It’s truly a critical time in our society, especially for our impressionable youth. As you may know, addiction / substance abuse continues to be a major problem in Nigeria. Confronted with so many issues, many youth turn to alcohol and drug use and soon find themselves in the grip of addiction, an astronomically increasing epidemic which not only distorts / destroys the creativity and productivity of those it afflicts, but, more often than not, consumes them.
I am a case in point. My name is Oluwatosin Olaoluwa and I’m a youth in addiction recovery. I started smoking and drinking at the teenage age of 14 in my SS1. I started smoking cigarettes at the time as a result of peer pressure; smoking implied that I had attained a certain status, that I had become a “big boy.” From cigarettes, I migrated almost immediately to alcohol and eventually started experimenting with marijuana. At the time, my drinking and using was mild because my teachers and parent, my mum, checkmated me. However, once I gained admission to the University of Ado-Ekiti (presently, Ekiti State University, Ado-Ekiti), my story took a drastic and immediate turn. Without my teachers and my mum, my life began to spin out of control. Eventually my drinking and drug use led me to become addicted to alcohol, marijuana, and tobacco; Occasionally, I even used the pills, such as roche, and some other drugs.
Going through a 15 year addiction to substances, I experienced depression, despair, anxiety, the desertion of well-meaning friends, loneliness, isolation, and failure in different spheres of life. I lost relationships, lost jobs, mismanaged my mother’s finances, and created many other problems for myself and others. Finally, I had to deal with my mental malfunction: to do this, I had to drop out of school It had got to the point where I couldn’t function in the natural order of things. I had developed what I now call a warped sense of reality.
From 2007 to mid 2012 my life was like a pendulum, swinging from recovery to relapse and back again. During this period, I would manage to stay clean for a month, two months, even three months, but would inevitably relapse, losing the progress I had made to my addiction. I really wanted to be freed from my addictions, but I was powerless whenever the degenerative craze of my addiction took over. Many out there, like me, are in or have overcome similar (or worse) conditions. Many who are in the grips of addiction are unable even to reach out for help. Some don’t even know that their addictions are an albatross around their necks and of dire consequences not only to themselves, but to their families, loved ones and the society at large.
The cost and consequences of the addiction epidemic place an enormous burden on the society today. They strain the economy and the health-care system, while harming family life and threatening public safety. Addiction / substance abuse in our communities today have an astronomical cost from lost productivity, health-care expenditures, crimes, accidents, and other conditions such as the increasing “culture of violence” that substance abuse and addiction help fuel.
Having survived my almost deadly addiction to alcohol and other drugs through the grace of God, I am now committed to recovery. It has given me clarity of purpose and hope for the future, helping me gain stability in my life while reaching out to other addicts in order to be of service to them and thereby having the privilege of seeing many of them transform their lives. One of the primary ways I do this is through Addiction Recovery Campaign (ARC), a multi-dimensional initiative that promotes the hope for addiction recovery in our communities and seeks to change attitudes about addiction, serving as a reminder that recovery is possible through proactive, supportive interventions and strategies that help people– especially impressionable youth—lead new lives as God-driven, purposeful, constructive, and interdependent people who are free from addiction and who contribute to the well-being of our communities.
I end with these words, “The future isn’t something that just happens, but something WE MAKE happen. The decisions we make now, the actions we take now, shape the future.”
Written by Oluwatosin Olaoluwa.
Help stop drug and alchol abuse.
Share your story and inspire someone to recover today.
Help stop drug and alchol abuse.
Share your story and inspire someone to recover today.
Post a Comment