My Addiction

Addiction is indeed a bitch! Yes, it is because I have been there and ridiculed by its lovely but wicked hands. It seem very okay and satisfying but can drain the destiny of any man on earth just like a prostitute will suck out all the semens in a man's body all in the name of satisfying him sexually.

Many people are unaware of the fact that the Niger Delta University wasn't the first  tertiary institution I attended but the University of Port Harcourt where I was lured into cultism and taking of hard drugs(cocaine and marijuana); consequently becoming a drug addict. I was very active in all our cultic practices to the extent that I was made the 'point one' of my cult after six months of induction. Such new title boosted my morale and my addiction to taking hard drugs.

I had a very good job because I worked with a company where I was being paid six hundred thousand naira(#600,000) every month but would use five hundred thousand naira(#500,000) to sniff cocaine. My academics suffered mercilessly as a result of my new lifestyle and I was consequently WAF from school. I would have been happier if that was the end but unfortunately, I began to grapple with more challenges as they continued to unfold.

I was so addicted to drugs that anytime the urge came,I would beg people for money just to get it into my sysetm. The begging habit continued until people got tired of it and stopped giving me money. Consequently, I started selling my properties so I could satisfy the urge anytime it visited. I sold all my properties, including my clothes and pants; I gave my rented apartment to friend for money and started squatting with a friend who was also a cultist and an ardent drug addict. All my responsible friends who later knew that I was into drugs, withdrew from me and I was left in the middle of nowhere like a wandering spirit who is waiting to be called home by his relatives.

This experience is what I don't like talking about. I watched all my course mates convocated before my very eyes; my father and elder sister would always call to find out what was really happening as it was taking too long for me to graduate, but in all, I would always force a smile on their faces with my well polished lies. 'How long will I continue to deceive or lie to my father and elder sister?' This incessant rhetorical question from my inside largely affected my well polished lies and subsequently revealed my nefarious activities in school to my dad and sister. At  that point, they were totally disillusioned.

Addiction is indeed a bitch and bastard! While being trapped by the vicious chains of addiction, I came in contact with some government officials who lost their jobs because of this shit called addiction. They were drug addicts like me who lived in the forest with the sellers of hard drugs and would most times perform some domestic and wild chores for those sellers, just to sniff the cocaine for free.

As stated in the bible, 'the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak,' I was really willing to change but the  urge always surpassed by will. Not being able to change into the kind of person the society wanted me to, I decided to live with my predicament for years until I met a man of God whom God used to turn my life around.

As a lover of education, I had to go back to school and today, I am a graduate of Petroleum Engineering from a reputable university. Emeka Chika is my name.