This route out of addiction - that of running away - is contemptuously known as 'doing a geographical' in some NA circles, but at the time it seemed the best option, given that I couldn't face climbing the Twelve Steps.After smoking my last bit of heroin in the toilets at Heathrow, I caught a plane to Moscow, and started doing cold turkey on the longest train journey in the world. I can still remember lying in my couchette in a muck sweat, staring out of the icy train window at Lake Baikal. I can also remember getting drunk every day on cheap buffet-car vodka - to kill the pain and the insomnia.My suffering lasted eight days. Eventually we reached Vladivostok, where I caught the boat to Japan. Once there I stayed with a friend in Kyoto for a couple of months.

There are no drugs in Kyoto.Since this watershed I have returned to London, and revived my life and career. Out of the group of friends I used to take heroin with, most are clean. Some have done this by sticking with NA, some by running away; still others have used a combination of methadone and willpower. My abiding sadness is that those who did it via NA - rich and poor, titled or unemployed - have now become strangers; their experiences and perspectives now differ so greatly from my own it is difficult for us to be the good friends that we were.But at least we're still alive.(Photographs omitted). GEORGE BEST, ex-footballer: Yes, on many occasions, and it's almost always a bloody nuisance unless they are very beautiful. OLIVER JAMES, psychologist: Once I went out socialising with a number of colleagues and we all got incredibly pissed. One of the women from my office said that she wanted to go dancing.

However once inside the cab she asked if we could go back to my flat instead. As soon as we got in the door she started literally tearing my clothes off I was both unable to resist and unable to perform In the morning I felt uncomfortable and angry. I'm sure that if the situation had happened to a woman there would have been quite a lot of grief as a result. TED REYNELL, hairdresser: Of course. Let's face it 80 per cent of the men in this business are gay and those who aren't are married or have commitments. But I'm straight and not married so it happens.TONY MORTIMER, member of East 17 pop group: Not sexually harassed as such But sometimes fans can get very possessive. But when they start knocking on your front door at all hours just to say hello, look at you and then follow you around it can feel like sexual harassment.JASON STATHAM, male model: No, I haven't. Maybe it's because I look a bit scarey since I'm big and bald.GRANT WESTALL-REECE, estate agent: I worked for an estate agent as a negotiator when I was 18.