Your opinion, how the treatment goes here, what did you get here?
The best latest treatment available. I was very surprised, I thought that. I thought Serbia as many people do in the rest of the world think that it is still a war-torn country even though the war was over 20 years ago. We were… my parents, my father and my friends, all of us thought. You can’t go there, because there’s still a war but with a brief, easy search through the internet I realized it was more than 20 years ago. This is beautiful country and the service and staff have been amazing, absolutely amazing.
Are you satisfied with the treatments?
Yes, I’m satisfied. I’ve been addicted to opiates since I was 15 years old and as I said I’m now 44. I’ve only had minor breaks in my opiate addiction but for the last 28 years. I’ve been addicted to methadone which I note now to be true that it is the hardest of all opiates to come off. But I first ran on it, that was because I ran out of money, could not get heroine or morphine any more for free.
So I would’ve have to start stealing and I’m not a thief, I don’t steal. I’ve never stolen anything in my life and my veins were becoming more hard to get to shoot up the opiates and I ended up being sick of been sick. I ended up being sick of been sick. The last raw I think was two hours and about trying to find a vein that would not come. That was the day my needle fixation ended and I knew I needed help.
How are you feeling now at the end of the treatment? At this moment, how do you feel?
Proud.
Proud. Proud, great. And what is your plan for the future?
Well, I’ve been researching this system of ultrarapid detox for… Since I can remember because I knew from all the research that I’ve read and all the trials in South Africa and South. mainly in South Africa where this was first tried and established about rapid detox, not ultra rapid detox but rapid detox but main problem seemed to be people would get their physical health and detox done but then have empty life to try to fill with something and they would fill it back with drugs again. I’ve decided to trip to a different way and change my life, first mentally, psychologically and physically before I did it, before I got rid of my drug addiction.
I did this by moving towns, I moved, I don’t see any friends that use hard drugs any more, I wouldn’t have scored hard drugs if I tried, I gave up alcohol, too, because I had Hepatitis C which was a death sentence at the time. But since then I was chosen for a trial, for pegylated interferon mixed with rubivirin combination therapy which was the milestone for Hepatitis C patients from all over the world and now as most people know who have Hepatitis C, it’s curable which was not the case 10 years ago.
I was at death sentence; my doctor gave me 12 years to leave when I was 30 years old. He said: “Go out, get rid of your job, do what you want to do, you have 12 years of life left, live it!” And it’s now been 14 years and I’ve never felt healthier in life.