When she sees the raised bump on my body, her eyes widen.

‘What’s that?’

‘ICD.’

‘You get arrhythmias?’

Before I can answer, she’s shouting through the hatch, telling her colleague that we need to get to casualty on blues and twos, swearing under her breath.

‘I’m fine,’ I say, though really I’m desperate for another fix: that’s the downside of Narcan. ‘Seriously, I’m good to go.’

‘You’re not. The medication we gave you can cause . . .’ Her voice is reassuring but the calmness doesn’t extend to her eyes. ‘Problems.’

The vehicle speeds up. The siren sounds. I sense death in here, circling.

I am seeing my funeral again: a room full of people I know. My parents, Ant. Kerry. Though I have used up all the sympathy I deserve.

My hand grips the paramedic’s until we reach the hospital. The doctors stabilize me and for the first time, when I see the impatience in their eyes, I feel shame.

Someone finds a hoodie from lost property to replace my vomit-stained T-shirt. I am about to start the walk back to St Nick’s to score again, but something stops me.

Another first: I don’t want to die. Or at least, not like this.

I’d like to go and see Ant, but his dad has had a stroke that’s made his mum stop believing in God, and Ant is trying to run the cafe single-handed. The last thing he needs is me and my self-pity.

So I go home.

Dad is in the kitchen when I let myself in. He takes in the state of me but says nothing and the weariness in his expression looks like defeat.

‘I’m going to try harder this time,’ I say.

He smiles sadly but he doesn’t believe me. Even I can see it’s like Groundhog Day.

I go back to the den and I drink a pint of water instead of helping myself to beer. I turn on the heating and within seconds my shivering stops. I climb under the thick throw on my sofa.

For years, I’ve had the same words on loop in my head: I didn’t deserve what happened to me.

But the same is true of the good stuff. I don’t deserve my parents or the wealth that cushions me. I did nothing to deserve the talent I was born with or the cute face that the drugs have destroyed.

I did deserve to lose Kerry. It’s time to accept that and move on.

I make no promises out loud. But I start to eat regularly, and I stop drinking. I go to bed early on 31 December, wake up ready for 2004 to be the year I finally sort my shit out and stop hurting everyone else.