A Oxford-educated lawyer from Liverpool lost his job, freedom, wife and almost his life after spiralling into a crack cocaine addiction.
John McGlashan, 69, tells the story of his journey through addiction, prison and back again in a new book - 'Next time bring a bigger knife', published by Conrad Press - which he says makes people "laugh and cry". Considering himself lucky he's "not dead", John hopes others can learn from his experience.
Born just off Scotland Road, John's early years were spent in poverty, playing on the rubble of bomb sites, and having no indoor toilet until he was five. After relocating to Kirkby during slum clearances, the family moved to Woolton when his dad qualified as a lawyer. As the family grew wealthier, they could afford to move to Fulwood Park, a street of grand houses in Aigburth where residents live by 200-year-old rules.
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John was at the bottom of his class while at school in Liverpool which he puts down to being "terrified" of the canings he was subject to for "talking in class and not paying attention". But his grades improved after his dad sent him to private school and he "was able to flourish". Five years later, he followed in his dad's footsteps by studying law - at Oxford University.
There he got up to mischief, claiming to have narrowly missed dunking water on the head of JRR Tolkien, author of Lord of the Rings, while pulling a prank on the college dean as they left dinner in black tie. But he managed to avoid drugs throughout his time as a student.
Only as a "pinstripe-suit man" in his late 30s did John start his journey into addiction after a woman he was having an affair with offered him crack cocaine. He had a wife and baby, drove a Porsche 911 and lived in "a nice, great big house with a long driveway" in Woolton but John was bored.
He told the ECHO: "I kept thinking, 'I was driving to work every day, doing all these divorces, going on nice holidays every year, and I just thought, 'Is this it?' People say you suffer the disease of wanting more - you just want more, you want something different."
Everywhere John looked, there was a "faster" car, a "different person" or a "better restaurant", and he felt unable to be happy with what he had. Drugs and the eight-year affair offered him excitement, feeling "like nothing [he'd] ever felt before".
John made the mistake of thinking he'd "be able to control that" because he "was able to control most things" in his life. But he "found the allure very, very powerful", and eventually started stealing money from his legal practice to hide what he was spending from his wife.
He said "the allure of cocaine was more powerful than Mr. Sensible on your shoulder", and he put himself in dangerous situations where he had a knife held against him and was chased with a baseball bat and a gun in separate attempts to buy cocaine.
After pocketing £6,000 from clients, his colleagues realised payments were missing from the practice's records, and "it all started coming down". John said: "Your heart goes into your mouth and you're in shock. You don't know what you're going to do. I tried to make it right and said I'd pay the money back, but that was not acceptable."
John went to rehab, he was struck off by the Law Society, his wife divorced him, and he found himself in the dock being sentenced to eight months in prison in 1997. He hit rock bottom when he arrived at "the huge gates" of Walton prison and realised the "cabbagey, musty, horrible" air of prison would be his "stench for the next few months".
"The traditional thing is, 'Addiction is an illness, it's not your fault', but I took the cocaine and I've lost my marriage, I've lost my family, I've lost my profession, I've lost my Porsche, I've lost friends - but don't worry", John said sarcastically, "it's just an illness. Thank god it's an illness, because for a moment there, I thought I was in trouble. It's not easy getting over the fact you've lost everything."
The 69-year-old considers himself lucky to have got sober before going behind bars. After being moved to HMP Kirkham, an open prison in Lancashire, he learned to use computers which he previously "didn't even know how to switch on".
Once out, he rebuilt his life with the support of friends who helped him set up in public relations which soon saw him flying around the world to launch restaurants and run events in Paris and Tokyo. But in 2005, as he felt the allure of crack cocaine pulling him back, he decided to move to South Africa to escape "the temptations on every corner".
He followed the advice given to people with addictions to separate themselves from the people, places and things associated with their addiction. John said: "There's only so much of that temptation you can put up with without it blowing your sobriety."
Now in South Africa for 17 years, John lives in a detached house with a pool out back, and he's remarried to a Dutch woman, Anneke, who he told about his crack cocaine addiction on the first night they met 12 years ago. John is now content with what he's got but it's not lost on him how "very privileged" he is. He said: "Don't get me wrong, I have a very nice life."
John feels "very lucky to be alive", saying the story could have been different if he hadn't had the existing education and status to help pick up the pieces. He told the ECHO: "I know so many people who've been on cocaine over the years who are dead, and I'm living a very worthwhile life, I have a lovely wife, a nice property and two dogs."
He's happy to be rid of cocaine because now he has "a normal life, not an artificial one". John said: "I wish my life hadn't been quite so interesting at times but it has been a ride."
You can buy John McGlashan's book - Next time bring a bigger knife' - here.
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