Lines of fun to bags of trouble: Young Australian addict reveals toll of $4500 a week cocaine use

He was a high flying corporate “at the top” of his game before cocaine turned him into a Sydney dial-a-dealer. This is what he’s noticed about his clients.

Nathan was 23 when he started using cocaine. It didn’t take long for his habit to become an addiction, and soon he found himself dealing the drug.

What had started as a fun time on a Friday night quickly descended into an expensive habit, costing him thousands of dollars a week – and then the hallucinations started. This is his story as told to Andrew Koubaridis for the Cocaine Inc. podcast.

‘I ENDED UP IN PSYCHOSIS’

“I started using coke about 10 or 11 years ago. And then for a very long time, I was selling coke and using coke as well.

Eventually, it gradually progressed into using on a Saturday night and then to using on a Friday and a Saturday night and then by the peak or at the height of my addiction I was using basically every day.

Nathan* started taking cocaine on a Friday, but was soon using most days of the week. Picture: Brad Fleet

I realised pretty quickly that people wanted it, needed it. People were always doing it. So I’d rather be the person who had it than the person who was looking for it.

I ended up in cocaine-induced psychosis a number of times. And I ended up in a psychiatric ward after a serious psychotic episode earlier this year.

I thought there were there were people that were after me. I thought at one point I was a Russian spy. I’ve thought that there were lights … in my TV, in my house that had cameras in them, that there were cameras around my house.

Anything you can sort of come up with when you become fixated or when you’re under the influence of cocaine, and it’s normally through lack of sleep and obviously too much of those stimulants that those thoughts come about.

‘I WAS SELLING IT AS WELL’

I think cocaine use is very prominent and prevalent in the private school circles and the upper socio-economic status … people whose incomes are a little bit higher, [because] you know, it’s an expensive drug. I guess part of the reason I had so much access to it was because I was selling it as well.

Nathan knew he needed help once he started hallucinated and ended up in a psychiatric ward. Picture: Brad Fleet

I think the reason cocaine is such a big issue is because there’s not so much crime caused when it comes to cocaine use … like people who are selling coke or who are buying coke aren’t necessarily robbing people to buy coke.

Listen to the first three episodes of the Cocaine Inc. podcast below:

‘THE NIGHT ENDS WHEN THE COKE RUNS OUT’

Being at the top of my game, so to speak, you know, when you’re the one with all the coke and the one who has it all, everybody wants to know you, everybody wants to be near you.

The problem is that people go from having one bag of coke while they’re out … to having two, three, four or five bags and then end up back at someone’s house sitting around a table sniffing coke. The night ends when the coke runs out.

It’s probably two or three beers before someone starts thinking about getting a bag. If someone uses a bit more frequently then they’ll be prepared and they’ll have coke with them at all times.

At his worst, Nathan was using up to $4500 of cocaine a week. Picture: Brad Fleet

It becomes the centrepiece of a night out. I think that like it’s really sad when you know people are sitting around and then all of a sudden the cocaine runs out people go ‘all right, well, I’m gonna go home’. It brings people together but then it pushes them away.

‘DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SYDNEY AND MELBOURNE’

I’ve lived in both Victoria and New South Wales … it’s rampant in both states.

The difference between New South Wales and Victoria is NSW will have someone who will have one phone and they’ll be messaging five, six, seven, eight people who will be driving around [getting cocaine] for them.

So when someone’s communicating with a number in NSW to buy coke, they’re not normally meeting the person who’s behind it. Whereas when you’re in Victoria nine times out of 10 people will put their name on it and they don’t necessarily have a driver.

It does make the weekend go longer. You sort of start off on Thursday, and then you might run up to work dusty on Friday, but then you know, when you get a few beers, on a Friday, you sort of back into it again.

‘GIRLS LOVE IT’

It’s not frowned upon by a lot of people. Girls often love it. People get a lot of confidence from it. But it goes it goes from being a drug that gives you confidence to being a drug that takes confidence completely away when you when you use too much of it.

Some people get super chatty on it – but when you have a bit, you just want more and more and more.

Cocaine is so easy to get in Sydney it can be delivered to your door in under 10 minutes.

Very rarely to people that say ‘never again’.

It doesn’t have that stigma … it’s not something that’s seen as dirty, it’s not like ice, it’s not looked at the same way as ice.

‘WHY I WENT TO REHAB’

So I went into rehabilitation, I went to rehab first, a 28 days in clinic, and then came to here and now from being here, you sort of learn, you learn about what it is that it’s making you do these drugs … and a lot of that comes down to not being able to see certain emotions and not addressing trauma that you might have from a young age.

Nathan said cocaine users like rolling up a note and snorting the drug.

[Drug use] is a way to moderate your emotions and sort of make you feel good. And then you know, once you start using it quite a bit, you need to use more and more to get that feeling. So it becomes … sort of destined for a blow up.

You get a lot of tools in rehab, which teach you to occupy your time – boredom is a massive thing as well. There’s different using right, there’s using socially, and then there’s using when you get to the point of using by yourself to try and pass time.

‘IT’S DANGEROUS BUT ... I DO LOVE THE DRUG’

It was different for me because I was dealing so it was a lot cheaper. I was buying big and selling small. If you put it down to what street value would be probably at my peak [it would] be probably $3500, $4000 or $4500.

It’s not hard to find coke – if you want to sniff it out anywhere you can normally find it at any bar.

I’m not gonna sit here and say that I don’t love cocaine because I do love it you know.

Nathan said it’s not hard to find coke, “if you want to sniff it out anywhere you can normally find it at any bar”. Picture: iStock

The psychosis aspect of it is so dangerous and so frightening, like it’s something that you see people associated with ice and other drugs, but it’s something that’s so prominent in cocaine use. And I also think that you become so dependent on it … and that runs out, then you know, where does everyone go? They all go home and then it’s like, do you need cocaine?

I could safely say, I could look at 50 of my mates and I could hand-pick 30 of them that have a cocaine problem.

I’m feelin’ really good [now]. Really positive. I have a really good outlook on life. I’m now sitting with emotions that I was previously avoiding. I feel like I’m able to get the tools to be able to overcome that boredom. I’ve just noticed that it’s so much better to have all the all the little stresses that were previously on my life that seemed major at the time, but were minor. I’m really happy to have those gone.”

*Nathan’s name has been changed to protect his privacy.

Originally published as Lines of fun to bags of trouble: Young Australian addict reveals toll of $4500 a week cocaine use