My friend Erika shares her story below.
"I got involved with drugs at the age of 16 which was also when I started prostitution. At first I started smoking cigarettes, then went on to smoking weed and eventually started taking heavy drugs like crack cocaine. I was really addicted to Speed as I felt like it helped me do my ‘work’ as a prostitute at the time. I would feel numb and like I was in a different world while working as a prostitute. It gave me the energy I needed and after taking speed I would be hyper and ‘up for anything’. I snorted and eat speed like it was sweets. My addiction to speed went on for 2 years.
Drugs became so easy to get a hold of because my then boyfriend was also a pimp and the house I was living in was a working house for prostitutes so drugs were constantly being brought into the house. Besides being hooked on drugs, I was also chain smoking and drinking a lot. I hid my addiction from my family and only close friends knew about it. The addiction became like an escape from what was going on in my life. Without even realising, it was destroying my life bit by bit.
When I moved city I was still taking drugs but moved on to pills and continued smoking crack cocaine and weed a lot. Though I sought help from outreach groups to kick my addiction, it was only after the birth of my second child when I decided to leave the 'game' and get my life back on track. I was clean from drugs, alcohol and prostitution for 4 years but because I started mixing with the wrong crowd again, I went back to smoking weed, Sisha pipes and became a heavy drinker and chain smoker. I was going through problems in my family and used alcohol and drugs as a way to blot out what I was going through. I wanted something to fill up the emptiness I was feeling inside.
A friend of mine who I was reunited with after years of not seeing her saw how bad my life was and invited me to an event at a Help Centre and through the help and support of the advisers there, (which by the way was not overnight but a process) I was able to deal with the inner issues that led me to that lifestyle, making certain decisions to cut off people from my life who were having a negative affect on me and occupying myself with positive and meaningful things also helped a lot. Without getting to the root of the addicition and why you are so heavily dependant on it, you will not be able to find the freedom you desire. Now I don’t need drugs, drink or prostitution to make my happy or to earn a living.
The main source of my strength is God He is the one that saved me from the hell I was living. Had I not received any help, I would have been seriously hurt or even dead right now. But I gave God a chance and allowed Him to set me free from my suffering.
I have positive goals and dreams that I am working towards and I know I will achieve them because I am determined to. Though I am not proud of the lifestyle I lives before, I am able to help other women who are going through what I went through for them to see that there is a way out".
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