at St. Brendan's in 1977, his clients, mostly men in their mid-30s, were cooperative, contrite and controllable.

Twenty years later, he says he faces a new breed of addict, still male, who are in their early 20s and are exceedingly aggressive and less willing to follow instructions or take advice.

As a result, Mr. Williams has been accosted, sworn at and even roughed up on occasion as he goes about the daily job of counselling and treating heroin addicts.

On September 5, 1995, 21-year-old Tracey Caines, a heroin addict since age 16, stole 100 methadone tablets from Addiction Services and attacked Mr. Williams.

Had he been successful, those 100 tablets could have fetched between $100 to $120 per tablet. Caines would have made more than $10,000.

Caines was suspended from the drug programme at the time of the incident, but he went to Addiction Services to get some methadone. Mr. Williams told him he had to wait six months to return to the programme and this led to an argument.

Caines then grabbed a bottle of methadone tablets, valued at $31.68, and ran away.

Mr. Williams managed to catch him outside Addiction Services' door. Caines punched Mr. Williams in the face and began kicking him. During the assault Caines dropped the methadone.

He later turned himself into Police and said he was hurt that he had been dropped from the programme and needed the pills to ease the pain.

For his crime, Senior Magistrate Will Francis imprisoned Caines for six months.

Mr. Williams has a litany of such stories but chooses not to focus on them.

His concerns are more immediate.

"The quality of the heroin that the guys are now using has dropped off considerably,'' he explained. "In the 1970s the dope was more potent. Now it is just big business.

"Dealers are trying to make as much money as possible and so they mix it with anything to increase the yield.

"I had a guy come in here who had taken a hit of what he thought was heroin and his nose started bleeding immediately.

Addicts younger, more aggressive than in past "He went back to the guy he bought the drug from and found out that the dealer had cut the heroin with Ajax cleaner.'' Bryant Richards, Addiction Services' coordinator, said more young teenagers are experimenting with heroin because of its "sexual lures''.

"These young guys have heard the older boys speak about how hard their erections become when they are on heroin,'' Mr. Richards explained. "They brag about how long they can screw.

"The young girls will then question the potency of a young man if her last lover was a stallion. She then spreads the word that this young guy has no staying power and his self esteem is shot because his peers tease him.

"So he finds a heroin dealer, buys a $20 bag and tries to patch up his shattered reputation. For 24-36 hours he is God. He can screw for hours. But what he quickly finds is that he doesn't enjoy it because he can't ejaculate.

"One month later he is impotent. He can't get it up at all. But by then it's too late. He's already hooked.'' From there the teen gets depressed, Mr. Williams said, because he needs more heroin just to function. To pick himself up he either drowns himself in alcohol, which depresses him still further or starts speed balling.

Speed balling, Mr. Williams said, involves taking cocaine which produces a rush of euphoria. Soon he dislikes that feeling and uses heroin to slow things up and return to normal.

And so the cycle repeats. Day in. Day out.

Mr. Richards said that teenaged males between 11 and 14 are impressionable and insecure about their bodies and the changes it is undergoing. This predisposes them to experimentation.

"Once they start on heroin at 12, by the age of 18 or 19 he can't get off,'' Mr. Richards added. "He gets angry, sits on a wall with his other mates and begins to ask why the world has passed him by.

"He then blames the system, his parents, his teachers or his race. Any and everyone but himself.'' The result, Mr. Williams said, is a teen or a 20 or 21-year-old who has lost respect for himself, his family and his community. He will steal from his mother right in front of her face and even assault her if she attempts to stop him.

"He sees that $100 he just stole as five hits of heroin, not as money.'' Addiction Services re-evaluated its programme last July and has shifted its focus and scare resources on treatment for drug abusers, rather than educating the community in the prevention of drug abuse, Mr. Richards explained.

Since February, 1980, Addiction Services, a division of the Ministry of Health, runs an outpatient treatment programme for both male and female drug abusers.

In addition to its primary work on the treatment of addicts, Addiction Services also works with the substance abusers' families.

There are about 78 active clients attending Addiction Services, 50 of them are on methadone. Another ten to 15 more people attend the programmes monthly or biannually.

The average age of clients who attend Addiction Services is 22. And approximately 75 to 80 percent of the clients hold regular jobs.

Mr. Williams heads up the methadone programme at Addiction Services. Its aim is to get heroin addicts off the drug for good. Methadone does not solve the drug problem, warned Mr. Richards, but it does take care of the physical addiction.

However the methadone programme and the entire concept of rehabilitation does have its critics. One former addict who spoke to The Royal Gazette anonymously has claimed that methadone is just a socially acceptable form of addiction.

He said:"I have never seen anyone go through a rehab programme and then get clean. They go in and when they come out they go right back to their old habits.

"Methadone is a better high than heroin but the withdrawal is five times worse.

"All those guys who run the methadone programme at Addiction Services do is replace an addict's dependence on heroin with another equally addictive drug called methadone.

"If you ask me, Bryant Richards and all the rest of them up there are the real drug dealers and they have the backing of the system.

"All they do is dress it up in nice words. The user goes from being a junkie or a criminal to an addict with a dependence on methadone. Whatever way you cut it that fact is still the same.'' To such charges Mr. Williams smiles wryly.

"Methadone is just a last resort,'' he explained. "We attempt to use other medications to help them with their severe withdrawal symptoms (sleeplessness, cramps, diarrhoea, and depression). There are four different medications that we can use.

"The problem is that this medication takes between 24-36 hours to work and the addict needs his fix every four to six hours. The two needs just don't jibe.'' At Addiction Services, an addict is interviewed and information such as his name age, family origin and history are taken.

After his third visit -- Mr. Williams said most people who enter the programme usually come and then quit at least twice before they are ready to settle down for treatment -- the addict will get a physical exam from a doctor.

"A standard dose of methadone is then given,'' he continues. "Methadone is pure, synthetic opium which stays in the system longer, between 24-36 hours compared to heroin which lasts only four to six hours.

"After four to five days, the addict becomes stabilised and we can then begin counselling and get at the deeper issues.

"We have to get rid of the `Jones' (withdrawal) first before we can help them. Methadone serves many purposes. If it wasn't for the `juice' (methadone), crime would treble.

"I can control their addiction to it and help to wean them off. It becomes the carrot that brings them back for counselling and further help. It does not work for everyone, but those who stick to it are gradually weaned off.

"Methadone is a tool. It blocks the high so that if they use heroin while on the methadone programme it does nothing for them.'' Mr. Williams said the addict has to hit the bottom before he takes the programme seriously.

"Those in the programme who are most successful are the older men in their thirties and forties,'' he added. "They have finally seen how much their addiction has cost them.

"They have lost their jobs, wives and families and now they are willing to work on themselves. The public needs to know that methadone serves an important purpose. It is a valuable tool whether our clients abuse it or not.

The high a heroin addict gets is ten times more pleasurable than sex.

Competing with that will never be easy.'' In the third in a five-part series on the resurgence in heroin use in Bermuda, Royal Gazette senior reporter John Burchall talks to Charles Williams, who oversees Addiction Services' methadone programme. Tomorrow: Why cooperation is needed to measure the heroin problem.

HEROIN: THE FACTS Facts about heroin use in Bermuda according to a 1995 survey conducted by the National Drug Commission: An estimated 2.5 percent of the adult population in Bermuda has tried heroin at least once.

The number of adult residents who admitted that they used heroin in a typical month was 404, of whom 266 said they used it weekly or more often in the period 1994-95.

The average age of a heroin user in 1995 was 32.

The average age of first use was 23.

The NDC estimates that heroin was used by males and females almost equally.

45.7 percent of those who said they were heroin users gave their race as black, 8.6 percent said they were white and 45.7 percent were other.

According to NDC counsellor Dr. Derrick Binns, figures for heroin users could be higher as the sample size for the survey was small and homeless peole were not surveyed.

Addiction Services counsellor Charles Williams with a collegue.