Language: English (EN) | Polski (PL) | Nederlands (NL)
Part Two – From Weed to the Street. The Story of My Recovery
Content warning: addiction, self-harm, suicide attempt, homelessness, sex.
In Part One, I wrote that I first smoked weed when I was sixteen. That might not be accurate. The truth is: I don’t remember exactly. It was somewhere between fourteen and sixteen. What I do remember for sure is this: weed came before my first real drunk. I knew the feeling of being high before I knew the feeling of being drunk. And I also know who I was before weed — a very sad boy with a smiling face, the kid who made jokes so no one would see how broken he was inside.
Steroids, Surgery, and Becoming “the Joke”
Because of Crohn’s, I was in the hospital at least once a year, often for weeks, often with surgery. I would come back to school swollen from steroids like prednisolone — huge round face, puffy body, pointy tits, water everywhere under the skin. One time, I must have been around fifteen, I came back from yet another hospital stay and surgery. Before, I was a skinny 40-kilo boy. After, I was 65 kilos in one month. On the first day back, not many classmates recognised me. Even some teachers asked who I was, if I was new, because they genuinely didn’t know this swollen version of me.
The whole class laughed. I already had a problem with my body because my growth had stopped when I was eight, which made me physically two years behind my peers. Smaller, weaker, less developed. I was already the easy target. And then I showed up after steroids — bloated, swollen, “different” — and they just got a new reason to laugh. They made jokes in front of me, talked behind my back, pointed, laughed. And I did what I always did: played tough, pretended I could laugh at myself, acted like I had “distance.” Inside, it was humiliation layered on top of pain.
Chasing Dolargan Again
During every hospitalisation, I tried to get Dolargan. I knew exactly what I was doing. Sometimes I had real pain. Sometimes I didn’t. But I learned to simulate. I exaggerated pain, screamed more, acted like I couldn’t take it anymore. I felt guilty, but I decided it was worth it. Because Dolargan meant dreamland — no problems, no fear, just that warm fuzzy orgasmic feeling all over my body.
Between fourteen and seventeen, I was smoking weed regularly — even in the hospital — and that’s when I discovered something dangerous: the combination of an opioid high with cannabis. It felt like the perfect escape. Perfect, until reality comes back.
At some point, I stopped simulating. Not because I got better, but because I was scared. Once, after two weeks of faking and getting Dolargan, they discharged me home. One month later, I almost bled out and needed real surgery with real pain. Lying there in real pain, I thought: maybe this is punishment. Not from a God I believed in — I didn’t — but from something. Karma, the universe, whatever. So I stopped faking. But I still had enough real pain to get Dolargan anyway. The saga continued. My parents and friends had no idea. They never suspected anything.
Leaving Poland: Freedom, Weed, and New Demons
When I was twenty-seven, I made a decision that changed everything again: I left Poland and moved to the Netherlands. I told myself it was for better healthcare, more job opportunities, and legal weed I wouldn’t have to hide. That was true, but there was something darker under it. I had been suffering from deep depression and anxiety for years, self-medicating with whatever I could get. When I got close to suicide, I told my mother I felt bad — but never the whole truth. She didn’t believe in mental illness. For her it was simple: “Put yourself together and stop whining.”
In the Netherlands, I felt free. Free to work. Free to smoke. Free to disappear into drugs. And I didn’t stay with just weed. I started doing hard drugs: cocaine, XTC, MDMA, speed, crack, psilocybin, benzodiazepines, alcohol. Anything that pushed me away from myself.
Fentanyl, Sufentanil, and Playing With Death
At one point, I got prescribed fentanyl patches for severe pain from inflamed sections of my intestine. At first, I truly needed them. Then I learned how to abuse them very fast. I started smoking fentanyl extracted from the patches. It felt like the end — like I’d finally found the thing that would either kill me or make everything permanently numb.
Another surgery saved my life. I spent two months in a hospital in Utrecht, and there they “fixed” me with something even stronger: Sufentanil via epidural. In the Netherlands, they give this to humans. In other countries, it’s for animals. It’s roughly twenty times stronger than fentanyl.
I had six surgeries in total in the Netherlands. I didn’t need to simulate pain there. My pain was real. But after every discharge, I manipulated doctors into prescribing me three times more narcotics than I needed. They didn’t notice — or didn’t want to.
Love, Kratom, and the First Major Crash
My world crashed hard when my girlfriend — the one from Utrecht, the one I was with for five years — dumped me. She couldn’t live with the constant drug-seeking anymore. And she was right. Not long after, I stopped paying rent. I had become addicted to kratom, an opioid-like herb from Bali that hits the same μ-receptors as fentanyl. It’s legal, you can buy it in smartshops, and it’s dangerously addictive.
I lost my apartment and ended up in a hostel with my last ten euros, knowing that the next day I’d be on the street.
That night, I decided to end it. I took all the meds I had, plus a lot of Xanax my doctor had prescribed to help me quit kratom — which I’d gotten addicted to instead. Two full boxes of Xanax. No letter. No phone call. Just “good night.”
I woke up sixteen hours later, alive, strangely calm, disappointed. I had to leave the hostel. I called the crisis line and my doctor. They sent me to a closed psychiatric clinic.
Jelinek, the Girl, and the Road to the Street
After two weeks in the psychiatric clinic, I got a place in the Jelinek detox program. It was the worst experience of my life. What happened there shaped the next years and pushed me straight toward homelessness and crack and heroin addiction.
In detox, I met a girl. I told her I was homeless. She knew. After discharge, I visited her. We talked, we fucked, and she said I could stay. During sex, I asked her if she wanted to be my girlfriend. She said “yes” and came. That was the start of our relationship.
Our life together was a chemical battlefield. We used benzos, speed, heroin, and crack. We lost four apartments, ran from Utrecht leaving debts behind, and moved to Leeuwarden. After seven months of not paying rent there, we were kicked out again.
Alcohol as a Cure for Benzos (Spoiler: It Isn’t)
When we couldn’t afford our “research” benzodiazepines anymore, we used alcohol as a cure for benzo withdrawal. Very quickly, we couldn’t start the day without two strong beers. Every day was a drama. We drank too much and made too little money, and any extra cash went to crack and fucking like rabbits, locked in the house for days.
Then we lost that apartment too. We landed on the street.
Night Shelter, Betrayal, and Two Years Homeless
We moved into the night shelter in Leeuwarden. After a few months, my ex left me for another homeless guy. She knew exactly how fucked I was. She knew I wasn’t distant because I didn’t care but because I was broken. And she still left. I loved her, and she destroyed me.
I stayed on the streets for almost two years. That period deserves its own article — the fights, the cold, the shelters, the drugs, the way you stop feeling human. For now, it’s enough to say: I survived. Somehow.
Judge Me By This
This is the story of my life from the Dolargan shot to the street — the important points related to addiction. Of course, there was “normal life” around it, but this is the skeleton I want you to see. This is the version of me I want you to judge. Judge me as an addict. Judge my decisions. Judge my selfishness, manipulation, and lies. This is my addict life.
Two Years Clean
Today, at the moment of publishing this article, I am exactly two years clean. No drugs, no alcohol. I have my own apartment. I’m an entrepreneur working in multiple fields. I have the love of my life. I have a real life again. I got it back. And I’m not planning on giving it away.
But here’s the truth: there is always only one split-second decision between me and death. If I decide to use again, it’s a death sentence. Everything is possible. For now, I feel loved and appreciated, and I give the same to the people close to me.
This story is ugly. It’s awful. But I’m not telling it to shock you. I’m telling it to give you context — to show you where I come from — so you can better understand everything I write next.
I have many more stories. I’m writing them now.
I hope you’ll be here next week when I publish again.
End of Part Two.
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