The Cost of Tik Addiction
Phakamile Magamdela
14 November 2009
Drug use in general can be a costly habit. Richard, who recently discovered the highly addictive Tik, has learned this the hard way.
Because of the sensitive nature of the subject under discussion, Richard, aged 32, prefers that I don't identify him by his full name. This man was once a respected and high-earning accountant. But now he's lost his job, thanks to his addiction to methamphetamine or crystal meth, notoriously known as Tik. Like many people in the Western Cape, Richard discovered the cost of being addicted to Tik a bit too late.
"Addiction is really a disease of loss. You lose your relationship with your parents. You lose your relationship with real friends. You lose your job. You lose your freedom - you end up in jail. You lose all financial resources that you had", says Richard with a shaky voice.
Tik is a white, odourless bitter-tasting crystalline powder. Its ingredients can easily be accessed making it easy for drug pushers to manufacture even at home.
Richard was introduced to this drug early this year by a sex worker who regularly to visited him at his flat. But, he was already accustomed to using drugs before then. He used ecstasy and cocaine at the time, which he says, "they drove up", his sex drive, hence his use of sex worker services.
The addiction pushed him into credit card debt of more than R50 000. However, like all addicts, that did not stop him from coming up with innovative ways of getting more substance into his system. He thought switching to Tik would ease the financial burden he had accumulated.
"When I started to use Tik I was under the impression that it would be cheaper and last longer than cocaine because I had started to spend so much money on cocaine. The disease of addiction is a disease of wanting more and I ended up trying Tik. Little did I know what was in store for me", Richard tells me.
"Tik made me stay awake", Richard says of the high that he got from using Tik.
"The last weekend that I was in active addiction I was awake for four days in a row without a single second of sleep", he adds.
But now he wants to stop using drugs. He has been in rehab at a private clinic in the southern suburbs of Cape Town for almost three months. This, after police arrested him for drug possession, an event he says he "will forever cherish".
"The only reason I stopped using Tik is because I got arrested by the police. If it hadn't been for them I could happily have gone on using Tik, I don't know for how long", he says with a sombre expression in his face.
Tik abuse is a serious challenge in the Western Cape Province.
"After alcohol and, perhaps, dagga, Tik accounts for the biggest single proportion of people that we are admitting to treatment centres for counselling and assistance", says Dr Rodger Meyer, an addiction specialist.
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"And the other, perhaps more distressing feature of the growth of Tik use, is the fact that increasingly younger kids are getting caught in the web of Tik use and Tik dependence because of the rapid tolerance and dependence producing effects of Tik", he continues.
The Medical Research Council (MRC) has found that the average age of patients who reported Tik as their primary substance of abuse in the second half of 2008 was 24 years and 73% were males. However, the study has also found that boys as young as 12 abuse Tik.
If Richard really wants to live a drug-free life, he may be able to acquire possessions that he has lost and to re-establish ties with family and friends, but the damage to his brain may take even longer to reverse or may not even be reversible.
"Tik fries your synapses. The prolonged use of Tik causes brain damage, even long after the drug has left your system", warns Dr Meye
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