Dear people with judgement written on your face and contempt in your eyes,
I am a recovering drug addict.
I started this letter the way I did because I know the look you give me when I tell you I am recovering from a substance abuse problem. I am only too familiar with that sympathetic and/or judgmental smile or the fear in your eyes when I stand close to you or God forbid, breathe so much as the same air as you.
I guess you think I might snap any moment and rip your head off. You like to keep your distance from me, because in your eyes, I am a monster: someone who has sinned, someone you should stay away from, someone with whom you don’t feel comfortable, and someone who will have to suffer the consequences.
Am I not right? Is that not what is going through your head the minute you hear that I have had a past that is laced with drug abuse?
I was under the influence for almost three years before I decided to take control of my life. I was the one who did all those things that affected my body to a great extent and I am the reason why my family’s name has been spat upon by the likes of you. But there is someone who isn’t quite letting me do all this, there is someone who is adamant on making sure that I am not able to turn over a new leaf.
Who is that?
It’s almost every person whom I tell about my substance abuse. It is almost every classmate, every teacher, almost all my neighbours.
That is the ‘someone’ I am talking about.
But guess what, I am the one who is making amends for the mistakes I made when I was a teenager. I am the one who is trying, a little every day, to try and let go of his habits. Believe me, I am trying. I am trying with all my might and a steely resolve… but, I can’t do it alone.
I need you!
I need you to help me. I need you to not judge me, but to support me in this choice that will eventually help me, my family and the people I love lead a better life.
Am I a disgrace? Perhaps, yes.
It all started with the weed, then those little pills that made me feel I was flying. I was making cocktails of all sorts of drugs, even overdosing to make the ‘rushes’ last longer. I took copious amounts of these chemicals every day for as long as two years until I had a bad ‘trip’ one night and went into what the doctors later called toxic psychosis. I prayed and cried for this feeling to go away.
I had voices in my head, had the shakes and couldn’t leave home for six months. I became very withdrawn and thought everyone was watching me. I couldn’t walk in public places. Man! I couldn’t even drive.
I ended up homeless and on the streets, living and sleeping in a cardboard box, begging and struggling to find ways to get my next meal. I asked myself if this is rock bottom, and I believed it was. While observing these homeless people I decided that I had had enough. Yes I wanted drugs, but I realised that I could want life more.
For me, that was it. That was the start of a journey. A journey, I knew would be difficult and at times even excruciating… but I knew that somewhere, deep inside the monster I had become, there still was the same person who his friends looked up to. There still was a part of me… that made my parents proud!
Those days for me were the result of a fickle mind and peer pressure. Do you realise how I wish I’d never done any of that? Probably not.
It was just a stupid dare from a friend who said that I was just a sissy not to smoke a joint and drink a quart of beer. I was nineteen at that time. After three years of using and drinking I found myself at the end of the road. I was no longer using to feel euphoria, I was just using it to try and feel some semblance of normality. I then started having those negative feelings about myself and my own abilities… it was as if it were all one dark and twisty movie ‘plot’… never seeming to end.
I hated the paranoia. I hated looking over my shoulder all the time. I really hated not trusting my friends.
I became so paranoid that I successfully drove everyone away and found myself in the terrible place no one wants to be in — I was alone.
I’d wake up in the morning and start my day with a joint and it just kept getting worse as the day went on.
I accept my mistakes. Yes, my actions were a mistake and are my biggest regret. Above everything else though, I hated myself. I hated myself for not being smart enough to make an informed decision. How could I not be? This one decision had turned my life around… and it was not pretty.
Don’t hate me for making an error in judgement, just show a little appreciation for me trying to put it behind and working hard towards a better future. A future that involves normalcy. A future that involves employment, a future that gives me enough strength to be able to have a family. A future that gives me enough, to be a role model for my kids. There was never a ‘plan’ to be a drug addict. I know my actions have no rational justification. I know it. I know it better than everybody else… because it was a self inflicted wound!
However, here I am, three years later, trying to nurse the wound close and start fresh. All I ask of you is that you give me a little time and that you be patient. All I will ever ask of you… is that you smile when you look at me, because that, works better than any other de-addiction medication. A genuine smile!
Every time I look at my mother, I wish I’d never gone to that party. Every time I look at my father, I feel his eyes piercing through me… looking for the son he was once proud of. I would sell my soul to make things the way they used to be. I regret my actions, I do. I don’t need sympathy and the sad eyes, or worse, the whispers behind my back.
I don’t need any of that. Honestly, I don’t even expect you to understand; but if you could just pretend to care? I don’t need too much; just a little bit of concern, a smile and a pat on the back. Just do this for me, and I promise, someday very soon, my mother will have the son she loved, back in her arms. My father, will once again be able to hold his head up high and be proud of me.
Till then, let me be and allow me to work on my issues. I am paying for my actions already, the only way you can make it better is by actually helping me find myself again.
Sincerely,
That ex-drug addict.
