It is a love story although not pretty or safe. He said he fell in love at a wedding when he was just 13 years old. ?I drank two bottles of champagne at that wedding on Tee Street. It was the first time I ever got drunk and I just loved the feeling,? said Bermudian Trevor Bell.

And with that first taste of drunkenness he embarked on a life of addiction to alcohol and drugs.

Trevor, now 58, has been clean for six years and it?s the longest stretch of time he?s gone without the mind-enhancing props. ?I feel so much better and mentally stronger today,? he said. ?It?s amazing what I?ve done to my body and what I?ve been through.?

After downing the bubbly Trevor said he began to buy his own liquor and he didn?t care that he couldn?t afford champagne. He bought beer and something called Sneaky Pete.

?It was a brew made from Port with rum and gin. God knows what it had in it,? he said. It was dark reddish brown and very potent stuff.?

Trevor was able to finance his new love by doing odd jobs, babysitting in the neighbourhood, delivering groceries and newspapers. ?At this point I wasn?t drinking every day. It was a slow progression,? he said.

But the regular drinking was not the only vice of the 13-year-old, he was also a chain smoker. ?I think my mother knew that but she kept it from my old man,? he said.

Considered tall for his age, Trevor had no problem smoking and drinking in public as most people thought he was much older. By 14 he started going to bars. ?It was the early 60s and I didn?t have any problem getting in anywhere,? he said. ?Bacardi came out with the rum and coke and I liked that.?

Trevor?s hang out crowd were much older than him. ?I was going to parties with my friends who were 18 and 19 and there was always lots of alcohol there,? he said.

?At about 17 I had alcohol buzz dictating my life and I quit school because it interfered with my alcohol use. Also I had to work to support my habit but I drank more than I made,? he said. Still living at home with his parents he wanted to be more independent but couldn?t afford it. Then he got the chance to work on a cruise ship.

?I got a job on the . That?s when I was introduced to speed and marijuana.? It was the 1960s and the drugs were part of the folk culture that went with listening to recording artists like Bob Dylan and the Mamas and the Papas. Trevor held different jobs during the time he worked on the ship. He was a pool attendant, utility man and then telephone operator. ?As a telephone operator there were only four of us and we were special. We had our own room,? he said. ?We worked 24 hours a day so that?s when the pills started. I needed them to stay awake so that I could work after partying all night.?

Even though Trevor felt good when he was on the drugs, he was out of control. He was soon fired from the cruise ship when he completely missed getting on board. ?I went to El Matador (a bar in Hamilton) and got so drunk that I climbed into a window at my parent?s house and slept there (instead of the ship),? he said.

Unemployed but still very young, Trevor decided to join the Royal Air Force in his father?s native Newcastle in England. ?I wrote and they accepted me but I never joined because I bumped into beatniks and followed them.? It was 1965 and Trevor was 17-years-old. He roamed with the beatniks doing a variety of drugs and always drinking. He heard that the would be in Liverpool for a refit, so he hitchhiked there and ran into old friends. ?That was the first time I was in a robbery,? he said. He and his mates distracted a storeowner and managed to run away with several bottles of liquor.

From Liverpool, Trevor made his way to London where he joined the beatnik scene and was introduced to heroin and hashish. ?I fell in love at the first hit,? he said. ?I was in my own world.?

Still unemployed, Trevor and his mates took to conning people and begging to finance their drug habits. He said it was easy and young female exchange students would often take them home sometimes even to meet their parents. ?Some would come by every week and give you their pay packet saying we needed it more than them,? he said.

His usage increased when a West Indian prostitute took him under her wing and supplied him with heroin. But she also got him involved in drug dealing and used heroin, eventually three and half grams a day. Trevor said he didn?t feel out of control and when after four or five months he noticed withdrawal symptoms, he ?eased? himself off.

?But every time I stopped there would be a fringe pill scene and sometimes opium,? he said. ?Eventually someone came with cocaine hydrochloride, the pharmaceutical cocaine and Asian heroin where you needed a base to inject it.

Trevor overdosed the first time he injected cocaine and although. He said he sat in a room with others but was unable to remove the syringe from his arm. He was lucky that someone else had the presence of mind to do so.

Trevor was living with about seven other beatniks when he became romantically involved with one of the girls. He was 18 when they got a small place in London. She was also a drug user and the couple sold drugs for a living. ?Both of us were selling acid. There was a good return on that,? he said. They bought the acid for the equivalent of about 15 cents today and they sold it for the equivalent of $3.60. There was a social assistance programme that paid for their rent so with the drug dealing he said they lived very comfortably. They had a baby but didn?t curtail their drug usage. In fact, Trevor?s heroin addiction began to outstrip what they earned. This put a dent on the food they could afford and they sometimes resorted to dog food.

The couple were offered better accommodation outside of London and moved there but were busted for drug dealing. So they moved to Bermuda. His wife hated the heat so they returned to England. They had another baby and were busted for drug dealing again. Trevor?s heroin use was at its peak and caused his marriage to break. ?I went into hospital in England to go cold turkey and ended up in a mental institution,? he said. ?I got off the heroin but all the while I was drinking. That never stopped.?

Heroin clean, Trevor returned home for his sister?s wedding and stayed and worked. He drank daily but used hard drugs only on weekends. But soon the weekends extended to the week and he was back to non-stop partying and heroin use. He went on the methadone programme and was clean for a while.

In 1980 Trevor?s wife died in England from a drug overdose. With the help of his mother and girlfriend at the time, he brought his two sons back to Bermuda. But the stress of the new living conditions resulted in a split with the girlfriend and a return to drugs.

?I was lost in the 1980s. I really don?t remember too much,? he said. And then in 1987 his 20-year-old son died in a bike accident. ?He was not a user and his death sent me deeper into drug use. Then my mother died in 1990 and I was really f***ed up. I had stolen money from her to get high,? he said. His second son, fed up with his father?s lifestyle, moved out and lived with another family.

Again Trevor tried to clean up and mend relationships. In 1992 his son agreed to go to England with him to see where he was born. Trevor said he was happy. But as soon as they arrived, Trevor bumped into an old friend and partied. He overdosed and was out so cold the friend felt he was dead and did not want to take him anywhere. Trevor?s son begged and rushed his father to the nearest hospital where he watched doctors try to restart his heart several times. Trevor remained in a coma for five days. He was surprised to find himself in a hospital when he awoke, but said he checked himself out against the advice of doctors. ?And I went straight to a pub because I hadn?t had a drink in five days,? he said.

Trevor took himself off heroin but after five years used it to alleviate the pain of haemorrhoids. ?Then before you knew it I was stealing things from work to pay for my habit and cocaine became mixed in it. I would first buy the heroin and if any money was left over use it for cocaine.? Trevor got on the methadone programme again but was removed because he was using cocaine. ?I explained that I needed the methadone for the heroin addiction but I also needed cocaine. I didn?t think it was fair that they took me off the programme,? he said. Soon he couldn?t go to work. ?I would wake up and if I couldn?t have my fix I wouldn?t go to work,? he said. ?I would call people to come to my house and help me find dope I had hidden. All my money went to dope, alcohol and cigarettes.

In 2000 Trevor started stealing money from his son and felt he had reached an all-time low and for the first time genuinely wanted to stop. ?I thought this is wrong,? he said of stealing from his son. ?So I went to see Sandy Butterfield at Focus and she got me into Camp Spirit.?

Camp Spirit is an intensive residential drug treatment programme that was carried out on Darrell?s Island. Trevor spent 110 days in the programme and hasn?t had a drug or drink since then. ?It only worked for me because I wanted it to work,? he said. ?It was really tough and highly confrontational. It forced me to explore why I was using drugs ? all the denial and rationalisation I had lived by. I had been living a lie. I didn?t need the drugs or alcohol.?

And Trevor said he?s so much happier now that he?s reunited with his family. One thing that helps to keep him sober is that he doesn?t want to do the Camp Spirit programme ever again.