Out there: All over now

One morning this woman phoned up. She said, 'Do you know Paul is married with two kids?' It was his wife

"When I was 14, I met this bloke in a pub," says Lisa, a petite, 20-year-old blonde. "Anyway, after I'd known him about a month, he gave me a pill, and I was monged all night, just sitting there with my head on his shoulder. It was a brilliant feeling. Then we started going out clubbing at the weekends, coming up to London. He had his own business, selling second-hand cars, and his Ecstasy and coke, and I got bang into the pills. Soon I was doing them all week, munching them like Smarties. I even did one in my science exam and got thrown out for wearing my Walkman.

"I left school with no grades, nothing. But I was going out with someone much older - he was 27 at the time - so I thought I knew everything. I was just 15, so it was a big deal, and I'd go to school on Monday and tell everybody about the weekend. We were bang on the pills, we even used to go jet-skiing at a local lake on them. Sometimes he'd take nine or ten, and say, 'Nothing's happening, they're not working', and then we'd get in the car and he'd be off his nut, in a world of his own.

"It was madness. He'd come home with 500 pills and a big bag of powder and I'd chop it up for him. So then I started doing the powder, too. When it's free, you can't say no. I didn't ever think we'd get caught because he used to say, 'Don't worry, you're safe with me.' And I used to think of him as some kind of god. We sold the pills and powder at local pubs and clubs. I think he might still be doing it - I know he's recently bought a pounds 500,000 house and paid cash for it.

"Eventually I got very withdrawn and started having hallucinations. I saw a winged horse in my room once, galloping towards me, that terrified me. You get paranoid; you think everyone wants something from you. Even my sister, she's like my best friend, she'd come round to see me and I'd say, 'Yeah?', like, 'What do you want?' I grew apart from my friends and family - I used to laugh at my friends. I thought I was so brilliant. And he had so much money; he'd give me pounds 50 at a time.

"It sounds corny, but it's not like it used to be, not now. These days, I think the drugs are much worse, but to be honest I don't do Es now, so I don't know. I do a powder now and again, a bit of spliff, but that's all. But I had some great times, and with good E, there are definitely some positive things. If you're reserved, it will bring you out, make you open up to the good feelings inside you. It can help you to learn how to trust people, and get to know them better. Like anything, you can overdo it. But I can't knock it, because it taught me how to get in touch with feelings I never knew existed.

"Anyway, I went out with Paul for nearly three years. I wasn't getting on with my mum and dad, so I was staying at his flat. Then one morning this woman phoned up. She said, 'Do you know Paul is married with two kids?' It was his wife. It sounds stupid, and I know I was very naive, but his family lived in a house ten miles away, so I didn't know anything about them. He'd been keeping us both on the go. I was really gutted, I was furious. He had a Porsche 911, so I went and smashed the windscreen. The worst bit was when I realised that all his friends, who I thought were my friends too, they'd known all along.

"I've got to move out of home. I don't get on with my parents at all now. I can't get a job at the moment, and my mother hates that. Even though I'm hardly ever at home, she makes me feel like a layabout, so I try not to eat at home.

"I do miss the good times. Sometimes I hear one of those old tunes and it makes me feel sad. I grew up too fast, but at least I'm not as gullible as I used to be. No, I don't regret anything. The way I see it, I've done it and I can learn from the experience"