Testimony and pics - Ex-addict

My name is '(sensored) Anonymous Ex-addict '. I am 34 years old, a mother of two, and a journalist by profession. I live in a tiny 'sensored' town called 'sensored', close to 'sensored' power station where my boyfriend 'sensored' electrical supervisor at the stockyard that supplies coal to Eskom. We have five cats and a sausage dog called Frikkie. I am also a recovered cocaine/cough mixture addict. This is my testimony.

Back in time to 1992. It's New Year's Eve and I'm in Rocky Street, Yeoville to see in 1993. I'm 19 years old and I'm given my first line of cocaine by my best friend's older brother. It doesn't stop at one line and it continues long after the New Year's celebrations. The next nine years go past in a chemically-induced haze: think bad decisions, bad marriage to an abusive husband, inability to hold onto money, selling personal possessions, fear, lies, shame and depression. Inability to work at my full potential, and eventually an inability to work at all. Somewhere along the line I discovered I would have to take tranquilisers or sleeping tablets to counter the effects of the coke, which was making me increasingly paranoid.

Then in 2002 I met my boyfriend who was working at a pawn shop where I used to pawn and sell my possessions at a frightening rate. There never seemed to be enough money for my R300 a gram habit. No, not habit – more of "an all consuming lust for cocaine", as someone who knew me once described it. My very best friend summed it up thus: 'Anonymous Ex-addict' you come across like a victim and then when you don't get what you want (cocaine) you turn nasty." Boyfriend seemed functional enough at first glance: he worked at the pawn shop and shared a house with his two younger brothers in Brackenhurst. But his Achilles Heel was an over-the-counter cough medication called Lenazine. It is packed with synthetic morphine, also known as codeine, amphetamines and to put the cherry on top, if you're a junkie that is, it also contains copious amounts of surgical alcohol. It is highly addictive and, at R12 per 100ml, extremely affordable. I thought I'd solved my problems. A drug that was not only cheap but legal – no one can send you to jail for being in possession of an over-the-counter cough suppressant. Little did I know I was about to be plunged into an even deeper hell than the one known as cocaine-dependency. The codeine in Lenazine makes you sleep. Not for hours but for days at a time. And when you wake up you have tremors and your muscles feel like they've turned to jelly. You can't think straight. All that matters is getting more Lenazine in order to get through the day. Have some more and the amphetamines make you feel invincible. But, as with all narcotics, eventually you're taking it just to stay alive.

Between 2002 and 2005 I couldn't hold on to a job for more than maybe six months. I destroyed some truly fantastic opportunities. My last job, for a national consumer magazine in 2004 paid R17 500 a month. I have nothing to show for that today. Between the cough mixture, the coke and the tranquilisers no amount of money lasted very long. At a conservative estimate my 13-year drug addiction cost somewhere in the region of R2 million. And that's only in fiscal terms. The other costs, and now I'm talking about the truly valuable commodities: love, honour, self-respect, family, friends and professional standing, and there is no way I could ever put a price on those things, the loss I suffered for my drug dependency, that I could never calculate. But it was massive.

By winter in 2005 I had reached rock bottom. Boyfriend and I were living in a back room on his mother's small holding in Walkerville. We were unemployed and unemployable. In June of that year my ex-husband kicked me in the face after we had a difference in opinion over my seven-year-old daughter's education. He fractured my jaw and I could not afford private healthcare. I was shunted from one state hospital to the next and eventually I started taking a schedule five pain killer and gave up on the whole idea of having my health seen to. When you're living like an animal, without money, hope and, sometimes even without food, when your entire raison d'etre is acquiring and using drugs, something like you're health seems to fades into insignificance. Then something really awesome happened. One cold July morning while the wind whistled desolation and despair and Boyfriend slept like the dead after the previous day's orgy of Lenazine, I prayed. I said to God: "I don't know how you're going to do it but please get us out of here."

From that moment the changes that took place in our lives were fast and far-reaching and because there is no other explanation, absolutely miraculous. Following a personal ad in the Star newspaper we met Peter Killian who told Charmaine at GiG about us. I knew I had to get into rehab but I had no money. Charmaine agreed to take me in at GiG. There are no rehabs that I know of where a penniless person can receive treatment.

At GiG I found love, love and more love. The incredible thing about the place is the atmosphere of love, acceptance and understanding that permeates its very foundations.

I finally found somewhere I was supported and safe. Where I could absorb the Word of God, where I could win the battle, one day at a time, for make no mistake drug addiction is a spiritual battle; a place where I had no fear of condemnation or punishment or judgement. A place where my soul could find the succour it needed through the Word of God, where I could work the 12-step programme, where I could put my life into perspective. Where I could begin to recover from the damage done by drugs. The truly extraordinary thing is that despite the fact that I had no way to pay Charmaine for my board and lodging, food, fresh clothing, I was not required to do hard labour (yes, I once did a four month stint at the notorious Noupoort Christian Care Centre. God is in many places, but I do not believe His hand is in that unforgiving place). From my point of view what GiG offered me was a gift from Heaven. A second chance at life.

I know irrevocably that God worked through Charmaine to help me, to help us. While I was at GiG, Boyfriend managed to get methadone to help him through the withdrawal of a 20-year Lenazine habit. While the withdrawal was at its worst, he actually saw a dark shadow hanging over his bed – but – and I don't mean to be melodramatic – God saved him from whatever that darkness was. Those of you who have not experienced it may scoff, may not believe what I am saying, but believe me, I have lived through hell on earth. Drug addiction is not an isolated physical illness; it cannot be cured through medication, psychiatrists, psychologists, hypnosis or detox diets. I know because I have tried all those things. It is not a moral weakness; I have seen junkies do honourable things. It is not genetic, intellectual or physical, although in some instances it is all of those things. It is something more, a beast that is greater than the sum of its parts. It is a spiritual affliction that manifests in terms of physical, mental and moral symptoms. To quote the AA Blue Book it is at once "a physical allergy and a mental obsession". The only escape from it is to place your will in the hands of God and start a new way of living. And that can only begin in an atmosphere of love and God's grace. An atmosphere that can be found at GiG.

Without GiG I would not be able to be the useful, productive and respectable person I am today. GiG not only enabled me to save myself: I was able to reclaim my little girl from the destructive environment she was exposed to when she lived with my bouncer ex-husband. I am able to be a mother, a partner, a worker, a valuable member of the community. Lat year when I very unexpectedly fell pregnant and gave birth to my baby boy, it's as though God was saying, "Fear not, my child I am with you and never again will you be in the darkness. Here is my gift to you, my promise you will always walk in the light." And I do think of content, easygoing Garth as my gift baby. Believe this: GiG not only saved my life, but the lives of Boyfriend, my daughter, and my son were directly affected by what I received there. Charmaine is doing awesome work. I will be forever in her debt.

Name - Sensored

Standerton

February 2007