how will this work, the liquor store is around the corner?!”

During the lockdown follows Marlin of Ast online therapy sessions to get rid of her addictions. This turns out to have its advantages: “For the first time, I dared to be really open.”

“’You are all going to delete your drug dealer’s phone number first,’ the therapist says on my screen. It’s my first online rehab session. Next to me is my breakfast plate, which I was snorting cocaine from a few days ago. I drink water from the glass that used to have vodka in it. As I look around me, I wonder if I will succeed: kicking the habit from my own environment full of temptations. Still, I grab my phone, take a deep breath, and erase the numbers. The first line to my old life has been cut.”

Wrong men

“’Do you love me?’, I asked my parents endlessly as a child. ‘Even if I committed a murder? Or go to jail?’ I was always looking for love, for confirmation that I was good enough. I often didn’t feel that way. I grew up in Apeldoorn, together with my older brother. He was my opposite: calm and affectionate, I never wanted to sit on my lap and was very busy. To discover where my behavior came from, my mother took me to all kinds of educators. It was eventually concluded that I have ADHD. Now that I’m older, I understand that my mother wanted to help me. But as a child I just got the feeling that something was wrong with me. I therefore sought love from my father. When he was there he had to put me to bed and make my sandwiches. But that was precisely the problem: as commercial director he made long

days and he wasn’t home much. I longed for his attention. I think that’s where my addiction to love started. I moved to Amsterdam for my studies and work. I had regular dates, but always chose men who couldn’t or wouldn’t choose me at all. They were married, not monogamous or emotionally unavailable. “Don’t give me your heart, because I’ll never be able to give you mine,” was the opening line of an ex. I’ll make it, I thought. Then I completely ignored myself or got caught up in things that weren’t good for me. Under the guise of ‘a fun adventure’ I even started working as a high class escort for a while. Our little secret brought me and my partner closer together, I thought. But he turned out to be only after money.”

“As I went from one bad relationship to another, my girlfriends started having families. More and more often I was alone at the bar. When I compared myself to them, I felt like a failure. That feeling slowly faded after a few glasses of wine. And those glasses turned into bottles. One night I was sitting anxious and desperate in the pub. I was being stalked by an ex-boyfriend and didn’t know what to do with the situation. “This will cheer you up,” said someone who offered me a line of cocaine. No fatigue, no sadness, completely forgot about life: I was immediately sold by the effect of the coke. I started with the occasional line, but when my father passed away suddenly in 2019, I needed more. The loss was so great, I didn’t dare allow it. And I just got a good job in a hotel. I didn’t want to lose it, I couldn’t collapse. To stay on my feet, I snorted every day. There were times when I was completely under the influence in front of the supermarket shelf and I had no idea what I was doing there. After work, I intoxicated myself with alcohol to sleep and immediately took a line in the morning to sniff the hangover. At my lowest point, I sniffed all day and took 20 lines a day.”

double life

“In the pub I quickly made new friends who also used. With them I felt a lot less failed than with my friends from back in the day. I only saw it a few times a year. Then I styled my curls, camouflaged my bags and pretended nothing was wrong. Also with my mother, with whom I had a good relationship again, I always tried to look fresh. But what she and my friends didn’t see was that after a visit I always went straight back to the pub to get drunk as quickly as possible. Nobody can sustain such a double life. My contract was not renewed, my money flew out the door. And then I unexpectedly turned out to be pregnant. I remember looking at my belly and realizing for the first time that I was going to be a mother. Inside was a fruit that would grow into my child. How could I put so much junk in that same belly? One more night, I promised myself, I would flush my wine and coke down the toilet. But it didn’t work. I don’t know if it was nature or my custom, but my pregnancy ended in miscarriage. In the months that followed, I took so many narcotics that I hardly remember anything about it. It wasn’t until I was so intoxicated that I got lost around the corner from my house that I dared to admit I needed help. “I’m a junkie,” I yelled as I stood in the street crying and panicked. For the first time in my life I realized: if I continue like this, one day I won’t wake up. Did I want my mother to lose her daughter after her husband?”

‘Your sound is off’

“I applied to a rehab clinic in Portugal. Far away from my life here I had to manage to stop using. But on the day my flight was due to leave, the country was locked. Withdrawal now had to be done online. I had no idea what Zoom was, as did the rest of the group. ‘Your sound is off’, we would shout again when someone had their microphone turned off. Sometimes I lost my courage: how did this ever work, the liquor store is around the corner! However, drug addiction during a lockdown also offered opportunities. Because as much as I wanted to sometimes, I couldn’t go to the pub. In fact, when everything closed, I didn’t see or speak to anyone. Why not try it, I thought. I had nothing better to do now anyway. During the online therapy sessions I completely exposed myself. For the first time I dared to be open about my childhood, my low self-esteem and the loss of my father. All the sadness, all the emotions that I had numbed for years, came out. Sometimes I was sobbing and hyperventilating behind my laptop. While it was difficult for me to feel so much, I also realized that I could handle my emotions quite well without drugs. That gave me such willpower! One afternoon I collected all the cards and plates that could still contain a bit of coke. I could have licked it off, but decided to do the right thing and washed it all.”

“Of course it didn’t come naturally and there were days when I craved a bottle of wine or a phone call from my last ex. The practitioners had found a solution: to have a safety net despite the lockdown, we had to call a fellow client a few times a day. Usually I called Sandra in whom I recognized a lot. She was addicted to heroin and to the man with whom she used these drugs. Sometimes I called her up to five times a day. ‘San, I can’t take it anymore. I must use’, I would cry desperately. Go for what you need, not what you want’, she would give me back. One of the best insights I gained during my therapy is that addiction is a chronic brain disease. “You are not responsible for that illness, but for your recovery,” said my therapist. Everything then fell into place. I was sick, so I didn’t have to be ashamed of my addiction and of all the times I didn’t keep my promises. A liberation.”

Enrichment

“I was always afraid that I would collapse if I started feeling, but my emotions have enriched my life. I now feel not only sadness, but also the love I have been looking for all my life. The love of my father, of my unborn child and that of my mother. Would she love me if I were in jail? She even loves me when I’m totally devastated. I can now allow that for the first time. I’ve been clean for almost two years now. I am not afraid of a relapse. All lines with the past have been cut and I am now working hard on my future. I want to retrain and hope to work in addiction care in the future. To help and motivate addicts from a distance, I wrote down my story. In One Is Too Many, A Thousand Never Enough, I share what I’ve been through: from the deepest low of my addiction, to what I learned from my drug addiction sessions. I will always be a recovering addict. So I have to stay away from alcohol and drugs. With love it is more complicated. I think it would be nice to meet a nice guy and build a healthy relationship together, but I’m in no rush. I love myself for the first time and that is enough for now.”

Styling: Ronald Huisinga. † Hair and makeup: Wilma Scholte. † Mmv: Shoeby (dress), Nolten (pumps), de Bijenkorf (belt)