Africa-Press – Angola. He no longer remembers exactly the day when, at the age of 12, he started smoking cigarettes, marijuana and crack, at a time when he was also using alcohol. She only knows that the first and many times she used drugs was under the influence of older friends.
Today, close to 14 years old, having overcome her addiction, Joana Inês tries to forget the bitterness she experienced in the world of drugs during about 12 difficult months. Despite the short time she was dependent on psychotropic substances, the teenager says she has already fallen into prostitution and had a series of abortions.
For now, she only looks back at the lessons that the past taught her and she never wants to go back to that time, when, in Morro Bento, the obedient girl, on her way to school, met some girls who led her to try drinks and drugs.
“At first, it was just to try it out. I liked it and, when I realized it, I was already addicted. I increased the doses, to the point of running away from home and moving in with these girls”, she said.
Later, Joana and her friends started living on the streets and frequenting nightclubs in the Cassenda neighbourhood, where they engaged in prostitution. This practice left them, sometimes, for 30 days away from home. The aim was to raise money to support his drug addiction.
This cycle was interrupted a year later, when the mother, desperate, resorted to the television station, with the help of family members, to locate the minor.
And, upon finding her, the family sent her to the Cristo no Coração Recovery Center for Drug Addicts, in the Rocha Pinto neighborhood.
“Here there is peace, health, affection and we are a happy family. I do everything to give up this addiction and I am succeeding”, assured the girl, who recalled that drug use made her travel in the world of illusions, where she dreamed of being independent, despite his young age.
“Often, I would spend the day sleeping and, around 5 pm, I would go out with my friends to have fun and return the next morning”, she pointed out. very dark and very pale.
Today, he already feels the relief and is sure that things are changing for the better. In just over two months of recovery, the young woman claims to have improved her physical appearance and a balanced diet leaves her better nourished and allows her to spread the glow in her eyes.
The smile released several times throughout the conversation with the reporting team, for her, was an obvious sign of someone who is free of suffering in the world of drugs. “And my friends also want to break free, that’s why they fight to come here and abandon this damn addiction that only causes destruction. But their parents don’t have financial conditions”.
Meanwhile, young women continue to take drugs and alcoholism, addictions that have pushed many young people to self-destruction, delinquency, prostitution and having unwanted children, as explained by Reverend Arnaldo Kasssumba, president of Associação Cristo no Coração, which takes care of drug addicts.
Social problems lead to addiction
At the age of 15, Claudete Isenguele started smoking and consuming alcohol when she attended parties with friends. The girl lived with her grandmother, in Morro Bento, but her death left her disoriented.
Once, he saw his uncle smoking marijuana and decided to try it. Since that time, he has had uncontrollable urges to use this psychotropic substance.
Due to this lack of control, she ended up pregnant with a young man, who also started using drugs. Claudete lost on the streets for about four years.
For three months at the Christ in the Heart Rehabilitation Center for drug addicts, the 19-year-old girl has been trying, at all costs, to kick the habit. “Today, I want to leave this world completely and take better care of my daughter. I no longer feel that great urge to drink or smoke or those friendships that almost destroyed me”, she stressed.
During the conversation, the young woman made it clear that the separation will have contributed to a large extent for her, moments later without her grandmother around, to fall into the world of alcohol and, later, into drugs.
Addiction that gives rise to other addictions
Deslandes Gaspar is under 14 years old and lives in Bairro Huambo with his parents. She began using marijuana and diazepam, practices that led her to steal goods from home.
When he smoked liamba, the boy became quite aggressive in the face of his parents’ advice. Initially, he took the family’s things and sold them to buy drugs.
Over time, he practiced stealing outside the home. Phones and money were his focus. Fortunately, he said that being admitted to the center made him realize that he was in a world of perdition. And now he feels like a person in renewal!
“When I leave the center, I hope to create conditions to leave the neighborhood, because that’s where my bad influences were. I don’t want to have a relapse and go back to taking drugs”, he stressed.
With regard to Deslandes, the Reverend Arnaldo Kassumba considered that drugs led him to join groups of criminals, who fought with machetes and knives, using extreme violence.
Another who left Bairro Huambo to stop downtown is Edson Goubel, 16 years old. The boy passed has a story practically similar to that of his friend Deslandes. Both now want to get rid of the addiction and go back to school.
“Before I was here, I went through situations that almost led to my death. I was caught stealing and I was beaten up a lot”, he explained, adding that he did not refuse to enter the centre, where he has been hospitalized since September last year.
Involved in therapy, the boy attends religious services, participates in lectures and learns more about the consequences of drugs. Therefore, he is sure that he has everything to stop smoking or drinking again.
Badly affects various social strata
In the center, more than 70 young people are interned. Each one with their own story, but which end up leading to the same problems: drugs, excessive alcoholic beverages and prostitution.
Among the group of internees are students, musicians (many from abroad), civil servants, unemployed people, among others, listed the president of the Associação de Jovens Cristo no Coração.
Many of these individuals became addicted to alcohol, influenced by the presence of countless liquor stores in Luanda’s neighborhoods.
Rua 12 de Julho (in Sambizanga) and the famous Dira (Zango 3) are the stage for dozens of houses and alcoholic beverage stalls, where there is a large number of young people, including men, women and teenagers.
For example, that Friday, despite the rain that hit the area, on Rua da Dira, around 9 pm, the movement was quite agitated. The sale of beer, whiskey, wine, pincho and tobacco took over the place.
The Experience of Salvation
The center “Cristo no Coração”, founded on April 4, 2001, to work on the rehabilitation of drug addicts and alcoholics, a project born from the life experience of its head, who was a drug user.
Last year, the center, which initially operated in Sambizanga, according to the reverend and president Arnaldo Kassumba, assisted more than 700 young people with drug problems (such as cocaine, crack and liamba) and alcoholism.
The reverend stressed that from the 1st to the 10th of January 2023 alone, the institution has already received a total of 15 young people, who were forced to be interned. They had been taken away by the National Police and family members.
Reverend Arnaldo Kassumba, with a life story linked to the Psychiatric Hospital of Luanda and in the recovery of young people lost in the world of drugs, explained that, clinically, drugs are a substance that interferes in all organs of the organism, with emphasis on the system central nervous system, heart and lungs.
“The lung, because it is through this organ that you breathe, when you inhale smoke, you start to have problems with nicotine (charcoal)”, he said, adding that in relation to the heart there is an increase in heartbeats.
As a result, he added, the neurotransmitters fail to work in a coordinated way and the blood vessels become dilated, due to the blood pressure, which leads to delusions, hallucinations and other health problems.
Excessive drinking is a pathology
The reverend stressed that the drug causes changes in the body, from the heartbeat, rise in blood pressure, moves the neurotransmitters and translates a false joy, laughter for nothing of happiness.
In Psychiatry, he said, drunkenness is considered a pathology, as it is a lack of coordination of the normal functioning of the cells of the central nervous system, losing control of the organism, exchanging involuntary words with people and staggering their legs.
“If you continue to drink, it can become a declared pathology”, he warned, adding that, at the Christ in the Heart Center, the recovery time depends on each case. “Drug addiction is a psychiatric forum problem”.
More than 500 people reintegrated into the family
Between 2021 and 2022, the center managed to reintegrate more than 200 people into their families, but in recent years, the institution has helped more than 500 former drug addicts to get rid of drugs.
After being cured, many former internees became godmothers/godfathers at the center, said Reverend Arnaldo Kassumba.
The official thanked, therefore, the support of these anonymous people, but also to the governmental and parliamentary entities, for having lived, during Christmas, with the patients of the centre.
For the reverend, apart from this support, there is a need for greater participation of families in the recovery of drug addicts. For example, he advocated that these people, after recovering, should no longer frequent the same neighborhood, to escape the temptation of friends of addiction and have relapses.
SIC says there are crimes committed only by virtue of drugs
Manuel Bento and Vicente Gregório, both aged 20, are being held at one of Luanda’s police stations for allegedly stealing a motorbike, using a firearm and robbing a house.
Before committing the action, which was previously planned, the two confessed to having consumed liamba, followed by packets of whiskey, to have courage.
Lubamba Matondo, 30 years old, is being detained for allegedly sexually assaulting a 24-year-old girl at the golf course at around 5:00 am. Before the crime he is suspected of, he spent the night in a bar, in Palanca, where he consumed beer and whiskey.
For the commission of the crime, Lubamba used a knife and threatened the victim and took her to a secluded place and abused her.
The consumption of drugs such as marijuana, cocaine and alcoholic beverages has been one of the main reasons why young people turn to the world of crime, considered the spokesman for the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) of Luanda.
Chief superintendent Fernando de Carvalho referred that alcoholism and drugs in youth provoke deviant behavior, as they use these psychotropic products in order to carry out criminal actions.
He informed that many, after being drugged, commit actions at gunpoint, including robberies in homes and on public roads, sexual violations or physical aggression within the family.
“There have been many cases of recidivism, committed by young people caught committing crimes with drugs in their bodies”, lamented Fernando de Carvalho.
Psychologist highlights damage to the body
Psychologist Emanuel Capita advised against all people to consume drugs, due to the consequences they cause for human health.
He considered that most people who consume alcoholic beverages and other drugs have the power to exhibit what, in principle, would be closed, that is, they gain the courage to do so.
Emanuel Capita argued that drugs create deviant behavior, including the propensity to commit other crimes, as they feel liberalized.
The psychologist advanced that many people who use, for example, marijuana and other drugs do not have information about the damage that these substances cause to the body, which is why some even lose their lives due to lack of information.
“Young people commit many drug crimes and then the Police and SIC hold them criminally responsible, scenarios that can be avoided, in a different psychological situation”, he stressed.
Emanuel Capita drew the attention of parents and family members to educate their children and not wait for re-education, as it is more expensive.
More job opportunities
Jurelma de Araújo, business manager, considered that globalization and the social environment are factors that influence the occurrence of these evils in society. She highlighted that the environment in which they are inserted end up influencing young people and adults to have quick access to alcohol and drugs.
Therefore, it draws attention to the family, which has a leading role in this aspect. “When a father or mother sends their minor child to buy alcoholic beverages, they are violating a social rule”.
But, the manager pointed out that social conditions, unemployment and immediacy contribute to teenagers and young people turning to drugs and the world of crime, and some girls to prostitution.
Death: one of the consequences
The consequences of drug use can be disastrous. Among these, the manager pointed out death, serious psychological problems, acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases, abortions caused by excessive drug use and madness.
To avoid these disturbances, Jurelma de Araújo defends greater interaction between parents and children, emphasizing that it is important to form bases in society and avoid behavioral deviations.
He stated that the State should create policies aimed at families and society in general, so that young people have more jobs and other occupations. “Crime and prostitution are closely associated with those who consume drugs. And they prostitute themselves and steal in order to obtain monetary values that support their addiction”.
The manager defended the need to create conditions for these young people to have access to employment and education, so that they can obtain their income and leave aside the world of crime. “Today, we have an almost sick society. It is necessary to improve the social conditions of families, otherwise we will see more young people in the world of drugs and alcohol”, she concluded. André da Costa and Carla.
For More News And Analysis About Angola Follow Africa-Press
