Thursday, 10 May 2007
Day 167 - "How to save a life"
The following was written by a friend and published in a local newspaper called the “Informant” in Polokwane a few weeks back.
“I would have stayed up with you all night had I known how to save a life…” The popular lyrics of The Fray’s song “How to save a life” have been high on International music charts since 2006 and as a result been sung by many adolescence all over South Africa. The song was written by Isaac Slade, lead singer of the band The Fray, based on his experience with a young boy during his work as a mentor at a camp for troubled teens. The song suggests how one should approach a drug addict in the aim to save their life and has woken a tragic realization in many young and old South Africans. Drug abuse is a growing problem all over the world, even in our home town of Polokwane.
According to Captain Seabi of the Polokwane Police, the youth are by far the biggest offenders when it comes to drug abuse related arrests. Ndo Mamgala, the spokesperson for education in Polokwane adds that the drug problem is not only found amongst our youth but even extends to some teachers in schools: “There have been incidents where teachers abuse alcohol and remain absent from school for days as a result.” In an event to curb this problem officials then insist these teachers go to rehabilitation centres and if these do not help they have been forced to dismiss them. While some teachers are drug abusers themselves there are many more who make an effort to control and prevent drug abuse in schools.
A well known teacher at Pepps Polokwane has said that “since Pepps is such a small school, teachers are able to keep a close eye on the students and therefore prevent the development of drug abuse by inflicting punishment in its early stages.” As a result, two children were suspended from the school after being caught smoking cigarettes. There are fortunately, many institutions in Polokwane who make an effort to prevent and control drug abuse but not everyone can be helped by their efforts alone. As inhabitants of Polokwane, we all know someone who is abusing drugs whether it be a friend, a friend of a friend or even ourselves. What then can you do to help prevent and stop this epidemic from savagely stealing lives? How can you save a life?
In attempting to answer this question, Mrs Riette van der Linde, the director of the Far North alcohol and drug rehabilitation centre in Polokwane, has described a typical step by step progression in an addicts life based on her experience working with young users: At first the user makes a decision to stop abusing drugs and proceeds to face a very difficult process of withdrawal. What keeps this person from relapsing and proceeding to carry on with their drug abuse is the support and praise from his or her family and friends. After experiencing days of pain and resisting the ever-growing cravings, the addict admirably manages to stay clean and the parents and friends trust they will never return to their old habits. As a result the parents and friends no longer feel the need to praise and support this person as much as they believe that the battle is over, but they are wrong. Steve Hamilton, a recovering drug addict who often gives motivational speeches in local schools wrote the following shocking truth in his book I want my life back: “One thing I remember about addiction is that it’s a progressive disease. It will ravage you physically as well as mentally and it won’t simply stop when you stop drugging…Even if you stop drugging, you still have the disease. You’re still an addict.” With loss of support and praise the addict will then often fall back into his or her old habits which often leads to an inevitable death. What can you do to prevent this? How can you save a life? There is no clear answer to this difficult question but there have been many who have found a way to overcome this battle. One of these people is a local boy who replaced his bad habit with a good one…blogging.
This young man gave us some insight into how he is managing to stay clean of drugs, “This struggle of mine has been going on for the past year. I only recently found these blogs and have found amazing comfort in sharing my thoughts and feelings while I try and recover. The support I have out there, mostly in people I have never met gives me strength to try my best every day. I will always stay an addict, but at least now I’m a Recovering Heroin Addict.” This man has written daily, detailed entries on his site since the 24th of November 2006. He describes the daily battle of withdrawal he goes through, he speaks of shocking drug and dealer experiences and then people comment on his entries and in turn give him the support he needs to recover. He is truly admirable for overcoming all he has thus far and he can serve as an inspiration for all who are facing the same battle, as he says: “I read the comments on my blogs throughout the day and they, more than anything else, give me the strength to continue with my recovery. I have used alcohol, dagga, ecstasy, acid, cocaine, kat, crack, pinks and heroin (take a breath) and only realize now that I am an addict and will never have control over any of it. Although this realization comes presumably a bit late in my life, I believe it is never too late to make the change and stop this cycle!”
Day 167 - "How to save a life"
Day 166 - "2 cents"
Wednesday, 9 May 2007
Day 166 - "2 cents"
Hey kiddies… its me…
I’ve haven’t blogged in 2 days and it feels like I’ve been gone for 2 weeks. I still wake up in the mornings and it feels like I’m missing something big in my life. My first instinct is to go to the computer and write.
I broke the news on Monday that I would be ‘cooling down’ with the blogging and not blog daily as I have done over the past 5 months. It was much better received than I anticipated and I realized just once again how many ‘friends’ I have here supporting me. You are all great and I thank you for your continued support through this.
As you can see, weeks hasn’t passed since I’ve made another entry, as some of you feared.. I’m still around here reading blogs every day and trying to comment a bit more than I used to.
Our computers are the office have been acting up since yesterday. One after the other, the weird problem after the other pops up. As the resident IT-Guy, on top of my normal office duties, I am kept quite busy trying to get them working again – without BASHING THEM!
The new building we moved into in February gets very cold in the winter. My legs are sore right into the bone from the cold and my feet feels like huge ice blocks. This is still a side affect of my heroin use, but still a huge improvement from the pain earlier on in the year.
And as far as friends or love goes… my ex and I are communicating, trying to get to know each other again after almost 2 years apart. This is a really interesting exercise and I’ll keep you up to date on the progress I make in that department. At the moment it is more of a long-distance-friendship – and I’m approaching it as that to be safe.
That’s my 2 cents for the day. Enjoy the rest of your day and don’t do anything I wouldn’t do – or at least take pictures!
Day 164 - "The time is nigh"
Monday, 7 May 2007
Day 164 - "The time is nigh"
The time has come! After more than a 160 blogging days in My Heroin Recovery, I am finally doing it. I am sort-of saying Good-Bye to daily blogging!
I have since starting this blog, blogged almost everyday to give you an account of my emotions and feelings on a daily basis. And this was one of my most helpful fighting tools in getting my life back. I am saying Good-bye, but not to blogging entirely!
After much consideration this weekend I have decided that daily blogging isn’t the right thing to do anymore. Instead of writing when I have something to say or when something happens in my life, I have almost forced myself to feel or to relive moments in the past I probably wasn’t ready to share yet – all so that I could write something everyday. Does that make sense to you at all?
Blogging has become part of my daily routine just as waking up or brushing my teeth is and I will miss that part. This doesn’t mean that I’ll disappear for weeks and weeks without updating you – just a chance really to blog whenever I want to or not when I don’t want to.
Even so, I wouldn’t have done it any differently up to now and I would recommend it to anybody. It has been one of the major reasons I have handled this recovery so well. Thank you to the people reading, learning and giving advise. To the people urging me on, helping me through the bad days and sharing my happiness on the good ones. I am very confident that this move will help me even more!
