A recovering ketamine addict has revealed how she came close to losing her life from organ failure and suffered seizures after using the drug – with her parents even being called to say their goodbyes.
Georgia Lee Hampshire was taking up to 14g of ketamine every day at the height of her 10-year addiction.
The 27-year-old began experiencing episodes where her head and body would jolt and twitch uncontrollably around four years ago.
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But despite recognising that her body was beginning to suffer, and after a haunting incident where doctors believed she was on the verge of losing her life, Georgia continued using the drug.
Now, she is sharing her warning to anyone else who wrongfully assumes it is a harmless party drug.
“It’s a slow deadly killer,” Georgia, from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, told Need To Know.
“I don’t know one person that does ketamine and hasn’t had any bad side effects.
“Ketamine has nearly killed me multiple times, and it’s killing people every day.”
Georgia’s drug use started when she was just 15.
She said: “I was 15 and I took a pill once at a party, smoked weed a few times, took speed at 16, tried LSD at 16, then went to college, turned 17 and tried ketamine at a rave and stuck with it.
“I used to hate drugs, but I made friends with a bunch of people and started to go to raves every weekend.
“Everyone was experimenting with cocaine and ketamine.
“I stuck with ketamine.
“I wasn’t addicted to it straight away, and I only did it every now and again.
“I ended up realising it wasn’t a party drug.
“I enjoyed the feeling of being dissociated, and I was taking it in my bedroom by myself.
“Nobody knew at first.”
But her drug use escalated heavily over the coming years, and four years ago she started suffering from seizures she believes were related to it.
She was spending £120 at a time on drugs.
Georgia said: “I would be on ketamine and spaced out, then as I was coming off of it the seizures would start happening.
“After I’d had a seizure, it scared me, but it didn’t give me a wake-up call.
“If I’d have been sober, it would have petrified me.
“I probably had around 10 overall.
“I cancelled every plan, had to spend Christmas morning and my birthday alone due to my addiction.
“I cut all my friends off and had no social life whatsoever because I couldn’t turn up for it.
“My mum could always tell if I’d been using the day after, as you could still see the effects in my eyes.
“They sink into your head, and your pupils go really small.
“Since October 2025 and the duration up until detox and rehab, I didn’t see anyone at all due to hitting the lowest point and losing so much weight it would’ve scared anyone.”
In June 2025, Georgia collapsed at her recruitment job after her kidneys and liver failed.
Someone in a neighbouring office found her on the floor, bleeding from the mouth after she’d bitten her tongue and called an ambulance.
Georgia was rushed to hospital and admitted to intensive care, where she was unconscious and unresponsive.
Doctors told her parents that they didn’t think she was going to survive and asked them to come and say goodbye.
Georgia said: “I think my body just had enough.
“Doctors made a call to my family and said I wasn’t going to make it.
“They were asked to come and say goodbye to me.
“My mum and dad had to think about whether they wanted to bury or cremate me.
“That’s something parents should never have to think about.”
Georgia eventually began to wake up, but doctors didn’t know whether she’d suffer brain damage.
She was kept sedated because she was so unwell and underwent repeated rounds of dialysis.
She had jaundice, was tube-fed, and received three blood transfusions.
Her muscles had stopped working, and she had to learn how to stand and walk again with physiotherapy.
Doctors requested both a liver and kidney transplant, but Georgia says she was rejected because she was an addict.
At her lowest point, she weighed around five stone, and spent over a month in hospital before being readmitted because she was too unwell to keep food down.
Yet just a week after leaving hospital, Georgia relapsed.
She said: “In my addict mind, I used a week after leaving hospital just because it was sunny outside.
“Everything from then just went horrendous.
“I was even scared looking in the mirror as I didn’t recognise myself.”
The downward spiral continued, and Georgia lost her job and crashed and wrote off her car.
Eventually, after years of addiction, Georgia had reached what she describes as “rock bottom”.
Her health continued to deteriorate, and she eventually needed a nephrostomy tube fitted into her right kidney in April 2026 after developing hydronephrosis – a condition where one or both kidneys swell because urine cannot drain properly and builds up inside them.
Georgia said: “I’ve recently just been told my bladder is smaller than a teaspoon and that I’ve completely ruined my bladder – it may be irreversible.
“My small bladder affects me every second of the day.
“I’m paranoid to go out if there are no accessible toilets nearby; everything revolves around thinking about where the next toilet is.
“I no longer feel comfortable on any kind of transport because of the pain and constantly needing a wee.
“I can’t walk longer than five or ten minutes without needing the toilet.
“I can’t sit down properly as it puts pressure and makes me need the toilet.
“Lying down makes my bladder worse, and I can’t focus on anything as I’m always in my head about needing to go.
“I wake up every 20 minutes throughout the night, and I rarely ever sleep out at anyone’s house anymore.”
“I’ll probably need bladder surgery or removal to improve my quality of life.
“I’ve developed pain in my bowels, bladder, joints and constant infections.
“My liver is deranged, and I only have one functioning kidney and my bladder at the moment.”
In July, a key worker from Change Grow Live eventually asked Georgia if she wanted to go into rehab, and funding was arranged.
She spent two weeks at a detox centre in Liverpool before moving to a rehabilitation centre in Barnsley.
Her treatment has included group therapy, weekly one-to-one sessions, DBT therapy, workshops and the 12-step programme.
She also attends recovery meetings and has been clean for nine weeks, the longest period of time since she started using.
She said: “The hardest part of getting sober is the amount of pain I’ve caused to myself and realising it’s going to be a slow recovery for my body.
“I feel disgusted at my behaviour, but I also understand that it’s an illness and not a true reflection of who I actually am.
“I’ve learned that I’ll always think like an addict, but I now have the skills to not act upon the thoughts in my head.
“I can look back at the steps and put them into place so I don’t pick up.
“I’ve done a lot of work on myself.
“In rehab, I’ve learned that I’m not a bad person; I just had bad experiences in life that made me do bad things due to my addiction.
“I learned that I actually care a lot about people and want the best for others.
“I’m very strong and can deal with anything thrown at me.
“I want to help other people in life.”
Georgia believes she was incredibly close to death when she finally started recovery – and has warned of the dangers of the popular drug.
She said: “I believe if I didn’t go to rehab when I did, I wouldn’t have made it another month.
“I would’ve died a painful, slow death – that’s what ketamine does.
“I used to think that I would never be like the sort of people who get that bad that they have to have their bladder removed.
“I thought that could never be me, but I promise, it will catch up with you if you keep taking it.
“Wake up and stop it whilst you can.
“I urge anyone to try to reach out to local drug services – they may be able to help with funding if you struggle to afford it.”
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