He Spent £1 Million on Drugs, What Next? | Richard Chapman

So I needed to stop taking drugs and I needed to find a way to do that.

from my experience of my brother so my brother he was addicted to ketamine yeah for probably the better part of four years before he took his life in 2015 and i would often the context of my relationship with my brother so i was one of four my older brother and sister jerry and alex they're still here and jerry and alex had moved out and And me and Liam were living with my dad when my dad had remarried.

My dad started this business, the furniture business, and he'd done really well for himself.

So he was always on holiday, always enjoying himself.

And that left me and Liam with a big house, free.

You can imagine, two brothers, teenagers, house free.

yeah we had a lot of fun together put it that way um but then there was also the negative side of it there was him on ketamine the better part of most days um and we'd go out and we'd socialize and i would understand why some people recreational would take certain drugs but i never understood why anybody would take ketamine especially for him on a tuesday afternoon in the middle of the day and i'd come home and he'd be on the floor because he put himself in a kettle And there were days where he would be in agony because he'd done that much damage to his kidneys and his liver.

And he'd be in a hospital bed.

Me and my mum would take him and I'd go, what the fuck are you doing? Why do you keep taking this drug? And obviously at this point, I'm only 19 years old.

It's over 10 years ago.

I don't know what I know now.

but he would always say it's an escape from reality.

And at that point I'd be like, what the fuck you on about? Like, why do you need to escape reality? Now knowing what I know now, I understand that it was obviously severely depressed and for him, his drug of choice was ketamine because he said it took him to an alternative universe and that was his escapism.

And now I look back and I think the thing I regret the most about the way that I treat my brother was, Why could I have not just said to him, well, let's work on your reality.

What's so wrong with your reality? Let's work on that if that's the problem.

We get your reality right.

You don't need to take this awful drug anymore.

Was that the same for you? Was it the reality that you were trying to escape?

I think I was trying to...

I was trying to escape me.

You know, like you, you know, mum and dad, pretty well off.

Not wanting for anything.

Great house, great home.

But something within me wasn't sitting right.

I wasn't comfortable.