The legions that prowl among us always intend the worse

MY wife called me anxiously. I stood beside her and she pointed to the young man on the road, slipping along, whom she had learnt is an addict. She informed me “He’s not yet 25 years old, when it gon stop ? ” Our concern and conviction to pay attention come from experience. We have struggled with one of our offspring, and after a profound symbolic number of years of traumatising events, eventually with the help of a long-needed significant authority, set up by the state a few years ago, we have embraced progress, with challenges still. Still, changes are seen, despite a severe economic blow to family plans, that offspring came through so far, though it is still a work in progress. The pathway was crowded with pitfalls, and with great pain and surprise, the most undermining legion that affected him with confusing pretensions of advice came from mostly members of my side of the family.

Drug addiction is not something I would wish on any creature. It borders on implementing a system for self-gain that steals the consciousness of another soul. There is no doubt that the coca plant has other beneficial uses, but the alchemist in humans have found a way to mimic the need for the substance of ‘Food’ through a drug that will produce a creature out of a human being. That will test the faith and resilience of families upon what decisions and sacrifices they are prepared to make in an uncharted quest to rescue one of their own.

Most addicts who roam the street are condemned to that because relatives are terrified and unable to accommodate their loved ones. Their once-loved ones to be correct, where they must hide valuables, anything that can be sold, that is. The hunger of the addict is tremendous, beyond the capabilities of most working-class Guyanese families to provide this excessive food requirement. The next confrontation is the odour of the drug yard that has become a necessary accommodation of the addict in the course of embracing the macabre euphoria of that drug crypt, with its habits and stench, that do not fade away easily. When the mind demands escape, back to the sanctuary of what was home, the challenge presents itself to the occupants of the home, to force adjustment on the addict, from within the no man’s land of he or she is traumatically altered consciousness, requiring more of metamorphosis to morph from the filth of the ‘Drug yards of Georgetown’ to the normalcy the family is accustomed to, and the victim was trained from childhood in, as a standard.This requires a combined family effort to challenge and enforce that metamorphosis. Even with a balanced family of combined physical strength, it can turn violent, thus the resort to banish and abandon becomes the alternative to avoid what can possibly lead to worse. In the real world, outside of the escapist social pretences; the addict has proved his viciousness, there is no institution in this country that has tabulated the number of elderly relatives who have been murdered by berserk addicts that were children, grandchildren, or other, when they could not help in sustaining the habit. No wonder in the wards of the common folk, cocaine and its concoctions into pills etc. are addressed as ‘De Jumbie,’ because while it possesses the addict, it haunts the families. The physical strength of the addict, his or her convictions, none of this matters if they should test any addictive substance, they would have begun a self-conflict with an enslaving habit (alcohol, cocaine, nicotine, marijuana) that by the construct of their ‘being’ can render them disabled for the rest of their lives, if the family support is unable to wage war with this habit, or the inner strength cannot find the resolution to triumph, over an invited adversary, then the ‘Jumbie’ pact is sealed.

All human beings, it seems, are composed of addictive qualities to some level, mine is Caffeine, but I have abandoned it for De-café, it seems, our species are wired to have habits at different levels. But it is not merely habits from discussions with addictive persons. Many were tempted, others to escape the confusion of changes with nothing to fall back on, needed an escape, and became entrapped, then there are the entitled (Brats) and those with various identity problems, low esteem and self-hate. I am not a professional in any of the fields that engage addiction, but I have learnt the hard way what little I can tell you, for as a parent, I have had to learn as much as I can from as many available people. There are also addicts with resources that can socially hide until they whip out their licensed firearm and commit, at times, multiple murders.