Alcohol, drugs, sex, food, gambling or video games… For “Addict.es”, on Yahoo, anonymous people and celebrities have agreed to break the taboo of addiction. They recount the infernal spiral of addiction, the often destructive impact on all spheres of their lives, and the often long and painful road to sobriety.
Torn from hell as he explains in one of his books, Laurent Gay is a miracle. This former drug addict has managed to get out of the drug trap and hopes, thanks to his testimony, to keep young people away from this infernal spiral. For Yahoo, he agreed to tell his story.
Drugs, settling scores, prison, illness: Laurent Gay has been through the worst. This former drug addict, whose life has never been a long calm river, managed to get out of it when he thought he had hit rock bottom. At the heart of her distress, an encounter completely changed the course of her life. For Yahoo, the author of the book “Snatched from Hell”, delivered without taboo on his excesses and his resurrection journey.
“Bringing drugs home is bringing in unhappiness. She takes you all to life”
An introverted child, Laurent grew up in a difficult district of Paris, in the 17th arrondissement. He switches into the world of drugs at the age of 12 following joining a gang of bosses, very bad associates. With them, he smokes weed and feels like someone. There, everything is accelerating. Two years later, he took it to the next level by injecting heroin for the first time. “Bringing drugs home is bringing in unhappiness. Drugs spend their time rotting our souls, it’s the worst trap. They take everything from you, even your life”he explains with regret.
It is in police custody that he realizes his addiction. Forced to stay there for 48 hours, he begins to feel the effects of lack. He dives, like most of his friends. Some will never recover. “In almost 20 years, I have lost around fifty friends. My first friend died at the age of 14 from an overdose”, he explains, adding that the life expectancy in his neighborhood was 25 years. To get out of this gear, he therefore tries detoxification cures but nothing works. Without much motivation, he plunges back with each new attempt.
Today, Laurent has passed a milestone by putting this part of his life behind him and now wishes to share his “inner revolt”. Speaking directly to the dealers, he expresses his anger. “You who sell death to these young people, are you well aware of destroying a multitude of lives?”.
“I have made several suicide attempts by overdose”
And his is one of them. Because of drugs, Laurent has a series of bad choices and setbacks. He begins to squat in disreputable districts of Paris with his companion, to sleep in cellars. While she is pregnant, he learns that she has AIDS. The child she is carrying does not survive. It’s the coup de grace. “I had no hope in myself. I took drugs to die. I made several suicide attempts by overdose, the firefighters brought me back to life several times”, he confides, admitting to having lived a period “very dark and very difficult”. At 24, he finds himself in Fresnes behind bars because of a settling of scores.
In prison, he makes himself a blade to open his veins. On the verge of suicide, this non-believer cries out his distress to God, asks him if he can open the door to his paradise for him, then begins to cry. There, he thinks he sees the face of Christ, an apparition he interprets as a sign. “It was a revelation, I started to believe there was something above me. From there, I fought once morest all my little demons”he explains, specifying that he was released from prison following a year thanks to a dismissal.
“I was tied to a bed, my hands and feet were tied”
Hell might have ended there but Laurent decided otherwise. Barely out, he does not resist the temptation for long and starts taking drugs once more. He is then locked up in a psychiatric hospital in an isolated environment where he undergoes his daily life. “My bedroom walls were padded. I was tied to a bed, my hands and feet were tied,” he remembers, still shocked by this vision. Finally, the nursing staff administered high doses of painkillers, “what is called the chemical jacket”. “I was a vegetable”.
There, he learns of his HIV status. The doctors are very clear and teach him that he has little time left to live. “At that moment, the only thing I wanted was to apologize to my family members, to apologize for having made them live 15 years of misfortune”. And when he sees himself already dead, he once once more finds the light at the end of the road.
His daily life changes when a volunteer, present in the hospital, reaches out to him. “It was the first time that I was told that I was a good person”. Quickly, he integrates her into a religious community that welcomes patients at the end of life. In total, he will stay there nine years, a period during which he will test treatments once morest AIDS. Now happily married, Laurent wants to spend his time helping others, delivering a message, particularly to the world of youth.
“The temptation is strong”
As he recalls, many teenagers and young adults today are ready to “anything to have the impression of being watched, of existing and feeling a minimum of love” in this anxious world. Explaining that drugs weren’t going to fill these gaps, he invited them to “return fully” in their “destiny”. He addressed them directly.
“It’s not the drug that will make you smarter. It’s not the drug that will allow you to rise in this low world. You will no longer be able to project yourself, you will no longer be able to have dreams. You’re going to go around in circles and you’re just going to sink into depths that I don’t wish you, so the best thing is to use your super power, that of saying no to drugs. The temptation is strong but there is something else. You have a future”, he concludes.
Find here the interview with Laurent Gay in full: