Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD
There was something Monty Pythonesque about lunching with three clean-cut white men in their late 20s, watching them pour cups of strong coffee down their throats as if it were a drug, while regaling me with “war stories” of their narcotics abuse.
I had wanted to spend time inside a rehabilitation clinic, to see for myself the process of trying to overcome a chemical addiction, but was rebuffed by a clinic director with the excuse that it would be emotionally damaging for patients to relive their experiences.
So I called Narcotics Anonymous (NA) and ended up at this male bonding session at a popular cafe in one of Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. This was not where one would expect to find drug addicts.
John, a blond ponytailed writer of advert- ising jingles, was on his eighth cup of coffee; Stefaans, a heavy-set professional curtain hanger (that’s what he said he did), had just wolfed down a huge chicken salad and ordered his sixth cup.
“I suppose you thought druggies were all wasted bums, hanging about in seedy hotels or on the streets of Hillbrow,” chirped John. “Well, it can happen to any of us – we’re proof of that.”
John has been “clean” for about 13 months. Unfortunately, not long enough to stop his wife and child leaving him. He is giving Stefaans, who has been off drugs for 18 months, the emotional support needed to stay off cocaine.
“I’m about to become an ex-husband and it’s difficult to cope with the knowledge that I’ve lost my wife and child through snorting coke and smoking crack,” said Stefaans, who is self- conscious about having gained weight since he stopped taking drugs.
“I can still remember my mother-in-law congratulating me on my trim figure during the throes of my addiction, when I hardly ate anything,” he laughed.
At this point Richard, a giant of a man -balding and sporting a silver loop in each ear – arrived at our table. He was greatly distressed, having just learned that his ex-girlfriend is engaged to another man.
“I’m so depressed,” he sighed, plopping his bulk down in a chair. “All the way here I was thinking that my world had come to an end. I feel like taking a line. Shit! I’m not dealing with the pain very well. I really need some drugs.”
John, who is sponsoring both him and Stefaans, leaned across with a reassuring hug. “Listen man, you’re staying with me today. You’re not going to be alone today. We’ll get through this.”
Richard, a computer programmer, then launched into a tale about the night, after bingeing on a cocktail of acid, tequila, whisky, Ecstasy and cocaine, his tooth exploded and one of his lungs collapsed.
His domestic worker found him lying on the floor of his home, blood pouring from his mouth and nose. Yet the night after his release from a 10-day stay in hospital, he snorted several lines of coke. “I just could not stop myself,” he said.
Richard was almost bankrupt – his medical bills amounted to R17 000, he owed R40 000 on his bond, his credit had been revoked and he was on the verge of losing his job. A week later, aware that he was killing himself, Richard booked into a rehab clinic.
As someone who has neither smoked (the odd cigar really doesn’t count) nor inhaled anything other than homeopathic nasal spray, this was not a world I related to.
Perhaps my colleague was right to describe addicts as “self-indulgent sods”, and getting over drugs as no worse than giving up smoking.
Is drug abuse not self-inflicted? I asked Cathy Vos, the director of Sanca Horizon Alcohol and Drug Centre in Boksburg.
“Maybe in the same way that a heart attack or high blood pressure are partly caused by bad lifestyle. But the difference is that chemical substances change one’s psychological behaviour, which has an effect on all aspects of life,” she replied.
“You don’t give up smoking because you have lost your job, your family, your self-respect or your self-esteem. People come to us when they have lost everything or are in the process of doing so.”
Addicts must learn life skills to cope with every day pressures. It was only with hindsight that Stefaans realised he had found it difficult to be a husband, father and breadwinner. “I was not coping and drugs gave me a way to suppress my anxieties.”
He rues the day his interior decorator boss introduced him to cocaine. “It felt like I was moving into the big league. His friends were all artistic types. They were glamorous and I wanted to be accepted into their set.”
A few months later Stefaans was smoking crack cocaine. He recalls that during the euphoric high of his initial “hit”, his first thought was that he had been wasting money on “powder”. Over the next six weeks he spent nearly R10 000 getting high. “I lost all self- respect and would have done just about anything to get money for a smoke,” he recalled.
It was just the beginning. Soon the bills started to pile up and cheques bounced as he descended into a vortex of lies and deceit to feed his habit.
Addicts can recover, but they are never cured – John now gets his buzz from coffee (16 cups were guzzled during our two-hour meeting), Stefaans turned to food and Richard is a shopaholic.
Vos recommends that her detoxed patients join NA to learn the 12-step programme used by recovering alcoholics.
So I paid a visit to an NA meeting in Turffontein, a working-class suburb in southern Johannesburg, held at a house bequeathed to the Methodist church by an elderly supporter of the temperance movement.
Inside, five white men and a woman were sharing painful stories of how difficult it is to get through each day – the meetings are a prop which some attend six times each week.
Addicts from other races are rare at NA meetings. “That’s a sad fact,” says Tanya, an earnest-looking 34-year-old artist and former crack user from Yeoville. “But I suppose if I were the only white person in a room full of blacks, I wouldn’t feel too comfortable.”
Her tragic life began with incestuous abuse as a child, compounded by three incidents of rape (one before she became an addict and twice during her drug phase).
“I used to visit crack dens in Hillbrow and then did heroin to come down. It was hectic, but it was the only way that I could cope with my life,” she said.
As South Africans struggle to deal with the pressures of rapid social change, widespread drug abuse is spreading, even in schools.
Which is how Lisa ended up at NA last year, then aged 15. “I was doing acid and Ecstasy at clubs and even in the playground. All my friends were using drugs and rebelling.
“I had problems at home and was very depressed. I felt alone, with no one to turn to, but there was comfort in a crowd.”
Vos says that when her centre opened in 1995, it saw 40 teenagers pass through its doors. The following year the figure was 90 and this year alone, 180 youths have come for help.
She believes that drugs are more readily available in South Africa than ever before. “It used to be mostly dagga and Mandrax. Now coke, Ecstasy and LSD are very popular, but in the past nine months heroin has made major headway.”
And it’s relatively cheap – heroin costs R40 per gram on the streets. One rock of crack cocaine will set an addict back R30. A small price for a lifetime of pain.