Linda (35) stares to the pole just before the roundabout in Raamsdonkveer. The tears jump into her eyes. This is the place that makes her think back to the moment she turned her life. In March last year, Linda got home in the car. She had used cocaine all evening. On the way home, she rode at full speed against a pole. When she looked back, she saw that there was nothing left of her son’s high chair: “If he had been there, he would not have been there anymore.”
Linda (35) woke up in the hospital. She called her friend. “He would come to the hospital, but never came up. Drugs were more important to him. But what was perhaps even bizarper was that I hoped he would take drugs to the hospital. “
Linda has been struggling with a heavy cocaine addiction for years. But because of the car accident, she came to realize that she had to change course. “It was no longer the question whether it went wrong, but when.” She was admitted to a rehab clinic for the second time and went into therapy. Now she has been clean for half a year and she is slowly trying to rebuild her life with her son: “I feel so terribly guilty towards him, I just want to give him good things now.”
“If I couldn’t sleep because of the coke, I used sleeping pills.”
Linda’s addiction started home with friends one evening: “It started very innocent, friends had it and I tried it. But unfortunately I liked it. ” Her drug use quickly got out of hand: “Suddenly I used it every weekend. If I had to work again on Monday and couldn’t sleep from the coke, I used sleeping pills. ” And so it went from bad to worse: “I often used cocaine while my son lay in bed. I thought: that is just possible, he doesn’t notice it? Of course it is. That could of course have been completely wrong. “
Because of the use of cocaine, Linda turned into someone in which she didn’t recognize much of herself: “I lied, cheated and manipulated my family. I locked myself because I no longer dared to go to people, afraid they saw that I was addicted. I was constantly walking around with a lie. I knew I was addicted, but I didn’t admit it. I didn’t want to lose the drugs. “
“In the hospital they said: if you continue like this you live for another four years. But I didn’t care.”
Because her use was so intense, she had to be forced: “I was so bad to say in the hospital: if you continue like this, you may live for another four years. But I didn’t care. I finished the recording so that I was outside again as quickly as possible and could go to the drugs. “”
Back from the clinic, the misery continued. Because of her addiction, she made wrong friends and choices. That even led to a police raid in her house: “When we moved, my son still dared not to go to sleep. He was always afraid that the police would invade. If you hear that from a child of two, you only realize how much impression it has made. I now feel so guilty about that, “she says, while the tears flow down her cheeks.
After the car accident, Linda decided to kick one more time in a clinic: “Now I really wanted to stop myself, I took it seriously. In the clinic you are in a safe bubble, but when you get home you have to do it yourself. Then you have such a strong desire for drugs. The first days you almost want to run to get it. You have to get through that. “
And she succeeded. Half a year later, Linda is still clean and determined to keep it that way. “If I have a hard time, I watch videos back from myself when I was addicted. That really helps. On some videos I can hardly talk anymore through the use. I didn’t look. I don’t want to be like that anymore. “
“I broke myself and the people around me. For what, that one pinch?”
Linda decided to find distraction on social media and downloaded Tiktok. She then shared her addiction story. Her video was viewed more than 30 thousand times.
With her story, Linda also hopes to motivate other addicts to stop: “It goes wrong once and you have to get that realization. I broke myself and the people around me. For what, that one pinch? Drugs are not tasty in the end. It doesn’t make better, you are lived by the drugs. “
Since Linda is back home from the rehab clinic, she is still struggling with her addiction every day: “For example, I deliberately did not celebrate my birthday. At a party I can only think of using, it is still in my system. ”
New friendships are also complicated: “If friends ask me if I will go out, I always say no. Sometimes I am ashamed of it when I have to explain why. That also makes it difficult to make new contacts, I prefer to avoid it. As a result, I sometimes feel pretty lonely, because I don’t see my old friends anymore. A lot of family has lost confidence, they only know the Linda that uses, but that is not who I am. They have to get to know me again, I have to prove myself. “
Despite everything, she looks positively ahead. “I am happy with how I am here now. Just clean, with my child, how it should be. It is possible, and so I will continue! ”