A self-described gangster who spent up to $1500 a day on heroin has revealed how he quit drugs cold turkey while in prison after having an epiphany.
Sydney-based rapper Spanian spoke candidly about his battle with addiction and crime in an interview published on his self-titled YouTube channel.
The rapper, who has a following of 15,000 people on Instagram, said it was a ‘gift from God’ that he was able to give up the needle in 2007 at the age of 21.
Spanian said he first got into buprenorphine – a treatment for heroin addicts similar to methadone – while serving time when he was younger.
‘I was one of the first c***ts in Australia on the bupe [buprenorphine]. I was doing bupe in jail and loving life,’ he said. ‘I was high 24/7’.
‘I used to chop $1500-a-day on gear [drugs]. I used to pride myself on that too,’ he said.
Sydney-based rapper Spanian spoke candidly about his battle with heroin on his self-titled documentary-style YouTube channel
‘So I was loving my life, I perceived myself to be the coolest c**t in the world and a mad money maker.’
The now-33-year-old said he had an epiphany about his heavy drug use while behind bars at Junee Correctional Centre in 2007.
‘I always looked in the mirror and saw a f**king mad c**t… and one day I walked past the mirror one day and I saw a f**king scumbag, and my heart dropped,’ he said.
‘[It happened] out of nowhere. I did a double take and I saw me for what I was. I saw a junkie.
‘I don’t know who gave me that insight, I don’t know if it was God or if I was in the middle of a f**king beneficial psychosis.’
‘I looked at myself and I thought “you’re a mess. You are some junkie sitting in a cell with the bottom of the earth in the middle of the bush thinking you’re a mad c**t”.’
The now-33-year-old said he had an epiphany about his heavy drug use while behind bars at Junee Correctional Centre in 2007 when he was 21. He is pictured above aged 23 at Bathurst Correctional Facility, two years after quitting heroin
Spanian said he spent the next hour staring into the mirror and felt like an ’embarrassment’.
He said that his sudden realisation brought down his confidence and bravado around the prison yard, and he became ‘ashamed’ to show his face.
‘I thought that everyone was looking at me like I was this putrid embarrassment,’ he said.
Spanian admitted that after he started to view his peers differently for their drug use, he quit the prison’s buprenorphine program as a first step to getting clean.
He said it was unheard of for inmates to voluntarily leave the program as a fast way to make money behind bars.
Spanian said he first got into buprenorphine – a treatment for heroin addicts similar to methadone – while serving time when he was younger. Pictured aged 15 at Cobham Juvenile Detention Centre
The rapper, who has a following of 15,000 people on Instagram, said it was a ‘gift from God’ that he was able to give up the needle in 2007 at the age of 21
Spanian said he made easy money by breaking up and selling the tablet given to him by the prison’s clinic.
The rapper gave away thousands of dollars worth of paraphernalia and prescription drugs to his fellow inmates.
‘I quit heroin, bupe, cigarettes, needles, pot, pills, everything over that one look in the mirror,’ he said. ‘From that day on, I never turned back.’
Spanian said that despite withdrawing for two weeks and not being able to sleep for the first six days, he loved it because it ‘represented the rubbish coming out’ of his body.
‘People ask “don’t you crave it?” and I said “nah, taking drugs was like eating s**t”.’
In the 12 years since kicking his buprenorphine habit, Spanian said he hasn’t so much as smoked a cigarette and has only been drunk a handful of times.
In the 12 years since kicking his buprenorphine habit, Spanian said he hasn’t so much as smoked a cigarette and has only been drunk a handful of times