''WOMEN CAME AND WENT, BUT DRUGS DIDN'T''

Young Bollywood actor Prateik Babbar who acted in Gautham Menon's Ek Deewana Tha (Hindi version of VTV), in a tell-all column, talked about drug addiction experience,“My struggle with drugs started before high school. My first real drug was a disturbed childhood. Constantly faced with an internal dilemma, the voices in my head debating where I belong and who I am, drugs came disguised as a glitzy escape. As years went by, I got acquainted with the narcotic underbelly, which led me to my first run-in with drugs at the age of 13.

While others who took drugs got fed up with it, I, unfortunately, got addicted. People turn judgmental when you’ve got a drug problem. Also, you don’t want to admit the fact that you do. Getting out of bed was almost impossible; nausea greeted me each morning, my body ached and I oscillated between hot and cold every few minutes. At that point, I didn’t even have a drug of choice, I took whatever I could lay my hands on.

Women came and went, but drugs didn’t. But an overdose made me take note of the monster I had become. I am certain that I will wrestle my need for drugs even on my best days, but the only way to keep cynicism at bay is by sharing the emotions that fuelled my addiction in the first place. That is also the first reason for scripting this piece. The second is to break the stigma associated with addiction. This stigma, I always feared, would define me for the rest of my life. I want to tell every addict that there is assistance. I can’t promise that it will be easy, but I can assure you that it will be simpler than following a life that will eventually destroy you, and everything you love."