33-year old Mai* had just given birth to their 4-month old daughter when she found out what her partner really did for a living. Mai tells us of the aftermath of their choices, and how the drugs ruined all their lives and broke her family apart.
During my pregnancy, I wasn’t in the dark about John’s* dealings. All the while, I knew he was dealing something, but I never asked for the specifics, he never told me, so I presumed that he was dealing weed, or something medicinal and legal in other countries. I tricked myself into thinking that it wasn’t a big deal, made every excuse about it, and I even used to call it his “carabao” business.
He promised he was clean, that he was only dealing it to make sure we had enough money for our baby, for our future. He promised he was going to stop after I gave birth.
Our situation was unlike what you see in the news. We aren’t from the slums, unlike the drug busts in the shanties that you often see in primetime news. Neither is he a foreigner or a rich boy hiding behind their exclusive village gates. He’s pure Filipino, from a middle-class family, and well educated. Until now, I don’t know how he ever made the connections or got involved in drugs; or how he even got access to the people involved.
In hindsight, I was terribly naïve. I’ve never been around drugs, never took or tried anything. I never even took a puff of a cigarette, let alone popped pills or shoot or snorted anything illegal.
All I knew about drugs was from watching movies and the local news. I didn’t see the signs that he was using. All I thought that was that his sleepiness, his disappearances, the rashes on his body, his mood swings were all just him.
He started hanging out with new people, going to several different cities and even provinces, and whenever we would go to his city, the way he was treated there was like he was feared and revered by the people around him. I thought those were perhaps just his way of coping with the changes and pressure that he was under.
Looking back, the signs were all there. He was looking for a way to escape, he was screaming for help, and my ignorance and denial of what was happening made things worse.
Continue reading for Mai’s story of what their life was like with a partner under the influence…
My daughter’s first year of life was marred with instability and unhappiness. Our wedding plans kept on getting pushed back for no real reason. We were living together, but he would disappear for hours, with me not knowing where he was, and he would reappear by sunrise.
When our daughter was four months old, he finally admitted to me that he was dealing meth—shabu, in local terms. I asked him if he was using it, he said no. I asked him if anyone had died because of his dealings, again no. So I nodded, asked him meekly to stop, and that was the end of our conversation.
When his family found out about what happened, they begged me to help him, thinking that I could do something about it. I felt helpless—all I could tell them was that I told him to stop, and that it will be up to him if he was to heed our advice.
Now that I think about it, perhaps I could have been more forceful about him stopping, but I was afraid that if I pushed him, he would leave me and our daughter.
After we all found out, the dealings didn’t end. He was always sick, asleep, out of sorts. He never seemed to have any money on him, and he would ask or get money from me, depleting my savings in the process.
He roughly borrowed a P100,000 from me in one year alone. Whenever we’d go out, I would warily look at the friends around him, and think that they were his drug buddies. His emotions were of polar opposites—one moment he would be all sweet and loving, the next he would be yelling at me.
When he wasn’t at my side or not answering my calls or messages, I would worry about him. My schedule revolved around him, to the point that we celebrated one Valentine’s Day in the hospital while he was doing a procedure that was like a drug detox. It became a full time job taking care of him that my quality of work suffered.
Continue reading to find out how the drug use affected Mai and John’s daughter.
And the worst part of it was, I was too unhappy and too busy worrying about him to be a good mother to our daughter. I was an absentee mother—I would see her for an hour in the morning during weekdays, and would usually get home when she was already asleep, not because of my work hours, but because I was out with him instead.
Even if we had our mother-daughter time during weekends, I was always too distracted and felt too horrible to actually be fully present. I was going through the motions, and I was a horrible mother.
I missed my daughter’s first year of life because of drugs. On the day of her first birthday, the mother of my partner told my parents about his drug use. The day after, he was checked into rehab.
I mourned his loss like he died—I was inconsolable, felt like my heart was going to be broken forever and my soul was ripped apart.
Continue reading to find out if Mai and John were able to survive rehab…
Months of no contact rolled by, and surprisingly, I stayed alive. And what came as more of a surprise was I was thriving. I was in therapy, in a support group for co-dependents called CODA.
I changed jobs, made new friends. And better yet, I was finally a real mother to our daughter. I started concentrating on her, we slept in the same room, we shared meals, and I doted on her the way that I should have done ever since.
When I was finally allowed to see him in rehab, I jumped at the chance. He was never as sweet or as sincere and truthful as he was when he was when he was in there. He talked about his feelings with no fear, he laid out his plans for us, and how he was going to get back on his feet. We were going to get married, and finally live happily ever after as a family.
I was overjoyed when he got out. He seemed like a changed man, but then something struck me—I wasn’t sure about him and our life together. He may have changed for the better, but so did I. I was no longer the woman he knew—the months apart made me more cynical, more realistic, more wary over him.
I wanted to give him space to find his footing and figure his life out, with me and our daughter supporting him ever step of the way, of course. And more importantly, I wanted him to step up and fight his way back to my family’s good graces.
We broke up a month after he came out of rehab, even if we were still in love with each other. I told him to fight for us, and to come back to me and his daughter a changed, self-made man—a family man.
Continue reading to know about what happened after Mai and John’s breakup
He didn’t come back to us. He went back to his drug use instead; I’m not sure if he was still dealing it. It was a throwback Thursday that I didn’t want, and now we were in a horrible “parang kami pero hindi” situation, wherein we weren’t in a relationship, but we still kept seeing each other.
We would constantly fight, but I would still attempt to patch things up with him. I was thinking that if I continued to be present in his life, he would realize that he loved me and our daughter enough to be with us. I was thrilled when he was allowed to see me and our daughter every Sunday, thinking that it would jog his memory and make him remember on how good our life could be with each other.
I hung on because I was still hoping he would change—that my love and his love for me and our daughter would finally make him leave the drugs and choose us, instead.
He didn’t choose us; I think his depression and the drugs turned him into a completely different person. Even if he loved us, he no longer had it in him to fight for me and our daughter. And I no longer had the strength to keep on hoping that he would come back.
A few months ago, he was picked up by the police and held in jail over the weekend. Just like something out of a movie, the policemen were trying to extort money from him so that he could go free. He reached out to his vast network of powerful friends to help him out and pool the money together, but everyone left him. When he was at his rope’s end, he finally called his mother, posted bail, and was let free.
After the incident, he was shipped out of their home and into a remote location, for his safety. He is currently under the care of one of his siblings and her family. He’s slowly finding God, finding his footing in new businesses, and finding himself in the process. What he hasn’t figured out is what his plans are for us; how we fit into his life, except for a “I want to be present in our daughter’s life” statement.
That statement was the last nail on the coffin. He was so sure that I was completely in love with him that after building his life, he would still have me to return to.
Continue reading to find out why Mai finally left John.
After years of pining away for a man and a life that I so desperately wanted, it made me realize I no longer wanted to put my life on hold for a man who didn’t value me. I could no longer stomach how worthless he thought I was, thinking that I was so loyal to him that I was going to wait for him forever, with no fear whatsoever that someone else would take me away from him.
That he couldn’t be bothered with thinking about a life that involved us, and leaving us to be blown by the wind. It was not a life that I wanted for me and my daughter, and even if took me years to figure that out, I’m thankful that I finally did.
Drug use has been in the limelight more than ever now in the country, especially with presumptive President Duterte headed to Malacañang, and because of the recent deaths at a concert that is widely rumored to be because of illegal substances.
WATCH: Heartbreaking video shows newborns addicted to drugs
Because of what I went through, whenever I hear about anything related to drugs, I am no longer some bystander saying that “drugs are bad!” just out of common sense. I almost ruined my life, along with my daughter’s life, because I clung on to a man who was so addicted to drugs that he disregarded everything in his life for it. Drugs take over a person’s life. It either literally or figuratively kills them, or it takes God-given strength to rebuild their life and to stay drug-free.
In all honesty, I am happy and hopeful that John will continue on his path to staying sober and rebuilding his life, even if we’re not part of it. Everyone deserves to turn their life around, and no one is ever beyond forgiveness and redemption. I wish him all the best and love, and I hope he finally chooses the life and the people that will help him be the best person he could be.
As for my daughter and I, we have never been better. I’ve been taking care of myself in all aspects, like getting more sleep, exercise, and eating more healthy food, plus focusing on building businesses and securing a stable financial future for us. I decided to do freelance work so that I can be with her almost 24/7, and to be wholly present for her at all times. My daughter’s the happiest, healthiest, and brightest child I’ve ever seen, and I feel it’s because she’s no longer surrounded by sadness, or taken care of a mother who was broken and depressed.
Even though I have a long way to go before I can say that I am completely healed from the pain of the past, what I can confidently say is that I am finally happy. My life has been changed forever by drugs. It may have been a crazy few years, but my life is exactly what it should be right now, and I’ve never been happier.
*Names and some details have been changed to protect those involved. Story as told to author.