Generation Trainspotting: Why heroin and crack use is soaring among the middle-aged

“I’m quite lucky to still be around,” says ex-heroin and crack cocaine user Les Chandler.

Les began taking drugs at just 13 years old and by his fifties he was on five different substances, had tried rehabilitation six times, had two marriage breakdowns and had spent time in prison.

“I was close to death,” he says.

Now aged 62, he has now been clean for more than five years.

He said over the years he had tried rehab numerous times but “often walked out after a few weeks”.

“The crossing point came when the agency I was at in London asked if I would like another go at detox and rehab.

“If I’m honest, I didn’t really want to but I had a partner at that time who seemed more concerned that I did, thankfully, and she kept nagging me to go."

‘I sort of realised I was getting old’

“Once I came off this time, my thinking got clearer and I looked at what I had done to myself. I thought, I’m lucky to still be alive. It all sort of hit home.

“I sort of realised I was getting old as well. It crept up on me. When you’re using opiates you’re living in sort of a deluded world and you don’t take anything on.

“It was a bit of a shock and I think that was the turning point. If I had carried on much longer I would have died.

“You’re living in sort of a deluded world and you don’t take anything on," says Les Chandler. Image: Addaction

“And my thinking when I was still using was, I’m going to die anyway, why stop now? That was how my thinking was before I went into detox.

“When I came out I asked myself, ‘Do I really want to die?’

“Luckily there was an answer inside that said no. That little flame has grown over the past five years as I’ve nurtured it.

“There’s more to Les Chandler than drugs and dying.”