Zoo Station: The Story of Christiane F.

by Christiane F

  Once my mom got back, I was able to stand up again. I pulled myself together, even though my head still felt like it was going to burst. I told her, “I think I just had just another stupid circulatory collapse.”

  My mom obviously knew that I'd started using again. She had a desperate look on her face but didn't say anything to me about it. She just kept staring at me, and I could see the sadness in her eyes. I couldn't take it. The look on her face pierced me right through and made my head pound even worse than before.

  After a while, my mom asked if there was anything I wanted. “Yes,” I said. “Strawberries.” So she went out and got me a big basket full of strawberries.

  In the course of that afternoon, I got the feeling that I was running out of time. I hadn't shot up a huge amount; it was just too much vinegar. When something went wrong, my body didn't have any ability to resist or fight back anymore. I couldn't keep treating it this way. I couldn't keep abusing it.

  I could recognize my downward spiral for what it was because of the fact that I'd already seen it happen before with some of my friends who had already died. The first warning sign was when they started to just pass out after shooting up. It kept going on that way, with things getting worse and worse, and then eventually there would be one time when they passed out and just never woke up again. That was it. Game over.

  I was afraid to die, but if you had asked me at the time for a reason why, I wouldn't have been able to offer any good reasons. I just didn't want to be alone when it happened. Junkies tend to die alone—and to add insult to injury, the setting for the big event is usually a stinking toilet stall. But all that aside, I had more or less made my peace with death. I mean after all, what was I waiting for at that point? I couldn't think of any reason why I ought to stick around. Even when I was younger, it was hard to think of any real reason for me to be here. And now that I was a heroin addict, it wasn't like things were getting any better. What was the point? The longer I stuck around, the more lives I would probably ruin, including my own. If I died, I would be doing my mom a favor. Sometimes I myself had trouble telling whether I was alive or already gone.

  The next morning I was feeling better though. Now at least I had some hope that I could go on for a little longer. But I had to make it to the police, unless I wanted them to come and get me. There was just no way I could handle going by myself now. No way. I called around looking for Stella and was lucky to get ahold of her at this client's place—he was a customer we shared. I asked if she'd come to the police station with me. She was game to go right away. Her mom had just reported her as missing again, but Stella wasn't afraid of anything; she couldn't care less. She wanted to go with me to the precinct, even though she was officially a missing person at the time.

  So Stella and I went and sat like a couple of good girls in the long hallway outside of room 314, waiting for my turn with the police. When my name was called, I walked into the room so meek and obedient that if anyone had asked, I would've even curtsied. Mrs. Schipke—an overly friendly woman—took my hand, held it warmly, and told me right away that she also had a daughter like me—even though she was a year older than me and not using drugs. She acted really maternal with me. She asked how I was doing, and like a good aunt she even brought out some chocolate milk, cake, and apples.

  This Mrs. Schipke sounded like she cared about some of the people I knew from the drug scene—asking where they were now and how they were doing. She showed me some photos of junkies and dealers and asked if I knew them. Yes, I kept telling her, sure, I recognize him; I've seen him once or twice. Then she told me that a number of these people had said this or that thing about me, and eventually, after enough of that kind of stuff, she got me to talk. I realized that she was setting me up—and not even doing it very delicately—but I still wound up giving her a lot of information. Afterward I signed a statement, swearing the truth to a whole bunch of shit that she'd been feeding me.

  While we were wrapping up, another cop happened to ask me about The Sound more generally. That's when I decided to really open up. I told him about all the people I knew who had been seduced into the H scene there and about the brutal tactics that the management used over there. I also let them bring in Stella, who corroborated everything and said she would swear to it all in court.

  Mrs. Schipke kept leafing through her files and quickly figured out who Stella really was. She started to grill her, and Stella immediately returned fire and shut Schipke down. Stella was so insulting that I thought that they'd book her right on the spot. But Mrs. Schipke's shift was over and done with, and she wanted to go home, so she just told Stella to come back the next day. Stella, of course, had no intention of obeying any of this woman's orders or requests.

  As she was leaving, Mrs. Schipke said to me, “Well, I'm sure you and I will see each other again soon.” The tone she used was exactly the same as it had been the whole afternoon—way too fucking sweet and friendly. That was what really stung. Despite her smiles, it was clear that she thought I was a totally lost cause. There was no hope for me.

  Gerhard Ulber, Chief Detective and Head of the Narcotics Division in the Berlin Police Department's Drug Squad

  In our fight against drug abuse, the police department believes that by making every effort to restrict the supply of drugs—especially heroin—in and around Berlin, we provide an essential support to the efforts of other state agencies in offering therapy and rehabilitation to drug users and addicts. In 1976 we impounded 6.4 pounds of heroin, in 1977 it was 10.8 pounds, and in the first eight months of 1978 we've already impounded 18.5 pounds of heroin. This increase in seizures doesn't necessarily mean, however, that we're keeping up with the increased amount of drug availability and consumption in the area. In that respect, I am personally rather pessimistic. The quantities of heroin in circulation have definitely increased. Just one year ago, the arrest of a German middleman with a quarter pound of heroin would have been a small sensation. Today it's a pretty regular occurrence.

  The success of our investigations have caused the smugglers and dealers to become more cautious, as was to be expected, and we, in turn, have become even more vigilant. But the more visibly we penetrate the areas where drug addicts and small dealers tend to gather and do business, the deeper into the underworld they go, and the harder they are to find and track.

  Whatever we as a police department accomplish, and whatever means we try—whether we use quiet surveillance and undercover cops or conduct obvious patrols and raids—the drug market will always find a way to endure. More and more often, heroin is being sold in private homes, where addicts can evade the eye of the police.

  To give just one example, twenty-four of the eighty-four people who died of heroin overdoses in Berlin in 1977 were not known to us as users of the drug—and these people most certainly didn't die after just one shot. Even the most persistent drug user often doesn't come to the attention of the police until he gets admitted to a hospital—usually while unconscious.

  Otherwise, a person can abuse heroin for years without coming to our attention. To put it bluntly, the police department can't solve the drug problem by itself. As the United States discovered during Prohibition, wherever there's an intense demand, the suppliers will find a way to meet it.

  I could, of course, hire another twenty officers and arrest more of the small-time dealers, but the problem would then just shift over to the prison system, where heroin already has a strong presence. Imprisoned addicts are willing to do anything to get their hands on some dope, and imprisoned dealers will do almost anything to supply them. Everyone is corrupted in situations where the profit margins are as high as they are with heroin right now.

  Heroin addicts don't care about anything but their next score. Preventative education is the only thing, in my opinion, that has any chance to stop heroin's rise in our community.

  Renate Schipke, Administrator in the Drug Addiction Department

  I first met Christiane while working as an administrator in the dru
g addiction department. She had been summoned to respond to a normal police filing and came to see me with her girlfriend Stella. This was the first of six or seven visits we would have together.

  At the time, I was spending most of my time interrogating addicts who had come to the attention of local police, with the idea that they might give up the names of some of their dealers. The police file an incredible number of reports, and that leaves me with more interviews to do than I really have time for. As a rule, there's not much time to spend thinking about the problem as a whole. But I still try to get to know the people who are summoned, and I try to establish some sort of relationship with them because otherwise it's just not possible to conduct a successful interrogation.

  When we first started to talk, Christiane was quite open and very willing to supply the information I was looking for. I was struck by her humility; she gave the impression of being a child who was raised the right way. During the first interrogation, she still seemed like a little girl in many ways. She always spoke well of her mother, and I have to say that her mother was very concerned about her compared to many of the other parents I see. I spent a lot of time on the phone with her.

  After a few more interviews, Christiane began to act much more insolent and rude. It was hard to believe she was only fourteen. I gave it to her straight and told her that addiction was a one-way street, even if she was able to get clean occasionally. We had a few blowout fights on that score alone.

  But I don't want to say anything negative about Christiane. She wasn't one to carry a grudge.

  But it's simply impossible to help these addicts. They always feel tricked and wrongfully accused, as they don't understand why they should be punished. In my opinion, these young people are just plain foolish and much too reckless. They start using heroin out of boredom and curiosity and then are surprised when faced with the consequences. I hope that for her own sake, Christiane gets the most severe sentence possible, as I believe that the shock of being in prison could motivate her to want to become sober. At least that's my hope.

  IN THE SUBWAY I WAS SO angry it was hard for me to keep it together. I couldn't believe I had let that policewoman wrap me around her little finger like that—with just some hot chocolate, cake, and her revolting, fake friendliness.

  After I serviced two clients at Zoo Station and scored some more dope at Kurfürstendamm, I went home. My cat was lying in the kitchen and could hardly get up. He'd been sick for a few days. Now he looked so emaciated and meowed so pitifully that I thought he would die soon, too.

  I was more anxious about my kitty than I was about myself. The vet gave me some medicine for him. But the cat wasn't eating anything. He lay in front of his small bowl and didn't even lift his head.

  I was planning on shooting up, so I took out my needle, but then I had an idea. I drew some of the medicine into the syringe and used it to squirt a little into his mouth. He was so worn out that he didn't resist. After that, it took me a long time to clean out the needle again, prepare everything, and finally get my fix.

  Heroin didn't give me the kind of high that it used to anymore. My fear of death ruined everything. I didn't want to live anymore, but at the same time I became incredibly anxious when I shot up, about the next shot being my last. Maybe it was also true that my cat's illness underlined how really sad and dark death is—especially if you haven't really lived yet.

  I felt completely hopeless. I hadn't had a single meaningful conversation with my mom since she discovered that I was shooting up again. I screamed and fought about every little thing, and she just kept giving me that sad, dejected look of hers. The police were after me for real now. The statement that I'd signed at Schipke's office was enough for them to put me on trial and enforce a juvenile court sentence. I also got the feeling that my mom would've been glad to relinquish some of her responsibility for me. After all, she must have realized by that point that there was nothing she could really do for me. She was always on the phone with drug rehab counseling centers and other government agencies, and at the same time she just kept sliding deeper and deeper into despair. It didn't take long for her to get the picture: Nobody thought they could help me, and nobody wanted to anyway. At that point, she decided that the only other thing she could do was probably just send me off to her relatives—so that's what she threatened to do.

  Sometime in May of 1977, even I understood (with what was left of my drug-addled brain) that I had two options left: Either I gave myself the “golden shot”—a fatal overdose—as soon as possible, or else I had to make a serious attempt to get off of heroin for good. I knew that I was all alone in making that decision. I couldn't even count on Detlef. But even more important was the fact that, whatever I decided, it had to be my decision, and not Detlef's.

  I went to the Center House back at Gropiusstadt—back to the youth center where my drug career had gotten started. It turned out that the whole place had been shut down since by that time the drug problem in the area was totally out of control. In its place they now had a drug-counseling center. Seriously, a real drug-counseling center, just for Gropiusstadt. That's how many heroin addicts were there now, only two years after heroin first cropped up in that area. When I went in, they told me exactly what I was expecting to hear: that the only way I would ever get clean was by going into genuine, serious therapy. They gave me the addresses for the two rehab clinics, that had had the most success in dealing with addicts.

  I was pretty apprehensive about these kinds of therapy programs because the word on the street was that they were really pretty brutal. That's what I'd heard anyway. Some people said they were even worse than jail. In one of these clinics, they even shaved you bald first. I guess that was supposed to be a demonstration of the fact that you were ready to begin a new chapter of your life. I didn't think I could let them shave off all my hair; I didn't want to be turned into some cut-rate Kojak.34 To me, my hair was, in a way, the thing that was more me than anything else. It protected me. I could even hide behind it. And so I thought, If they cut off my hair, I might as well just kill myself.

  But then the drug counselor said that I wasn't very likely to actually get admitted to either of these two programs because they didn't have any open spots right then. The admissions requirements were incredibly tough, she told me: You had to still be in pretty good physical shape and be able to prove to them that you still had the willpower to get off of heroin. The drug counselor said that since I was still so young, not even fifteen, that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for me to meet their demands. And for kids, there really wasn't any drug therapy available yet.

  I said that I actually wanted to go to Narcotics Abusers Anonymous anyway. Narcotics Abusers Anonymous—also known as Narc Anon—was the rehab center for the Church of Scientology. There were a few addicts I'd run into who had already spent some time at Narcotics Abusers Anonymous, and they all said that it was actually not that bad. They didn't have any admissions requirements at all so long as you paid in advance. They let patients wear their own clothes, bring their own music, and even keep their own pets.

  The drug counselor responded by saying that I should think more carefully about the organization. She asked me why I thought so many junkies said the program at Narc Anon was so great—was it because it worked or because they could enjoy themselves for a while and then keep shooting up when it was over? She said she couldn't call to mind a single case where Narc Anon had helped a person really get clean.

  I asked her if she could think of any other place where I could go if I didn't stand a chance of getting in at the other places we'd talked about. At that point, she gave in and passed me the address for Narcotics Abusers Anonymous.

  When I got home, I used that same trick again and dribbled some more of that medicine into my cat's mouth with my old syringe. When my mom came home, I told her that I was going to get clean for good at Narc Anon. “I'll have to stay there for a few months,” I told her, “or even a year, and then that will be it. I'll
be sober.”

  My mom acted as if she didn't believe a word I said. But still, she went straight to the phone and tried to find out more about the new program.

  I was totally into this rehab trip. I felt like I had a chance to start fresh, to start a whole new life. I decided not to see any clients that afternoon, and I stayed away from dope, too. I wanted to get sober before even showing up. I didn't want to have to start out in the “cold turkey room.” I wanted to arrive totally clean and get a head start on the others. I wanted to prove right off the bat that I had ability to quit.

  I went to bed early and laid the cat (who was sicker than ever now) on the pillow beside me. I was proud of myself. I was withdrawing all by myself, all alone, and it was all my own decision. How many heroin addicts could do that? When I told my mom that I'd stop using right away, all she did was respond with a dubious smile. She didn't even take any time off from work to help me. All these withdrawal sessions seemed hopeless to her now, and she couldn't muster much excitement for them. So yeah, I had to get through it all by myself.

  The next morning I felt the full brunt of the challenge I was up against. It was just as bad as ever—the withdrawal symptoms— and maybe even worse, but at no point did I lose my self-belief. When I felt like the pain was going to kill me, I just told myself, That just means you're getting the poison out. You'll survive, and when you're done that will be it. Once the poison's gone, it will never come back. You won't let it.

  The one good thing was that when I passed out, I didn't have any nightmares or start tripping in that old kind of horror landscape. Instead I had these beautiful glimpses of my life after the rehab.