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When we got home I put the children to bed and Dennis, Mike and I sat down for a chat. I asked him what drugs he was taking and was shocked to the core when he said Heroin, I asked him how he took it and he said by injection I was totally dumbstruck from what my Mum and Dad said it was just tablets......bad enough but Heroin was real drug abuse. He said my Mum and Dad had no idea about this.

I asked him where he got it from and this shocked me even more he had been shop lifting particularly in Marks and Spencers as they had a money back returns policy with or without receipts. What he would do was initially buy something small and cheap this would enable him to get a M & S carrier bag then he would pick out some fairly expensive items, leave the shop without paying for them then a while later he would return to the shop after making it look as though he had removed the items from the packaging and say they were either too small or too big and ask for his money back. He would also ask for the carrier bag back so he could do the same again later. He said he could make as much as £200-300 a day.

I could not believe this was my brother he had not been brought up this way. This he did every day, sometimes he would shop lift to order. I was definitely scared now I had no idea what to do next neither did Mike, it was real scary.

I decided I would go and see my family doctor Dr Green to see if he could help us with what we did next. The next morning I got Lesley off to school andd went to wake Dennis up but his room was empty and a note saying he had gone to The Dilly this meant Piccadily in London he would explain when he got back.

I went to see Dr. Green and explained the situation and was very surprised as he said he was at the moment doing a study on drug addiction and would very much like to see Dennis to see if they could put a program together to get him off the drugs over time, as this would have to be a gradual thing and this depended on how much he was using daily. I said I thought he only used it now and again but he said that wouldn't be the case as it was highly addictive. I arranged an appointment for Dennis for that evening.