Lanre Fehintola's new book, "Charlie says... don't get high on your own supply", describes a Bradford that many readers will never experience and most will never want to.

It pulls no punches in its description of a dark world filled with drug addiction, degradation and despair. And it is by no means an easy read with its descriptions of crack dealers violently strip searching a prostitute.

But that is perhaps exactly why people should read it.

Many of us pass through the Bradford streets it describes on a regular basis. Alongside "normal" people going about their business, we catch glimpses of the dealers, prostitutes and addicts, but how much do we really know about their lives?

Breaking down the barriers between these two worlds was Lanre's main aim.

He said: "I am always trying to connect people on the margins with the ordinary people in society. The first thing I wanted was for the public to understand that drug taking was an illness. I wanted to give addicts a voice, to create a dialogue so that there was some sort of conversation going on."

In a bid to find out the truth, the author plunged himself right into the middle of this other world for nearly a decade. Perhaps the most shocking thing about the book is that the sober, articulate author is the same person who attacked that prostitute on Manningham Lane because she owed him money for crack.

Lanre, now 42, spent his early years in London. He moved to Bradford at the age of around 13 and then had a "difficult" period, running away from home, hanging around with kids on the streets and getting in trouble with the law. This ended with a three year jail sentence for robbery at the age of 20.

While in prison he decided to "get his act together".

He went on to pass O and A levels at Bradford College, a degree in English literature at what was Leeds Polytechnic and a course in photo-journalism in London in 1986. This led to work with news agencies there before he went freelance.

Then, in 1990/91, he came back to Yorkshire and discovered many of his old friends were involved in the new crack cocaine "scene" taking off in Bradford. Lanre immediately decided this was his next photojournalism project. Ten years on and he is still trying to extricate himself from it.

He began his research by hooking up with a friend and learning what being a crack dealer was about.

"I really thought I knew what I was doing - I really did. I had a plan in my head. The problem is, once you have lived on the edge, you tend not to question things too much when you bend a few rules.

"I could drive a car for a drug dealer and I am researching. Then someone says 'hold this' and I haven't crossed the line. But then someone says take some money and I am selling and I still don't realise I am crossing over. I didn't see it as crime - I just saw it as research."

But did he have any concerns about the perceptions readers would have of him?

"Not really because I believe that people who knew me knew what I was trying to do anyway. I was trying to be honest. I lost my way but I couldn't then write the story as though that just didn't happen. I have done some wrong things, but if I hide them they are never going to be sorted out."

From dealing crack he wanted to know what cold turkey felt like after taking heroin - without realising that to do this he would have to become an addict first.

"I thought I could just jump in, use a few drugs and jump out of it again - but obviously it doesn't work like that at all," he said.

The final chapter details Lanre going through the painful withdrawal process, a bleak experience that was filmed by his college friend Leo Regan for a documentary due to be shown on Channel 4 next month. That was more than a year ago but does he ever feel he will be completely free of heroin?

"I don't think about that, I just get on with my life. I am hoping to get the hell out of Bradford as quickly as possible. I just want to get back into my old way of life."

'Charlie says...' by Lanre Fehintola is published in paperback by Scriber at £7.99.