Seven years ago, Arthur (49) abruptly quit crystal meth and devoted himself entirely to music. He took singing lessons and joined various choirs. “I am so much happier now that I sing. Music is my escape.”

The tranquil classical music of composer Bruckner swells in Arthur’s sleekly furnished three-room flat. His living room window on the second floor offers a sparkling view of Amsterdam’s canals. ‘It looks very different now than it did seven years ago,’ he says. “Back then, my flat was a total mess. I suffered from psychosis and paranoia. I thought the neighbours and Scientology were constantly eavesdropping on me. In August 2016, I quit cold turkey and then bought new things for my flat every month. So that I could feel safe here again.”

Arthur used crystal meth for years. At first it was occasionally, then almost weekly, then every weekend and finally every day. “I had sex for days on end under the influence of meth, working in the events sector during the week and in the hospitality industry at the weekends. I also went to work under the influence more and more often. Nobody said anything about it. Or maybe they noticed, but they remained polite. Under the influence of meth, you can go on for hours. The weekends started with my regular pub crawl, I visited darkrooms and used just about everything that came my way. In hindsight, I realised that I had a sex addiction and that using drugs added a lot of value to it.”

Arthur was offered his first pipe of meth by a French tourist. He found the effect amazing. The next day, they used it together again. A year and a half later, Arthur switched to injecting meth. “When I started slamming, things quickly went wrong. My rock bottom was when a very good friend said, “What the hell are you doing?” He was extremely angry, and when he’s angry, it’s really bad. Other friends also no longer saw me as “Arthur”, but as a junkie who could no longer decide what was good for him. They started speaking for me. It was close to an intervention.” Arthur decided to quit. Rigorously. His salvation: music.

“Listen to Schütz’s Musikalische Exequien, the first unofficial German requiem. The third movement in particular is a gem. The piece was written back in 1635!” When Arthur stopped using drugs, he threw himself into playing his electric piano. He had received it from a friend over a year earlier. “Endlessly and high, I practised scales, often late into the night. Of course, I wore headphones, but I hammered the keyboard so hard that the woman upstairs would occasionally come and complain that I absolutely had to stop.”A month later, Arthur saw an advertisement for a singing coach in the neighbourhood. “I immediately thought: I’m going to do that, I’ve always wanted to sing. “His first singing lessons were very confrontational. “After years of jaw tension and teeth grinding as a result of meth use, my tongue was like an uncooperative ping pong ball between two stiff jaws. I practised hard to get my voice back, to shape it and optimise it.”

Arthur learned to sing in harmony and joined various choirs, searching for his singing style and musical challenge. At the beginning of 2020, he joined a church choir. “Fortunately, church choirs were allowed to continue rehearsing during the coronavirus pandemic. I met new people who shared the same hobby and became increasingly enthusiastic. Now classical singing is my thing. I’m much less interested in covers of George Michael or Sting, for example. When I stopped using drugs, my challenge was: how can I turn my years of drug use into something positive? I had spent a lot of time on sex and drugs. So I looked at photos of myself when I was eight or nine years old. What did I want as a little boy who still had plenty of dreams? Three guesses… I am so much happier now that I sing. It gives me enormous satisfaction. Music is my escape.”