Saturday, 3 May 2008
Rehab - "Day 3 in Rehab"
Rehab, 3 April 2008...
The third day is always a bit better. However slight it might me, there is always a minor relief from the agonising pain of the day before. When I opened my eyes this morning I knew immidiately things were going to be better today. I was going to make sure of it.
Ashok (Indian Druggie) is out of his bed when I wake up but he soon returns and starts yet another drug conversation with me. I decide that if I have any chance of staying this positive I have to get away from him and his constant drug talk. I arrange to move to the room next door and immediately feel at home there. I am greeted by Darrell* with one of those welcoming smiles that would make any stranger feel totally at home. I met him the day before but I wasn’t really talkative then. I only had one thing on my mind. If I could break into the Medicine room and clear out the Schedule 5-7 cabinet – I would have done it.
That was yesterday. Today, Darrell and I are talking. As I get to know him I realize how similar our stories are, as if we both traveled the road to hell and could draw you a map to get there. I don’t believe in co-incidence. I believe everything happens for a reason, sometimes you see the reason, and other times you miss it completely. I wasn’t sure yet what the events of the past few days meant or why I was in this room today. All I knew was for the first time since I was here I had hope. Not even hope that I could beat it, I think there was way too much work still for that, but hope that I actually wanted to beat it!
"Day 3 in Rehab"
"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!
"Day 1 in Rehab"
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Rehab - "Day 1 in Rehab"
Rehab, 1 April 2008...
I finally have a date. In over 8 months of continues drug use and 10 years of relapsing time and time again, I finally have a date to look back on as the day I stopped using drugs. It is the 1st of April, April Fools too many, but I know my life is no joke anymore, it hasn’t been a joke for a very long time - it is deadly serious. So, serious that I find myself standing at the doors of a Rehab Clinic as one of the only unexhausted options.
It is my first time here and I feel like Alice in Wonderland stumbling down the rabbit hole as if I am on a bad acid trip. I must be! Surely it can’t be that I’ve thrown a decade of my life away. It can’t be my thin dead reflection staring back at me when I look in the mirror. It can’t be that I’ve lied, betrayed and stolen just to keep poison flowing through my veins, could it?
My white body is only skin and bone drifting around aimlessly, like a ghost almost. My whole personality sucked out and replaced by… nothing… a void really. A void that took only a few hours to surface in my life again and most believe 4 months would not even cure, let alone 4 weeks.
This morning I didn’t care to ever take drugs again but now I want to kick myself for not smuggling something in. They search my bags, clothes, I even have to strip down to my underwear and take that off. Perhaps it is best I didn’t try to bring something in, where would I have hid it?
I start looking at the windows, the doors, anything that will help me get out of here. I have to do this but I don’t know if I can! I have to part with my drugs but I don’t know if I want to! I’m taken to detox and get a handful of pills and pop them in my mouth without taking a look at any of them. I don’t want to know what they are giving me. I don’t want to know how I’ll get through tomorrow or through the next 4 weeks. I just want to close my eyes and get through the night!
"Back to reality"
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Current Recovery - "Back to reality"
I made it through another day. I made it through my first weekend back in the real world. I feared thoughts of taking again would consume me – but it didn’t. In fact, not once did I even entertain the idea of getting or taking any kind of alcohol or drugs. I don’t ever want to be the slave of drugs or alcohol again. In fact, no drug could replace this good mood I am currently in – not all the heroin in the world!
I completed my treatment on Friday and spent this long weekend with my family. There was calmness in the house that hasn’t been there in a very long time! They could all see what I am bursting to tell the world – that I came back a changed person! It is one of those 180 degree changes that you hear about or see in movies and if you are lucky get to experience in your lifetime.
Don’t get me wrong, the clinic wasn’t a holiday, not at all. I had my share of ups and downs but they all contributed to the person writing these words today. I’ll be sharing my rehab days with you in the next month because I believe them to be crucial in understanding how I got here. Equally important they might have some profound meaning to even just one person out there.
Of course I’ll keep you updated on how the current days are going as well. They are important because they lie a mystery to me at the moment. I don’t know their outcome as I know the outcome of the rehab days I’m about to share with you. One certainty is that they will contain the same ups and downs I have been trying to hide from with drugs. They will contain the same temptations and triggers that have haunted me for 10 years.
The difference will be in the way I approach them!
"Prologue (Part 2)"
Monday, 28 April 2008
Current Recovery - "Prologue (Part 2)"
Continues from Part 1...
I knew for a while I took a hectic detour on the road I wanted to travel in my life. I’ve been drifting aimlessly wasting my talents, my money and my life for 10 years. While busy with my 28 days I realized something vitally important that possibly helped change my life. I never took a detour! All my life has been lived to get me to this point, this day! It seems unsettling thinking that you spent 10 years figuring out the purpose of your life, but then again some die at 60 never have found theirs.
This blog started a while ago and the days kept counting. I was proud to be clean from my drug of choice but made possibly the biggest mistake in recovery and substituted heavily with drinking and other drugs. Today, for the first time I am clean and sober for 28 straight days! I have a better relationship with my family and friends now and I know it is only the beginning. I have a better relationship with God than I have had in 27 years and amazingly I know this is also only the beginning.
I could go on for hours and still you won’t realize just how much the past 28 days impacted on my life. I ask myself if one person could possibly change in just under a month, but reminded that it took a decade to get me here. Regardless, I am glad to be here! And yes, my religion and the positive and determined outlook I have today might be clouded by pain, cravings, negativity and tears tomorrow. However, today I can proudly tell you about ‘My Heroin Recovery’, today I am positive, strong and eternally happy. Today I am clean and sober!
"Prologue (Part 1)"
Monday, 28 April 2008
Current Recovery - "Prologue (Part 1)"
My name is Christiaan. I am a recovering addict.
My drug of choice is obvious through the title on this blog but it wasn’t always my first choice. In fact, thinking back now, it very possibly started with a few drinks almost 10 years ago. I climbed the ladder of addiction through every imaginable substance very quickly and soon my inability to stop became clear to me and those around me. I even lost my fair share and more of money when it came to gambling.
When we took the trip to rehab 28 days ago there was a part of me that wanted to recover. It was that part that delayed the suicide attempts, it was that part that kept most of my parent’s possessions in their house when I was desperate for money, it was that part that cried for my mistakes the brief moments I had any feelings. It was the only good part of me left!
No matter how I tried the other parts of me seemed to always win. Even my first two days in Rehab was spent checking which windows had bars and which doors would be easy to escape through. I was desperately clinging to the comfort that was now killing me and it wasn’t doing it subtle anymore. Every time I tried to stop, my addiction won in the end, every time I tried to find God I found another drug to worship. Every time I lost the fight, until now…
Part 2 continues later today...
