Horrible life stories of drug addicts: everyone has a chance for healing, but usually it's too late. One life story

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According to studies, if a person becomes addicted to a drug, this slavery lasts an average of ten years. During this time, a person tries various narcotic substances, changes the forms and doses of administration, repeatedly tries to escape, with more or less success, spending from several days to several years in relative freedom, and then again plunging into the abyss of addiction. As a general rule, if a person manages to get through all these years and survives despite overdoses, suicide attempts, illnesses, and many other dangers, he or she is usually released - although often this release is only conditional. At the same time, none of the statistics of the world reflects the number of those people who use drugs from time to time, not allowing either an increase in doses or an increase in the frequency of receptions. Between them and drug addicts there is the same difference as between someone who allows himself to drink on the occasion of a holiday, and someone who is not able to live a day without alcohol and suffers deeply physically when he is not allowed to drink. The danger is that no one can predict what an innocent experiment with a mind-altering drug might lead to. Will you be able to enter this cage and exit unhindered, or will its door slam behind you for many years? Much depends, on the one hand, on the type of drug, on the other hand, on the mental, physical and genetic make-up of a person, on the third hand, on the life situation, on the fourth hand, on age, on the fifth ... There are many cases when an irresistible need for a drug has already arisen from the first intake.

Sasha, Tolik and Maxim are drug addicts. In the few years that their personal history with drugs continues, they have gone from euphoria to repeated and desperate attempts to free themselves from the power of the substance. They sought salvation from one drug in another. When, after much physical and mental suffering, they managed to escape for a moment from captivity, they soon realized that the goal was still far away. Their path to freedom is not easy, full of unexpected twists and turns and unfortunate backtracking - continues daily, hourly.

TOLIK:

Now I am 23 years old. I studied at school until the 8th grade, then 3 years at the school. It all started with marijuana and beer. I smoked my first joint of marijuana at the age of 14-15. Then he got a job on the Arbat, it was then called “ironing.” We sold rabbit hats to foreigners - “rabbits”, watches, nesting dolls, we were paid in dollars, and then we sold dollars. They welded both from the currency and from the goods. We started getting money. Next to us all the time there were people of a criminal plan - like our roof, to whom we had to pay. Naturally, we rested together after work.

There I first pricked myself with a screw. I shot because I wanted to come. Then for a while it's also great - euphoria, everything around is beautiful. But after 10-12 hours, the wildest depression sets in, complete devastation. People whom he was ready to kiss, to whom he confessed his love to everyone in a row, suddenly seem like rubber dolls and bastards. Even the air and the walls around become gray, ominous and empty. I "sat down" on the screw from the first injection - for five years. Of these five years, I stuck around for three years in general - I didn’t get stuck only when I slept and ate. The rest of the time he sat on the needle. There are no physical breakdowns from the screw, but there is a wild, irresistible psychological addiction. Three years later, LSD, cocaine, heroin appeared - exotic. He began to alternate: alternate: when you throw acid, when you throw heroin. But my main drug was screw - I was ready to give everything for it. So it was - and gave everything.

Crime

The only problem was that there was not enough money. At one time I even stole, "bred" people, deceived for money. I still don’t understand how miraculously I didn’t end up in jail. Not all of my friends were so lucky ... Now I can’t believe it myself, in what terrible ways I then earned money. For example, those who traded nesting dolls on the Arbat left their things, so as not to carry them with them, in local apartments - they paid some money to the owners. We will figure out such an apartment and go in - outwardly, everything seems to be similar to each other, the owner will not distinguish - those, not those ... They took other people's bags with things and left. At the same time, someone stands, mumbles, speaks to the owner with his teeth - and under the screw it is done very well: you can talk non-stop on any topic. Or else I could poke money from a person, say, I’ll bring it in 15 minutes, take the money and leave. I drove some kind of cart, they say, don’t worry, I’m here right now in an instant - and just lagged behind, disappeared with the money: I had a thousand moves prepared in advance. Now I can't do that. And I also dragged everything I could from home - a TV, a tape recorder, my mother's things, gold. Or I cooked a screw for someone and took a part for it. I had hundreds of acquaintances, I considered everyone my best friend and was proud that there were such excellent people around me, good, fashionable. In fact, all this was a lie and outright foul play, but I did not see it then. You are constantly in illusions - every person is your friend, you are ready to give everything to him. And then you realize that you've just been taken advantage of. Hospital. All this became unbearable, besides, there was no money: I could not work anywhere.

In general, I went to the hospital - to narcology: I myself, voluntarily went. We discussed everything with my mother and decided that I needed to be treated. In fact, there was absolutely no treatment there. No blood cleansing, no psychological help. On the contrary, all the nurses and doctors treated us with disdain. I had an irresistible psychological craving for the drug, I needed to talk to someone about it, get competent advice, and instead they gave me pills - barbiturates, pricked halopyridol, aminosine, and I just lay there like a log - that's all. You lie for two days from these injections in a terrible state: you seem to be sleeping, but this is not a dream - this can be compared to when you eat 20 sleeping pills. There is also magnesium sulfate therapy - they call it "hot injection", it's just torture. Basically there are opiushniki. They change their minds, leave and inject again. That's the only reason they come there to break down when they don't have money for heroin. They go and break there for free, then go out and stick out again. I also saw young boys in the hospital. A child of 15-16 years old, he was injected a couple of times - and he is locked up in the hospital ... It's like putting a minor in jail: he will learn everything there and become really hardened. So it is here: if a young drug addict who has just started gets into the hospital - his frightened mother took him there - he will come out already seasoned. In the hospital, the drug is made from everything: anything can be knocked out and smeared from any pills. Everyone hangs out there. The boy will have a special social circle there: acquaintances, new points where you can buy, hucksters, exchange of phones ... I spent 28 days in the hospital. I was diagnosed and registered. Then I ended up in that hospital again - already in intensive care with an overdose.

I left the hospital and started using heroin, black. Solely in order not to inject with amphetamines - a screw in particular. But I don't care, I still want a screw and I can't stop thinking about it. I continue to be a screw junkie - I just don't use screw today.

Health

I am 23 years old, and I have practically no teeth left, the whole jaw is false - there was no calcium in the body. Almost all of my friends have the same problem. I have hepatitis B and C, I can’t eat some things - I immediately start to feel sick. In the future - cirrhosis or liver cancer. My plan is to live at least 30-40 years, but I don't know if I'll succeed. At first I did not think about the danger, I didn’t think about anything at all, I stuck around and that’s it. Now there are also many such young people, their slogan is: “I stuck out, I stick out and I will stick out!” They would like more information about the consequences of all this. About who they will be in a few years. When I started, there were other times. Then we did not hear that there is such a disease as hepatitis, that you can get infected through a needle. And now AIDS. Previously, heroin for us was the same as AIDS - a foreign exotic. Now everything has gone down: and everyone injects heroin, even the homeless, and anyone can get infected. It doesn't matter what you use or how much money you have. If the two of us sit together and fuck, and we have one syringe for two, I will first of all think about how I can get in. After I inject, I may think about what you are sick with and what I brought myself with your syringe: hepatitis, syphilis or AIDS. It is said that drug addicts are not afraid to die. This is for the time being. At the initial stage, they really think: let me live my short but bright life. And then it becomes physically painful, because the liver burned out, and very real thoughts about death appear. For many, this is an incentive to quit drugs. You stick out, it seems like a buzz, but in fact, the buzz of five or six years that you stick out is enough for a year, and the rest of the time - depression, pain and remorse for what you do with yourself and with your loved ones.

Scars in the head

But most importantly, I could not foresee what the consequences would be in my head. I feel that the screw left such deep scars on my psyche that will never go away. I sometimes have breakdowns when I take what comes to hand and throw it, break the dishes in the house. I can call someone at such a moment, be rude. When you take any drug, especially screw, strange things happen in your head. We call it “getting hooked on treason” - when you are afraid of something, but what is not clear. At one time it seemed to me that the police were constantly watching me. I could sit at home for three or four days and not go out, because I was afraid that they would track me down, catch me. Or he went somewhere to friends in Vykhino, in Chertanovo, and was not able to leave there for a week, two at a time. I even remember how we sat in the porch for several weeks. They took screws, cracked them - and for three days they were in the same entrance, just sitting there, because they could not go outside. What are we. On the street, among the crowd of passers-by, I can distinguish a screw man from a heroin one. How? By clothes, by demeanor, by movements. Screw and in general those who use stimulants are sharp movements, fast, non-stop speech. They constantly look back, bite their nails to the meat, they have persecution mania. A screw can sharpen a pencil for a long time and will come to his senses only after he has worn off the entire pencil to the base and will take up his own finger. In the hands of the screw - a lighter, a pen, a pack of cigarettes - five or six items at a time. You walk, you don’t know what to do with them, where to put them. And their faces are characteristic: nose, eyes - and two pits instead of cheeks. Opium people, on the contrary, are completely calm, sleepy. In the movie "Pulp Fiction" there is such a moment: one of the main characters injected with heroin and is driving a car. And at the same time, he has a characteristic face, as happens under heroin: his eyes seem to be downcast. I often meet people on the streets in this state: the person seems to be sleeping a little bit - I am sure that in many cases it is heroin. Their pants are constantly burnt, because you sit, smoke, burn through your clothes, you don’t notice anything on the sofas. Burn marks on hands. Opiushniks are generally calm people, they are nervous only when they let go. On otkhodnyaks, they almost do not get into a fight. And absolutely with nothing - any little thing can serve as a reason.

no illusions

I'm sure every addict inside wants to quit, but can't. He wants to stop, but wakes up in the morning and again goes to Lubyanka and stirs up drugs and says: I'm so tired, I want to stop so much, but I can't. His whole life is spent on it. In fact, it's not life. This is the illusion of life. I want to believe that this disease, although terrible, is curable. But in my experience, I am convinced that once you get off one drug, you switch to something else. I can't remember a single day when I didn't use anything. The minimum I do is take a bottle of vodka and drink it whole. I simply can no longer be in a sober state and look with sober eyes at what is happening around ...

SASHA:

Childhood dream

I heard about drugs as a child, at school, and I really wanted to try. It was cheap knowledge, incomprehensible, vague. Everything at that time was encrypted. Eighth grade, I was 14 years old, and then, of course, I still did not take anything. But I really wanted to try - and I finally achieved it. I grew up, began to lead an extravagant lifestyle: I was a punk, walked with red Mohawks, in black breeches, with a Nazi armband. Older people did not take me well, everyone tried to hit with a club. For the first time I tried the so-called “mulka”. I didn’t like it, I generally have a bad attitude towards stimulants. Then I started smoking weed, it was fun: a surge of feelings, energy, it seemed that something new was opening up.

It was then that we started making music with a friend - he is now in prison for drugs. And then I went to the Baltic States - there is one famous place that I learned about from hippies: they were just going there with the whole company, and I asked for it. The first thing I did when I arrived was to go to the derban for poppy seeds and inject myself for the first time. I gave myself an injection and felt so cool ... The three of us were lying in a tent, talking, and there was a feeling that when you shut up and go into your dreams, communication still continues - without words, on a subconscious level - and everyone felt it. Opium fascinated me, and from that moment I began to use it, first from time to time, then more and more often. Now young people of 14-16 years old are starting to inject themselves only because it is fashionable. Look, I'm getting in, I'm tough... We started out completely different. It was something sublime ... I tried to write poetry, we made our own music, we had an incentive to use drugs - they made us feel different.

True, over time, everything moved to a completely different stage. It was a complete addiction, a system, and there was no time for anything. There was no need for poetry or music ... And there was no time to be creative: all thoughts were only about where to get the drug and inject.

In the early 90s, I met a guy whom I fell in love with very much. He tried to get me out of drugs. But suddenly there was such a thing as LSD, and I myself did not notice how I spent a year and a half on it. For the first six months, I took it orally and on the gut, and the rest of the year I administered it intravenously, and in frantic quantities. We parted with the boy: he despaired and left. And we have already begun to think about how to live together. This final quarrel deeply touched the soul. When we broke up with him, I seemed to lose the anchor and began to inject very tightly - I spent five years in the system, that is, every day. All this time I lived alone, there was no personal life. No wonder there is such an expression: "opium replaces the second half." When I started to increase the dose and pricked more and more often, I no longer needed sex. You could say I fucked myself with a needle. I didn't care. Just a dose and a needle.

In system

At first, there was no physical dependence, there were no withdrawals, but there were Kumaras - the psychological desire for a drug. But the further it went, the stronger the psychological dependence turned into a physical one. With the constant use of heroin, addiction quickly occurs, and the dose has to be increased all the time. My dose has jumped from one cc to 10 cc in five years. In the end, I made myself a whole glass of straw at a time, and if there were ten glasses, I would make all 10. Surprisingly, for some time I still managed to work at a good job and make good money. Of course, I had to encrypt all the time - that is, to hide the fact that I was a drug addict.

But of course, this could not continue for long. In the end, I got to the point that I lost first my job, and then everything that was valuable to me. All radio equipment, all good clothes, two cars went through the veins ... When everything that had value was sold, I had to look for ways to earn a dose. I'm good at brewing black, and I've often been invited to do it. For me, it was like going to work: getting up in the morning, calling people. If someone has money and needs a drug, get them, cook and take their share.

Every day I had to raise my doses, more and more, more and more. And there was no longer any high as such - there was already such a stage when the drug is needed only in order to feel like a normal person. The body was rebuilt: you make yourself a dose and immediately get up, go to eat, wash your face, do some things. And if there is no drug, you just lie there and can’t even reach the phone to call, find the drug.

You gnaw on stools, cry, thoughts are extremely suicidal. It's very scary. I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. I have had many suicidal attempts. I tried to shoot myself, but the first cartridge turned out to be blank - something saved me. Once I ate eighty tranquilizers - this is much higher than the lethal dose. But my body, apparently, was so used to all this that I survived. Most importantly, I feel the approach of another breakdown somewhere in a week. I know that I will want to kill myself again. I try to extinguish this feeling with drugs, but it does not help me, but only aggravates. You can say that suicide has become a way of life for me.

I was charged twice under Article 224, which has now become Article 228 - the acquisition, possession and use of drugs. It required compulsory treatment. I came to the police, and they told me: why did you come? I told them: you called ... Go, they say, bring your mother. Mom understood everything, took some money, went, gave it to them, and they left me alone for a while. The police detained me many times. If you don’t have anything with you, you can sit in the department and they will let you go. And if they find a drug, then that's it. But there are times when heroin is planted in your pocket: hand over the huckster, otherwise we will put you in jail. If you have some money in your pocket, you leave the police completely empty.

Escape attempts

I realized that I had sunk into a terrible swamp and was losing everything that was dear to me. In the five years that I was on drugs, I tried to break down three times. The first time I left the city and survived without drugs all summer. The second time I tried to break with a screw. Six days in a row I shot with a screw so that there would be no withdrawal from heroin, after which my head became completely ill. He lasted only two weeks without heroin, no more. The third time I realized that I was losing my family - they completely separated me. And it was also clear to me that if I continued to inject, driving myself 50-70 cubic meters a day, I would have to live for a year at most. This scared me.

He went to a psychiatric hospital, lay there for two and a half months, and then went to the village and lived there from May to November. All this time I did not take drugs, I only drank vodka twice, although I do not like it, and twice - pills, barbitura.

The hospital helped me, probably because the doctor was good. She intrigued me a lot: she seems to be paying attention, but she seems to be not. And I really wanted to communicate, I wanted to express everything that was painful in me to someone. Sometimes she allowed it. I was fed with neuroleptics - they completely discourage the desire to do anything, you can only sleep under them. But it's even good. It helped break down.

Then I was found by a friend of mine, who recently turned to religion very seriously. We went with her to Pereyaslavl-Zalessky, she took me to monasteries, to sketes. I was offered to stay in the skete: I was amazed that they liked me there, they understood my problem - that I was a drug addict, that it was hard for me, that I wanted to end it all. At some point, I really wanted to stay there, in the skete, but for some reason I did not stay. Returning home, I went to the country the same day and was surprised - I didn’t break at all. Apparently, I received a very strong spiritual charge from the trip.

But when I had to go to Moscow in a week, I immediately felt all this dirty energy of the city. Immediately he began to grab the phone to find the drug, made three calls - well, at that time none of his friends were at home. The hardest thing is to get out of the party, out of the process itself. All my friends are injecting, and if I stop injecting, I have to change all my friends. A week and a half after the last incident, I held on, and then again there was a breakdown. A friend’s mother left, they gathered, but they didn’t know how to cook well. I cooked them and gave myself such a dose that I almost flew out of my shoes ...

MAX:

I am 21 years old. I first tried heroin two years ago. We were sitting on a bench near the entrance - we were a group of friends, we worked, rested together. Suddenly a man runs up to us and says: I have heroin. Of course, I have heard this terrible word before - heroin. They persuade - come on, come on, but I'm scared. I ask: does it break with him? They answer: your legs will hurt a little, you will endure a week, it's okay. Try it - just once. Well, they sniffed the track. I liked it - you are immersed, as it were, in cotton wool, it’s good like that ... The next day - one more track, then three, four. And then there was a moment - I still remember it vividly - I was riding in an elevator with the guys, and suddenly my legs started to hurt - this is one of the first signs of heroin addiction. It scared me so much that I literally screamed: guys, I'm a drug addict! For me it was a big blow. I didn't want to be an addict. I knew some drug addicts, they were zombie people, I didn't want to be like them. Since then, I have been struggling with it. Tried not to sniff one day. But how could I support myself, relieve this pain? Analgin, baralgin did not help.

I wasn't ready to go to the hospital yet. I continued to snort heroin. And then I had a conflict with those guys, and I broke up with them. By that time, most of my teeth had crumbled. There were severe pains, I did not sleep at night, sat on sleeping pills. Within a month the pain seemed to be gone. I met good people, found an interesting job, free money appeared. I held on with all my might, I was ashamed in front of my friends that I would start again. And still - now I know - it's all your life is following you. And I only used it for three months, and I didn’t prick yet, but only sniffed it. Further it was worse.

So, I had money that I managed to hide. The fact is that my friends controlled me, watched where I went, who I called - for my sake, so that I would not start again. But once I met a man who had heroin with him, and it turned out to be impossible to resist. I started sniffing again, hiding it from everyone. But close people began to notice my small pupils, which became huge during breaks, my nervousness. A lot of money was spent on heroin - from 50 to 100 dollars a day. I sniffed it and smoked it, and there was no longer a high, but there was only pain relief, and a gram of heroin a day was no longer enough for me. Then I bought myself a syringe, dissolved a small part of my daily dose in water and injected - and I felt the same buzz. Since then, I began to inject; the dose went up and up.

Withdrawal, accordingly, also became much stronger: those pains that were before, when I was just sniffing, now seemed like nonsense to me. Withdrawal came every three hours, and it was necessary to inject again. What job, what love? It is impossible to combine the ordinary life of a normal person with the life of a drug addict. There is such a thing as a “golden dose,” i.e. the one you need, the one you can handle. A little more - there will be an overdose and you will die. I had my own golden dose, I divided all this amount into several slides and gave myself injections six times a day, after a certain time, so that there was no withdrawal. I had friends at work who saw me change in a year of heroin use. All thoughts, all money went to the drug: I needed fingers to call the huckster, legs - to run after it, money - to pay for it. The friends understood the problem of drug addiction because many of them snorted cocaine themselves—and still do to this day, not considering themselves drug addicts.

They offered me treatment, and I agreed. They called a doctor on an ad to do a detox - to cleanse the body of heroin. One such call costs $150. Literally an hour before his arrival, I pricked another dose. The doctor found out what my dose was, put me on a drip, and I failed somewhere. I woke up and I feel like I'm going crazy. He asked how many days I lay in bed, they tell me - 14. I no longer broke, my bones didn’t hurt, but the desire remained: it seemed to me that the last time I had injected not 14 days, but only a couple of hours ago. Physical withdrawal from heroin is very strong: you sweat, your temperature rises, all your bones hurt, your joints hurt. At the same time, one desire is to eliminate pain. This pain is so intense that some people commit suicide. In prisons, as far as I know, there are many cases when drug addicts of the opium group hung themselves during withdrawal. But when the doctor relieved me of this pain, mental breakdown remained. I don't know which is stronger.

I decided to go to the narcological hospital anyway. They put me on a drip again, they cleaned my blood. True, there was no psychological help: narcologists, uncles of 40-50 years old who don’t care about us, fluently asked: “Well, how are you today?” And how I am today - they gave me a bunch of pills, they dripped a dropper, they pricked me, I lie and seem to sleep all the time.

I was discharged from the hospital and felt much better. I was happy on my own, I was happy that nothing hurts me, I can not inject. But the memories did not go away: I dreamed of syringes, a dose ... I woke up in a cold sweat. True, it never worked out to inject in a dream: I bring the needle to the vein and immediately wake up.

Three months have passed. Somehow I accidentally met a friend on the street, I ask him: “Well, are you injecting yourself?” “I prick.” “And I don’t prick.” I felt proud that I did not inject, that I no longer had this addiction. And suddenly for some reason I ask him: do you have any with you? He says yes. Will you? Give. And I screwed up again.

I started to inject again, the withdrawal symptoms began to come again. And then I met one of my old friends, who injects himself with a screw. Since then I have moved to the screw. Many people, trying to somehow help themselves, switch from one drug to another: some from screw to heroin, some, like me, from heroin to screw.

I have passed the heroin addiction, but there is a screw.

We also call the screw “pervitic acid.” In fact, no one knows exactly what kind of acid it is, it is not listed in any reference book known to me. Nevertheless, many people cook the screw, although few people know how to cook it for real. If the dose is known with heroin, then here you never know in advance how it will be. Why it is called “screw,” which means how it stands for, no one knows either. It's a psychostimulant. The first time you feel like a superman, Rambo. You can't eat for days. I had a record - I did not eat for fourteen days. There are legends that the screw is stabbed to saboteurs, terrorists who need to go and do their job without feeling fear, fatigue, hunger. Among the bandits and thieves there is a category of people who base their entire activity on the use of screw, because under the screw, sensitivity and vision become aggravated for some time, the tongue is suspended.

I saw people around me go crazy. It seemed to them that everyone around was traitors, enemies, everyone hates you, you hate everyone. Few people deal with this condition. I was lucky, I was taught to deal with it: to deal with hallucinations, for example. These hallucinations are very strong: for example, as if bandits are climbing into my window. I am sitting in the kitchen and I really see how they climb, now they will rob me, they will kill me. I have to deal with them somehow. I kind of know that this is a hallucination ... but what if not? I try to control myself, to be distracted, and they do not appear so often.

There were cases when for five or six people there was one spoon in which heroin dissolves, and one needle for all. So what to do? Time is night. And there is not always money left. Then, let's say you have a syringe, but only one, while others don't have it at all. And the person next to you breaks, he feels bad. You have to give him yours or take it after him. You know that the night is ahead, that it will be necessary to inject now, and then early in the morning, that ten people have already used your syringe, and you have no choice. There is not always water to rinse the syringe from the remnants of someone else's blood. We ask: “Everything is fine, no one is sick?” No one gets sick, come on, sting. And about the screw, many people think that it kills HIV infection and hepatitis, although this is not true.

It is believed that the screw will kill everything. This is a very strong acid: if the screw is cooked a little wrong, the vein literally burns out and bursts. When the screw gets under the skin, an abscess forms. Therefore, screw addicts do not think about infection at all: they launch a syringe into one common container. I myself only recently found out that neither AIDS nor hepatitis are afraid of the screw.

When it breaks you, it doesn't matter to you what you prick - just to prick. There were even such cases: one needle, clogged with dried blood so that it was not washed with either saliva or water, but ten people were waiting. What to do? Break off the clogged end, sharpen the rest of the needle on the ladder and prick. 80 percent of my acquaintances do not think about the infection; 20 percent - think, but only a few people try to protect themselves.

Quit? Yes I want to. I've been holding on for a month now, I don't use it, and I feel good. But I don't know what will happen to me tomorrow. Drug addiction is such a mania that will haunt you all your life, even if you manage to quit.

Colorless existence without events and impressions. This is how former drug addicts describe their former life. Days, months and years have only two conscious points: the search for funds for the "medicine" and the buzz itself. You can quit drugs. Billboards and numerous video evidence on YouTube scream about it. True, the number of addicts does not decrease from this. Every year, according to official statistics, we have about 7-15 percent more drug addicts. These figures, experts believe, can be safely multiplied by 6, or even 7.

Anton

“I already knew that drug addicts can rot the body. I have seen such frightening videos many times, but only laughed, - a blue-eyed young guy tells me. He smiles, and I see that almost all of his front teeth are destroyed. The eight-year experience of "friendship" with the drug had an effect. Anton met Poppy at the age of 16, and he remained in his tenacious arms. I realized that I was addicted when I hit rock bottom. He lost his friends, his parents kicked him out of the house. The leg turned black, it became excruciatingly painful to move. There was no living place left on the body - purulent injection marks are everywhere. I had to spend the night in the hallways and steal. Many times Anton could die from an overdose, but all the time he was saved either by "colleagues in the shop" or by an ambulance. Probably, fate led him, because in our country about 100 deaths are recorded annually for this reason.

A way out was found when Anton came face to face with a former classmate who had already completed a course of rehabilitation. Today, having a year and a half behind him, as the addicts say, “clean”, Anton is learning to live among people again. He got his first job as a loader in a supermarket. Life is changing with a creak, but he does not lose heart, he wants to get on his feet and get married.

Hope

Today she has big health problems, and in her soul she resents herself: only one reckless act erased four whole years!

The day was fatal when Nadezhda found out that she had HIV. She stood in the doctor's office next to her mother and felt the floor slip away from under her feet. It seemed that life after the diagnosis does not exist. After about a month of depression, I went with a friend to a club and tried ecstasy there. The world began to seem different: after a week in the office, Friday evenings washed away fatigue and boredom. There were no breakdowns, problems, there was always someone bright, interesting nearby, the thought of HIV receded somewhere far, far away, life seemed like a full bowl. And then a new diagnosis - cancer. She quit her job, began to take money "for expensive treatment" from her parents. I switched to hard drugs ... I realized that I needed to be treated only when I woke up on the bathroom floor.

Now Nadezhda is learning to enjoy the reality that exists. For three years she has not been using anything forbidden, she does not go to clubs, she even forgot about cigarettes. He says that life is more interesting than a drug illusion. And I am very sorry that I realized this so late ...

Vitaly

He is no longer alive, his wife and their little child are left alone with grief. Being a successful businessman, Vitaly tried drugs at a fairly mature age. At 35, it seemed that common sense would stop if something went wrong. Six months later, he himself realized that he was already addicted. He underwent a course of treatment in the clinic, and then rehabilitation. He returned home, improved relations with loved ones, but it was difficult to rebuild the business again. Once I met a friend in a bar. Decided to relax once in the usual way. The heart couldn't take it. In the morning, his wife found him dead in the car...

Kirill

He goes to rehab like he goes to work. It remains "clean" for a maximum of six months, and then again falls under the supervision of specialists. Now Kirill is going through the same program for the seventh time. The only beloved son, he never knew refusal in anything. Already at 20 he had his own apartment and car. He says he disappeared at youth parties. He never graduated from any of the three universities he entered. Never worked. Now he feels that the body is malfunctioning, but he can not cope with himself ...

Oksana

Applied chemistry

They say that at the autopsy, the pathologist immediately calculates the addict: as a rule, all organs have already decomposed. And this is not surprising: with intravenous use, drug particles with blood are carried throughout the body. First of all, he says Head of the Narcology Sector of the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Mental Health Vladimir Maksimchuk the brain suffers. It is here that all the centers of regulation of life processes are located, and dependence flourishes here. Skin, teeth, heart, liver, kidneys - everything is sacrificed in the pursuit of high. Plus, drug addicts often suffer from neuropsychiatric disorders and, so to speak, "occupational diseases" - STIs, hepatitis, HIV.

But it is a stereotype that drug addicts live no more than 10 years. With proper treatment, their age is much longer. According to Vladimir Maksimchuk, if earlier there were practically no older addicts in Belarus - for example, in 2000 only 12 people over 50 were registered, today there are already 117 of them. Everyone has a chance for healing. The problem is that not everyone is ready to go to a state clinic or a public organization. They do not believe in the effectiveness of treatment, they are afraid of breaking, they are afraid of being registered with a dispensary. According to experts, only 5-7 percent of addicts seek help themselves, another 20 percent are brought by relatives. The rest are saved in all sorts of ways, so official data is sometimes very far from the truth.

Such a different addiction

Getting rid of drug addiction will take a lot of time. You need to remove the withdrawal syndrome in the hospital, then work with psychologists, take a course of inpatient rehabilitation. And if the first stage will take no more than a month, then the second will last about six months.

According to director of the local fund "Center for Healthy Youth" Maxim Dorogaikin, drug addicts with amphetamine addiction (of the total number of such - a third) are more difficult to treat than those who are addicted to the opioid group. The point here is the strongest euphoric memory, which forms an irresistible craving. And the phantoms of this memory can torment indefinitely. So it turns out that in clinics and rehabilitation centers often the same patients. They are treated - they break down ... And it is hardly possible to predict how an already clean organism will react to an old dose of a strong drug.

Without looking back

At the Republican Scientific and Practical Center for Mental Health, they drew me a social portrait of an addict. A man about 30 years old with a secondary or secondary specialized education, divorced or unmarried, as a rule, with a criminal record. With such baggage it is difficult to rebuild life anew. It's like getting out of prison, says Maxim Dorogaikin, who has been working with addicts for seven years now. Resocialization comes to the rescue - a course aimed at adapting a former drug addict in society. Psychologists teach to take responsibility, specialists help in finding a job. A person can get a job at a car wash, become a fitness trainer, or even take a course on working with chemically dependent people and stay with the organization. Dispensary account? It is removed from him if you have been in stable remission for three years. For example, last year 286 people got rid of this label, and the year before last - 489 (!).

Starting from scratch is also difficult because there is a feeling that the past will never let go. Here you need to say "no" every day. Many are no longer fighting only for themselves, but for those who follow, and give interviews, take part in the filming of social videos and programs. After all, this infection seizes teenagers. If a few years ago, according to Vladimir Maksimchuk, there were practically no registered underage drug addicts, today there are 700 people.

Numbers

At the beginning of the year, 10,115 drug addicts were observed at the dispensary in healthcare organizations. The most problematic in this sense is Minsk, where a little more than half of all addicts live, followed by Gomel and the Gomel region. Least of all drug addicts are registered in the Mogilev region: about 400 people.

Today... I can't believe that I could live
another life, the life of a drug addict.

I was born in the Leningrad region. I began to remember myself early, from kindergarten. In general, I remember my childhood with pleasure. I spent the summer with my grandparents in Karelia, it was fun there, I had my own company - we went fishing together, played, swam. The only thing that darkened my childhood was my father's drunkenness. When he was sober, everything was fine, I remember he loved me, spent a lot of time with me, went fishing together, walked. Once my father got drunk, he began to yell, command, he always turned on the tape recorder at full volume with Vysotsky's songs (by the way, because of this, until recently I could not hear them). In this state, I was afraid of him. When my father came drunk, my mother usually took me away, and we went to spend the night with her friends. Over time, he drank almost every day, once my mother and I even lived with her friend for six months.

When I was 10 years old, my parents divorced. I don’t remember the very fact of the divorce, for that time I was sent to a pioneer camp, from there they brought me to the city to a new apartment. My father visited me once or twice a year, I don’t remember what I felt at the same time, but I remember exactly that I didn’t want him to stay with us, I quickly got used to living without him.

At school until the 5th grade, I studied well, went in for sports. At the age of 7 I watched a film about paratroopers, and I also wanted to become strong and dexterous. When I was 10 years old, a judo section was opened at school, and I began to attend it. I really liked the coach, and I still think that he was a real man: he knew his business, did not yell, spoke intelligibly, loved his family. I respected him a lot. There was strict control on the part of my parents, it never occurred to me then that I could skip classes, disobey my mother.

In the 5th grade, it became more difficult to study, besides, I realized that my mother is not so scary, you can skip it, anyway, she can’t do anything. By the 7th grade, I was already doing what I wanted. We lived in poverty, I could not afford to buy jeans, sneakers, I did not have a tape recorder. Because of this, I was very complex, strained my mother, asked: "Why do others have all this, but we don't?" She tried to do something, but besides the fact that all these clothes cost money, at that time it was also a shortage, so she was not good at it. I have been a "fighter for justice" since childhood. Even in the first grade, he complained to his mother about bad teachers, fell down with his feet, and threw tantrums. I remember that in the 5th grade we had a class teacher who could grab her hand and shake it. And I was a literate person, I knew that children should not be beaten. He began to drip on everyone's brains - teachers, students, parents - in general, they kicked the classroom out of school. And I was a fan of arguing with teachers, I had a heightened sense of justice. I don’t remember exactly whether there were injustices, but there was a feeling. In physical education classes, I was second from the bottom, I was small, but I kept the lead in my class. When a newcomer came, he was told: "Ivan is the strongest with us." Although, basically, it was show-off. I liked to beat someone up, I was aggressive, they were afraid of me. I felt better about it. I tried my best to stand out - either dyed a fiery red color, or gave myself crazy haircuts. In the 7th grade, I pierced my ear and put in an earring, but took it out a week later, because everyone else put it in too - you won't surprise anyone.

As I said, from about the 5th grade, I began to skip classes, hang out with friends, play football, hockey. In the 6th grade, I started going to the cinema in the neighborhood, where the youth parties gathered; "warmed-ears", began to smoke. I have been drinking since 7th grade. I have always had a negative attitude towards drinking, as I had seen enough in childhood. At first I thought that I would never drink, when I started drinking, I decided that I would definitely not be an alcoholic. I remember how after the 7th grade we went to LTO, drank vodka there. Once we didn't even sleep at home. We were allowed to go to the city, but we did not go home, since our parents thought that we were in the camp. We went to Petrodvorets, ran around the fountains at night, and there the police detained us. I was interested in the police, we behaved very impudently, we felt like heroes, of course, I lied something to my mother.

It was no longer interesting for me to travel to Karelia. I then talked with gopniks - port wine, fights, quilted jackets. Favorite pastime was to drive "chocks" from the vocational school in the neighborhood. Under this there was even an "ideological background" - my friend's brother was stabbed with a knife by people from this vocational school, and we - the "younger generation" - seemed to take revenge. I mostly liked the hype around it, I rarely participated in the fights themselves.

In the 7th grade, an incident happened to me that greatly raised my authority. I lived in my house for several years, but I didn’t know any of the guys. It so happened that I became an unwitting witness to the murder - drunks stuck to my bodybuilder neighbor, there was a fight, the police arrived. One of the drunks was pushed into a police car, dropped, and hitting his head on the asphalt, he died. I saw all this and testified in court, the bodybuilder was released.

The life of my family did not interest me at all then. Mom tried to somehow arrange her life. The stepfather showed up. I treated him with apprehension. He was a cool guy, he had his own chauffeur, who called for him in the morning in a Volvo, he bought groceries in foreign exchange, he was cool. At first, my stepfather tried to please me in every possible way, when I began to completely get out of control - he taught me life, tried to control me, because of this we had frequent conflicts. Then he drank himself, but I don’t remember it well, because he stuck out.

Mother still made some attempts. I did not like that my life could somehow change, and in general, I did not want to take any part in this.

By the end of the 8th grade, everything became more serious, I "stopped drinking." I realized that I can’t drink anything more substantial than beer, because if I drank, I always got drunk, that was my goal. I didn’t really like the final state - I passed out, vomited. By the 8th grade, I stopped communicating with gopniks. Firstly, because the company began to disintegrate, then new acquaintances appeared. I learned that you can make money yourself by speculating. The idea of ​​making money stuck in my head. He began to speculate with clothes, to enter the semi-criminal world. For speculation, I had my own ideological platform - "to live on one salary - in a bastard." I thought that there were only idiots and suckers around. I needed money to dress well and buy a tape recorder. My friends and I talked a lot about foreign countries, these conversations got into our heads. I firmly decided that it was necessary to leave for a free Europe, and even better for America, under the communists nothing good would come of it. In the 8th grade, I practically did not study, I traveled on the old knowledge, especially since the teachers treated me well.

Not far from my house there was an institution that worked as a snack bar during the day, and as a tavern in the evening. The bandits were there. Saturday, Sunday I was always there. It was just a free American action movie, there were guys-boxers who didn’t have less than the first adult category, they definitely beat someone in the face.

After the 8th grade, I went to the south, where I tried marijuana for the first time, and I also brought it with me. By that time, I not only heard about drug addicts, but also knew them, they lived in my house and everywhere around.

After the south, I decided to enter the nautical school. One of my relatives swam, his whole house was full of imported equipment - audio, video, etc. I also wanted all this, and besides, traveling abroad is also a chance to fulfill an old dream of staying there. I entered the school without straining. On September 1, he took marijuana with him and went to study, and there - the barracks. The system was as follows: you live permanently in the barracks for two months, then they let you go home for Saturday and Sunday for a year, and then you generally live at home. I only had to "get rid of it" for two months. But it wasn't for me. There were no my countrymen in the barracks, everyone was from other cities. People had "Bykov" concepts, I did not like their jokes. Although in manners I myself was like that. I studied for 6 days - my heightened "sense of justice" no longer allowed me to follow orders and daily routine. And then the marijuana ran out. I just walked out of there right in the form. I remember how I rode in it through the whole city and was terribly shy. I came home, my mother was away, changed clothes and buzzed for two weeks.

My bosom friend entered the Art and Restoration Lyceum, my mother's friend helped me settle down there too. I have been drawing well since childhood, but I was no longer up to it. I quickly delved into the essence of "training" - you don't need to study, you need to smoke marijuana. I skipped all the time, a year later I was kicked out of the school. I spent all the time in the same tavern, sometimes drinking, constantly smoking marijuana, speculating. We gradually formed a youth gang there, they took people's money, existing and non-existent debts. These were already criminal cases, although somehow I did not take it seriously. In the summer, with a friend, we again went south, where we met very rich people, had fun at their expense. They promised to give me a good job and gave me their phone number. But when I returned from the south, I never called them. While I was resting, my former classmates went to the construction team of Astrakhan and brought a lot of marijuana from there for sale. I “threw” them all, took marijuana, since I didn’t study at the school any more and it was difficult to find me. Anasha was the sea, my friend and I sat and smoked all day.

I didn't have any plans in my life. I settled down in "Katkin's garden" to sell T-shirts, matryoshka dolls, went to parties, discos. One of my friends Vyl had an empty two-room apartment, where Crazy companies constantly gathered, came to it without an owner, he didn’t even have the right to vote. I also went there, and there I understood what opium was. Among my acquaintances there were several drug addicts, they did not seem scary to me at all ... Once, with one of them, we went to a disco, he seemed to be in the eyeballs. On the way, we met another friend who asked my friend to help him get opiates. No one but me had any money. Then he asked to take a buzz on me. They asked me: “Why do you need this?”, And I asked them: “Why do you need it?” To this they had nothing to answer, they took it. solution for me. At first I was very afraid that it would hurt, my friends said that it would not, - they deceived me, it hurt, but subsequent sensations erased this pain. We did not go to the disco - we overdosed. I didn’t have any feelings of guilt, on the contrary, I was pleased that in this company I was no worse than others. I took more the next day. Then there was a break for a week, and I realized that opiates are what you need.

He stopped smoking marijuana, began to gradually abandon his affairs, and increasingly used opiates. In fact, I didn’t like discos, I went there only because everyone went. And after the injection, it was not a bummer to just sit around, no need to go anywhere, no problems. Several times I overdosed, I felt sick, but it was not as disgusting as when I was drunk. He began to take time off from work in Katkin's Garden, he became too lazy to go there, he decided that it was too difficult a way to make money. My entourage at that time had the motto "I got it - I let it go, I got it - I let it go." I worked there until the New Year.

That New Year was already very indicative of the extent of my addiction to drugs. With my friends, we decided to celebrate the holiday in the same apartment. A company was planned there - two guys, my former classmate from the school and my friend and I. I bought a bottle of champagne at the Metropol for big money (at that time it was in short supply), it was the only bottle for the whole company. My friend, the one with whom we traveled to the south, did not use hard drugs, sometimes he smoked marijuana. I began to persuade him to try what opium is. He agreed with difficulty. On the eve of the New Year, we went to look for a buzz, but it was already impossible to buy for money. I was offered to change the solution for a bottle of champagne. I did not hesitate for a long time, I came to this apartment, the whole company had already gathered there, said that the champagne was mine, and took it away. Everyone was terribly offended. My friend and I traded champagne for a high. I met the New Year directly with my mother, then with this friend we went to a familiar drug addict, we still did not know how to inject ourselves. He made it for us, my friend really liked it. Then we went to his house, and there we were "shaken" - the temperature was under 40, chills, apparently, the solution was dirty. So the whole New Year and languished. In the morning I explained to him that this was an accident, we must try further.

After the New Year, I quit my job, I used drugs very often, at every opportunity, and I was actively looking for opportunities myself. About a month later I got into the police. It so happened that I asked my friend to buy a buzz on me at his expense, and he went home for the money. I took the money, I go all in anticipation. I go into the front door, two unfamiliar men come down, grab me, wring my hands and lead me into the car. As it turned out later, they took the merchant and caught everyone who came to him. At first I tried to explain something, saying that I was going to a friend, but they didn’t believe me and they pushed me into the car. On the way, I "sat down on treason", for some reason began to tear out the sheets from the notebook, stuff them under the seat. I did not have syringes with me, but my hands were all punctured. I, however, tried to lie something about the course of glucose. In the department, out of ignorance, I began to download my rights, but they quickly gave me a head-on, and I realized that this was not necessary. I was the youngest, they didn't do anything to me. They called my mother, showed her my hands and let her go. On the way home mom

she cried, said something, asked her to promise that I would not do that again. But I didn't promise anything. At home, my stepfather tried to teach me about life, like: "What have you brought your mother to!" But I told him that I did not ask anyone to go anywhere and to leave me alone. In the evening I went to this apartment where we were going, all seething with indignation, I felt like a fighter for justice. In general, we were lovers to talk thoroughly about the fact that in developed countries they sell methadone almost on the street, and we have stupid laws, and stuff like that.

But, probably, somewhere in the depths of my soul, I already felt something was wrong. One of my friends advised black to break on white.

I didn’t like ephedron, there was vomiting, a nasty waste. I tried ephedron several times, the effect was the same. So the choice of buzz was finally made. In May, just under the influence of ephedron, my friend and I decided to go to Karelia to break down. I didn't have any major breakouts at the time, though. A friend did not reach the place, he did not have a passport, and I ended up with my grandparents. I was going to stay there for a month, but three days later, having asked for money from my relatives, I returned to Leningrad by plane to make it faster. And straight bags and a suitcase from the airport went for a buzz.

Another summer has come, I have already begun to go out of town for poppies. Despite the fact that running around the gardens at night was rather dreary, I even saw some kind of romance in it. I used it almost daily. Then I spent money not only on drugs, I could buy clothes for some part. But more often it was different. If money appeared, at first I decided that I would leave half for clothes, half I would cut through, but, as a rule, I would already go through everything. Sometimes I pawned things, but I still managed to redeem them. To get money, he got into all sorts of frauds, sold grass from a pharmacy under the guise of marijuana to teenagers, fake calls abroad, etc.

In the summer I met drug addict teenagers who were engaged in burglaries, they always had a lot of money. My friend and I began to "direct" them as senior comrades. While they were stealing, we sat on a bench, then they shared with us what they had stolen. In the end, we broke up with them, we began to steal already together. They climbed into the apartments mainly on Saturdays and Sundays through the windows. By the fall, when the tension had already become high, I gradually began to "cut" from a friend - I took more in the apartment than I told him. The psychology was: "Every man for himself." There were no more friends and entertainment. Gathered only so say, for cooperation.

By winter, the apartments became worse - people no longer went to their dachas, they closed the windows. I stole from apartments, but less often, I had to break down doors. "Senior comrades" taught me how to open cars, it was safer to forgive: One of my friends gave me the idea to rob our friend. We took a tape recorder there, and also money, which he kept silent about. A friend was breaking down, he urgently needed a buzz, he was ready to sell a tape recorder very cheaply. Noah refused, I knew; that Zhenya has money to get high, and his withdrawal is his problem. In the end, it was in my opinion, he had to be quick somewhere else, we sold the tape recorder only three days later at the price that suited me. I “walked through my acquaintances thoroughly. Even here I managed to bring the platform up - they are supposedly “bad people”, one for some reason entered a military school, the other did not give me cookies for tea.

I've lost touch with my old friends. I remember once, when there was a lot of money, I bought a melon, a watermelon, something else. I go home, my former friends are sitting on a bench in front of the front door. They thought that I would stop, settle with them, chat. But I said "Hi" and went home. I didn't need anyone, I had a high.

Then I became close friends with drug addicts who had been using opium for many years and had already been convicted. We hung out together and stole together. I knew them even before I started to inject, sometimes I bought marijuana from them. We got into an argument with them. They asked me; "Why do you need all these discos, clothes?" And I told them: “Why“ then live? ”They:“ I sat down, and you don’t need any of this, in a year you will think the same way. ”I didn’t believe them then, but they turned out to be right. Now I said the same thing to young : "Why do I need shoes if it breaks?" My day looked something like this: I put it in, ran to the balcony, where I had a solution stashed, injected. Then I went to cook, took a ready-made solution with me and went to steal or sell stolen stuff. I could to do this only when high, and already systematically ate tranquilizers. They increased the effect of opiates and reduced the feeling of fear. I had my own specific route. In one place there were cars, the place was deserted, it was convenient to steal, then there were two shops where you could also In general, I stole wherever possible, and everything that lay badly. Few people believed me anymore, but if there was an opportunity to "confuse" someone, I did not miss it either.

At that time I did not think whether I was living right or wrong. I stuck out well, I didn’t have free time, I was always “on business”. I respected myself for being involved in criminal cases.

By the end of winter, problems began to appear, interruptions began with a buzz, it became scary to steal, and I ate more and more tranquilizers. Once he got fired up in a store, came in pants that he stole in the morning. I've heard from old junkies that the easiest way is to steal windshield wipers from cars. I thought that I myself would never get to this, it was an indicator of degradation, but I had to earn my living with this. A lot of fuss, little money, but stable earnings. I had a floating dose, but there was no upper limit, how much was the buzz, so much I spent. I liked to be fucked up to the snot when he cuts - no problem, but all the time I had to be smart, get up in the morning, go to work - get money, buzz. Even if there were drugs today, you need to get them for tomorrow. And so every day: a 12-hour working day against the backdrop of withdrawal symptoms.

Life became unmanageable, there were already all sorts of crazy stories. I remember I stole a bag from the car, went to the hucksters for a solution, woke up 1.5 hours later on a bench opposite the merchant's house.

They began to imprison everyone around, I no longer had the strength to hide the buzz somewhere, I kept it at home, I stopped observing all precautions. My mother repeatedly offered me to go to the hospital, but I kept refusing, and here it was already so bad that I agreed. I lay there for about 20 days, almost the whole of April. A week later, I felt better, I was already cheerful. There I met a drug addict, we made a scandal with him, they gave us little Rohypnol. We were discharged for violating the regime. While I was in the hospital, I thought that after I was discharged I would take care of business, I would use drugs occasionally.

I got out of there on the eve of my eighteenth birthday. They gave me money for my birthday, got insurance and ... injected myself. In the hospital, my mother was advised to feed me radedorm. She gave me a jar (10 tablets) a day. Of course, she was told to give me less, but I explained to her that I have immunity and I need a lot of pills.

After the hospital, they stopped dragging me. I injected myself for the first time - I felt nauseous, but did not drag, the only thing that did not break. Then the same thing. I even ran into a merchant once; I thought he sold me a "left" solution. Then I look, everyone around me, who injected with me, are dragging along, and I seem sober, although my face is stoned in the mirror. But I continued to inject, at first not every day, then sat down again. It didn't take long for life to become completely uncontrollable.

I remember such a case: I went to our cinema, I had a friend working in the buffet there. I was under tranquilizers, in my pocket - a lot of money and buzz. The barmaid went into the back room, and I saw that she put a wad of money in the cash register. I did not have the slightest need to steal, but in front of the astonished public, I leaned over the counter, took the money out of the cash register and rushed to run. The barmaid who came back shouted: "Hold him!" And I run and think: "That's it, this is a prison." The guys around are shouting: "What are you, an idiot? Give me the money." I stopped and handed over the money. Then he went almost baldly cut his hair, changed the entire wardrobe, this place bypassed. A month after the hospital, I was hooked tightly.

Once, at the end of May, having taken about 12 tablets of radedorm before lunch, I suddenly thought: "I'm hooked again, I can't live without a buzz, why such a life." I decided that there was no point in living anymore. I ate 10 more tablets of radedorm, under tranquilizers I always became very determined. I figured that if I add another solution with Diphenhydramine to the 22 tablets that I had already eaten, then I would surely die. In order to buy a solution faster (I was afraid that the tranquilizers would start to work and I could fall asleep), I sold new shoes for nothing, bought a buzz and barely made it to my friend. The last thing I remember, I told him: "Muti with dimedrol," and failed. In the morning I woke up - alive, tranquilizers were still working. I ran into a friend, why didn’t he do it to me. He made excuses, said that I passed out and he could not wake me up. I was determined again, pricked, failed again. I woke up late - no money, no buzz, an overdose of a headache, determination has vanished. There was an evil hanging light that remained alive, trudged home.

Stuck again. This did not last long. The mother offered to go to the hospital again, it was the end of June 1992, only 2 months had passed since the previous treatment. In the hospital, he recovered quickly again. After discharge, I decided to try not to hang around. Mostly sitting at home, doing nothing, watching TV. I had nowhere to go, all my friends stuck around. In the evening I went out to the bench in front of the house, sat down and listened to the conversations of the youngsters, I understood that I didn’t need all this. Sometimes he broke down, especially if they offered and there was no need to be quick. I did not understand what was happening to me - constant depression, longing, insomnia. I decided to go to Karelia for the whole summer. He brewed a mug of high with him, injected himself on the train, carried the solution on the plane. Arriving to my grandparents and not even having time to drink tea, I went to "gather mushrooms." My relatives were very surprised, because they knew that I did not like to pick mushrooms since childhood. In the forest, the first thing he pricked. That day I went for mushrooms three times. When the buzz was over, I didn’t sleep for three nights, and then left with a scandal. When I returned, I decided - that's it, stop hanging around, you need to establish a money channel so that there is always a buzz. Establishing the channel ended with the fact that he sold something from the house, and it started again. Again theft, endless hustling.

In the summer with a friend went to the Pskov region for poppies. He lived with his grandmother, and I spent the first week in the forest in a tent. There were a lot of poppies, but I couldn’t catch a full-fledged buzz, it was cold in the tent, sometimes I couldn’t even fall asleep. A week later, I moved to the village, settled in the Collective Farmer's House, saying that I was a worker from the timber industry. I lived there for two weeks. At night they went for poppies, during the day they injected themselves, "chopped and again cut the mar." So for days on end: I left the hotel without paying for the room.

He returned to Leningrad, meanwhile the season was over. And again, everything is new - theft, getting high. I knew that I was degrading. I went around unwashed, unshaven, rarely washed my clothes, and was poorly dressed. When I started hanging around, I was respected. And then, one day, I call a merchant who lives a two-minute walk from me, I ask: "Is there?" He says: "Yes." I come in a couple of minutes, he tells me that there is nothing left, he just sold everything to some people, and slams the door in my face. I am numb. Before, I would not have left it like that, now I had no strength, I just went back home. I stopped respecting myself.

After my second discharge from the hospital, I got a call from the same friend with whom we were first released for violation of the regime, and suggested that I go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I came to the meeting being under the trunks, I don’t remember much, but I remember that I felt out of my element. I tried to tell this friend something, like "stole, protorchal." And he broke me off: "We try not to use jargon at meetings." It was wild for me to hear this, especially from him, because we hung out together for some time. In general, I went to the meeting - and forgot.

In the autumn it got worse and worse. In November, he again went to the madhouse. I didn’t lie there for long, there was a conflict with the head of the department, I was discharged. Came out of the hospital, everything went on a new one. I had a dose of two glasses of poppy straw a day, I had no money for anything, even for food, only for these two glasses. At that time, my mother was admitted to the hospital, and I sometimes visited her. On December 30, New Year's Eve, she briefly came from the hospital, baked a cake, gave me money for a gift. I quickly went and bought myself the cheapest sweater so that there was still money left. The next morning I got up, breaks down, I have money, I need to buy straw somewhere, I left home. And my mother asked me only one thing, so that I would return by four and take her to the hospital. She was really very bad, she could not get there herself. Bought straw and went to a friend to cook. I look at my watch - it's ten minutes until four, I can't make it, and I can't go unpainted. I was late for an hour, I came home, my mother left, there is a note on the table. I began to be tormented by remorse, but I still got greasy, and life again became beautiful.

I met the new year trembling with fear. The day before, I had sold the leftist solution to an authority and was afraid that they would come to demand an explanation. We met the New Year with a friend who himself owed everything, lived in fear, so he was used to this. We curtained the windows, turned off the phone. So they met - he was on one bed, I was on the other. I'm not sure if we saw anything on TV - there was a lot of high.

In February, I went back to the hospital. I got up at 7 in the morning, sat down, went to the market, bought more solution there, injected myself again and went to a madhouse. It was very bad for me, I lay in bed for 7 days, and then I got the flu. This time, there was no rise in strength and vigor. He came out, lay at home for two or three weeks, was ill. This was my last hospital.

During this period, one of my friends, who had just been released from prison, forced himself to live with me, under the pretext of quitting together. We got up in the morning, the first question was: "What are we going to do?" - "We'll make money." - "And what to do with the money?" "Alright, let's hit one last time." Once we fell asleep on the theft, got into the police, but since we only had time to break down the doors and no one saw this, they let us go. In the end, I told him: "It's impossible to tie together, go home." We quarreled with him on this basis.

I constantly had depression, insomnia, a decline in physical and moral strength. The guys from the group called again, invited to the meeting. Decided to go. Sometimes after that I began to go to meetings, but I didn’t really believe that I would succeed, there was a suspicion that all this was not for me. During this period, he often broke down - about 1 time per week. Sometimes he did not go to meetings for weeks, then he broke down even more often. I had depression both when I was sober and when I was drunk. I didn’t have the strength to be smart, but I didn’t want to join the group either. And my mother and I changed the apartment, began to live in the center. At first, it was really bad - life was not equipped, there were no acquaintances, no money, no strength either. Sometimes I went to a group just to talk to people.

Of my five friends with whom we started using drugs, only three survived by that time, and today two are me and one more. "The rest all died: one from blood poisoning; the other, being intoxicated, choked in the bathroom; the third tried to climb from one window to another, as his mother locked him, broke loose and died. And one of my closest friends, recently, after returning from prison, he hanged himself, but more on that later.

Despite severe depression, I continued to go to meetings from time to time. True, I didn’t read the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous, I didn’t even know all the steps, I picked up the tops, I didn’t follow the program. Listen to what others have to say and say the same. Sometimes I would leave the meeting full of hope, and other times I would be so overwhelmed that I would never go there again.

At that time I even tried to work. I remember my mother wrote me into a hack. It took 6 days to paint the walls, then get the money. I painted for five days, on the sixth I could not wait for the end of the working day, I began to demand money from my mother, forced her to give hers, went and injected myself. I got stuck and decided to take the 9th step. Once I took a jacket from one person, then moved to the center and never gave it back. Well, I think, I’ll go now, I’ll explain everything to him, let’s go to my place, he will take the jacket, I will tell him about AA. On the way, I meet him. He asks me: "Did you bring a jacket?" I just wanted to explain something to him, but I didn’t have time - I got hit on the forehead. I kept wondering: "How is it, for the first time in my life I wanted to give something away, and on you - I got it on the forehead." Then I realized that first I had to take the previous steps, and then in the summer I went to Karelia again, this time I only pricked myself on the track. I arrived, it was already the season, the poppies were ripe. Remember going out with your cousin one day, telling how bad I used to be and how good I am now, going to A.A. meetings and stuff like that. Suddenly I see a plantation of poppies right in front of me, I was terribly wedged. At night I collected all this, I looked forward to the morning. When everyone left for the city (I stayed under some pretext), I quickly began to cut poppies, at first I tried to brew them with tea, but there was no effect. Then he tried to eat - the taste is disgusting, but still he stuffed a few heads into himself. Relatives returned, I was bursting, my face was swollen, my eyes were red, I still caught up with radedorm, which. found in the first aid kit, in a word, blissed out. A few days later he returned to Leningrad.

Since the fall, I began to go to meetings more and more often, there were already several drug addicts of my age, we spent a lot of time together, we could break loose: Sometimes I got stuck, we gathered together in a group, they went, and I stayed at home.

The program took up more and more space in my life. I went to meetings, I constantly said there that I didn’t want to hang around, and breakdowns happen because I just can’t stay sober. Then I realized that I really want to hang around, but I just don’t know how. If everything was fine, I would hardly have given up drugs, I probably didn’t even have such a thought. This realization happened gradually, for a long time I tried to sit on two chairs - drugs and AA, but in the end I realized that there was really only one chair left - AA.

On October 3, 1993, I broke down for the last time. I very actively began to delve into the essence of the program, I went to meetings every day. The first four months were very hard - I was constantly tormented by the desire to inject, I went to bed with him, and got up with him. I don't know how I didn't go crazy. I woke up in the morning and thought: "It's another day, it will be bad again, nothing is visible ahead. When will this end and will it end at all?" Sometimes I even had thoughts of suicide, but I endured it. I didn't believe at the time that I could do anything. There were thoughts that I was not made for a sober life, that my fate was to die from drugs. But in spite of all this, I continued to go to meetings, I lived from group to group. If in the interim it became completely unbearable, he called someone from AA or came to visit. I began to read AA literature, to follow the principles of the program. The motto: "First thing - the main thing" became the motto of my life. During this period I lived only in AA. After the first month of sobriety, despite the depression, I became enthusiastic, I wanted to become sober. Doubts did not stop, but there was hope.

Every day I did nothing but go to meetings, discuss the program with friends, small discoveries began to occur. I remember sitting in a meeting where the second step was discussed, and it dawned on me that I often spoke about things that I did not know and did not understand. I realized that I don’t listen to other people at all, I don’t want to give up my beliefs, that is, I live in the old way, but I want some changes. Then I began to talk less, to assert something less, to listen to others more, to read literature. I heard the phrase in AA: "If you do what you always did, you will get what you always got." And I realized that I continued to live in the old way, but I wanted to receive in a new way. I realized that it is necessary to change the value system - there will be a result. I did not know what it would be, but everyone said that it was better than before, and I believed.

At that time, my mother and I were in a difficult financial situation, but I deliberately stopped doing business, discarded the idea of ​​making money. Money "burned pocket". I knew as soon as they appeared, the desire to inject intensified. One day my mother offered me money to take an English course, but I refused and warned her not to give me any money at all. I've come to terms with the idea of ​​"poor sobriety." I tried to avoid hot places, old acquaintances, they themselves did not get me.

It cannot be said that I gave up the idea of ​​enrichment easily, simply and immediately. I remember I was offered to commit burglary. I wanted money, in addition, to refuse - a blow to pride, and I agreed. As soon as we agreed, I felt very bad, I immediately regretted it. I was ready to pay money myself, just not to steal. I went to the place where we agreed, and already at the door to the apartment I dissuaded the person. When everything was over, I realized that I would not steal, even with these thoughts I had to tie up. Several times I was made similar proposals, and I even had slight hesitation, but I already firmly said "no".

After about four months, the craving for the drug went away. I started thinking about work. I was offered a job in a commercial store. It was very hard to work, it was difficult to get up in the morning. It was annoying that all the time I had to be in sight, to communicate with people. I realized that this work can bring me to a breakdown. For a month I consulted about this in AA, listened to the opinions of other people, their experience, and in the end I quit: "First of all, the main thing."

After a while, he got a job as a watchman. The work was easy, I did not see people. It was very difficult for me to communicate with people, because I simply did not know how. I often felt fear. Until recently, I went to stores where clothes hang on hangers with caution, I was afraid that they would take me for a thief; if a car alarm went off by accident on the street, he was afraid that the police would take him away. I have not stolen for a long time, but the fear remained.

After about 6 months, I realized that I had a good chance of recovery. I worked as a watchman for a long time, continued to go to meetings every day, went to the hospital several times to take the 12th step. But I was not really satisfied with life - I wanted an active adult life, but I considered myself incapable of many things, I envied active energetic people. I considered myself a closed, uncommunicative person, and besides, I was also a lazy person. I communicated only with members of AA, I was afraid of other people, I thought that I would somehow make a mistake in communicating with them, they would poke a finger at me. Although all these fears were in my head, mostly. If you still had to communicate with people, they treated me normally.

By this time, I already wanted to join a normal life, not be a person who communicates only with drug addicts and alcoholics from AA.

After ten months of sobriety, I still decided to finish night school, I did not have a secondary education. I have made attempts before, carried the documents, but it all ended there. It was scary to go to school, every time I thought: "God forbid, they will ask something, I have to say something." I felt somehow not like everyone else. At school, he tried not to communicate with anyone, but he still made two friends, although, rather, on their initiative. I finished school.

I had to leave my job, the company went bankrupt. I joined the labor exchange, went to school, made half-hearted attempts to get a job, nothing worked. Depression periodically appeared. Once, in this state, I turned to a psychologist for help, filled out some questionnaires, tests. I did not expect much from this, but, oddly enough, the psychologist helped me a lot. He helped me see my strengths, over time I learned to use them and develop them. I considered myself an uncommunicative person, but it turned out that I can win over people. It turned out that I'm not so lazy, energy - a dime a dozen. Also, I have become much more honest. After that, I began to feel much better about myself. Life around did not change dramatically, but I realized that, with some effort on my part, it could change for the better.

I did not work until the summer, and in August one of my old friends was released from prison, the same one with whom I first tried opiates and with whom we tried to quit drugs together after my fourth hospital. We met with him and talked. He was looking for a job. For a long time I also wanted to have a more qualified job that would bring satisfaction, but one spirit was not enough. We began to settle down together, he called everywhere, negotiated, was the force that sets everything in motion. In the end, we were accepted, I began to go to work, but he didn’t, he said that he had found something more interesting. I told him A.A., offered to go to the meeting together several times. But he was one of those drug addicts who say: "I can quit myself, I have great willpower." A month later, he hanged himself, they found a syringe with a solution and a note in which it was written that he was tired. His death made a very strong impression on me. He was a close person to me, and then, I already began to forget who I was before and how serious it all was.

I began to work, to live the life that I had dreamed of before. It was both difficult and interesting. While working, I realized that I could live like most people. I left my philosophy that everyone around is idiots a long time ago.

For me, this work is a step forward, a different social position, different money. Although my salary is the minimum, I used to have even less.

I continue to attend AA and NA meetings and apply the principles of the program to my life. I used to come to meetings, talk in detail about my life, sometimes it was a kind of "soul striptease". Now I also solve many of my problems at meetings, but on a different level. I no longer want people to know all the details of my life. I talk more about the feelings associated with the problems, about my experience.

AA makes my life calm. Now I understand that I am a tradesman in the good sense of the word - I want to have my own home, family, children. Clubs and parties don't appeal to me. Once I heard the phrase: "Happiness is when you want to go to work in the morning and go home in the evening." I fully agree with this and strive for it.

I have not completely forgotten about money, I need it, without it I feel bad, but I do not want money at any cost, I want to receive adequately spent efforts at work. I keep taking steps. I've had attempts at steps 8 and 9, but it's a long process and I'm in the process. I have a good relationship with my mother: I love her and remember her, but it's hard for me to say it out loud. It is very difficult for me to take the T2 step, I myself do not go to hospitals, but if an opportunity arises, I do not shy away.

At the beginning of my sobriety, I did not believe that I could live normally without drugs, I considered myself different, a person who was destined to be a drug addict. Today, more than three years after my last breakdown, I can't believe I could live another life, the life of a drug addict.

My story is trite, but this can happen to anyone...
I was born in a small town, not far from Vyazniki. My parents are quite wealthy people for Vyazniki. I grew up in a prosperous family, I did not need anything. Therefore, it is not surprising that after school she went to Vladimir to study. She entered the full-time department of the Faculty of Architecture and began to live here permanently with her aunt. I was also lucky with my relatives: my aunt is just a miracle, she loves me like her own daughter. Yes, I forgot to say, without false modesty: I am beautiful. She looks like a girl from a fashionable cover, she even participated in beauty contests a couple of times, performed at the Vladimirskaya Beauty. True, she did not take places there and did not receive the Grand Prix. It was not by chance that I mentioned appearance ... It is because of her and because of my naivety that I am now a drug addict.
The first time I tried drugs was at the age of 13. And even then it was nonsense - a couple of puffs of grass with friends - buddies in the next entrance. Our town was small, there was nothing to do in the evenings, so we gathered either at the entrance or in the apartment. There was also alcohol: at first, a well-known screwdriver and a jaguar, and then I already tried everything that burns.
But I tried serious drugs thanks to visiting guys - they drove past Vyazniki to Moscow and stopped to rest in a hotel. I was walking down the street with a friend, they were passing by, a conversation began. In the evening they picked us up and together we went to the only local club. There they offered a couple of obscure pills, promising that after them it would be a lot of fun. Why not? At that moment, I could not even imagine what my frivolity would lead to in a few years. We agreed to try. Yes, and I liked the guys .. they exuded some kind of freedom, they seemed to belong to a different, more intense and interesting metropolitan life. In the club, I felt some unusual lightness, extraordinary gaiety, I constantly wanted to move, to communicate. It was impossible to sit still. The music echoed with some unusual rhythms in my mind, the lights merged into an endless spinning ball. Everything around flashed and floated... The sensations were amazing, I was in some extraordinary world... I came to my senses only at home. My head was pounding, my body ached from yesterday's wild dances, which I didn't remember after the club. Then I found out that those pills were a hair dryer, or amphetamine, simply put, a chemical drug, from the use of which the psyche and intellect suffer, as it affects brain cells ....
The second time I tried drugs was when I moved to Vladimir. I, a provincial from a small town, was surprised by the big city ... The abundance of shops, cafes, entertainment centers .... The nightlife also attracted me. Once in a club we met young people. They were energetic, positive and unnaturally cheerful. But something about their gaiety made me wonder if they were all right…. The boys snorted cocaine. Infrequently. Once or twice a month. It was they who suggested we try cocaine. They said that this is not chemistry, a natural product from which there are no consequences. I was even surprised by their perseverance .... One track of cocaine costs about a thousand rubles. Cheap pleasure. One to four lanes can be used per night. Depends on the experience of the addict and the characteristics of his body. The taste of cocaine is slightly bitter, on the tongue there is a feeling of numbness, light anesthesia. Then I did not know that addiction can develop even after a single use of the drug ...
We decided to try again. The sensations at first were strange: my head was spinning, everything swam before my eyes. A few minutes later came a feeling of calm and some kind of inner relaxation, which was then replaced by euphoria. I wanted to move, communicate, all the people seemed to be friends, the mood was wonderful. Tactile sensations were perceived much brighter than usual ... The night shone with lights .... We changed three clubs and did not feel tired. Cocaine gives a feeling of inner strength, uplifting, vivacity ... It seems that you can do everything! I began to use drugs regularly - on weekends. Fortunately, there were enough people who wanted to treat us. Monday is called a hard day for a reason. For him, I came to my senses after a drug frenzy ..
And on weekdays, we often smoked grass to relax ... With it, both films seemed funny and conversations were interesting .. Time passed unnoticed .. I hardly appeared at the university ... I went shopping, watched TV, saw a young man. We were introduced by a mutual friend, meetings and relationships began ... he is much older than me. I have no feelings for him .... but we spend time with him, have fun, he helps me financially. Due to constant absences, I was expelled from the university. Six months after the expulsion passed unnoticed: all the same boring everyday life, when there is nothing to do. And a bright weekend... However, I began to notice that in order to achieve the same effect as before, I had to increase the dose. There were no problems with drugs - I got them from a familiar dealer, for money from my sponsor. And at the after-party, we were treated to both a hairdryer and cocaine without any problems. Many well-known people in the city - politicians, businessmen, public figures, "golden youth" - use light and even hard drugs constantly or once in a while ... I'm not trying to justify myself, it's just very easy to succumb to the temptations of the big city and the curiosity to experience new sensations ….
Now I am 22 years old. I recovered at the university not without the help of my new friend. The truth is, I didn’t study. What for? After all, you can buy almost the entire session, order drawings, and I don’t have much desire to do something .... I recently had an abortion .. I don’t want to give birth. And the friend did not need a child. The doctor said that with my health, I should not have children at all. Asked about drugs, reproached for smoking. After the abortion, I started to feel depressed... such a state that I don't want to leave the house, see anyone... I just want to die. I flooded pain and sadness with alcohol, I didn’t notice how I began to drink more and more .. Just to forget and not think about the lost child and my dissolute life.
My first breakdowns began, because I sat at home for a week and there were no pills or powder with me .. The sensations were terrible: my whole body breaks and shakes, then the temperature rises, then it throws me into a chill. To all this, indigestion and wild muscle pain are added ... As if you are sick with the flu in the first days, but six times stronger .... A friend abandoned me. He said that he did not need an abnormal hysteric. Yes, I really have become unbalanced, I easily lose my temper, my nerves are on edge .... Saves only the powder ... at least once a week. More often I can’t, and finances don’t allow it. My friends turned away from me, they say that I have problems. I need to be treated, but for now I don’t want it ... What will happen next? Time will tell, but for now I don't want to think about the future...

This story is told by a former drug addict who used hard drugs for 6 years

My name is S. My childhood was cloudless, my parents were middle class, they didn't drink or smoke. Mother is a teacher, father is an employee. We often changed apartments, improved the living space, because of this I changed schools.

I tried cigarettes at the age of 10. I felt dizzy and nauseous, but I liked it. It was Dubec. I came home, my grandmother felt the smell, said she would tell dad, but I begged her and she did not say. I didn't smoke again until I was 12.

In 1989 we moved to the center, it was 2 minutes walk to Nevsky prospect. I went to the sixth grade, studied well, but I had problems with discipline. A new physics teacher came to our school. He recruited a group and we were engaged in tai - chi. He was a very intelligent, honest and selfless person. After studying with him for 1.5 years, he suddenly moves to the Pionerskaya metro station and I can’t go to him, because. travel far from the center.

Almost immediately after that, I got into, as they say, bad company. There was a bathhouse in my house, we often smoked there and drank beer. At first we drank a little, after a short time I began to drink 7-8 bottles of beer. I was 12 years old. I tried vodka at my father's birthday party and didn't like it. By the 7th grade, my attitude towards school changed, I began to skip classes, and serious problems with discipline began. At that time, I began to farce, at the Russian Museum and the Europe Hotel. We also went to the circus, it was always full of firms. I smoked and drank beer.

I talked with Andrey, he was a year older than me. I was 14. Once we went to a friend, he smoked us marijuana. I really liked it. A couple of months later I was already smoking 1.5 packets a day. Everything was just beginning. My parents and I moved again and I began to study at the Lyceum. But anyway, with whom I talked there, everyone smoked marijuana. Until the age of 15, everything went smoothly. And one fine day Andrei and I tried opium.

We were offered to try by Andrey Sh., he offered us for the previous 2 months, but we refused. The first time I didn't understand anything. After 3 weeks, we pricked again. Then I turned on the full program. I had warmth all over my body, a lot of energy, lightness. We walked with Andrei, talked about everything. I felt like I was mature and independent. There was a kind of drug addict romance in all this, I just read all of K. Castaneda then. I have determined for myself: opium is mine. At first, Andrei and I injected 1.5-2 cubes 4-5 times a month. Around the same time, I tried LSD. I didn't like LSD. There was a feeling of complete lack of control over the situation. I did not like such drugs later - hallucinogens. I tried toadstools, they didn't hurt me either. At the same time, I ate cyclodol, sednocarb, phenazepam. I didn’t like the tablets, except for sednocarb, I ate it and then many times. In the end, after these experiments, I realized that there is nothing better than black. I continued my friendship with Andrei and quietly injected myself peacefully. The parents didn't know anything.

I am almost 16. One morning my mother came into the room and saw my hands. She was in shock. I promised her to quit, said that I just tried, but it was too late. I haven’t used marijuana and beer for a long time, unless someone was talking about it. Pocket money was no longer enough. After the 10th grade, they kick me out of the lyceum, or rather, I leave on my own.

As expected, I'm transferring to another school. I almost never go to class. I am completely addicted to opium. There were simply no friends in the new school, but only friends. I already used opium every day, 5-7 cubic meters of homemade solution, or 30 cubic meters of market solution (3 furiks). At the age of 16, I stole from home for the first time. It was a big theft of gold. When my mother found out, I teased her that I gave a debt to a friend, because. he let me ride his car, and I wrecked it. After that, the mother began to hide gold and money. I started stealing things. When I came home one day, I did not recognize my apartment. The front door was metal, there were bars on the windows, and there was also a bar between the front door and the inner door. My parents realized that I was a drug addict.

One evening, my mother sat down and talked to me that I needed to be treated. I agreed. A few days later, by agreement, I was put in a psychiatric hospital to break. I wasn't ready for this. After 3 days, I begged her to pick me up on the condition that I would no longer. As soon as I left, I met my friend Yura. Together we went to Dybenko for khanka. Everything went back to normal. I was just starting to figure out where I was going. I seriously didn't realize that I was a drug addict.

Summer has come. Mom decided to send me and my sister to Spain. I really liked it. I broke there, imperceptibly for myself. Upon arrival in Leningrad, as usual, I met Yura, here no one had a meal, then, naturally, I pricked myself. I was drawn into this drug addict whirlpool with a new growing force. I was almost 17. They kicked me out of school, they found out that I was a drug addict. I went to school - an external student. Received a certificate for 11 years, giving the head teacher a bottle of Sangria and a box of chocolates. My parents again put me in the hospital. After lying down for 3 weeks, I was sure that I would not inject, but of course I was wrong. Crashed right after getting out. I started stealing a lot from home. Serious scandals with parents began. But they did not yet understand the full power of drug addiction. It was decided that I should continue to study. I entered SPGUP at the Faculty of Law, a paid department. He studied with difficulty, at lectures he was only if he was smeared. I completed my studies until the end of the year and left Univer.

At this time, I continued to communicate with Yura. One morning I went to see him. He didn't have the money to get high, not me. He offered to rob the neighbor's room. We sold some things from there and went to Dybenko. The next day I went back to him. Suddenly the doorbell rang. I didn't want him to open. He opened the door. Opera ran in and started beating us without saying anything. Of course we confessed everything. The next 3 days were the worst of my life. I was beaten, bullied. Waiting was the most terrible: they will plant or not. Yura was imprisoned. God had mercy on me. Parents hired a lawyer, gave money. Sitting in the bullpen, I thought that drugs were a thing of the past, so long as they didn’t put me in prison, that I was here because of them. After leaving and washing off the lice, I ran to inject. Drugs are stronger than willpower and things like that. A drug addict has no willpower, - people who are completely unfamiliar with the problem say so. Believe me.

I am sent to relatives in Kazakhstan. I'm going there in the hope of having a snack. In the very first days, I asked my brother if it was possible to buy marijuana. He said that not only is it possible, but even necessary. We bought 1.5 kg of shmal. We smoked it, and I took the rest to Leningrad, I wanted to sell it, but naturally I smoked most of it. In Alma - Ata we went with my brother and his younger brother to go fishing in the reserve. We smoked marijuana shoal after shoal lying in a tent, and in the evening we went ashore to fish with shoals in our hands. We were completely killed by marijuana. We rode across the steppe on our grandfather's hand-operated Zaporozhets. That was great. Drug romance. When I was returning home, I met a drug addict on the train. He was carrying 600 grams of hanky with him. He scolded me 2 times. Arriving, I immediately injected myself and began to inject every day, as before.

Again, at the initiative of my parents, I went to a psychiatric hospital. They gave me chemo. protection and I stopped injecting. Of course it was on time. I got a job at a travel company. He didn't make good money. We as a team went every evening to the Tribunal - Bar and Domenikos. I drank a lot. A period of boundless depravity began. Because of alcohol, I left there and began working in another large travel company on Nevsky Prospekt. Before the presentations, I drank 100-150 grams of vodka at the Gostinka, on the second floor. At the same time, my parents decided that I needed to finish my studies. It seems like I quit drugs, so let's do the learning. I entered the Leningrad State University in the legal paid department. There he met Yulia. Typical provincial girl. Beautiful. We talked for almost 1.5 years. Then the scandals began. She was used to Peter, she wanted parties, money, fancy clothes and things like that. But not me. We broke up. I already worked in a very famous store. Here I met my so far common-law wife. We went to my dacha, ate kebabs, swam. I gave her flowers. We are still together.

By this time I left work - I did not get along with the authorities. No signs of trouble. But everyone has heard - once you taste poppy tears, you will cry all your life. In the winter of 1998, I was driving a car and decided to visit friends with whom I used. Further, I think everything is clear. Within a month, the dose had risen to 0.5 grams of heroin per day. Almost no one was injected with opium. Everyone was on heroin. There was no money. Everything I earned I quickly sold. Started stealing again. My parents began to suspect that I had begun to inject, but they could not and did not want to believe it, because. I haven't injected for over a year, i.e. from the end of 17 years to 19 years. Mother asked to show her hands and understood everything. I said that I had just started, I was immediately admitted to the hospital. When I got out it all happened again. I stole everything. I took out the whole house. He broke open the metal door, ripping open the wall. They stopped letting me go home. I lived in the front. It was horror. The temperature is -20 degrees. Every time the elevator rides, you wake up. There is nothing. I had no money for drugs, food, or cigarettes. I came to my mother at work, said that I was ready to be treated, that I understood everything. She didn't believe. I cried. After 1.5 hours of talking, she agreed. Then I really MYSELF wanted to quit, and it was the first time. We arrived home, my father did not let me in, he did not believe me. I lied to them for 5 years. Mom convinced dad. I went to the academician from Univer, went to the hospital.

Lying in the hospital, my mother told me that there was a group of Narcotics Anonymous, that after leaving, you need to go there, and then go to their rehabilitation center. I didn't believe it would help, but I agreed. After leaving the hospital, I did not drink for 3 weeks, and then went into therapy.

After I got out, I stayed sober for about 5 months, but then I broke down - literally and figuratively. I began to use much more and quickly ended up where I had so hard to get out of. As a result of the use, I fell from a height, broke my spine ... This was the last breakdown. I lay in bed for a long time, then I learned to sit, walk, and so on. I came back to the group. In NA they say: It's not a shame to break loose, it's a shame not to come again.

I used 6 - 7 years. Today I have been sober for over 6 years. Everything that happened to me is a miracle, I am alive and sober only thanks to God and AN. I do not use anything that alters consciousness, including alcohol. I only smoke :-). Today I have a wife, family, parents, work.

Conclusion

The 12 Step program works, and if you really want to quit, then go or bring your kids to a NANONYMOUS ANONYMOUS group, which is in almost every city.

May God help you.

All names, names of organizations, educational institutions have been changed. Any coincidence should be considered an accident. If someone has an irresistible desire to meet this person, ask him questions related to your drug use problem or the problem of your children's use, write.