My drug-induced nightmare

I had nothing left to lose.  

My childhood was troubled. My parents’ marriage failed, and I grew up under the care of my grandmother, whose affection sometimes meant restriction. Feeling the need to escape, I left school after Sec One, drifted towards gangs and drugs in search of belonging. 

For more than a decade, I was caught in repeated cycles of drug abuse. I felt empty and lonely and turned to LSD – daily – to numb my senses. Days before Chinese New Year in 1992, my life changed forever. While hallucinating under the influence of substances, I jumped off the window of my 15th-floor flat. 

I landed on a car and survived. But the injuries were so extensive and the incident changed my life forever. The broken bones left me permanently disabled. I am now unable to walk, an irreversible consequence of my past. Yet, that near-fatal fall also offered a brutal jolt, pushing me to confront my addiction. I bear the scars left by drug abuse – a broken body, severed relationships, lost opportunities. Some of these cause immutable harm and tangible loss, but thankfully they also force us to rebuild our lives. 

My name is Lazarus and I lost my legs and my years to drugs. I never thought about being addicted. I am alive because I miraculously survived a deadly fall and look at life differently now. 

Drug abuse harms more people than you think. Remember the victims.