"Day 2 in Rehab"

Friday, 2 May 2008
Rehab - "Day 2 in Rehab"

Rehab, 2 April 2008...

It is pitch dark outside. The nurses crash through the door and wake us up to take our morning smarties. I’m dead tired. I got a panic attack last night. I’m not sure what made it worse – the withdrawals or the thought of never taking anything again. I got some medicine that helped but the rest of the night passed with great difficulty. I take the pills from the nurse and swallow them without taking a look. I close my eyes and drift into sleep again.

It is much later in the day when I get woken up for lunch. My room mate Ashok* (meaning ‘without sorrow’) is a young Indian guy. Every time my eyes open he starts talking about his drug taking, where he took and how much he took. He has a dealer around the corner, he says, 5 minutes and we have it. My craving mind entertains the thought for a while and I turn over waiting for him to fall asleep.

Ashok turns out to be an insomniac so I spend hours listening to him go on and on. I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling and one plan after the other spins through my mind. I have no money on me but a druggie always makes a plan. The scary thing is in the streets of Johannesburg where will I draw the line at getting money!

I’ve drawn the line so far on the wrong side that I don’t know how to get my way back. Heroin has its clutches so deep through every cell in my body that it is clinging for dear life at the moment. Just another day I keep whispering to myself… just make it through another day!