The Eugene session

This weekend, Thomas and me had come up to Cape Town to see Eugene, our roommate that had disappeared a month earlier. Eugene was the first person we met here in South Africa, and lived with us for four months. He has had quite the past, and almost every issue that one can go through in childhood and adolescence, involving alcohol, drugs, sex and STD's... A year and two months ago, he went into rehabilitation, and was clean since. He came to start over, here in Plett and started a job working around HIV/AIDS awareness raising. It looked like he was doing extraordinarily well, surrounded by positive people, supported by friends and other volunteers, resisting temptations while going out and staying away from alcohol and drugs. I helped him draft a project which would have allowed him to go to New York for a two month training. Even his love life was looking prosperous...

But a month ago, when we were all in Cape Town, he disappeared without a trace. Finally, after almost a week of worries, we heard through the grapevine that he was in a recovery center in Cape Town. I also discovered that a rather large amount of my money had gone missing. It didn't take a genius to figure it all out. He had relapsed and used, and stolen my money, after which he had taken off to Cape Town, to the same center he had been treated in a year ago...

It is hard to describe the emotions I went through, even now, a month and three sessions with him later. I mean, it is not uncommon, on the contrary, we have all heard of these ex-addicts relapsing and stealing, so I shouldn't have been surprised or felt so betrayed, but well, knowing shit happens and have shit happen to you is very different, no? It was even harder since we decided that we would keep it quiet, as to allow him to maybe pick up where he had left off, so that he could come back to Plett and not have a reputation. Sort of not to make a bad thing even worse...
So we made up excuses and avoided questions, while meanwhile all of these emotions were quite strong inside of me. Maybe this post, though I am going to hide it in the past entries, is to compensate for that time.
But so this week, we have met up with Eugene three times, twice just Eugene, Thomas and me, and once with Eugene, me and his counsellor. These discussions have been with mixed results. though it definitely feels good to confront him and hear some questions answered, a lot of them still remain unanswered, partly because he himself doens't understand it all. But mainly, it is just very sad...