Weirwolf (6 page)

So that was exactly what I did. In the 100m I got through my heat and then squeezed through the semi-final by a few hundredths of a second. I had a big smile from then on – my first Paralympics and my first final. I didn't care what I did after that.

The day of the final was another Atlanta scorcher. It was like a furnace out there. I thought the track might melt it was so hot. Still, hot weather made for fast times and this was a straight contest between my roommate Dave and the Swede HÃ¥kan Ericsson. They had been battling it out with each other all season, breaking world records and
competing for gold. On the night it was Dave's race. He gave an awesome performance, smashed the world record and won the gold. I finished seventh and was so pleased. All I wanted to do was avoid coming last. It seems so
unambitious
now, but that was my big target then.

I knew I had less of a chance in my other event, the 400m. I would have to set personal bests to get through to the final. I got through the first round but was eliminated in the semi-finals – but only by two hundredths of a second. I had produced personal bests in both races, but they weren't good enough. It was a real sign of just how much better I would have to be to progress in the more competitive races.

I was pleased with how I performed in Atlanta. After all, it was my first Paralympics and I didn't expect to win gold medals. But while I thought I could shut out all the external stuff – the poor crowds, the bad organisation, the lack of interest back home – I couldn't. I came away feeling desperately disappointed. I had really put the Games on a pedestal and they had let me down in a big way. When I got back to London I thought, ‘Why have I wasted my teenage years doing this?'

Atlanta showed me that people didn't give a stuff about Paralympic sport. I had got on that plane to Atlanta
expecting
the wow factor. Instead it just felt like a sideshow, with disabled athletes being paraded around like animals. When I look back on Atlanta now I can only wonder what Games prior to that must have been like. Was Seoul even worse? I had just assumed that because the Games were in North
America they would be blinding. I thought the Americans would want to be the best. But they just didn't seem to plan properly for them.

After Atlanta I did try to keep training and racing. But a lot of my motivation had been destroyed by my
experience
in the States. I was struggling to keep my place in the British team so, in December, four months after the Atlanta Games I had worked so hard to get to, I just thought, that's it. I quit. There's nothing in it for me any more.

My parents couldn't understand what I was doing. They thought I had so much to be proud of and said it would get better in the future. That was all that anyone said. But I just didn't feel that way. I had started too young. Got addicted to it too young. Not because of my parents
pushing
me: they never got involved with the training and never made me do anything I didn't want to do. All they did was take me to the races and back me up. They did everything I asked of them.

The fact was, my outlook on life was changing. I was seventeen and yet I had spent all my teenage years
training
and keeping fit. Everything I did was aimed at one day representing my country at the Paralympics. Well, now I had done it, and it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. All my mates were suddenly going out drinking and having a laugh and I just wanted a part of that. I felt left out.

On top of all this I had been involved in a relationship with a girl called Maxine whom I had started seeing before Atlanta. We had been together a while – my first serious
relationship. I met her at a youth club. She had made the first move. At that stage of my life I never chatted up girls. I was too scared. I waited until they approached me. I wasn't worried about my looks; I was pretty sure girls fancied me. But I always worried that they couldn't see past the chair. After a few rejections and knock-backs I retreated inside myself. I asked myself, why would anyone want to go out with me? A bloke in a wheelchair? I was full of self-doubt and although it really got on my nerves, there wasn't too much I could do to overcome it back then. So, to be in a relationship gave me a great sense of security. Imagine my horror when I got back home from America to find out she had started seeing other blokes while I was away. I was only young but it deeply affected me and I got a bit depressed. I asked myself, ‘Is it my disability? Is this why she's done this? Is this why I can't get a proper girlfriend?'

At that point I couldn't see a way through it all. My sport was supposed to be my escape from my disability – a way of turning my misfortune into something unique and special. But Atlanta had let me down. I was lost.

This was always going to be the hardest bit to write. As I sit here now, preparing to bare my soul, to confess my past sins, I'm finding it hard to breathe. Even saying the words aloud to the empty room is difficult. I go to open my mouth and start speaking but I feel blood rush to my face. I'm
full of self-loathing and shame. Did it really happen? Was it really that bad? After all, everyone's at it, aren't they?

But I know deep down there's no excuse. I should have known better. What a waste. What an idiot.

Normally I am so controlled but my anxiety is
overwhelming
. I take a sip of water and tell myself to get on with it. I imagine it's like a really tough training session that I just have to get through. At the end I will be better for it, but right now it feels like the world is going to end.

When I decided to write this book, I weighed up the pros and cons of coming clean on what really happened to me when I quit the sport after the Atlanta Games. For years I have kept it a closely guarded secret. Only my family, Jenny and my closest friends know what really went on. Even my dad doesn't know the truth.

Those who know me will understand. They may not even be that surprised.

But those who don't know me may jump to
conclusions
. I only hope that when people read my story they will understand that I was in a dark place. It was over ten years ago and I have learned from my mistakes.

Ultimately, the public will have to make their own minds up but I can only do what I feel to be right and right now I want to get this off my chest. I have been carrying it around for too long.

It all started when I was out at a party with some of my closest mates. Frustrated and bored, I was going out a lot. My mum and dad said I treated their house like a hotel.
With no job and no prospect of finding one, house music became my new escape. It was 1997 and although Blur and Oasis were still keeping the Britpop scene going, I was only interested in dance music. I used to go to a lot of clubs and raves in those days – Vauxhall, Camden, anywhere in London, really. Drugs were everywhere. A lot of my older mates had started getting involved a few years earlier. It was just a part of the social scene back then.

Going down the pub? Take drugs.

Going clubbing? Take drugs.

Going to a rave? Get completely out of your head.

The weird thing is I had always shunned it. In fact, I hated it. As far as I was concerned it was fine for my mates to mess about. It was their life and they could do what they liked. But, crucially, I didn't envy them or want to join in. I had my training and my Paralympic ambitions. Why would I get caught up in all that?

Besides, I was absolutely terrified of dying. I hated the idea that I would take something and then collapse or have a fit. I'd read all the scare stories about kids overheating and dying from taking pills and I didn't want to end up like that.

For a sportsman, too, the potential repercussions are enormous. OK, so this was different – purely recreational stuff. But drugs of any sort carry such a stigma for athletes. I don't want anyone to think that what I am about to confess in any way changes my attitude towards
performance
-enhancing drugs in sport. So, let me be clear. I do
not condone the use of any banned substances to cheat. Those who take steroids or EPO or whatever to get an advantage are undermining our sport and are ruining it for the rest. That's why I am always happy when I see people being caught. They deserve to be punished. The longer the ban, the better. But after the heart-breaking experience of Atlanta, all my boundaries went. I no longer had a reason to say no, a higher objective which required me to lead a clean, healthy lifestyle. I had always wanted to be one of the gang, to fit in. Now I could be. So, when my mates offered me drugs I started to get curious. I was tempted.

I would like to say I remember exactly where I was and who I was with when I first tried it, but I can't. Maybe it was the effects of what I took or perhaps, and this is far more likely, it's a self-defence mechanism, my
embarrassment
forcing me to erase the detail. All I know is that it was at a party and that one of my mates offered me some recreational drugs. At first I refused, I think, but then I gave in. It didn't really seem to do anything. Maybe I was a bit more energetic. Maybe the music sounded a bit better. But was this it? It hardly seemed to be worth all the fuss.

But after that first little experiment my inhibitions fell away. I had taken drugs and lived to tell the tale. It wasn't anywhere near as scary as I thought it was going to be. I was still taking my first tentative steps into the world of drugs and while I was definitely getting braver all the time, I didn't shed all my fears overnight.

For a while I kept it under control. It was just a thing I
did at weekends. I looked forward to the buzz of getting high. Meeting up with my mates, being one of the gang. The music was great and I was loving the sense of freedom and normality. When you are off your face, no one gives a shit if you are in a wheelchair. In fact it came with a few advantages. For example, I never had to queue to get into clubs – the bouncers always waved me through. And they never, ever searched me, while everyone else was given the cursory frisking and asked to turn out their pockets.

But things quickly got out of hand. As the months went on my barriers got lower and lower and the number of times I took drugs grew higher and higher. Suddenly I was taking a lot of drugs. I never strayed into the really hard stuff. My group of friends weren't into that sort of stuff. We might have been stupid but we weren't completely insane.

But looking back over this period I guess I must have been addicted in a mild way. Whether it was the escape I craved or the music, somehow it all came to be associated with getting out of it. I even started smoking cigarettes. I often ask myself, ‘How come I didn't do myself some
long-term
damage?' I guess the answer is luck. And money.

If I had been rolling in it then I could have developed a major problem. As it was I spent nearly all my spare cash on drink, drugs and going out. It was all right for my mates – they all had jobs and had a bit of spare cash. But here I was, a disabled bloke, no job and on benefits. I borrowed loads of money from my mum and dad and then just spent it on drugs.

Not all my mates were comfortable with what I was doing. They would ask me, ‘What are you doing, Dave? What about your racing?'

They tried to get me to see sense and stop. Although they were the ones who got me into the stuff, they never forced me to do it. It was always my choice.

My parents must have known something was going on – I used to creep back into the house after a big night out, go upstairs, have a shower and then go straight back out again so they didn't spot me. But when you are a parent you only see what you want to see. And I was very secretive. I never did anything in front of people they knew, anyone who might have allowed them to get an idea. My dad was already upset that I had turned my back on sport. He had invested so much time and money supporting me and now I was just wasting it all. He must have been heartbroken.

As for my brothers, Alan knew and he didn't like it one little bit. At one point he really lost it with me. But what could he do? He could only tell me. He couldn't hold my hand for twenty-four hours a day. He would say, ‘You know this won't last.' ‘It's just a phase,' he would say.

I was a smart arse back then, though: ‘Well, if it's just a phase, then I'll be OK, won't I? Look, Alan, I just don't want to go back to racing. I am done with it.'

‘Then you're wasting your life, aren't you?'

It just washed over me.

It was now two years on from Atlanta and I should have been fine-tuning my preparations to represent Great
Britain at the 1998 World Championships on home soil in Birmingham. Instead I was spending most of my time in nightclubs like the Colosseum in Vauxhall or the Camden Palace.

It was a very, very bad time. And after having started so cautiously, now I wasn't sure if I could stop. The next day I would feel like shit. You would ask yourself why you were doing it all just for a night out. My answer? Go out the following weekend and do it all over again.