I fork out pounds 1,000 a day on heroin.. I know it's killing me but

0 Comments | Sunday Mirror, Jul 4, 2004 | by EXCLUSIVE by DANIELLE LAWLER

"I sparked up like a Christmas tree. Sticking a line of cocaine up your nose is normal in the music industry... it's rife. Drugs and music are one and the same to me. I cannot distinguish between them."

A CLOSE friend of the singer's explains how music industry expenses listed as "flowers and chocolate" are usually bills for cocaine and other drugs.

"You can always get your hands on whatever you want," adds Doherty.

After national tours with American rockers The Strokes and Aussie stars The Vines, The Libertines were voted Best New Band in 2003 and then Best British Band earlier this year.

But as records like What A Waster, Don't Look Back Into The Sun climbed the charts, Doherty's drugs problems were spiralling out of control.

He was sacked for the first time in July last year. While the band were abroad he even took some of Carl's property to feed his addiction.

Doherty was welcomed back - but his continuing addiction finally forced the band to part with him again last week after his latest battle to beat his addiction failed.

"I tried to calm down with a smoke when they told me," he says. "But as I was cooking up I looked at the brown and screwed it up. There was not a drug in the world that could make me feel better. It made me feel dirty and I realised, 'This is why I can't play'. I've got to start getting clean straight away. But I can't do it in the Priory or places like that. I have to do it in the environment I live in because I am always going to be surrounded by drugs while I'm making music. I've just got to find the inner strength to control it."

"I'd like to say I've been through rehab and seen the error of my ways, but if I put my hand on heart I've not. I'm not shooting up any more - I supposed I can use about pounds 1,000 a day but I can't quantify how much drugs passes through my hands and my bloodstream."

Doherty has had a series of relationships with a leggy American model known only as Jack and has a two-year-old son, Astile, with Lisa Moorish, who has a baby daughter Molly by Liam Gallagher.

His latest love was a girl called Irene. Once he dreamt of running away to Paris with her

"Irene was my girlfriend but it's over," he sighs. "I had to choose between her or drugs. I suppose I chose drugs."

A photographic exhibition entitled Boys In The Band: The Libertines - The Story So Far is to be held at the Proud Galleries, Camden Town, London on July 24-25