Issue #3: Lil Wayne's Cup: Life Doesn't Go On.
People don't just come into our lives and leave; they come, make an impact [good or bad] and then leave...or stay.
Last week, I read the Instagram post Ife, [Diary of a Naija Girl] made about the lady at the rehab center who would love Ife to visit her. It was not a pleasant read. I was at the office when I stumbled on it on Twitter [someone had posted screenshots] and I read everything in one sitting. When I finished, I sat back and was overwhelmed with a weird kind of grief. I cannot really explain what I felt but one thing was certain: pain. I was pained. I felt sorry for the lady but beyond feeling sorry, I started thinking about how people change; about how one person can come into your life and turn your entire life’s journey around. How you can wake up happy and a phone call from one person will turn your happiness to sadness and it does not stop there. It’s first a phone call and then it’s a date and then a visit and before you know it, this person who did not exist in your world frame has now come and built a home in your space and you can’t escape them.
While reading Ife’s story, I remember another piece I read back in 2018 about a boy who got into university and found himself in the wrong kind of circle. He got into drugs, the bad kind, the very bad kind. The kind that - read this [this is the boy describing what they drank]
‘ In that cup is what they call Purple Drank which is a mixture that became popular in the hip hop community originating in Houston. It contains codeine and promethazine. Codeine is cough medicine, promethazine is used to treat allergies and motion sickness, nausea, vomiting, swollen lips from eating fish etc.
[...]
But the thing is when you take too much cough syrup it just messes you up; you forget what you were saying mid-sentence, you doze off while talking, and that wasn’t working for us because we wanted to stay up. So we found a pill called Ritalin – it’s for people with ADHD. That drug would make us stay up for over two days!”
[...]
We would wake up and do nothing the whole day but mix that drug, smoke weed, play video games and watch musical videos. Whole day, man! I started skipping most of my classes.”
Believe me when I say this story is heartbreaking. Back in 2018 when I read this for the first time, nothing prepared me for what the story contained. I still go back to the story once in a while and I am still in shock at what the boy and his friend were mixing and drinking. This piece never gets old. And it is why I am sharing it with you today. It’s titled Purple Drank and it was published in 2018 on Bikozulu’s blog.
Last week, I spoke to a colleague who used to work at a rehab center. We talked about addictions and she told me the best thing is to never start. Once you start, it gets hard to get free. I don’t know much about drug use and addiction but I know that with addictions, any kind of addiction, getting clean is always harder than never starting.
Anytime I read the essay I am about to share today, I cry. I am not exactly sure it is an essay but it is a true-life story of a boy who got out of drug addiction and wants to stay out.
I hope you enjoy this essay, not the kind of enjoyment that comes from a good Tiktok video but the kind that comes from discovering the truth about something and knowing that there are people who are trying to get back to their normal life and they wish they could turn back the hand of time. This can either serve as a form of hope for those in this state [the boy got out and stayed clean] or a form of caution.
When people say things like: ‘People come and go. Life goes on’; we miss the fact that life actually doesn’t just go on. Some people come into your life and change everything about you. It’s crazy.
That is what struck me when I read Ife’s story: the lover that changed this woman’s life forever. When I read this boy’s story, I think about his housemates.
While reading this story, pay attention to the pain of the mother, the impact of pop culture, the obvious peer pressure, the saying ‘misery loves company’; to every single emotion hidden behind every word. I hope you love this story and I hope you learn one or two and go ahead to share with a friend or on your social media.
To read the complete essay titled Purple Drank by Bikozulu Jackson , press here. If you have some thoughts to share or an essay you think we should read, you can write back to me by replying to this email or tweet about it using the hashtag #TheERClub so we can find it.
Peace.