Life is just a wave essentially, or waves even. There will be really big highs, you’ll have a lot of lows. When you’re at a low, just remember that the wave will eventually pick up again. 

In this story, South Uist’s Paul Burgess has an honest discussion about his previous drug problems and how his life has changed over the last few years. After he left school at 16 Paul worked locally in hotel kitchens before finding an HNC Music course in Glasgow, at this point weed already had a tight grip on him.

So, initially I didn’t do too well in school. When I hit 15 my parents separated and I lost a lot of focus in school – I didn’t have much to begin with anyway. When it came to my last year, which was 5th year, I only did 1 higher which was music and I got a B and I was happy enough with that. I’d say that by the June of finishing school I was already smoking.

I shifted away in 2011 when I was 18. With leaving, I wasn’t really phased by it. It’s a normal thing really, particularly for islanders, and it’s something we’re used to, leaving school and then moving away.

The day I arrived in Glasgow I managed to find weed and that was it. When I say that, I was smoking every day, for that whole year in college. I was just smoking constantly. It ended up that by the end of 2012 I had travelled to Amsterdam 6 times, on a ‘smoke away’. To some, that sounds great, and I suppose at the time it was but, then it started to get problematic.

In mid 2012 I failed my music course and had to find a job.

After failing his course, Paul managed to find a job with a charity in Glasgow. He was going door to door asking individuals for donations and direct debit contributions.

At the time I was very, very overweight. So, walking for 6 hours at 25 stone asking people for money wasn’t much fun. And I still continued to smoke. With weed, the chemicals in it aren’t addictive. It’s not the substance, it’s the feeling. In the first few months of smoking, I didn’t realise it but a year in I noticed that if there was a day or two where it wasn’t available that I’d be agitated.

Paul continued over these 2 years to feed his drug obsession and in January of 2013, he ended up having an episode of drug induced psychosis.

A day or two before being sectioned my thoughts weren’t very clear, I was very confused, I was thinking bizarre things and getting paranoid. I put my phone, sim card and hat in a street bin. My family realised that there was something wrong and asked me to go to the hospital, I then got sectioned and I was five and a half weeks in psychiatric care. I don’t really remember the first 2 or so weeks due to the medications they were giving me. They helped keep me calm but not very present. They just keep you there but not really present.

As the weeks went by for Paul in this unit, he was able to regain a sense of normality,  come back to his senses and back down to earth. After leaving the hospital he moved in with his sister and then subsequently found his own flat. 

The day I moved into my own flat, I messaged my dealer and said ‘Hey’.

Paul didn’t consider the drugs to be the problem, he thought it was a stress issue since he was in a job he didn’t like and had money worries with his rent hiking in price.

Paul’s life changed again when he came back home to give his music studies another crack, this time at the HNC course in Lews Castle College, Benbecula. Although his surroundings were to change again, his drug habits didn’t. 

Up until the 1st March 2014 I was smoking a lot and I had a second episode of drug induced psychosis. I was at home with my mother and it was very scary for her. She called the doctors and I was taken to Benbecula Hospital overnight. I was then sent to Inverness for two weeks and then to Stornoway for three and a half weeks. So that was another five and a half weeks of psychiatric care for me.

It was up in Stornoway that Paul realised that it was the drugs that were the problem. He had lost most of the friends that he had but luckily he still had his family. During his stay in Stornoway, he had a clear-cut moment during a phone call.

On the phone with my mother, I realised that I couldn’t do this for a third time – It’s just not worth it.  Are drugs worth losing your family and friends over? It was a clear as day decision for me that I wasn’t going to do any more drugs.

So, since March 1st 2013 I’ve been clean.

Meal do naidheachd, Paul! 

Now it’s not even a temptation I just consider it a time in my life that’s over. I’m relieved that I got past it and I was also told that if it happened again, I could be a paranoid schizophrenic and that thought sometimes lingers in my mind, even now.

Since those days, Paul’s life has moved on and he’s managed to complete a BA degree in Applied Music with Lews Castle College, Benbecula. He went on to get a graduate job with Ceòlas as a digital support officer where he learnt a lot about video recording, sound recording and editing and therefore ended up working as their general IT guru. 

I’ve had a passion for gaming since Gemma Steele lent me her Gameboy in ’98. I also do some videogame and guitar live streaming which allowed me to speak to people from across the world because of it (including my fiance.) With live streaming, you need to be able to fix a lot of video & audio on the fly.

Around pandemic times, Paul began to tackle his weight and started a programme which got him out walking, resparking his old passion for photography. 

In exactly a year I had lost 10 stone. During lockdown we had the luxury here of going out on a walk to the beach or the machair and we didn’t have the same worries as people in the inner cities. I just started snapping photos out on my walks. My phone is my main camera, the cameras that are on the phones nowadays are great.

Living in Uist, you’re spoiled with scenery, sunsets and sunrises.

Being out in the sometimes breezy, open air is always a healthy thing for any individual to do. Paul comments that some people may think that his drug of choice isn’t such a big deal.

Some people say ‘oh it’s ‘just weed, I just smoke weed, it’s not that bad.

But because of “just weed” I’ve spent 11 weeks in psychiatric care, I can clearly say that it can get that bad.

Paul’s inspiring story is certainly one to be admired and shared. There are plenty of resources locally and nationally if you think that you or anybody else has a problem or needs help. 

People have to recognise their own problems. Typically, you won’t do something until you’re ready to do it. You have to be ready to face it yourself and there will be events in your life that will make you realise this but help is always available.

To see Paul’s photography and listen to music, do take a look through this link: https://linktr.ee/paulbmedia 

A lot of people might say oh there’s nothing here, but there really is. If you look around and pay attention, you can see the number of people that are starting up their own businesses and becoming entrepreneurial, taking advantage of what we have on the island. There are so many things in Uist that to other people would be paradise, but when we wake up to them every day maybe we don’t notice them. Technology also makes things easier. Technology and music can open doors that you didn’t even know were there.