Weirwolf Read online

  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.

  So what changed? How did I turn my life around?

  It just stopped being fun. After almost three years of hammering my brain with drugs, I was starting to get paranoid. I’ll never forget the moment I saw one bloke in Camden really freaking out. He had taken too much of something and was panicking. He thought people were trying to get him. That scared me. Why wasn’t that happening to me?

  A little while after that I was watching TV with a mate after a heavy night out. I was too wired to go to bed and needed something to help me get to sleep. Suddenly he started fitting. I can remember it so vividly. He was so scared he was shaking. I held him and told him he would be fine and that whatever it was he was experiencing would pass. Eventually it did pass. But it had really sobered me up. We both knew it had been quite serious. And for me, that was way too close to home. I had to stop.

  At that point I got a lucky break. I met Kaylie.

  For the last few years I hadn’t been interested in girls or getting involved in a relationship. I was having too much fun to get tied down. But Kaylie came along at exactly the right moment. I was attracted to her. She was a bit younger than me and my friends but she was quite streetwise. She knew what my mates and I were into. She liked a drink herself but she wasn’t into taking drugs or anything like that. I don’t know why but Kaylie wanted to help me get out of the mess I had made for myself. She knew I needed saving and she asked me the question the drugs had been blocking out for so long: ‘Dave, what exactly do you want to do in your life?’

  I had no answer. I wanted to work but I had lost all my confidence in the system. What employer was going to give me a chance? Who would look past the wheelchair? I wasn’t clever enough to study and, besides, I had tried that and couldn’t stand it. I needed money but my benefits gave me more than I would probably earn. What was the point? Wheelchair racing was the only thing I was any good at, I told her.

  ‘So why don’t you go back to it?’ she said.

  It sounded so simple. But I knew I had upset a lot of people. I had just vanished off the scene. I had missed the World Championships and I knew UK Athletics and my coaches were upset with me. I had been on another planet. I had let a lot of people down. No one really tried to find me while I was out of the sport. My mum had a few phone calls from people in the sport but I wasn’t interested. It must have been so upsetting for my parents because they knew that I could have had a good career.

  The road back would be long and painful. I returned to training slowly, seeking out my old coaches, Chas and Dan. They said they were prepared to pick up where we left off but that there would be some new ground rules. ‘We don’t know what you have been up to,’ they told me. ‘And frankly we don’t care. But if you are coming training, we are here at this time on these days. Don’t let us down.’

  So I had to
prove a point. At first, it was hard. Even doing a few laps was difficult. I had put on a fair bit of weight and was wheezing from smoking fags for three years. I was in terrible shape. But I kept at it. I went to training three times a week, just for something else to do. Something to keep me from falling back into bad habits. A combination of Kaylie’s encouragement, the training and my sheer stubbornness helped me get through it. After a while – maybe three months – I felt like I had turned a corner. In the back of my mind I was a bit worried about what might happen if I really pushed my body. After all the punishment it had taken, how might it react? Would it trigger something really nasty – either mental or physical? And how long does this shit stay in your system? What if I want to race competitively again and get drug tested? Will it always be there?

  At first, I didn’t want to think about racing and competing again. Dan was going to the Sydney Paralympics in the autumn of 2000 and although I was really excited for him, I didn’t think it was going to bother me too much.

  But when I saw it on TV I broke down. I couldn’t stop crying. I kept asking myself, ‘What have I done?’

  Seeing those golden images from Australia – Tanni and all the other British athletes winning medals, the crowds, the atmosphere. It just killed me. I couldn’t help but feel that I had tossed away four years of my life. And on what?

  Absolutely nothing. I couldn’t even remember most of it. It was just so sad. I cried for hours and hours.

  Even now, I still feel that sense of regret. Things have turned out OK but I am still deeply ashamed and embarrassed by what I did. I wish it hadn’t happened and I hate to think how my kids and other members of my family who didn’t know all this will react when they read this and see how stupid I was. As a parent now, I would hate my three children to go anywhere near drugs. If there is one good thing to come out of the experience it is that I totally understand the damage people can do themselves. I was lucky: I don’t seem to have done myself any harm. Equally, people shouldn’t get the wrong impression about what went on. I wasn’t some kind of junkie. I wasn’t. It was a terrible phase of my life, but it was part of growing up. Rebelling. And, ultimately – like it or not – it is part of my story.

  And how do I feel now that I have got it off my chest?

  Lighter. Like a load has been lifted from my shoulders. It was such a long time ago and there is something comforting in knowing you have been through something like that and survived. In fact, I know it made me stronger, helped shape my character.

  The Sydney Games was the wake-up call I needed. Even though I had started training again it wasn’t until the Games started that it really hit home. I had let so many people down: my family, my coaches and myself. I had let my sport down. Now, I finally knew that this was what I wanted. As long as I could race I would never miss a Paralympics again.

  CHAPTER 5

  A SECOND CHANCE

  Watching the Sydney Olympics and Paralympics in the autumn of 2000 was a devastating experience. For the rest of the nation, getting up early to see Sir Steve Redgrave winning his fifth Olympic gold medal or Tanni Grey-Thompson winning her fourth in the Paralympics must have been a joyous celebration. The Olympics had set a new gold standard – but it was the way the Australians embraced the Paralympics that really changed the game.

  The organisers sold a record 1.2 million tickets and for the first time it felt like the Paralympics was being treated seriously. Compared to Atlanta, this was another world. After the Olympics closing ceremony Australians just couldn’t accept that the party was over. They threw themselves just as enthusiastically into the Paralympics. There were sell-out crowds, the media gave it big coverage and, for the first time, thanks in part to the introduction of National Lottery funding a few years earlier, there was a real turnaround in British fortunes. The Australian team stole the show but, for me, Tanni produced the outstanding performance of the Games, winning the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m. Her achievements in Sydney were a real inspiration to me.

  These were exciting times for British sport and yet I was currently playing no part in it. Seeing Tanni do so well was amazing but it left me feeling distraught. I have always loved competing for my country – maybe it’s my dad’s army upbringing or growing up on a working-class council estate. You are just taught to love being English and British. I feel so passionate about pulling on the GB vest and doing battle for my country. I knew I owed my country some medals.

  I had packed in taking drugs long before Sydney. Kaylie had helped me see sense. I was back training again with Chas and Dan Sadler and, while it was tough and my body was in a mess, it felt good to have a focus again. But at that point I thought representing my country again was just a pipe dream. The training was just a distraction – something to keep my mind off all the other rubbish. While I dearly wanted a second chance and to line up at the Athens Paralympics in 2004, deep down I didn’t really believe I could come back.

  But at least I now had a routine in my life. I was training three days a week and getting back into the swing of things. At home, things were a bit more settled. I was twenty-one now and had been with Kaylie for about a year. It was my first real relationship and back then she was my saviour. She really helped get my head straight. I was now totally focused on racing again.

  To be honest, I didn’t have too many alternatives. Every time I went to the job centre it was a pretty depressing experience. I didn’t want an office job. That wasn’t me. I couldn’t contemplate sitting behind a desk doing basic filing and answering the phone. It would have driven me mad. From time to time, more practical jobs would come up. Those were much more interesting. I went for one job at a small electronics company a couple of miles away. It involved soldering parts, so I went along for an interview and did the little test every candidate was asked to do. I am pretty sure I passed but in the end the job was given to someone else, someone with more experience. And yet on the application form it specifically said you didn’t need experience. I felt so dejected I told the job centre I was no longer interested in finding work. I was done. Whenever I was sat in a waiting room for an interview and someone able bodied came in, I knew that was it. Before I had even said a word. It was a waste of time. I got fed up with being judged as stupid. No one was looking at me as a person, they just saw my chair.

  These days it’s very different. It’s changed dramatically. If I was in that situation now, having to go for those same jobs, I would feel far more comfortable, like I had a genuine chance. Of course, some companies do it because they feel they have to; it’s just a token gesture. A lot of people would resent that or see it as patronising. I don’t. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest. I am not going to quibble with anything which gives disabled people a chance of earning money and having a career. As far as I am concerned, it’s great.

  But racing was my only option back then. It was the only thing that offered me a chance of making something of my life and earning some money, even if it wasn’t very much. The first priority was to get myself back into shape. In that first year or so I didn’t do a lot of racing. I needed to get up to speed. Surprisingly, the body wasn’t too bad. But I would have loads of mood swings and get very low and tired. I still get them now when I train too much. That’s why I always go off and train in the morning, then come back in the afternoon. Then the kids can scream all they like, it just washes over me. In one ear and out the other. But the mood swings I get now are nothing compared to the downs I would get then. I guess it was something to do with the drugs.

  After a while, training without racing lost its attraction. Things were going all right with Chas and Dan but it had been two years since I had come back and now I needed to step up a gear. I needed a kick up the arse. So I called Jenny.

  I knew her number off by heart – I had been ringing it since I was ten. She knew my voice straight away. I told her I needed some help. At first she was worried about how Chas and Dan would react. But I explained that Chas was getting on a bit and that Dan had decided t
o go off and join the police. They were fine about it and had even encouraged me to get back in touch with her. I went down and met her on a Monday night down at the track. We talked about how I wanted to be part of the Great Britain team again. How I wanted to get to Athens.

  ‘Do you think it’s realistic?’ I asked her.

  ‘Yes. I’ll get you there, Dave.’

  But it was going to hurt. Jenny nearly killed me. She made me work so hard. I realised that all this time I had been coasting. There were times when I used to say to Chas or Dan, I don’t fancy this drill or that drill or I’m not really in the mood today. Jenny made it clear from the very beginning that she wouldn’t accept anything like that. If I wasn’t prepared to do what she told me, it was over. Finished, there and then. I needed that boot up the arse; I needed to be pushed.

  Within a month I noticed the difference. My speed was picking up and my body was getting stronger all the time. In the early part of 2002 I joined up with some of the other British athletes on a warm-weather training trip in Malaga. It went really well and as I approached the London Marathon – my first big race since I had turned my back on the sport – I knew I was in really good shape.

  From the moment I first got hooked on wheelchair racing as a kid, winning the London Marathon had been my big ambition. It was the race I grew up watching and dreaming about. The one race I always watched which showed that disabled athletes could compete alongside those who were able bodied.

  Lining up for the start, I felt an overwhelming sense of pride and excitement. I couldn’t believe I was here after everything I had been through. Now I had to prove to Jenny, my family and myself that I could win.