Watch: ‘Don’t Take That First Line’: Recovered Maltese Cocaine Addict Speaks Out
As cocaine use becomes more prevalent in Malta, a recovered addict has urged people not to experiment with it.
“Don’t take that first line, you don’t need to take it,” Fabian Spiteri said on Popolin this week.
“In my opinion, cocaine is a fake profile. It shows you a lovely picture but gives you nothing but sadness, pain, paranoia and depression. That’s all I can remember. I can’t remember a single positive thing coke gave me. It’s all fake.”
Fabian said he started taking cocaine socially when going out for drinks because it was the “trend” but it ended up dominating his life.
“One line became two lines, then three lines, then usage became more common,” he explained.
He said his addiction made him grow distant from his family and friends and, although cocaine is often viewed as a “social drug”, he would end up taking home alone. Sometimes he would stay up all night and take heroin in the early hours of the morning to calm himself down ahead of the next work day.
And things got more serious when he ended up having to borrow money simply to sustain his habit.
Fabian eventually sought help from Caritas and enrolled in their programme at Dar Charles Miceli. Now clean the past four years, he lives with his 17-year-old son and appears to have adopted a stoic attitude towards life.
“The worst decision I took was taking that first line of coke. I’m not saying I live a perfect life, but life is beautiful and I don’t like hearing people saying they’re fighting against life,” he said.
“I try to change the things I have control over and not get fixated over the things I cannot. When it comes to drugs, the first headache is deciding to stop taking it, the second is actually stopping, and the third is filling the vacuum that they leave behind. However, Caritas has many professionals and offers you tools that you can use if you want to.”
Do you think cocaine use has become a problem in Maltese society?
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