Irvine Welsh says drug Ecstasy helped him get a girlfriend

Trainspotting author Irvine Welsh said Ecstasy was the gateway to his success with women.

The Edinburgh-born writer said the Class A drug opened up more opportunities for mingling with women and forming relationships.

Before being exposed to the drug he said life was “like sexual apartheid.”

The 61-year-old recently made his comments about the ‘disco drug’ in a new paperback version of the book Don't Look Back In Anger by Daniel Rachel.

Welsh, who grew up in Leith, said: “When Ecstasy came into working class communities, it changed a lot of the narratives.

“Beforehand, men and women didn’t really mix. It was like sexual apartheid.

“Where I grew up, the girls would be in the lounge bar and the guys would be in the public bar. You’d meet in the disco.

“You’d sit with your mates drinking. And the girls would be with their mates dancing round their handbags. The last dance, everybody would just pile on.

“When I started taking Ecstasy, all these women I’d known for ages, but not known at all because they were just the girlfriends or the wife of your mates – I suddenly realised that they were much more interesting than their partners.

“I got a proper relationship with women for the first time. Everything was breaking down.”

Welsh’s Trainspotting became an international best-seller after it was published in 1993.

It made him part of the 'Cool Britannia' scene and was turned into an award-winning film by Danny Boyle starring Scottish born Ewan McGregor.