My name is Evon Calvert Rautenbach. I built Addicted To Addicts because I know what it is to need a door that actually opens.
I grew up in a broken home and felt I had no worth in the world. At thirteen I was smoking cannabis and in nightclubs. From there it was ecstasy, cocaine, crack, and LSD. By nineteen I was using cocaine almost every day. I never passed matric. I stole, lied, and manipulated to pay for it.
One weekend I tried to stop and became violently ill. The cocaine I had been buying was laced with heroin. I had not chosen that, and it took twelve years. In 2011 I entered a rehabilitation centre, left four months in, and relapsed at once. I spent six months on the street, sleeping in public toilets, with no access to my child.
A child does not stop you from using. Using stops you from being a mother.
I became suicidal. I was in intensive care twice. The first time I overdosed, my lungs collapsed, and I stopped breathing. Doctors brought me back. It did not end there.
In 2016 I got off heroin and moved onto crystal meth, GHB, and mandrax, every day. That was another eleven years. I lost my health, my family, my children, my sanity, and the wish to live.
At thirty-seven I decided to take my life back, and to help people standing in the same place. I believe God met me there. The outpatient programme includes that faith, through a 12-step structure and Celebrate Recovery. You do not have to share the belief to be received properly.
The work now is practical. A counselling session. A plan someone can keep while they stay at work or at school. A family that knows what to say. A video consultation when Vanderbijlpark is too far.