“Hello, my name is Stelios. I’ve been in a rehabilitation programme for nearly three years. I was born in nineteen eighty, and my father passed away in 1985… which was a huge blow. I started smoking and drinking at the age of 13. At the same time, I began to drift away from my family and found friends and social circles who were searching for the same things… By the time I was approaching thirty, I could no longer fight my addiction. But thank God, for the past three years I’ve been much better. I’ve found myself. I can work and carry on.”
This is how one of three graduates from the residential therapeutic community Agia Skepi opened the public discussion titled “Parental Awareness – Empowering Children”, held a few years ago at Skali Aglantzias. The session was attended by a large number of parents and by the clinical director of Agia Skepi, psychologist and programme supervisor Tina Pavlou. These three men had struggled for years with hard drugs — heroin and cocaine — and fought hard to overcome their addictions.
The event was held to mark the United Nations International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, observed annually on the twenty-sixth of June.
Responding to a question about how his parents discovered his addiction, Stelios said: “My mother had no idea about these things. Even if I left traces of use, she didn’t recognise them at first, although there were signs… At 14 or 15, I’d come home drunk… useless… unable to speak… dragging myself around. When she learned more from friends of mine who had completed the programme, she went to Agia Skepi and sought help for me. Then, with the help of Agia Skepi, I began to take action myself.”
Answering further questions, he added: “Through the addiction, I was masking emotions I couldn’t deal with as a person… I had difficulty expressing my feelings and thoughts, my communication with my family was poor, and I kept withdrawing… But through the programme, we gained certain skills. Many times in daily life, the urge to use comes back. But I’ve learned to be patient. I’ve learned to express myself and talk about my problems. I’ve learned it’s better to get my thoughts out rather than feed them and fall into a vicious cycle of obsessions that ends in use.”
Since then, Stelios has completed the programme, studied Social Work, and today works as a social worker at Agia Skepi.
