World Anti-DrugTransnational Internet contest - "Maya"

It’s amazing how much life can change for a second, how it can turn quite the opposite direction… It’s painful to speak about it, but I’ll try to. Though, now, when the most terrible moments are over it seems to be raving beyond endurance…

My friend’s name was Alice. We were hand and glove: we always went together like salt and pepper, we used to walk together, we used to write quizzes together and we used to do mischieves together… We liked to go out, to entertain and to dance, of course. We dance ourselves to exhaustion, till early morning. It all started at dancing. Or, to be more exact, it all ended at dancing…

Once a handsome boy called Slava table hopped. He was incredibly amiable and we both liked him at first sight. Alice saw my shining eyes and stopped making advances, she gave me a chance to get with Slava. It was just fine: we laughed together, we drank and danced… And then Slava suddenly said that he was getting bored a bit. I tensed up: “He is bored of me. So there are no chances, are there?”

But it was not what he meant. He smiled and pulled me to the lavatory, then he closed the door and took a small packet of white powder out of his pocket, asking me: “How do you feel about trying it? It’s mind-blowing. You will get your wings, literally. ”

I wasn’t so stupid; I understood that he was suggesting me to try cocaine. But that moment I didn’t care that it was a drug, that I can become addicted and lose everything. I wanted Slava to like me. That’s all.

All hell broke loose… My first feelings were “mind-blowing” indeed: I laughed, I danced and pranced, I treaded upon air, I was incredibly joyful, as if I were the Duracell Bunny… Who could know that I appear to be so insatiable? Who could suspect that it’s much more difficult to stop than to start using drugs? Why nobody told me that time passes and it will be not enough for me to inhale cocaine?

My poor friend… She cried so much, she asked me, she begged me to stop, she cursed Slava and that unhappy evening in the club… But I didn’t listen to her. All I needed was a dope. That’s what I lived for. All my money and then all my jewels were wasted on drugs. I stole money from my parents. My poor mother… You’ve suffered so much fighting for me, talking to me, trying to bring me to sense… It was useless. I was hooked in drugs. My eyes glazed over. I didn’t want to listen to reason.

Five long years passed. I have lost everything: my former beauty, my dreams, even my parents. They were tired of the struggle and abandoned me. I lost even Alice… Though we used to be inseparable… I haven’t known anything of my friend for five years.

Once I was walking along the street trying to find a way to make some money. By that moment I had no money at all and I thought of becoming a girl on the turf, a prostitute, just to get a dope! Then I suddenly noticed a happy couple. A man and a woman led a toddler by the hands laughing happily at the child's babble.

In a moment I recognized the woman. It was Alice… My blood ran cold. I stood there with complete abandonment.

I am nothing. I am zero. I’m void. I’ve lost my chance to love and to be loved. I deprived myself of the possibility to be a mother, to get education, to work, to build a career. I have lost even my best friend.

Suddenly Alice saw me too. She recognized me… She did recognize me in this shabby, snuffy, gaunt, cadaverous, poor caricature of a human being. She dashed to me and gave me a hug. We burst into tears. What have I done? What have I done?…

  “Don’t cry! Don’t cry!” my friend said, trying to comfort me.

“I’ll help you. We will pull through it. Do you hear me? You will give up drugs. You will give them up, do you hear me?”  

“But how? How can I give up using drugs?”

“I’ll help you. I’ll help you by all means.”

 Her child gazed at me with astonishment. He couldn’t understand what a woman I was and why his mother was crying. But it was that moment when, looking into his wide-open eyes, I understood that I want –want – WANT! - to give up using drugs, and that I’ll manage to do it at last. If only my friend stayed with me… If only she didn’t leave me any more…