Bogdan

They understood me

My name is Gojkovic Bogdan. I was born in Novi Sad, 31 years old. My first contact with drugs was when I started using marihuana. Thereupon I took pills and soon after that I took heroin. At the age of 15 I took heroin for the first time and I started taking it intravenously right away. My parents tried to give me everything I needed, but I was attracted to criminal, to the street and fights, and heroin added zest to all of it. When I took heroin, the chaos which was ruling around me would disappear and I wouldn’t have unsolvable problems any more. I would only think about going to a football match and getting into a fight to make a trouble as big as possible. This was my life. On the streets I would steal and abduct to get heroin or the money for heroin. I simply didn’t allow myself to run out of the drug and I was able to do crazy things to feed my habit. After ten years spent in the hell of addiction, on the streets and football matches, at the edge of death, I made a decision that I needed help. I admitted to myself that I was a serious addict and that I cannot keep on. I realized that the life I had lived by then was nothing but a huge lie.
Even though I was broken and fearful, I entered the Teen Challenge program with faith that I would succeed. At the beginning it was hard, as it is at every beginning, but the realization that this would be my last withdrawal crisis and that I am going to be free from addiction give me the strength to keep on. I meet God and my life is completely changed and every other day is a new victory! The Teen Challenge program is structured in such a way that both I and people around me can clearly see the great advancement and change in my life. My relationships with parents and family have blossomed. Guys who work in the rehabilitation center helped me a lot during my program because they understood me, since they were once in the same situation as I was.

Before and after