A MOTHER'S love is often all addicts have left when they reach rock bottom. Such love prompted a Blackburn woman to join our to Drive Out Drugs campaign and tell her harrowing story. She works in the community and has asked us not to print her name and address to protect her family.

I FEEL I must write this letter after reading the letter in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph on August 13 from an anonymous writer.

I have been following the drugs problems printed over the last few weeks and each letter I read makes my situation rear its ugly head like it only happened yesterday.

My son is a heroin addict and over the last four years my life has been hell. It all came to light one afternoon, my son was in his bedroom, as usual, playing his music very loud.

I called several times for him to turn it down but there was no answer, this was not unusual, I thought he was just ignoring me.

After a few minutes I could stand it no longer and my husband banged on his door, there was still no reply so he kicked the door open.

The scene was horrific, my son was knelt over with his head in a waste paper bin, he had a leather belt tight around his arm and a needle stuck in his vein.

There were syringes all over the bedroom floor, blood squirted up the wall and my son was not breathing, he was purple and I remember thinking "he has killed himself because he could not get a job".

I breathed life back into his body for what seemed like ages, then my husband took over while I rang for the paramedics. It was like a horror film, each time we stopped breathing for him he went purple again, but you could see his heart was pounding so hard in his chest I thought it was going to burst.

At last the ambulance arrived and thank God they saved his life.

When he came round in the hospital he was so sorry and upset, he said that he had wanted to tell us for ages about his addiction but now that it was all out in the open he could deal with it and get better.

That was just the beginning, not the end! He thought now that we knew about it he could carry on doing it.

He went from bad to worse. Stealing to feed his habit, lying, borrowing money, selling everything he owned, even the clothes off his back. Anything to get a fix.

I could not believe what was happened and I could not believe I did not know what was going on under my own roof.

Then all the little things in the back of my mind fitted together, that's where all my spoons had gone, that's where the tin foil went, the vinegar, gas lighters with the tops missing, it all fitted together but it was too late.

I blamed myself, I should have known, that's what I thought then. It has taken me four years to stop blaming myself.

He spent several times in prison for stealing and even for selling heroin to feed his own habit. Each time he went in prison he said it was his last. I even sent him to America to live with his sister for six months to get him away from the drug scene here but he had not got a visa to stay and he came back to Blackburn and, after two days, he was back on it again.

As things are now he does not live at home. I threw him out so many times that I lost count. He now has his own flat and I know he is still using, I have not seen him for weeks. Now and again someone will see him and tell me they have seen him and I just give a sigh of relief to know he is still alive.

I know my son's problem is far from over and I dread that knock on the door to tell me something has happened to him. I love him so much but I cannot bear to see him with that look on his face.

Like your anonymous writer he has lost everything, his family, friends, jobs, girlfriends, everything he owned.

I know this letter is very long but it is far from finished. I have only told you part of the agony I have suffered.

My grandchildren are getting christened soon, he won't be there and it will break my heart. I pray for him and think about him every day, his trip to hell is still going on, when it will end who knows?

Thank you for not printing my name and address because I want to protect the rest of my family and also my job. I just hope if anyone reads this letter that it might make someone think twice about using drugs.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.