DIARY OF AN ADDICT – Episode 6

 DIARY OF AN ADDICT
Episode 6

Steve
It’s been six days, six trying days and hell since I returned home. I was gradually getting over Wole’s death now despite the lullaby of nightmares i got almost everynight. Luke phoned, he was okay and safe, Wole had been killed by some cult group he refused to settle scores with, so unfortunate for him.
I promised mother I’d cut down on drugs and liquor. She’s been quite better, happy seeing me this way. I still wonder how I got to make that promise to her and how I got caught up in the strange web of sympathy, fear that pulled me back here, home. On my first day here I’d sniffed cocaine agan in secrecy, I tried so hærd not to but it really was a tough thing to shove off that feeling. You know that feeling when you crave deeply for something like its become a part of you and it’s there, next to you, giving you that death Stare. You want it so bad, you know you want it yet you try to hold back that desire not to reach for it but in the end, you find yourself entangled in its web again.Yes, that feeling, and I couldn’t help but sniff the wh0le thing to calm my nerves. On several occasions I had sneaked out to local stores in the neighbourhood for liquor, tramadol, anything to cool my head. I was careful enough and thankful mother never found out. And before you think I wasn’t ready to give up drugs, they were times I tried, I tried really hærd to do without any of those for at least a wh0le day but my body failed me. My undying taste for stimulants rendered me helpless at the mercy of codeine and its kind,The desire has become so strong than ever before these days that i could snort a hundred wraps and still not be satisfied if i ever got the chance to.Mother said she was helping me do without them, she said I could live without them.She was always thinking “spiritual” , thinking I was possessed or oppressed by witches, she dwelled on superstitions, and none of that was easing my terrible encounter. I’d been desolated by the daily tribulations of anxiety, depression, paranoia and sleepless nights my body battled with for the past few days I hadn’t tasted substance. Often times I found myself loosing it, being restless, violent with everything yet suspicious of everyone around me, sad feelings, strange involuntary actions occured, they were phantom moments I couldn’t deny. Some days I became extremely sad with negative thoughts, trying to hurt myself until mother came to my aid. I knew I was me, it was my body yet I couldn’t control my actions or bring myself to a halt, strange even to myself. Cool one moment and crazy the other when that feeling for it pops up. I became weird. Weird mad, weird sad.
As I sit here alone, thinking about my strange encounter for the past days I begin to feel uneasy ,anxious, cold sweat prickles on my skin. I feel that strong desire whirling up in,side of me again,my skin starts to itch. I scratch the itching s₱0t for a few seconds, I feel relieved, better for a while then the uneasiness starts again, it comes stronger, I feel the tingling s-nsation from from the pores on my hairy arms and muscles my skin begins to bite on the arm… Everywhere! My head aches badly, i feel insecure, unsafe, miserable.
“You’ll never get better”
” you’re the third wheel in the friend circle, the worst “
” Such a looser! Everyone hates you!! “
“Do it! Good for nothing do it!!” .
My own voices start cursing at me in my head, my mind. My heart beats so fast almost jumping out of my chest to the ground, I become exhausted and at that moment I really felt like poking my chest with a knife till I could see my heart ripped out, strangling myself with a rope if I found one or jumping into an imaginary lagoon to free myself of the hassles……

***
As the abrupt change instigated by his recent discontinuation of drugs put him in a muddle , ridding him of the comfort of his own body, Steve struggled to put his sanity together. He’d gone violent, wild enough to hurt any being at his hold if there was. He’d scre-m about the wh0le room, throwing glasses, just anything he could lay his hands on with the head pounding in,side and spinning like some spiral was there. He moves his arms up and down his body hurriedly, searching every pocket on the black shorts he’d worn on matching blue collar neck shirt designed with thin stripes of blue and white. In an ultimate search for his brain’s coolant, he starts raiding the wh0le house, opening bag, throwing all of it’s content out when he found nothing. “Shit!!!” He’d scre-m flinging things across the room, banging the door, walls, cursing, muttering under his breath whenever his search yielded no result. The violence and craziness continues for hours before normalcy begins to set in bit by bit. His nerves start to relax slowly and the muscles too. As he struggles to get balance, his eyes settle on a neatly folded folded piece of paper, not sure of its content he draws closer for a better view and With the speed of light he reachs for the paper and unfolds quickly realising it’s content.
* *
Steve
I look closely at my most saught cravings that was now in my possession. My head still ached a bit coupled with the anxiety and exhaustion, I wanted to devour it as a famished vulture would do to carcass.The sight of the powder alone was slowly curbing the exasperating feelings in me earlier. Though my conscience pricked me, I couldn’t put it away knowing it was the only thing that could save me from these horrible experiences daily. For a moment, I had a rethink, I turn my eyes away from it, putting it aside, remembering why I was going through all of this. The goal was to ” Quit drugs, substance” yet in my quest to get better without those I was dying alive. My mind, senses, became evocative of drugs, anything equivalent at that instant. The powder became magnet attracting my soul so strong I couldn’t bear the frustration….
Tatse….snort! Snort!! Snort!!!
Snoooooorrrt!!!!
And that was it…all in! I throw my head up in a sigh supporting it with both hands. I could feel the euphoria, the pleasure it brought in my in,sides and that wasn’t just it, I wanted more! More and more of it…so much more!!! The familiar tone from my mobile phone interrupted my magical moment. It was Luke…. I picked, listening to his husky voice
” shit man! are you serious????…..Am coming straight away. No no….am not taking much time, in fact I dey road as I dey talk to you so, I’ll be there in a few minutes” I put the phone down in a rush, wipe the powder of my nose, l-ips, grab my wallet and immediately I head out of the room.

To be continued…

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