Terry-Lee shares journey at Famsa event in Secunda

Famsa held its AGM at The Living Gallery at Lake Umuzi on August 15 and explained their work.

The director of Famsa, Marcelle Victor, said they saw an increase in counselling services, specifically parental guidance.

“It is a good thing because it means people seek help before everything falls apart,” said Victor.

She said Famsa focuses on prevention and early intervention.

“When people hear welfare, they immediately think we remove children, but we attempt to reunite the family.”

The guest speaker of the day was Terry-Lee Kleynhans, the constituency chairperson for the DA.

She shared her journey of how she got addicted to drugs to where she is today – more than 10 years clean of her addiction.

Kleyhans, a qualified welder inspector, works at Sasol full-time and serves as a politician in her free time.

She said she grew up with the mindset that you can achieve anything you put your mind to and she excelled in school academically and sport field.

When Kleynhans was at university, she experienced failure for the first time. She played water polo for the first time in her life and had a panic attack inside the swimming pool during a game.

“I had to say I gave up for the first time in my life,” said Kleynhans.

She did not finish her studies at university and began working at Sasol as a welding inspector in 2008, earning R20 000 monthly.

“I began partying and drinking and spent all my money on that.”

A friend of a friend introduced her to cocaine at a party one night because she wanted to sober up before work the next day.

“She said one line of cocaine will sober me up. I made a conscious choice to take that cocaine for the first time.”

Kleynhans said she had wonderful parents and became addicted to drugs because of her own wrong choices.

After that first line of cocaine, she first used it as a recreational drug, but soon needed it daily and began buying from six different dealers.

She began using CAT when the cocaine became too expensive but soon replaced the CAT with crystal meth, which was a cheaper drug. She later just used any drug that she could get her hands on.

“I slept in the bush many nights because I couldn’t even make it to my car. I would then wake up in my vomit and more than once I nearly died. That is the reality of using drugs.”

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Kleyhans had a few moments during her journey of addiction where she realised she had to stop using, but the final straw was when her sister’s little girl said to her she did not know her anymore.

“With drugs, one of three things always happens. You realise you have a problem and you change, or you realise you have a problem and go back to using or you cannot take it anymore and commit suicide.

“I was in such a bad state, I did not think I would ever get out of it, so I wrote the last letter to my mom and took more than the needed dosage to die.”

She realised that God had something bigger in store for her when she did not die on that day and decided to get help and change her life.

“It took four years to restore the relationships with my family and for them to trust me again. I have honest conversations with God and I realise He is excited about me; I am created in His image and adopted in His family.”

Kleynhans believes her addiction will not confine who she is today, and that she has a good future. The Famsa committee welcomed a new member, Bongi Mbele as the secretary while the vice chairperson, Tessa Stromvig stepped down.

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