My name is Osama and I spent 7 years of my life, from my late teens to my mid-twenties, addicted to heroin. Heroin is a derivative of the poppy or opium plant and is widely considered as among the most addictive substances in the world. As of 2018, 800,000 people between the ages of 25 to 64 are addicted to heroin in Pakistan.
My introduction to the world of heroin abuse was coincidental. There was no peer pressure involved. No one made me do it. I tried it initially out of curiosity, not really knowing the consequences of my choice. Addiction or dependence does not develop overnight. It is, however, a slippery slope. I spent the next few months drifting around, using when I could, and the withdrawals weren’t too bad. But then the frequency of use started taking an upward trajectory. From once a month to twice a month, to once a week, to twice a week. I started using more and more, blissfully unaware of the physiological changes that the heroin was causing to my body. I still remember that sweltering hot Midsummer afternoon, a couple of months later, when I woke up drenched in sweat; which was rather strange cause the AC had been on all night. My body ached in ways I never knew it could. My legs were wobbly, there was a constant stream of water running out of my eyes and I was sneezing profusely. It was only after I managed to drag myself to university a few hours later and took the first hit that I realized. I was addicted. All the aches and pains dissolved away and I felt okay. I felt normal.
Over the next few years, this cycle was what defined my life. I lived my life and my days one hit to the next. One score to the next. The only thing that was a concern to me was where the next score was going to come from. Or where the money to buy the drugs would come from. Or where the transport for procuring the drugs would come from. That was it. These thoughts defined the sum of my life for more than half a decade.
My relationships started suffering. My addiction drove everyone away from me. My parents, my family, my sister, my friends, my girlfriend. I ran away from home, lived with street junkies for a while. I lied. I cheated. I stole. Anything for that next hit. Anything.
It’s strange the things physical pain will make you do. And it was precisely the physical pain of withdrawal that wouldn’t let me stop using. My drug abuse escalated to chronic levels. And then, one day, laying in a park infamous for the drug addicts that used to frequent it, I shot up an unusually large dose on account of my tolerance, and I overdosed for the first time. I was 22.
I don’t know-how, or even why I didn’t die that day. And I still wonder about it often. But that brush with death changed something in me. I decided I needed to get better. But I soon realized the enormity of that task. I had a fair idea that mental health support in Pakistan was not great, but was I in for a surprise.
I had the bad fortune of going to two of the biggest rehabilitation centers in Lahore. And I can tell you from personal experience that there is zero percent rehabilitation in either of those places. Their business model seems to be a combination of scaring your family shitless into giving them as much money as they demanded (sometimes upwards of two lac rupees every month) and a strange attempt at brainwashing you via religion, discipline, obedience, and control by locking you up in the clinic for anywhere between 3 months to a year. You were not allowed a phone or the internet. There was no contact with the outside world. You were not allowed to have visitors. It was a prison for all intents and purposes. It wasn’t uncommon to be beaten up by the staff there. There were also occasions where the staff themselves smuggled drugs into the facility for us. I relapsed within a week of being released from both places. So did everyone else who was in there with me.
It was soon after having been released from the second rehab that I overdosed again. Things were rather bleak at that point. I had lost half my body weight, my eyes had deep black gorges below them, and most of my teeth had rotten away. I spent a week in hospital. It was at this point I decided to educate myself about my illness. I had realized that if anyone was going to help me get out of this shallow grave I had dug for myself, it had to be me. I spent the next 3 years fighting my addiction on my own. I would tell myself almost every night before I went to bed that I was going to quit the following day. I would stay sober for a few days at best, and then relapse. The withdrawal pain kept getting worse. Unless you have been addicted to heroin yourself, there is no way to communicate the sheer agony of that state to a non-user. I often contemplated killing myself to end my suffering once and for all. I’m so glad I didn’t. All the while, I kept educating myself, I kept learning about my disease, about addiction and the ways in which it could be treated. My research also made it clear that there was no such support mechanism in place in Pakistan that I could take advantage of.
Around the start of 2016, I began an email correspondence with a professor of psychology at a university in Texas, who had also been addicted to heroin during the Vietnam War, being a veteran. In him, I found some of the support that I needed. After months and months of relentless research, I ended up finally quitting heroin on the 29th of September 2016, with the love and support of family, with my new professor friend a Whatsapp message away, on my own terms. This was the 67th and the last time that I quit.
My addiction taught me a lot of things and put me face to face with certain stark realities. One of the biggest was probably how much need there was for a system to guide individuals trying to seek help and to connect them with the right support network. I started Let’s Talk, Lahore in 2018 as a support group with the express purpose of connecting individuals suffering through whatever mental struggles they have, with the most relevant and most qualified professional help possible. The only way we normalize the stigma around mental health is to talk about it. This is why these conversations that Taskeen facilitates are all the more important and necessary. Lots of appreciation for the work that Taskeen does. Keep fighting the good fight.
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