None of us really knew how to cope with it.
There isn’t a divorce in the world that doesn’t disturb the family dynamics in some way. The children get hurt, the parents get hurt. Parents blame each other, children blame parents, parents blame children and children blame each other. We do this because we simply don’t know how to handle our discomfort and pain in a healthy way.
My parents are both good people, but to this day I still don’t know why they married each other. The only thing they seemed to have in common was us children.
In those years, a divorce was considered a scandal. You couldn’t talk about it openly, and the Church condemned it as a sin. There wasn’t any access to the information, experts or support groups that we have at our disposal today. Our Christian friends condemned us. I tried to deal with it all by pretending that everything was fine.
As a teenager, I rebelled against Christianity: my parents didn’t always practise in their daily lives what was preached every Sunday. The fights, power games and humiliation were in direct contrast to what we kids had been told to do.
During the divorce, we were used as pawns in our parents’ personal vendetta. We were always caught in the middle of their problems, and served as their crutch in some way or another. When they dumped their issues on us, sometimes the roles became reversed: we were, unconsciously, forced to take their place. In a family where a parent suffers from a behavioural disturbance, children often develop something known as ‘adult-child syndrome’.
This syndrome is characterised by excessive guilt, powerlessness and low self-esteem, which leads to self-destructive behaviour. (For more information on this, read Life Lessons for the Adult Child by Judy Kiplin.) We tried our best to support Mom and Dad, but as children we weren’t emotionally mature enough to handle the situation.
It was unfair of our mom to constantly criticise our dad in front of us; and it was unfair of our dad to remove himself from the situation and not take responsibility for his actions. Yet, they didn’t know any better. Pain and suffering sometimes make us do things that we regret later. The situation at home caused a lot of bitterness, guilt, fear and division among us kids.
I was at odds with myself, every day. Children aren’t supposed to pick a side; it shouldn’t even be an option. Parents should resolve their differences without involving their children. Aren’t they, in their personal capacity as Christians, meant to present an image to their children that glorifies God? Shouldn’t they rather put aside their personal issues, regardless of how they feel? Instead of poisoning their children by bad-mouthing each other, parents should remain mutually respectful, even when one spouse is absent.
It confused me incredibly. Today we know: children don’t become what they’re told to be; they become what you are, as a parent. I always heard one thing, but saw the opposite.
Children become a product of their parents and their parental home.
Both our parents proved their love for us in different ways. They made sure we were always abundantly provided for. But I had a festering pain within me that my parents never knew about. I associate my childhood and teenage years with feelings of detachment, fear and loneliness. I felt like a stranger in my own home.
I began to steal from a very early age, long before my mom and dad got divorced. It gave me some kind of kick; it was my little secret that no one knew about. I didn’t steal because I wanted something my parents couldn’t buy me, or I couldn’t buy myself. I stole things because it gave me some measure of control over my situation. I felt in control of one thing, while feeling completely out of control in other areas of my life.
The fear of getting caught gave me such a rush. In my desk, I had a secret compartment where I could hide all my stolen things, especially expensive lighters. I had a whole collection of gold, bronze and silver lighters. This, of course, allowed me to occasionally light up a cigarette in primary school. Later, I also used this secret compartment to hide packets of cigarettes and pornographic videos.
I began smoking cigarettes when I was quite young. I took my first puff in grade two, because I wanted to try new things. My grandma – my mom’s mom – smoked. It looked so enjoyable. That day on Ballito beach, at a holiday town in KwaZulu-Natal, I coughed my lungs out. It was terrible!
I was naughty and defiant. My grade two teacher informed my mother that I was a problem child and that I’d end up in prison someday. She wasn’t completely wrong.
By grade seven, I was a smoker. A packet of twenty cigarettes lasted me about two days; eighteen years later, it was nearly forty a day. We had a couple of primary school friends who often joined us on skateboarding missions, and who shared in my rebelliousness. We egged each other on, and it was exciting to buy cigarettes.
My first joint was in grade eight at the German beer festival in Pretoria East. A friend and I’d gone smoking in a park before we began to party that night. Initially it was amazing fun, and we cracked ourselves up at everything and everyone. But alcohol and dagga don’t go together very well.
When you’re drunk and then smoke a joint, you’re almost guaranteed to vomit out your lungs. You’re overwhelmed by green fever, and all your munchies end up between your cheek and the pavement on which you’ve passed out.
The idea of doing something illegal gave me a tremendous kick. It wasn’t the experience of taking dagga that I liked exactly, but the attention that people gave me, thinking that I was different, underhand and outspoken.
My teenage years were largely destroyed by my destructive behaviour. The pursuit of excitement and cheap thrills quickly changed into repeated drug abuse, parties and rebellious behaviour. Drug abuse or any kind of addiction is only a symptom of much greater problems that stem from a search for human dignity on a senseless road to nowhere.
Little did I know that the thing I’d really been looking and yearning for couldn’t be found at parties, or in alcohol and drugs. It was in something of a spiritual nature.
Only many years later, after I defeated my heroin addiction, did I realise what could truly fill the hole in my soul. For the first time I experienced freedom.
A freedom that, in my sobriety, could still my heart and calm my spirit.
STEP ONE
‘We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction, that our lives had become unmanageable.’1
Recovery could only begin once I admitted that I indeed had a problem. It meant that I had to examine the chaos and lack of restraint that ruled my life. I had to admit that my life had become uncontrollable and that only I could take responsibility for my own recovery.
This is the first step of the Narcotics Anonymous Twelve Steps to Recovery: admit that you don’t have control over your addiction. Relapses and an inability to maintain relationships or a job are characteristic of a life controlled by addiction. If your physical addiction and compulsive behaviour are so severe that you can’t stop using your drug of choice continuously, you must join a rehabilitation programme.
There are excellent rehabilitation centres across the country, but remember, it isn’t just rehabilitation that will get you clean; your recovery depends on you. The choice to want to change is only the beginning. Recovery isn’t something that happens overnight; it’s a painfully long process.
If you end up being a drunk horse thief (read the story a bit later on) and you stop using alcohol, you’ll still be a horse thief. The destructive logic is, therefore, that you might as well keep on drinking.
