Dave D Road to Recovery

My name is Dave. I am a grateful addict who has found a new way of life and I am in recovery. I understand that I will never be fully recovered and that I have a disease which can be kept in remission by abstaining from any mind-or mood-altering substance just for today. I understand my self and the role that drugs played in my life now, but when I was in active addiction, I was blind to how the use of drugs controlled my every action. My story goes like this…

I was a shy kid and was never able to talk about myself or really talk to many other people. I felt a void within myself which I would later come to know as a “spiritual void”. I was convinced that I was a happy kid with a perfect home life and everything was fine with me, but I felt this crippling feeling inside of not being good enough. I felt like I was unable to express myself and my feelings even at a very young age. I felt like no one would understand me and I experienced this pain of being completely alone even around people, family and friends. I experienced this feeling throughout my life.

I started drinking at a young age and had my first real drinking experience with a friend of mine when I was 14 years old. I had my first drink of alcohol and remember this feeling of invincibility coming over me, my fears had dissolved in the alcohol and I was instantly convinced that I had, in that moment, become the person I was supposed to be! The feeling of loneliness and shyness disappeared as soon as I Zapped booze into my system. I did not stop when I got tipsy, I did not stop when I became drunk, I could not get enough and stopped only when I passed out. This instantly became the theme of my drinking, and drinking became my obsession.

I had been sent to church and had been taught that lying was bad and I should not do it if I was to make it in to heaven, but I found dishonesty to be the more rewarding course of action. If I had been honest about where I went over the weekends, I would most definitely not be able to go and drink again the next weekend so I would simply lie and my problems were solved! I rejected church and any form of God because I did not need another source of shame having to answer to someone or something that I could not even hear or see!

I became a rebel and was unable to fit the mould set forth by society even when I was completely convinced that I had tried. I dressed up and showed up, seamlessly blending in as part of the crowed, but inside the menacing feeling of pain and loneliness persisted. I was convinced that I was different and that all the young people I was grouped with where somehow better than what I was. The only escape from this feeling for me, could be found at the bottom of a bottle.

When I was 17 years old, I started smoking marijuana and from the first time I did, I realized that this was easier to hide than being drunk. It was a much easier way to avoid what I was feeling inside. I would smoke weed every chance I could create. I still drank heavily and weed became a way to feel that feeling of escaping my fears and problems more often than just on the weekends. I was never a good student and flunked out of school. I was pushed into directions into which I did not want to go and continued to rebel. I drifted around for a few years living at my brother or parents’ house, always promising them that this time I would give my all and succeed when they came with a new idea or direction for my life. I ended up getting my matric in 2009 when I was 21 where I should have graduated in 2006!

I avoided responsibility for my actions by using drugs and drinking. When I felt bad about myself for failing at school, I got high and the pain of disappointment and failure would not be there anymore. Using became my answer to every undesired emotion.

I got my first real job and made the decision to stay clean and sober and start over as the job required me to move to another town, far away from all my friends, troubles and reasons to use, or so I thought. I surrounded myself with others who had spiritual voids of their own. they also felt empty inside and thought that drugs and alcohol would fill their void, just like me. Together we toiled to feel like we fit in but my using was never the fault of another. The first thing I packed when moving to other towns to start over was my addiction, my pain. I stayed clean and sober for about 9 months and did great at work. In the time I stayed clean I got promoted to the head office in Johannesburg but the premotion would only be in effect in a couple of months. I was living in a small town and stayed home most of the time in order to avoid the temptation of drinking or using drugs. I became a recluse of sorts, going straight to work and straight home.

 Just before moving to Joburg I thought to myself that I was lonely and I deserved to make some new friends and have a good time. The only place I knew where to have a good time was at the local watering hole or closest pub. I made the decision to go to the bar and have one beer. One beer became two beers and when I felt my fears melt away, I felt like I was home. That first time I drank again I followed my drinking pattern and got smashed. I woke up outside sitting in the camping chair of the guy from whom I was renting a flat. It was 5 in the morning and still dark. My Bakkie was not at my place. I walked back to the bar and there I found my Bakkie with a huge dent in the door, unlocked with all my working equipment inside, including my laptop on the front seat! I felt so much guilt and shame that I got in the Bakkie and went to find some weed so that I could “feel better”. In the blink of an eye my addiction was back in control. A good friend of mine moved to the small town I was living in for work. We hung out and drank together. My addiction progressed and I was kicked out of my flat and had to move in with my buddy. I continued drinking, getting into fights and embarrassing myself for the next couple of months until I moved to the big city.

While I was living in Joburg I was back to smoking weed and drinking full time and was underperforming at work. I remember feeling that the people who live in the big city are SOOO much better than what I am, and they know so much more about life! I felt like a nobody who was not good enough, and getting home and being able to use drugs and drink alcohol was my only escape from that horrible feeling! I was living with a friend of mine and one day I phoned up an old acquaintance and went to visit. I was 23 years old and at that visit I did Khat for the first time. I was transported the farthest away from my spiritual void and feelings of not being good enough that I had ever been and I was hooked from the very first time I used. I managed to keep my using down to “social using” only, for about a year, but my life became unmanageable and I ended up quitting my job in Joburg out of fear of being fired. I moved back to my parent’s house in Rustenburg.

My parents where always there for me and I would always shift the blame of my current rock bottom to something or someone else by lying to them. They were my safety net and I was constantly taking advantage of their love and kindness. They believed my lies as any parent wants to believe their child and always gave me what I asked for, not knowing that their handouts were enabling me to continue on the path of addiction. They did not knowingly give toward my drug use as I had become a master manipulator, they were not bad parents to their adult son, I was a bad son to my parents.       

After moving back home to Rustenburg, I started hanging out with my old friends again, using drugs and drinking heavily. I did odd jobs, moving from my parents to my brother and then back again. I took the pension that I received when quitting my job and invested in an Occupational Health and Safety course to become a Safety officer. I had to attend the course in Joburg and smoked weed every night I was there. I failed the course and could thankfully rewrite in a few months. I stayed with my brother working in the film industry as a lighting or grip assistant while waiting for the rewrite and the results. I enjoyed working in the industry and again saw it as an opportunity to start over. I left my drug of choice (DOC) and stuck to smoking weed (excessively) and drinking on occasion. After about 5 months I started using my DOC again. I thought I kept it together but the addict is usually the last person to find out that he`s an addict. We went to a wedding in Durban and I could not stop myself from using. I got high and did not sleep for a few nights before the wedding. I stayed up just using and using. Any person could see I was on something by that point. My boss and others from the industry also attended the wedding and saw me in my prime state. A few people reported to my brother that I was high and had become distant of late. I finished the job with him and felt so self-conscious I quit the industry and moved back to my parents’ place.

Every time I failed in this way, I felt worse about myself and my spiritual void just continued to open up wider and wider. The idea that I was not good enough was being reinforced with every wasted opportunity and failed attempt at life. My reality was becoming unbearable and the land of the lost I skulked through when loaded became more and more alluring. I mistook the absence of emotion for some twisted form of happiness. My soul was deceased. I looked at the times I stopped using and convinced myself that I could control my drug use. Drugs talk to me in my own voice and manipulate me into looking elsewhere for the reason that I am a failure. The source of my pain had me convinced it was the answer to my pain.  

My father bought into a business I was going to run in the Free State. I was excited and thought it was another opportunity for me to start over and make a success of something for once. Once again, I thought to myself that moving far away from all the people, places and things that were associated with my drug use would be enough for me to stop using once and for all. I moved to the Free state and started working in the business. I stayed clean and sober for up to 7 months and business was going well. It was the kind of business where I received payments myself, these payments where in cash..

After staying clean and sober for a while and getting to know the ins and outs of my new job and new town I thought to myself that I was lonely and I deserved to make some new friends and have a good time… I headed over to the local bar for a beer and to meet new people. I had one beer, then I had two beers and I could feel my fears melting away and that night I left the bar drunk and at closing time. The next day I thought to myself, well if I am drinking again why not smoke some weed? Immediately my work, finances and emotional wellbeing suffered under my using. I became lethargic constantly taking shortcuts at work and handing in paper work late. After about 3 months of constant using, I went to visit a friend of mine who lived about 2 hour’s drive away from my place. when I got there, we started using my DOC and I loved it. I found a dealer there and I was using more than ever. After a couple of months of driving back and forth to pick up drugs I went out at midnight one night in the town where I was staying. I drove to the run-down part of town and picked up a strange guy who was walking next to the road. I made some small talk and then hit him with the question, “so do you know Khat and maybe where I can buy some”? He was himself a user and introduced me to a dealer right in my back yard. It all went downhill from there.

I started using my drug of choice on a daily basis and soon it became more and more every day. I did not make enough money to support my habit through working and started selling the few possessions that I had. After selling everything I had that had value I started taking cash from the business. First it was small amounts that I could put back at the end of the month when I got my salary. After a while I had taken so much that my salary was not enough to cover the damages and I fell behind. My life had become so unmanageable at that point that I stopped caring. I had become sure that I would not have to answer for the missing money as I would die from using drugs. I had become trapped in a cycle where I would use drugs, feel bad about using drugs and then use more drugs to feel better. I would lay in bed at 3 in the morning wide awake and ask myself “what is wrong with you?”. One night it finally dawned on me that I was a drug addict. I had lost massive amounts of weight, isolated myself for about 6 months, completely ruined the business opportunity that was handed to me, sold all my positions and had officially hit rock bottom. I had a choice to make, take my own life which seemed like the easy way out, or ask for help.

 I had never heard of a person living in recovery and I was terrified of admitting to anyone what I had done and who I have become at that point. I had stolen so much money that I could not hide it anymore. I was heading straight for a brick wall rigged to blow! I don’t know where I got the courage to come out with the truth for once in my life. I went to my parents and I told them that I was addicted to drugs. They did not quite understand but by the grace of God they became willing to help me after an initial angry reaction! My parents got advice from friends and sent me to rehab and I was terrified of a life without using drugs and drinking. Using and drinking was all I knew. When I was happy, I used, when I was sad, I used, it was my answer to everything.  

On the 26^th of July of 2016 I went to rehab and started to become awake for the first time. I had to write a life story and was introduced to the a 12 step recovery program. I started my life story and immediately realized that I was living in denial from the get go. I had worked hard to forget things from my childhood but they were always in my subconscious and I never really forgot. I knew that I had secrets that brought up a mess of emotion when I thought of them and I have never shared these things with another human being out of fear of judgment and rejection. I had some time to think and made the decision to come clean and unburden myself of these things from which I now started to believe I cannot run from. I prepared myself and the next day a social worker was tasked with doing a bio-psychosocial assessment on me and at the end of the session she asked me if there is anything I wanted to discuss, I paused and said yes… 

I then proceeded for the first time in my life to talk about abuse and sexual abuse that I experienced during childhood at the hands of a male who was close to me. I had in that moment been honest for the first time in my life, about myself, and my life. I was introduced to the concept of trauma and childhood trauma and realised that my feeling of not being good enough came from people overstepping my boundaries as a child and making me feel like I mean nothing and my rights don’t matter. I developed belief systems about myself that were not necessarily true, but I believed in them so fully that for me they had become reality. My emotional growth had become stunted and I developed primitive defence mechanisms and false belief systems as a child, and held on to them all through my life. By not talking about the skeletons in my closet I gave them all power in my life and they drove me to using drugs, for when I used, I could forget about them and numb my emotions. For me, feeling nothing was better than feeling like that scared little boy inside.

I had avoided talking about my self out of fear of something I said leading to my secrets being spilt and people knowing that I am different, damaged or not good enough. I took responsibility for being sexually molested and believed that somehow, I was to blame. I thought to myself that I am supposed to be this hard man and hard men don`t talk about their feelings or about themselves. I viewed the repression of my emotions as a requirement for being a man in the eyes of the world. I spent much of my young life trying to prove to everyone else that I was not what my experience as a child has made me out to be. I got into a lot of fights and did everything at an extreme level growing up, attempting to hide the fear of judgment and rejection I felt inside. Taking drugs made me forget about the things that made me feel inadequate and it altered my reality. At that moment of using, I was able to escape all fear, guilt and shame. My life falling apart around me was the price I had to pay for that escape and through living in denial it seemed reasonable. Being honest with myself, about myself, was the hardest thing that I had done up to that point in my entire life. I truly was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Becoming willing to share my traumatic experience with one other person was the first action required for me to start the process of recovery and also the turning point in my life.

I completed my first 3 steps of the 12-steps in the rehab and learnt about powerlessness, surrender and a higher power. It was said to me that I needed to find a power greater than myself, a power I can trust, that loves me and cares for me. I didn’t understand then but having the gift of desperation I was willing to try the suggestions of the guys who had more clean time than what I had. Praying did not come naturally to me and I had to learn how. I asked my counsellors and my fellow rehab inmates for advice, tried it and kept what I felt worked for me.

I was sitting in a 12 Step meeting one night in the rehab and had been handed a pre-amble that I had to read and I remember being so scared that I was going to look stupid when reading in front of others that the fear absolutely paralysed me. I would then be unable to read because of the crippling fear and end up looking stupid which was what I feared in the first place. It had been explained to me how to give my extreme emotions over to the new God of my own understanding and I decided to give the suggestion a try. As the meeting was going on in the background, I closed my eyes and said “God, please help me to understand that even though I have been made to believe that I was dumb, I can read. I can do this! Please God, remove my fear of looking stupid” … I opened my eyes and read that piece of literature as though I had written it myself! From there on I was praying all the time and the God of my understanding has been there to help me every time I reached out. God didn`t miraculously cure me of my drug addiction, he gave me a program to work, a guideline of how to live a life so that I would never feel the way I did before picking up drugs, and prayer and trust in a higher power was part of it.

Having found the God of my own understanding and a fellowship of men and women who have also felt the pain, loneliness and despair that I have, and are willing to share with me how they found freedom from that feeling, I felt a great hope become alive in me and I started to believe that if they can do it, then by the grace of God, so can I. I had a few days clean and a life without substances started to look better to me. I was told that I would only have to change one thing in my life and that one thing was everything. I left rehab with a program, a structured plan and a strong foundation of new life skills upon which I could build in my recovery. Leaving the safety of the rehabilitation facility was scary for me and I remember being afraid and knowing I had some consequences of my addiction waiting for me. The fear also came from the understanding that I was personally responsible for where my life ended up at that point and I would be personally responsible if I screwed it up again.

I had a lot of pain from childhood trauma that I carried around with me in active addiction, but I made the decision to hold on to that pain. The pain I felt was a good reason for me to use and letting go of it would have meant that I would have to change my behaviour, and I had to hit rock bottom in order for me to become ready to commit to the change. I did not have to change who I was as a person; I would experience spiritual and emotional growth as a result of working a program of recovery, which in turn would result in me being able to have better relationships and better deal with life on life`s terms but I am still the same person. Drugs and alcohol were never my problem, my problem was that drugs and alcohol had become the answer to my problems. Recovery has taught me that I am not alone in life and never have to be again. I can walk into a meeting room anywhere in the world and I would be surrounded by people who understand me because they too are trying to understand themselves.

I immediately joined a 12-step fellowship after leaving rehab and started working the program with a sponsor. The steps helped me identify the patterns in my life and also the emotions underlying my actions. I looked at my past as a place where I could go to learn how not to react when I feel angry, sad, lonely or happy for that matter. I still work the program today and I still attend meetings. A lot has changed in my life since I have started working the 12-step program. I no longer let my past dictate my future. I am no longer guided by my fear toward people, places and things that I do not need or want in my life. I still experience fear and I always will, but the program has taught me how to give my fear away to a higher power and do the next right thing despite being afraid. I have become honest with myself and the people around me and have built lasting relationships with the people in my life. I am able to work together with others and take responsibility for my professional life and keep a job. My idea of success has changed and my life’s passion has become to give to other what was given to me, and help others to find recovery and a new way to live.

I have been blessed in my recovery and have experienced miracles, from the freedom from the desire to use to people believing in me. I have always been actively helping other addicts in their recovery and dreamt of opening a rehab of my own one day. I never imagined actually being able to do something so big but my higher power dreams much bigger than what I can imagen! I am grateful to be part of the team who opened Hope Hill Rehabilitation Centre, the first rehab in my home town of Rustenburg. I was minding my own business one day when I got a phone call from a lifelong friend who is a successful business man and was closely involved in my recovery. He explained to me that he had purchased the perfect location for a rehab and asked me if I would like to lead the project while he continues his business in Gauteng. I took some time to think about it because I knew it was not going to be easy but I knew from the second it was suggested to me that this was where my higher power wanted me. I accepted the responsibility and started the project in June of 2019. We worked hard and managed to register and open the doors of the facility in June of 2021.

Recovery has been a journey that never seizes to excite, amaze and inspire me. I look at the life that I had been given after being such a bad person for such a long time and I am grateful to have had my but kicked by drugs and alcohol. If it was not for my active addiction, I would not have been grateful enough to realize how precious life really is. I have learned how to live in the moment, not letting obsession about my past mistakes or my future worries steal the time given to me right now. I understand that I am never cosmically tested, life is just life and some times it gets hard. My first answer to my problems and the challenges I face is not drugs and alcohol any more which has freed me up to be present and deal with things as they come up. Having been shown how to stay clean just for today is the most precious gift I have ever been given and I thank God every day for being able to live my passion and give that gift to others.

A Grateful recovering addict. 

DAVID DE JAGER

COUNSELLOR