Navigating university under the influence

In the bustling corridors of University High, amidst the chatter and clatter of student life, lies a hidden reality. Grace Cushnie speaks to Esme*, a student whose daily routines are tainted with addiction. Through her journey, we uncover the silent struggles faced by many students, urging for greater support and awareness to break the cycle of dependency gripping our campuses.

She heads to class like the other students. A cute tote back carries her laptop, Starbucks cup in hand, smelling like Billie Eilish’s vanilla perfume. Something is a bit different, though. Her eyes roll back, she stumbles, using the walls to guide her straight to the classroom. Her bra, filled with plastic baggies of ivory powders, clings to a pale, shaking body.

She pulls out a chair and sits, slumping down as a dead body would. She looks around at the others, those alive, around her. She takes a sip of her coffee to clear the sour powder, which is settling in the back of her throat as it drips from her nasal passage. Do not gag, she thinks. No need to draw attention.

She whips out her laptop and stares forward, falling into a daze which lasts until she hears the chairs of those around her, warning that the class is over.

Get up. Do not fall. Act normal.

This was the life of Esme*, a student who, beneath the veneer of academic potential, struggled against drug addiction. It threatened to eclipse her every aspiration.

She has suffered with major depression since very early teens which, as she has learnt, seems to make her very susceptible to addictions. It started with self-harm, then alcohol, smoking and, eventually, drugs.

‘It just seemed to come out of nowhere’, she says.

‘I first tried drugs when I was 18, at a flat party with two girls I had never met before, in the midst of the pandemic.

‘It was a bad time for everyone, of course, but especially those at university, everyone was locked away in a covid cupboard. No one was meeting anyone. We were not really making those first-year friendships. 

‘I happened to run into these two girls on a smoke break, scoring myself an invite.

‘So, there we were, sat on one of their beds. “Should we get some drugs?” It seemed random, but desperate for a connection I shrugged my shoulder and found myself at my university campus looking for a man, all of us clueless to what he looked like. A drug dealer, probably baggy dark clothes? Correct. An awkward exchange and we were on our way back to that bed. It was quite anticlimactic, actually. Three girls sat on a bed staring at a bag of cocaine, waiting for it to do something. One of them said they had seen someone do it with a key, and got up to get her handbag. We took turns sniffing the powder like we were passing around a bottle, each taking a little sip and passing it along.

‘I never felt anything.

‘I never spoke to either of them again.’

The next time was a few weeks later.

‘I had actually made friends at this point, good ones.

‘Another flat party, of course.

‘“Should we get a bag?”

‘This time was much more exciting.

‘I tried ketamine for the first time.

‘It is hard to explain to those who have never tried it. Tingles, from your fingertips to your toes. You have this lightness about you, the heaviness that sits on your chest floats above it. The corners of your lips always upturned, not even necessarily in a smile, just never frowning. You feel energetic, a need to dance and sing and laugh. It has the ability to remove stress just for a little while.

‘I was hooked.

‘It was my party drug for a while, I always had a bag in my bra ready for each occasion.

‘Then, I tried MDMA.

‘My heart bounced off my rib cages, I felt like I could run a marathon while simultaneously wanting to sit and stare at the ceiling and think. There was no anger in me. In that moment, you can forgive anyone for anything, you can love someone you any other time couldn’t stand. You are alert and excited and happy to be alive. You are euphoric. You are reminded life is good.

‘So those were my next obsession, the little crystals accompanied me on all of my nights out.

‘I would roam the streets from one venture to the next with my jaw swinging, and with moons as pupils.

‘This carried on until the night I overdosed.

‘It started off a normal night, in a friend’s flat with a few drinks and some drum and bass shouting over us. And, of course, the drugs.

‘This night fell into one of my depressive episodes, and because of it the drugs just weren’t taking the effect they normally would.

‘I decided to start taking the crystals as they are, without crushing them. I swallowed two. Then a few more.

‘In 15 minutes, I was on the floor.

‘I eventually managed to get myself up and, sneakily so that the others wouldn’t question me, scrambled to my own flat.

‘I woke up 3 days later. My mouth full of blood, my bed torn apart, and my mother’s calls unanswered. I had been gurning in my sleep, chewing the inside of my mouth to shreds. I had tossed and turned so heavily that my pillows were ripped to shreds. My hair was matted into a heavy knot at the back of my head, it took hours and two bottles of conditioner to untangle. I could tell it was a fever that had broken that caused me to wake up, and I was kind of surprised to have actually awoken. How am I alive?

‘Nevertheless, I was back at it at the weekend.

‘Have you heard the song Weekend by Mac Miller? It was my anthem during this time.

‘Well, then summer came around. I was back at home. Not prime drug-taking opportunities. I would take a baggy with me on a weekend away or a night out, but I still really slowed down.

‘Summer flashed by, as it often does.

‘I was back at uni. A different flat with different people, but still with friends I carried over the year.

‘Normality came back, as did the depression. Euphoric nights, blown through high, returned too.

‘This year, though, my mental health was worse than it had ever been before.

‘Those nights of getting high became more often, then earlier, and then in bull blown daytime hours. I changed from powder to pills, and started using drugs as some messed up little antidepressant, convinced I could cure my depression with my chill pills.

‘At first, it seemed like it could actually work. My depression comes in waves, and was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed. It felt like such an inconvenience when I was trying to get through university. I was constantly behind because I was depressed, which made me so stressed that I could never break out of my depressive episodes.

‘Low and behold, I found a cure! Powders, crystals, pills… I was healed.

‘It worked for a while.

‘Then I became a zombie.

‘I would sleep days away, stumble through the halls of university with dead eyes and a heavy soul. I couldn’t feel anything, I have so many scars from burns and cuts that I would have never noticed actually happening. My friends started to notice I wasn’t right. They tried to intervene. I got angry and sometimes violent with them.

‘I feel awful every time I think about what I did to them. I was, and still am, so lucky to have such amazing people around me.

‘Eventually even teachers got involved. It was above and beyond when you think about it, I was still doing the work and getting it in on time, even doing pretty well. They noticed and intervened even though it wasn’t necessarily in the job role.

‘Such amazing people around me, but nothing they did truly made me clean.

‘That was all on me.

‘Eventually, I decided I’d had enough of feeling so empty. I flushed my pills, deciding that getting rid of temptation was the only thing that would motivate me. It was physically painful, both the flushing and what came afterwards. I had never really known what it was to cold turkey being clean before. I did not know it would hurt. I cried straight for about four days, I was so dehydrated. I bed rotted. I did not have the strength to shower or eat or change my clothes. My hair once again became matted, and I felt like I was reliving my overdose. I even considered calling an ambulance because I had a fever that would not break and I had what I can only describe as a fit.

‘That was four months ago. I have been clean for four months. I have been alive, completely, for four months.’

According to the national survey of 2810 students by the National Union of Students in 2018, Esme was one out of the two in five students who frequently use drugs in the UK, and part of the 56% that have used at least once.

She says: ‘I did not know of anywhere to get help, if there was something it was definitely not well advertised or known of’.

More needs to be done to help students get out of this painful cycle.

Esme’s* name has been changed for anonymity to ensure privacy over this personal matter.