Free from addiction, Ko Phyo Zaye Thaw has a new lease on life and can finally concentrate on his music.

GETTING arrested for heroin possession was the best thing that could have happened to Yangonite Ko Kyaw Soe Lin. It enabled him to turn over a new leaf in his life. He is a survivor, one of the very few lucky ones who managed to overcome heroin addiction, but the price he paid was so high that he could never afford to pay it again.

Only eight months away from being released from prison in 2002, he was told that his father had died of a cerebral haemorrhage: “I know that he died not because of a cerebral hemorrhage but because of my drug problem,” he says as he wipes away the tears running down his face.

“The price I paid for my drug habit was the death of my father.”

Even though he had managed to stay away from drug while he was in prison, he was not sure up until then that he could resist the temptation once he got out. But that all changed with his father's death.

“When the message of my father’s death came, I took a vow never to go back to drugs again. I believe there is no greater loss than losing a father,” he says.
Ko Kyaw Soe Lin, now in his 30s, is not the type of person you would normally associate with heroin addiction.

As a child his academic success and strong sense of morality made him a role model to his classmates and siblings. As a teenager he did not even smoke.

But when he started taking heroin as a first-year industrial chemistry student at Yangon University, his personality changed completely, he says.

“When I was craving the drug, I was blind to everything but the beautiful dream of being high again. I would steal anything I could get my hands on. I even stole valuables from my dad. The only thing that counted was satisfying my craving.”
He still remembers the first time he took heroin.

“My friends taunted me, saying ‘what is the matter, no guts?’ I immediately without a thought sniffed the heroine they were offering me. I took even more than they did. I thought I was courageous. Now I realise using drugs is not courageous, true courage means having the guts to say ‘no’,” he says regretfully.

After sniffing the drug for three successive days with his friends, he found that he could not stop without becoming sick. That feeling of sickness drove him to seek out more drugs.

“In the beginning I started sniffing heroin to calm myself down. It allowed me to sleep. It gave me a mellow feeling — there is no feeling like it. Then I moved up to injecting myself with it. I was its slave from the very first shot,” he says. He stayed a slave for over 10 years.

Ko Phyo Zaye Thaw, 26, a hip hop artist from Kyauktada Township, says he started using heroine at 13 out of curiosity. He fell into the trap without even realising it: “When I was high on heroine, I was liberated. No one feels more free than an addict when he is high. The idea of time disappears in the waves of intense euphoria.

“I didn’t know addiction is so swift and inevitable.

“My parents would often ask me if I was taking drugs, but of course I lied to them. For a very long time, they believed me. They never thought I would do the things I was doing. “When my parents finally realised I had a problem, they knew something had to be done. “They forced me to get help, and eventually dragged me to the hospital themselves.

“But I always went back to the drug despite several periods spent in hospital because I was not ready to give it up.”

It was in 2003 that he panicked that he would die as an addict and made up his mind to kick the habit while he was still alive. “I locked myself in my room. I knew I ran the risk of dying of withdrawal from the drug and I was having terrible convulsions but I didn’t try to relieve the pain.”

It took him more than two years to climb back up the hill, he says.

He was fortunate enough to be treated by an understanding doctor who avoided judging him while he helped him through the physical and psychologically recovery.

“I feel like a new person now,” he says.

“But a long-term relationship with my therapist was required to help me reintegrate into society.”

Ko Phyo Zaye Thaw’s relationships with his parents and family have now been restored, and he is a completely different person. With a renewed sense of hope he is in the process of recording his first album.

“I love my life, and I love who I am without heroine and now I’m concentrating on reaching my goals. I am pursuing my love of singing and writing songs,” he says.

Dr Ba Thaung, Senior Psychiatrist at Thukhawaddy Clinic, likens heroin addiction to a chronic disease.

No other known drug can rival heroin in terms of the sense of euphoria it gives you, nor in terms of the despair a user feels when he is coming down off the high. No other substance is as addictive. Literally one hit is all it takes and you are hooked.

Dr Ba Thaung believes that healing comes from within and no treatment for addiction can be successful unless the user himself decides to give the drug up.

The drug treatment veteran says he has seen a patient go back to the drug after 30 years of abstinence.

Success stories such as those of Ko Phyo Zaye Thaw and Ko Kyaw Soe Lin are few and far apart, he says.

“When your friends urge you to use drugs, just refuse outright. If you are once an addict, you will always be an addict. It is a chronic, relapsing disease.”