half an hour with a perfectly absurd story of some trifling adventure that had happened to him that morning. But despite his vivacity and the interest which he excited, I found my hands instinctively going to the little wooden box in which I kept my heroin. I took a dose. Lamus immediately broke off his remarks. “Goon,” I said feebly. ‘“ I didn’t mean to interrupt.”’ “ That’s all right,’ said Lamus. ‘I’m only waiting for you to put it down.”