Simphiwe Ngubeni and Sasha Chetty are willing to do whatever it takes to get their lives back from nyaope.
“When you need help, you have to humble yourself. And at this point, I am just desperate. I will do anything to get clean and live a normal life again,” said Ngubeni.
The 38-year-old said she slipped into addiction out of curiosity.
“I had a comfortable life. I don’t want to lie, I was working and I underestimated addiction,” she added.
Ngubeni said she started smoking nyaope with her partner in 2010.
“I was curious and believed that I could stop any time if I wanted to. But I was so wrong,” she explained.
She now walks the streets of Springs CBD, running errands for anyone who will give her a rand or two.
“Every cent I get I think about the drug. It consumes me,” she said.
Ngubeni said she spends no less than R100 per day on Nyaope and can smoke up to 10 times.
She no longer wants to live this life.
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“I want to be clean so that I can be a good parent. And I owe my partner’s mother so much because we have a safe place to live because of her. I want to make her proud,” she explained.
Her friend Sasha Chetty (31), from Durban, is also desperate to be free from her addiction.
“I met a guy online and we started a long-distance relationship in 2017. After visiting him in September, I decided to move in with him permanently in December,” she said.
Chetty claims she had no idea her partner was into hard drugs.
“I thought he only smoked weed. When I found out that he did, I encouraged him to stop, but he did not,” she explained.
Chetty said she eventually started smoking with him to understand how the drug made him feel.
“When I tried to stop after that I would get sick. Then I continued smoking to avoid the withdrawal symptoms,” she added.
Also read: Difficult conversations: How to talk to your teen about drugs
The former designer said it has been painful to watch all her dreams go down the drain because of her addiction.
She hopes to be a good example to her two sons, who live with her family in Durban.
“I want to wake up one day and realise that the last four years were a terrible dream that I will not go back to. I want my life back. I gave up so much for love and it destroyed me,” she said.
Ngubeni and Chetty are urging organisations to help them get into a rehabilitation programme soon.
They claim that they approached social services to assist them but it has been a long wait.
“I still believe that our lives can change for the better,” said Ngubeni.
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