Irina and Alexey

     Hi, my name is Irina. I am from the city of Perm. In 2009 I turned 27.
     I have been married to a guy named Alexey for 7 years. We have a son that is 5. When I was 7, my father left us and my mother brought me up on her own giving all her time and attention to me. I was a quiet and good girl which always made mom confident she would never have any trouble with me. But… I met Alexey in 1997. Like everybody else we would stroll around together and after walking me home in the evenings he would go see his friends. In a while I found out he was using drugs and stipulated that he should make his choice: me or drugs… And things became sort of better, at least seemed so.
     It became trendy among young people to take dope. Going to a night club sober meant you are a loser. After some time, for all of my friends (only guys by the way) and me it was ok to get a hit on weekends and holidays. In 2002 Alexey and I got married (I wouldn’t even guess he was still messing with drugs). In 2004 we had our baby son Vlas. What else do you need to be happy, I thought. In a year after Vlas’ birth, I noticed again something wrong was going on with Alexey. He just got me curious as to what was it so cool about the stuff he could not say no to. I was 100% confident of having a strong will power and no chances of getting hooked on that. I was convinced I would never become like “them” going from house to house, cheating, stealing and all. Having tried a few times, I wouldn’t have thought the things could end up so miserable. One day, not a very nice one, I realized my will power had gone and I WAS hooked. My husband and I were hospitalized a number of times together but to no avail. We could last for a week max and would start everything over. All the relationships with our relatives were destroyed, no one trusted us any longer, no friends, only our fellow drug users. Our son could not stop us either. Now my mother had to stipulate: either we go for rehab or she would evict us and take away our son.
     We agreed. We completed rehab in the “Salvation” Center and have been working and living here to help those in the same trouble. It has been 2 years. Our boy lives with us. We very much want for young boys and girls to understand that a healthy life without any dope is far more interesting. We are happy that our child is now growing up in a full healthy family.
     To everyone who goes to places and clubs where dope is used: say NO!