Someone shared this on twitter this afternoon, and it broke my heart:

You can’t understand how horrible drugs are until the love of your life chokes to death right in front of you and there is nothing you can do. I heard my friend tell the story of her boyfriend and I can’t sleep.

I have known my friend, Adeola for about 6 months, I knew something was wrong, she didn’t want to talk and I didn’t press either.

A few days ago, she said she wanted me to know a few things about her past. She couldn’t tell me she, so she sent me a whatsapp message.

I read it and I cried, I knew she had seen pain but I didn’t expect this. I asked her permission and she said I could share….

She explained that she had experienced pain so searing that she had no choice but to black out? It got to a point that she could no longer breathe.

2 years ago, she found out that her boyfriend of 1 and half years had died of a codeine overdose. She had kissed him goodbye on the morning of his death. He had even smiles at her. “His smile was everything! “, she said.

She shared that the morning before she left him, “he was with one of the popular cough syrups in front of him, there was an empty bottle of vodka under the table and a cup of coloured liquid in his hand.”

Adeola had teased him about his constant drinking of the ‘Purple drink’ and the guy had smiled and shooed her off. She said that after the teasing, “I laughed out of the door. That was the worst decision of my life - to laugh and walk away!”

Nkem, her boyfriend, was a crazy-talented artist. Adeola admitted that she drank codeine. “I had taken a few glasses of the Codeine mixture but I wasn’t a big fan. Nkem was a sweet tooth and the candy he added, annoyed me.”

“It was just a fad that would pass, we both knew. He was an ‘experimenter’ of some sorts.”, she wrote.

When she heard about Nkem’s death, she passed out and regained consciousness few minutes later to see his mother shaking her on the hospital floor. She struggled up turned around and ran out of the hospital. She never turned back. She hasn’t seen the guy’s mother since then or even gone back to take her bag and shoes that she left behind when she fled.

“I should have taken that cup from him that morning. I would do anything to go back”, she said.

So when she sees people gather to do something about codeine or any other substance, she says she has to give them a silent nod, an acknowledgement that someone won’t go the way Nkem left.

She stumbled on a tweet on the Anti Substance Abuse Programme (ASAP) by MTN and the memories came flooding. Hopefully it helps others to share and speak up before something happens to people they love.

One thing must kill a man.

Hard drug is a silent killer.