Irvine Welsh has said the 90s Ecstasy explosion was the only reason he got sex.
The Trainspotting writer claimed before the disco drug erupted on to the club scene, men and women did not mix on nights out at his locals in Leith, Edinburgh.
And he credited the class A drug with helping him get his first serious girlfriend.
Welsh, 61, a former heroin addict, 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 bestseller after it was published in 1993.
But he has said in a new interview that fame wasn’t good for his career – as it gave him the time and cash to go out and get wasted.
He added: “Suddenly I had all this acclaim. It’s not a good thing, the whole trappings of fame and celebrity.
“I would be in my garret typing and be thinking, ‘Why am I doing this, sitting around in this boring f*****g house? I’m famous, I should be going out and s******g everything in sight and taking every drug I can get my hands on.’”
Twice-divorced Welsh now lives with his current partner in Chicago and has largely kicked drugs.
He said he now restricts himself to a bottle of fine red wine and the occasional trip on hallucinogenic drug DMT.
