There is help for drug addicts and their families

The Farrarmere resident married Barry Pretorius (31) six years ago, aged 22.

“He (Barry) had his own electrical contracting business which was, as far as I knew, very successful,” said Kelly.

“We were happy.

“About a year later things started to go downhill. I was pregnant with our baby girl and I started getting calls from the bank saying our bond had not been paid for two months.

“They said my husband was not answering their calls.

“After that, the company car was repossessed; our medical aid was suspended and our electricity was cut off.

“Turns out the successful business was not so successful after all.”

Now, just over two years after her husband’s 18 year drug addiction and his recovery from drugs and alcohol, Kelly is offering a message of hope to other people who have been directly and indirectly been affected by addiction.

Barry started smoking dagga and using Ecstasy at 12 years of age as a recreational activity, with a group of friends who were several years older than he was.

The appetite for different drugs grew to Barry using almost every drug under the sun, including prescription medication.

From 2010 to 2012, he used 14g of CAT and cocaine a day, which were his drugs of choice.

To support his addiction, he would steal his child’s pocket money and would blame the domestic worker for the theft.

He also sold a collection of fishing gear for about R3 000, despite it being worth R120 000.

Barry also sold antique weapons which he inherited from his father – R150 000 short of their true value.

In the years in which he used drugs, while he was married to Kelly, he would think of excuses to hide his addiction.

After losing his job on two occasions, Barry failed to fulfil his responsibilities and would often leave Kelly stranded when she needed to fetch their daughter from nursery school.

“There was always an excuse for letting us down,” she said.

“Those excuses became increasingly far-fetched.

“My husband has such a vivid imagination he could write the next Harry Potter book.

“He ran out of petrol – several times. He dropped his car keys into a street drain once, he lost numerous cellphones, and he was involved an attempted hijacking – that time he came home with his shirt ripped, just to give the story a bit more believability.”

Kelly eventually discovered that Barry was on drugs.

At this stage, she was seven months pregnant with her second child.

Her husband disappeared for a week shortly after she discovered he was on drugs.

“I went to the Addiction Recovery Centre (ARC), in Benoni, in a panic, and was given the best advice anyone could give me: I was told to be tough,” said Kelly.

“When he eventually contacted me, I told him he either went into rehab, or he didn’t come home – which was met with much anger, but I stuck to my guns.”

Kelly is on a mission to spread hope to other sufferers and their families.

“I want other people to know drugs are not the end of the story,” she added.

“If drugs are already in your life, then there is a way to get out and there is a happy ending.

“It is my calling, it is my purpose, to share this with others.

“I feel that if I had read a story like mine when I was going through all that pain, I would have felt a little less lonely and a little more hopeful.”

Kelly urged affected people to seek help and reminded the families of users that there is help for them, too, such as joining support groups like Alanon and Naranon.

Barry said he will forever be an addict, and urged the youth to research the effects of drugs before considering using them.

He added that he would probably have been dead if he was not forced into rehabilitation.

For more information on drugs, visit Addiction Recovery Journey on Facebook, or www.drugfreeworld.org.

Kelly’s advice on what did not work for her:

• Probably the most important: keeping secrets. I never told those closest to me what was going on. Not even my sister or my dad. I didn’t want anyone thinking badly of me or my husband. I didn’t want to be judged, or pitied. And it was a huge mistake. By keeping secrets, I hurt myself and I ended up enabling him.
• Being soft. I made threats that I never followed through on. I set boundaries that never stayed set. By doing so I was never taken seriously.
•  Taking responsibility for him. Have you heard of the three Cs? I didn’t Cause it, I can’t Control it and I can’t Cure it. I tried to fix everything, but by doing that I enabled him more! I didn’t allow him to hit rock bottom because I was always his pillow.
•  Not having a set decision with his family. Whenever I told him to leave, his mom let him go there. He would eventually end up coming home again, and so on. He never felt like he had to seek help, because he always had either his wife or his mom sheltering him. It sounds tough, it sounds uncaring – but as I am sure you know, those are the things that hurt us the most.
•  Blaming everyone else. I blamed the drug dealers. I blamed his parents. They blamed me. Given the opportunity, I would have blamed Jan van Riebeeck. No responsibility was taken by my husband because it was always everyone else’s fault. How do you get onto the road to recovery if, according to everyone else, you are not the one driving?
•  Shouting and screaming. Believe me when I say I shouted and I screamed a lot. I was that crazy pregnant lady. All that achieved was getting myself worked up and emotional, upsetting my baby girl in the process and making him mad, and we lost focus of the real issue. I never acted, I only reacted. And I reacted out of anger and hurt.
• Being the middle man. Whenever someone was upset with what my husband was doing, they spoke to me. And while I appreciate the concern they showed, at the end of the day they were still talking about my husband – the person I had decided to stay with. The father of my children. It put extra stress on my shoulders and I was carrying enough. Eventually, I put up my hands and said: “Please don’t talk to me about this, go tell him yourself”.

Things Kelly said worked for her:

•  Finding my own group. Barry had his meetings. And when he just got out or rehab he had a lot of meetings. I didn’t have anything, I needed support, too. If its alcohol, go to Alanon. If its drugs, go to Naranon. I went to both. I went to see a counsellor, too. It’s actually freeing to talk to someone who is not emotionally connected to either one of us.
• Research. Oh boy did I research. I hit Google hard! And it helped me. There are so many people out there going through the same thing. So many people who blamed themselves, too. I had no idea what drugs did, what they were made from. I learnt all about them – not for his sake, but for my own. It helped me and I learnt that I don’t need to understand why he did what he did. I don’t have to understand why he has this disease of addiction and what triggered it. I just need to accept it.
• Taking it one day at a time. I am a worrier. That’s my personality – I think ahead all the time. I try to control everything. It’s exhausting! Saying you should take it one day at a time is much easier said than done, I know. I need to remind myself constantly. It is very difficult to give up control when you have needed to be controlling for so long.

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