Free!

" I am not an addict!" I yelled as the Taliban enforcer pulled me by my jacket to the police van. " Leave me alone!"

He did not heed my cries. Not even my filthy jacket would make him lose his grip on me. He had chased me to the poppy fields where I had run to hide once I heard that they were going door to door looking for drug users like they occasionally did. 

It had been almost a year since the Taliban had taken over. Together with the many hiccups of running a sanctioned government, the use of brute force was their low. I knew my morphine habits had to go were I to live a fulfilling life, I just needed to arrive there myself. Being dragged to a makeshift rehab facility and forced to quit would be torture I felt I could not survive. 

Kasim my partner in the habit had been unlucky. He had been picked up by the caves on one of the round-ups. I knew he wanted to quit. We all did. But I did not think that the Taliban way was the right way. 

I should say he was lucky because five months into the forced rehab he was completely weaned off the need for the drug. Now he worked at the pottery shop and passed by me every evening on his way back home. He was clean and I envied him. 

He told me about the snares of death he witnessed in the rehab facility. They didn't get him any therapy or drugs to help him cope with the withdrawal symptoms. They simply put all the addicts in a place where they could not access any drugs and let nature take over. Many addicts did not make it. 

I could not imagine myself in such a situation. It is the exact position that would lead me to seek a high in order to cope. 

Kasim was no longer my friend soon after he came back. We no longer had anything in common. In time, he didn't even say hey to me when he saw me anymore. I was like a stranger. I also noticed that he looked at me with judgment. It made me feel dirty. Unwanted. To him, I was the embodiment of the slavery he was able to escape. The reality of a past he no longer wished to see displayed right in front of him. That had never been him he seemed to think. 

I curled in the van at the thought of what my next few months were going to be like if I was even going to make it. Many other addicts who had also been rounded up complained all the way. Some had even tried to escape. Every time we hit a pothole, I found myself wishing that the van would roll over and I would find a chance to flee. In my cravings, I didn't think that such a thing would result in my death. 

I cannot tell you exactly what happened in the seven months at the forced makeshift rehab facility. I only remember being strip-searched, given a robe and shown to a bed. Most of my time there was spent escaping into my head. A few times in the first week I had tried to escape in search of a gram that would make me feel sane again. I also remember praying that a foreign power would invade us again, depose the Taliban government and set us free from this torturous prison. 

Seven months without a single gram in my system had refreshed me. I could remember my children. I could remember my wife. It made me think of the goals I once had and the person I once was. 

It wasn't easy but I had done it.

Yes, it would have been easier. No, I am not grateful for the torturous methods the Taliban used to make me quit. They fought fire with fire successfully, but I feel they should have been kinder. 

It's been six weeks since I have been out. I remember shaking the hands of the Taliban guards at the gates as they led me out. I remember smiling at them and waving as I walked away even. Freedom has no price. I realised this fully that day. 

The drugs are all around me still, and I haven't felt the urge to try them. Kasim helped me get a job at the pottery place. We no longer walk together as I feel he fears we might get back to the bad habits again if we bond. I understand his concerns. 

Today, the neighbour I had sold my phone to buy drugs returned it to me. He didn't ask for a cent. It seems he had not used it. He had just been keeping it. He couldn't unlock it as in my haziness on the day I sold it to him, I could not remember my password correctly. 

I sat by his mobile repair shop and unlocked it. Poppy47 was my password. I remembered it. I did not resonate with it anymore though. I was going to start afresh. So I went to my password settings and pressed 'reset your password'. 

Free01 is my new password. Because that is what I am now. Free!