⑩ Where did all those women go (Part 2)

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“Ms. Lee Da-hye.” Someone called out. It was the police. She had been caught in a sting operation. When the man who had used drugs with her was seized, he smoothly gave up several names, including Da-hye. A record of cooperating with an investigation later becomes a factor for reducing punishment. It was the first moment a brake was applied to the headlong life with drugs that Da-hye had been running without looking back.

Da-hye cooperated with the investigation as well. Thanks to her cooperation, she avoided detention despite not having a fixed residence. She wanted desperately to quit but could not, and she secretly hoped she might part ways with those times when, the moment she injected what she craved, she would burst into sobs. Even so, of course, thoughts of drugs returned. She was also afraid of becoming a criminal.

Da-hye broke her promise to the police and fled. Before long, the police came again. She ran again. From then on, she could not remain at a fixed address. It was the start of life on the run. From everyday life, from the police, from guilt… she ran from everything she could run from. She slept wherever she could: subway-station restrooms, PC rooms, motels, anywhere. Four years passed as she wandered around the country. The last stop was a neighborhood on the outskirts of Seoul.

There was always a man using drugs by her side. They were not good men. Looking back, many were addicted to drugs, gaming, or gambling. It was a time when she lived feeling “every emotion except positive ones.” She had never truly loved herself, either. Men twisted in some way filled the seat beside her. Laughing, she said, “At first they seemed quite decent, but it turns out I had a knack for picking people who were trash.”

Even if you meet a good person, you cannot be happy forever while using drugs together. For Da-hye, and from what she saw around her, when a man who used and a woman who used lived together, the end was almost always catastrophe. “At first you think, ‘Wow, how can we fit this well? He seems like someone who exists just for me.’ You mistake the euphoria that drugs give for love. Later, you end up fighting as if to devour each other. Among people around me who used together, there were a tremendous number of cases where men beat women.”

Da-hye was beaten too. A man she lived with suddenly turned and resorted to violence at the slightest thing. A rock-hard, frozen water bottle flew and struck her. Some people with addiction carry a jackknife in case the police come. That knife was swung at Da-hye. Did she remember the knives that flew when her mother and father fought in her childhood. There were several days she ended up in the emergency room. When the man, unable to contain his anger, turned the house upside down, and, not satisfied with that, struck Da-hye and then passed out asleep, she wiped away her blood splattered around the room. After that, she washed the blood from her body and cried. Yet the reason she could not leave was that there were drugs there. ‘So I can only quit by dying.’ Da-hye came to the same conclusion that countless people with addiction reach. She swallowed a cleaning agent. She was twenty-six.

By great good fortune, Da-hye lived. The first thought when she opened her eyes was ‘I want to live an ordinary life just once.’ She went to her mother's home. She could not bring herself to throw away the remaining drugs and carried them with her. She entrusted the drugs in her possession to her mother. She would surely set out before long to look for drugs. She asked her mother not to let her leave then, and instead to hand over the drugs she had deposited. Her mother, for whom getting Da-hye away from drugs came first, agreed unconditionally, took the drugs, and hid them.

Before long, Da-hye made a scene demanding the drugs and burst out of the house. It was a winter day. Because it was a rural area, even when she opened an app there were neither taxis nor drugs. She walked the neighborhood in a snowstorm. As she circled, the cold made her think she should go back in. She returned home. That happened for one month, then two, then three… and the days piled up into six years.

A note by Da-hye. Courtesy of the subject

Before she quit, Da-hye said she had been “a famously crazy woman in the neighborhood.” People said, “Even if others quit, she absolutely never will.” She also heard more than once, “She will die that way.” It is an image utterly unimaginable from the Da-hye of today.

After a month off drugs, her surroundings began to come into view. After two months, she felt she should start something new. By the third month, she had something she wanted to do. An enormous number of people with addiction must still be suffering even now. She felt she needed to help them. She decided to study addiction counseling. In the fourth month, she looked for a school.

Studying was not easy, but after carrying out small tasks day by day, she came to understand what a sense of accomplishment is. Once there were things she had achieved, she wanted to succeed at the next task. She also learned how important it is for recovery to have somewhere to go in the morning when she wakes up.

Recovery was also a process of rebuilding her relationship with her mother. Though she had been deeply hurt by her mother in childhood, Da-hye realized she had done things to her mother that should not be done. During four years on the run, she contacted her mother only now and then when she needed money. When her mother sent money, she bought drugs. After hearing from the police, her mother knew both that Da-hye had a drug addiction problem and that she was being chased by the police. She knew nothing about where she was or what she was doing, but, afraid even those requests for money would stop, she swallowed her tears and sent money, as Da-hye later learned. She also felt sorry for entrusting her remaining drugs to her mother. “What mother would hand her daughter drugs with her own hands.”

Her mother, though clumsy at it, also began to apologize to Da-hye. She had long felt resentful, thinking her mother knew only her own sorrows and self-pity. “Daughter, you must have felt very hurt. I am sorry.” On days when a message came from her mother, she could not sleep and cried all night. Da-hye realized that recovering from addiction does not end with merely quitting drugs, but is a process of rebuilding life as a whole. Da-hye, too, has carried out her own Twelve Steps (see installment ⑧).

A diploma and an academic excellence award of Da-hye, and certificates for activity as a recovery instructor. Courtesy of the subject

“Drugs drew in even things I had never imagined and made me lose them, one way or another.” When I first met Da-hye in 2023, she said this. It was true that I was drawn to the weight of her story. But as the years passed, my heart went to how Da-hye kept changing. In Da-hye, who did not relapse even once over three years and only grew more solid, I saw hope. It was endearing to see her learn what she likes and dislikes, and how to love herself.

“In the past, the idea of doing something for myself felt unfamiliar. I did not know at all what kind of person I was. I come to know myself, to care for myself, to become close with myself, to have my own story… is that not what self-respect is?” She learned that she is the kind of person whose stress is relieved by singing alone for four hours at a karaoke room, or by watching a movie at home while drinking beer. Not long ago, she became a cat guardian. She also formed a plan to open a cat cafe. Recently, as she completed her studies, Da-hye received both a diploma and an academic excellence award. Having saved herself, Da-hye now dreams of saving other people with addiction.

A cat that Da-hye recently adopted. She named it ‘Haeng-uni’. She said good things have happened since Haeng-uni came.

Again, Da-hye is a precious person. She is precious because she is a person with addiction who has recovered admirably, because she is a woman rarely seen in rehabilitation meetings or communities, and because she is now ready to help other people with addiction. Many women with addiction still do not know where to go and are fighting alone. Those many women have all gone somewhere and are nowhere to be seen. I hope before long to see Da-hye saving other women. I join my hands and wish that, in that process, she too will come alive anew day by day, becoming brighter and fuller.

The [Those Who Quit] series can be found at https://www.khan.co.kr/series/articles/as432. You can also access it via the QR code below.

This project was supported by the Press Promotion Fund created with fees from government advertising.