DOSE:	repeated	insufflated	Heroin	(powder / crystals)
	repeated	insufflated	Cocaine	(powder / crystals)
	repeated	oral	Alcohol	(liquid)
		oral	Codeine	(liquid)
			MDMA
			Amphetamines	(pill / tablet)
			Cocaine	(freebase)
			Pharms - Flunitrazepam

BODY WEIGHT:

65 kg

I think my obsession with drugs started when I was 3 years old. My dad was a medical rep for a major pharmaceutical company, and he always had codeine-based medicine with him. I clearly remember being away on holiday and faking a cough...I called him away from dinner and he told me to take some cough syrup. I think I probably drank the whole bottle. It was codeine and all I remember is watching mosquitoes and feeling deeply content.

Fast-forward a few years and I was a vehement anti-drug protester. Then I met my first fiance and somehow started taking ecstasy. Things got very hectic, as he was a drug-dealer and when he eventually ditched me (I was 17, he was 27, things were clearly not working out) I started on my long road to hell. First it was pills, then it turned into speed-crystals, and then diet-pills. I never had much self-esteem, my parents were always going on about how fat I was (it's genetic, but try telling them that) and speed gave me the body I craved. Nevermind the psychosis and paranoia. I could gym for 4 hours a day, 6 days a week and I looked fantastic.

Eventually my new boyfriend got me off speed, and all the while life was happening to me. I got a scholarship to a prestigious university to read Journalism, and turned it down for the new boyfriend who dumped me 2 months later...so back to the lovely drugs it was for me..it was all recreational though, mainly acid, pills and speed. All my friends were doing it with me. I got a new boyfriend, started at university and things were great for about 2 years. Then boyfriend dumped me and I started drinking...bottles of Jack Daniels were nothing for my voracious and destructive appetite and sleeping pills and Rohypnol were a nice extra. My second year of university is a blur...I don't even know how I passed, because I probably only attended 2 lectures that year.

Fat-forward to third year...my best friend leaves for the UK and I hook up with a great guy. My best friend and I had always said that we would never be drug addicts, because we did pills only on weekends, and didn't need them during the week. With him gone, I lost my reason and when the new boyfriend confided in me, that he had a heroin problem my alarm bells didn't even ring...I thought 'oh, well, heroin can't be that bad...he's fine' Soon enough, I was trying heroin and I loved it. The next year and a half is one I would rather forget.

Heroin is a delicious and evocative drug. It makes me forget that I am human and makes me think that friends are not neccessary for anyone. I spent about R60 000 in two months on crack cocaine and heroin, stole from everyone I knew including my parents, trashed my car, lied and cheated and even considered selling my body to pay off enormous debts. When it all came to a crashing halt, I was the one who had to tell everyone about my problem and the worst thing is that no-one had even noticed. I went into a self-imposed rehab, and I suppose that's where the problem lay. I never told my parents. I am an only child from a very wealthy and upper-class family. People like me do not do heroin. I was on the verge of graduating from University with a first. How could I tell my parents I was such a low-life scumbag? My dad thought I was sick and bought me methadone. I lay in bed for 2 months, on a drip, I thought I would die. Meanwhile, the boyfriend was back on H, still coming around and beating me and stealing everything.

After I ditched him, I hooked up with his best friend and 2 months of being clean got destroyed when I got back into H...I relapsed 7 times. Eventually, I went to live in the states for 6 months to try sort myself out. Because I was snorting the H, never injecting, I had started doing coke, not realising that I was displaying classic replacement behaviour.

I'm now back home. My recreational coke habit has escalated into a very serious drug problem...I think about coke constantly. I have a job, a degree, a car and a nice home. My parents love me and I have big plans to go and travel and start a career. But everyday I am faced with myself. I know I have such potential, I am considered very gifted and intelligent. But I am so broken by my constant abuse, that I have lost the will to live and succeed. I cannot ever see myself being a success, because I simply cannot get over the basic hurdle of making money and not buying drugs. I will go a day without coke and it feels like forever. I just wish I could see myself in 10 years and know I have a flash car and wonderful career, because I am terrified that I am going to end up broke and destitute. If I could see into the future, I wouldn't want to for fear of knowing exactly how much drugs ruined me.

Some people can do drugs and some people just cannot. I am a cannot, yet it controls my life and my world like a hungry child that has never grown up. Yet, the lessons I have learned and the things I have been through have changed my life in so many ways that I am grateful for. I've been abused, beaten and in the pits of hell and it has given me a wisdom and compassion beyond my years...but this is a life I would never wish on anyone. I am not an addict - I just have a serious drug problem. If it's not one, it's the other and the very thought of not drinking has made me shudder with horror at the thought of NA. A life without drugs is no life at all...hedonism is my holy grail. But if I carry on like this, I'll die.

Please read this, and just be aware. There is help out there, and if you are ready to receive it, then do it. Don't be like me.

Exp Year: 2004	ExpID: 36857
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 23, 2007	Views: 15,428
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Cocaine (13), Heroin (27) : Not Applicable (38), Addiction & Habituation (10), Retrospective / Summary (11)