Milivoje

I WAS DISGUSTING TO MYSELF

I`m Milivoje Popović and I`m 34. I live in Zmajevo. I was growing up in a normal family with parents and two sisters. Being the youngest member of the family, all love and attention was focused on me. I missed nothing. I had a carefree and happy childhood.

I wasn`t interested in learning so I left high school in the first year. Due to the lack of duties and parents` attention, I was spending time with my company in the streets. We spent the most of our time in a part of the city where you could get all kinds of narcotics. I was 14 when I started smoking marihuana. Soon I discovered tramadol and heroin. At the beginning I used heroin during weekends only, but soon I became addicted to it. My sister was the first to notice that it wasn`t me anymore, that I was acting differently. I started stealing stuff from my house, manipulating and lying to my parents. When they found the drug in my room, they became aware of the fact that I had a problem. They decided to drug test me for the first time. The test was positive. They took me to a psychiatrist who prescribed a therapy for me. However, I didn`t take a lot of time when I started doing drugs again. After a while, my father died. After his death I was sinking even deeper in drugs. Every day I was becoming worse. I lost all of my friends and I was alone. I thought it would never end. I wanted to harm myself and I was disgusting to myself. I visited my sister asking her for help because I couldn`t live like that anymore.

With her help and consultations with my uncle I came to Crossroads. I went for a conversation in Men`s center and accepted to stay in the program. For the first couple of months it was really hard and I wanted to give up a few times. When I started reading the Bible, praying and applying the advice I got from the staff, first changes started to happen. My character, attitudes and behavior started to change. In my family no one could believe it was me. I became much more responsible, acquired working habits and I was working on interpersonal relationships. I have become a completely different person and I like living like this. At the moment I am volunteering in Crossroads. I make an effort to be a blessing to the boys in the program and to the staff as well. I am aware that this is the life school which I had to go through and that I am now able to practically apply to my life everything I learned in Crossroads.

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