"Charles Dakole" (not his real name, he prefers to be anonymous) has gone into the dragon jaws of drug addiction and survived to tell the story as it is. In an exclusive interview with Clickhealth he reveals what it is like to be an addict. His experience is from a victim’s perspective- a must read for parents, youths, policy makers in education, teachers…
The interview is published in
full but serialized in 4 parts.
Clickhealth: Let’s begin from the beginning; can you give us your background?
I did my primary school in Lagos state – army
children primary school, Ikeja cantonment; and then my secondary school was Wesley
High School, Oturkpo. I finished my primary school in 1989 and then my SSCE in
1995 from St. Francis College, Oturkpo. Then I proceeded to Federal
polytechnic, Nassarawa where I got my diploma in Science laboratory technology;
and after proceeded to the labour market, of course in Abuja.
I was in
Abuja for a number of years, I think up to 15 years and within this period, I
got myself in some of those lifestyles. I club, you know what it means to be a
clubber, not just a clubber, we were also given a club to manage and I was one
of the key factors in the management of the club, the name of my club is
Kalabari night club in Wuse zone 2. That was a long time (2007- 2010).
You know peer pressure, I was pressured into
so many things – addiction, smoking, street life. You know, I was actually a
street boy. You wouldn’t understand; we dress well, cute and handsome. We were
quite educated. That’s it on my personality for now.
Clickhealth: You said you were on drugs…
Charles Dakole: …yeah.
Clickhealth: But now you’ve given up the whole thing?
Charles Dakole: Yeah; I left
drugs 7 or 8 years ago but precisely, because I have the date, I left drugs on
the 10th May 2014.
Clickhealth: So can you give us more insight on what led you into taking
drugs; how did it start?
Charles Dakole: Yes; you
know when you are getting into it you wouldn’t know. For me, I was quite young and
I had friends. These are the people I look up to, big in age, big experience; I
have to have them in my own level, my age grade. These people are the people we
see as friends and allies and we got ourselves into doing some stuff to earn
money apart from the drugs. I think I want to conclude by saying, it’s just the
peer pressure that got me into these drugs.
Clickhealth: Is it possible to recount some of the experiences you had
while you were on drugs?
Charles Dakole: I think one
of the painful part of this drug addiction is when you are in it, you don’t
know about them until you get out of it, then you begin to recall memories of
so many things that went down the drain. One
of the things that I also know about drug addiction is the part about
forgetfulness; you don’t have memories to remember things, to think about them,
to think about the future. You are living, kind of, in mirage, illusion,
fantasy.
Clickhealth: At least you have one or two or three experiences that you
can recall?
Charles Dakole: Yes, I think
some of the incidences that I can recall sometimes get me crazy and I wish I
hadn’t been a drug addict. Sometimes you see people from afar, even your relatives,
and you think that you have greeted them when they get close to you but the
event that happened is inside of your mind. You see them from afar, you’ve
greeted them but practically you have not done it, it’s all in your mind. This
person comes close to you and wants to put a reminder to you like “Guy what’s
up now, didn’t you see me?” And you will
always want to tell them “Aaah! but I have greeted you, I have greeted you
already”; although in the true sense of it you have not greeted them. It
happens in your imagination; so most of the things that you are supposed to do
physically have already been done in your imagination.
That’s just
a bad one for you because its loss of memory; you don’t have any retentive memory
to think about the things you do and the ones yet to be done. It’s a fantasy or
rather an illusion and that’s what I’m trying to say.
Clickhealth: While you were talking with me before this conversation, you
mentioned the incidence where you took one of the drugs for the first time and
ended up in the middle of the road?
Charles Dakole: Ok.
Clickhealth: Can you recall it
Charles Dakole: Yes very
well. I had this good friend that I was looking up to; he's a big guy. He works
with the bank but he is also an addicted druggie. One of the evenings, he saw
me very close to my house and he told me he was going to Gwarimpa, Charlie boy’s
place. Charlie boy has this place in Gwarimpa (where) people come around and do
their stuff. Normally, because I had not been there before but I had heard so
many stories about the place, that it was a place for big boys. The guy is a
registered biker with Charlie boy’s crew, so I jumped on the bike and we drove
down to Gwarimpa. He is a smoker and a druggist. He asked me whether I have
done it before and I told him “yes”.
Clickhealth: What kind of drug?
Charles Dakole: Loud; we
call it loud. For better understanding, we call it crack. I don’t blame him
because practically he has been seeing me smoking a lot and people don’t come
around my vicinity that much. My place is a place where people come smoke and go,
so he gave me a little of it to smoke; just a little; we call it “claro or
“killer”, he gave it to me and I smoked. Immediately, I dragged (puffed), about
five times dragging (puffing) in the smoke, I just felt a shock, a heartbeat,
it was a double kind of heartbeat and I became afraid. I felt like I was going
to run mad.
Another thought came to me and I said before I run mad, let me run to the house so that I can be mad in the house, its better. I stood up from the chair, the next thing that came into my mind was like a mirage; I was seeing my house close to me. Of course that was not just very close to me, it was in the middle of t he road, Gwarimpa Estate (Abuja) just by the bridge across Galadima. At a point I didn’t know what happened.
***The Interviewee can be contacted directly with his phone number +234 8137824948