[Music]
there’s just a bit of mood setting
ladies and gentlemen I won’t be singing
all home be playing too much guitar let
me ask you a question which destination
would you rather prefer prisons mental
asylums or a debt we all know or most
people in the audience whoever is going
to be watching videos we all know drug
addicts in the form of colleagues mostly
friends a lot of the times are family
members parents children for me it was a
first time story I grew up in a perfect
family of four I’m my father was a
businessman my mom college professor my
brother who’s in the audience three
years older than me my brother and I we
used to go to school together
we used to walk to school and we’d go
we’d have like winter vacations summer
vacations would go abroad sometimes to
ancestral homes and on weekends we’d
watch with dread movies together was the
early 90s and would watch movies the
four of us together my father would
travel a lot this all changed when my
father got killed in a shooting incident
and right after that it seemed that life
couldn’t I just couldn’t get it right
anymore I started doing really badly in
my studies I flunked on my seventh grade
as long on my ninth grade I did really
badly and my all levels and I was always
really inclined towards music and I
naturally started gravitating towards
musicians and it was sort of like
accepted and it was sort of an
initiation that if you’re a musician you
start off by smoking weed and the
friends that I was hanging out with they
were sort of like bonafide or at least
known drug users or like celebrated drug
users in our community and so it was
really alright
at the age of 11 I started smoking
cigarettes and I was doing it because
my friend my best friend at that point
in time he was doing the same thing I
was just 11 I didn’t know what I was
doing the addiction to nicotine came
much later
at the age of 15 that’s when I started
experimenting with weed as I had
mentioned that my friends that were in
music and a few older friends they were
smoking weed at the same time when I
just before I turned 17 at the age of 16
I came across heroin and it didn’t take
me too long to get addicted to heroin
and just within a couple of months I was
a full-blown heroin addict so at that
age when people are supposed to be I
have a very I have really low self
esteem I never really excelled in sports
at that point in time I wasn’t doing any
music or any studies I really did not
have any have any sort of identity I
didn’t have any that when I looked at if
I asked myself what I was good at the
only thing I would identify at that
point in time even now at that point in
time I identify as an addict and now I
identify as more than anything else as a
drug addict in recovery so that kept
going on for a while and I kept using
drugs and no one in my family knew some
of my friends were what my older friends
friends from childhood they slowly
started moving away and they kept saying
that you know Samir you are like really
messing up and I just didn’t know I mean
I I didn’t know how to get out of it I
didn’t know how to approach my single
mother and I didn’t know how to else –
like I was mostly using with the rest of
my friends so I don’t I didn’t know how
else to get out and I really didn’t know
that was that big a problem at the age
of 18 when I started mixing other drugs
up its things started getting really
really really bad mmm problems with
authorities problems with just not
coming back home bashing up cars and
stuff like that when I was 18 from 18
onwards I went to kept on going to
multiple rehabs and institutions and
finally at the age of 20 I feel I’m
really privileged
and I was lucky enough to go to this
beautiful institution in India and
that’s where my recovery started so when
I went to India my mom had to my mom
who’s a super woman was but was
distressed nonetheless had to take me
through customs and my arms and feet
were infected and I was more than 20
kilos underweight and I was using drugs
at the airports in the toilets even on
the aircraft so just to give you a kind
of a scenario
I’d like taking drugs abroad not just
because I was really dependent on it and
I was really really really really
desperate so here I was I didn’t really
go into rehab or into recovery thinking
that I was gonna make it I had lost all
confidence I had tried it a couple of
times and I really had no faith in
myself let alone recovery or getting
clean so here I was a 20 year old can’t
say a man I still don’t feel like a boy
and and just trying to figure out and
trying to figure out what I’d done I
always always felt that I’d let my
mother down because she’s she’s been a
single parent for the longest time and
this process it turned out to be the
most beautiful journey that I’ve ever
gone through so a little bit about drugs
and drug addicts if you or anyone else
is struggling with drugs and if you
decide today if anyone if there’s anyone
in the audience or if you expect someone
to if they’re like properly if there are
true addict like I was if you decide
that you’re on drugs you’re on hard
drugs and you just said that I’m gonna
quit today and that’s it I’m not gonna
do anything else about it I’m not gonna
make any other changes chances are
things won’t really work out
and even if you manage that amount of
clean time a few days weeks months maybe
even a year you’ll probably start going
insane though there so there has to be
this psychic the spiritual shift and a
lot of other things that you need to we
like to think I like to think all the
recovery circles or though there’s a
large massive community worldwide of
recovering drug addict
and we like to think that it’s a disease
that’s where I find my comfort and it’s
not the worst disease that you can have
it’s a disease where you don’t have any
absolute or necessary cure but it’s a
disease where you can find a massive
community where you can work with each
other we like to think that we are void
in our spirit and we have a void in our
soul and the reason people like us we
get addicted to drugs is because of that
void and sort of that void gets filled
up with drugs and we were a that process
that I was introduced to it was a
15-month process it took me 15 months or
I took the rehab or the doctor 15 months
to rewire my brain and essentially what
we did is John Key’s behave in a certain
way or they have no routine for me I’m
not ashamed to say it a lot of people do
it I stole I dealt drugs and I cheated I
lied I did a lot of things to get money
to score drugs and extreme cases if
you’re using drugs or whoever’s using
drugs in extreme cases people are
involved with like other criminal
activities such as trafficking a lot of
the times murder and so there I was in
rehab and this beautiful process they
took us through it and the routine of it
was waking up in the morning and just
like slowly working on your self-esteem
just changing shifting things around I
grew up thinking I was just I always
tried alternate methods in life I’d be
like you know if there was an exam I
wouldn’t study for it I’d get my friends
to study for a bit I’d rather study a
bit of it and we all know the results I
flunked on 7th grade and 9th grade and
mess up my all of those so that stuff
didn’t work out and what rehabber
recovery essentially did is it started
sort of like reintegrating me into
society how normal how six billion
others think and the Pew the process
turned out to be I know I keep repeating
internally the most beautiful thing ever
and on the fourth or fifth month of
recovery when I was sitting there when I
drugs on me are on money on me and in
that point in time I had this like small
little like this epiphany and it lasted
for four or five seconds and I realized
that this is the feeling that I was
going after this is the this is what I
wanted
it’s called chasing the Dragons a lot of
the times drugs is compared to chasing a
dragon it doesn’t exist but you’re just
looking for at that pleasure you’re
looking for that hi and that lasted for
and I’m not saying that the it just came
one second that I woke up in the morning
and I was there that I want to quit
drugs it took a lot of effort and it’s
been 11 years for me now eleven years of
clean time which means there’s and there
hasn’t been any shooting popping
snorting and drinking and anything any
mood or mind-altering substances and I’m
not like don’t get mad at me because I
don’t drink
I’m not asking anyone else to stop
drinking and I wouldn’t ask anyone else
to stop using drugs for people like us
who can’t for people who can just who
enjoy or drinking on the weekends or I
have a little bit of fun and then they
wake up on weekdays and go to work it’s
fine for people like me who just can’t
like they become obsessive and
compulsive about the drug use they can’t
think of anything else
I wake up in the morning the only thing
that I’ll think about is where am I
gonna get my money how am I gonna steal
it from my mother
or how am I gonna sell some drugs to
someone else to a friend make a bit of
profit out of that that’s the only thing
so that’s how that’s how a drug addict
things when he’s on drugs he’s like
obsessive his brain is on constant loop
so those are the people I’m talking
about abstinence is the kind of recovery
that has worked for me I’m like yes
there are hundreds and thousands of ways
I have become very spiritual I have
picked up meditation a lot of the things
that work for me in recovery was my
doctor god bless that man he encouraged
us to pursue he encouraged me to pursue
music and there are a bunch of musicians
around me and we’d go around he’d even
let us go and have recording sessions
and he encouraged me to go and study
music music production and later on I
started like different variations of
music one after the other another thing
that really worked for my recovery was
workout yoga fitness
like I mentioned meditation but I I’ve
been doing all of these things but one
of the things that keeps me rooted
because addiction as we consider it a
disease it crops up I necessarily don’t
have to use drugs I don’t necessarily
have to use heroin anymore to feel like
an addict it’s really real I can feel
the disease it crops up in the form of
depression it crops are in the form of
like I’m quite neurotic I started
thinking of things that don’t exist
a lot of the times and the only way I
keep those keep those things though
those demons they’re based by keeping
this process of recovery alive I try to
talk to people I try to speak to
newcomers and at the same time I help my
recovery by speaking they’re like I have
lots of people who dedicate their time
for towards my recovery and the only way
of me giving it back is by reaching out
to newcomers and it’s the most giving
and the most I’ll use it’s I’m just
running out of adjectives beautiful
beautiful process of that I have
experienced in in life yeah I’m gonna
keep it short and there was a point in
time just before I went to my final
treatment center I was 19 I was stuck in
rehab I don’t know four down teen time
and I was just sitting there and I
literally literally afraid to God that
God give me a lot of money so that I can
use a lot of drugs and then give me
sobriety and all those wishes those
prayers came true and a few of the
things that I’ve picked up in recovery
is first admitting that you have a drug
problem
that’s one of the hardest things to do
for a lot of people that a lot of people
with drug problems or drinking issues
they think oh I can control it I’ve not
done it for a month and then they use it
and boom they’re back on it again it’s
just like it’s easy if you look at if
you compare it to a diabetic I mean if
I’m just like a very good diabetic I
don’t I have an allergy with drugs and I
never
use it so stuff like that admitting that
you have a problem with drugs and then
you probably won’t be able to help
yourself you won’t probably won’t be
able to do it alone so you go reach out
to a higher power and a form of
meditation or prayer whatever higher
power you believe in and then you find
yourself a community and these people
are on the same journey as you and the
most beautiful people ever and these
people are coming off drugs and they’ve
had the same experiences they’ve done
all the things that you have done
they’re cheated the stolens of doubt
drugs and another process that works
that I do every day and that is sharing
constantly honestly all your demons and
it’s really really really really painful
all those tiny little things that you’re
ashamed about you share about those
things you don’t necessarily need to
share it with like one particular person
but you pick up two or three people in
your life and then you share it with
them like make sure that whatever you
have inside you you let it out at least
two like a couple of people not just it
doesn’t have to be one particular person
I’m gonna wrap up my life I have to say
it was like a it’s still like kind of
like a movie and it was like a movie
with like drugs and friends and cops and
getting be beaten up by cops and rehabs
and stuff like that it has been much
more exciting after that I have traveled
around and I’ve traveled and I’ve went I
went and studied abroad and I’m lucky
enough that I got to study music and I’m
living abroad again and this was all a
distant dream at this point I’m I am a
friend I’m a brother I’m a son but I
hope to be someone who’s who’s feeling
hopeless at the moment I want that
person to be hopeful and I can assure
you if I can do it and I see hundreds
and hundreds of people around me doing
it the way I am tenuously in 20 years
clean I’ve met people who are 40 years
clean who’ve not had a drink or have not
head of drugs in 40 years and so can
anyone else thank you very much [Applause]
there’s just a bit of mood setting
ladies and gentlemen I won’t be singing
all home be playing too much guitar let
me ask you a question which destination
would you rather prefer prisons mental
asylums or a debt we all know or most
people in the audience whoever is going
to be watching videos we all know drug
addicts in the form of colleagues mostly
friends a lot of the times are family
members parents children for me it was a
first time story I grew up in a perfect
family of four I’m my father was a
businessman my mom college professor my
brother who’s in the audience three
years older than me my brother and I we
used to go to school together
we used to walk to school and we’d go
we’d have like winter vacations summer
vacations would go abroad sometimes to
ancestral homes and on weekends we’d
watch with dread movies together was the
early 90s and would watch movies the
four of us together my father would
travel a lot this all changed when my
father got killed in a shooting incident
and right after that it seemed that life
couldn’t I just couldn’t get it right
anymore I started doing really badly in
my studies I flunked on my seventh grade
as long on my ninth grade I did really
badly and my all levels and I was always
really inclined towards music and I
naturally started gravitating towards
musicians and it was sort of like
accepted and it was sort of an
initiation that if you’re a musician you
start off by smoking weed and the
friends that I was hanging out with they
were sort of like bonafide or at least
known drug users or like celebrated drug
users in our community and so it was
really alright
at the age of 11 I started smoking
cigarettes and I was doing it because
my friend my best friend at that point
in time he was doing the same thing I
was just 11 I didn’t know what I was
doing the addiction to nicotine came
much later
at the age of 15 that’s when I started
experimenting with weed as I had
mentioned that my friends that were in
music and a few older friends they were
smoking weed at the same time when I
just before I turned 17 at the age of 16
I came across heroin and it didn’t take
me too long to get addicted to heroin
and just within a couple of months I was
a full-blown heroin addict so at that
age when people are supposed to be I
have a very I have really low self
esteem I never really excelled in sports
at that point in time I wasn’t doing any
music or any studies I really did not
have any have any sort of identity I
didn’t have any that when I looked at if
I asked myself what I was good at the
only thing I would identify at that
point in time even now at that point in
time I identify as an addict and now I
identify as more than anything else as a
drug addict in recovery so that kept
going on for a while and I kept using
drugs and no one in my family knew some
of my friends were what my older friends
friends from childhood they slowly
started moving away and they kept saying
that you know Samir you are like really
messing up and I just didn’t know I mean
I I didn’t know how to get out of it I
didn’t know how to approach my single
mother and I didn’t know how to else –
like I was mostly using with the rest of
my friends so I don’t I didn’t know how
else to get out and I really didn’t know
that was that big a problem at the age
of 18 when I started mixing other drugs
up its things started getting really
really really bad mmm problems with
authorities problems with just not
coming back home bashing up cars and
stuff like that when I was 18 from 18
onwards I went to kept on going to
multiple rehabs and institutions and
finally at the age of 20 I feel I’m
really privileged
and I was lucky enough to go to this
beautiful institution in India and
that’s where my recovery started so when
I went to India my mom had to my mom
who’s a super woman was but was
distressed nonetheless had to take me
through customs and my arms and feet
were infected and I was more than 20
kilos underweight and I was using drugs
at the airports in the toilets even on
the aircraft so just to give you a kind
of a scenario
I’d like taking drugs abroad not just
because I was really dependent on it and
I was really really really really
desperate so here I was I didn’t really
go into rehab or into recovery thinking
that I was gonna make it I had lost all
confidence I had tried it a couple of
times and I really had no faith in
myself let alone recovery or getting
clean so here I was a 20 year old can’t
say a man I still don’t feel like a boy
and and just trying to figure out and
trying to figure out what I’d done I
always always felt that I’d let my
mother down because she’s she’s been a
single parent for the longest time and
this process it turned out to be the
most beautiful journey that I’ve ever
gone through so a little bit about drugs
and drug addicts if you or anyone else
is struggling with drugs and if you
decide today if anyone if there’s anyone
in the audience or if you expect someone
to if they’re like properly if there are
true addict like I was if you decide
that you’re on drugs you’re on hard
drugs and you just said that I’m gonna
quit today and that’s it I’m not gonna
do anything else about it I’m not gonna
make any other changes chances are
things won’t really work out
and even if you manage that amount of
clean time a few days weeks months maybe
even a year you’ll probably start going
insane though there so there has to be
this psychic the spiritual shift and a
lot of other things that you need to we
like to think I like to think all the
recovery circles or though there’s a
large massive community worldwide of
recovering drug addict
and we like to think that it’s a disease
that’s where I find my comfort and it’s
not the worst disease that you can have
it’s a disease where you don’t have any
absolute or necessary cure but it’s a
disease where you can find a massive
community where you can work with each
other we like to think that we are void
in our spirit and we have a void in our
soul and the reason people like us we
get addicted to drugs is because of that
void and sort of that void gets filled
up with drugs and we were a that process
that I was introduced to it was a
15-month process it took me 15 months or
I took the rehab or the doctor 15 months
to rewire my brain and essentially what
we did is John Key’s behave in a certain
way or they have no routine for me I’m
not ashamed to say it a lot of people do
it I stole I dealt drugs and I cheated I
lied I did a lot of things to get money
to score drugs and extreme cases if
you’re using drugs or whoever’s using
drugs in extreme cases people are
involved with like other criminal
activities such as trafficking a lot of
the times murder and so there I was in
rehab and this beautiful process they
took us through it and the routine of it
was waking up in the morning and just
like slowly working on your self-esteem
just changing shifting things around I
grew up thinking I was just I always
tried alternate methods in life I’d be
like you know if there was an exam I
wouldn’t study for it I’d get my friends
to study for a bit I’d rather study a
bit of it and we all know the results I
flunked on 7th grade and 9th grade and
mess up my all of those so that stuff
didn’t work out and what rehabber
recovery essentially did is it started
sort of like reintegrating me into
society how normal how six billion
others think and the Pew the process
turned out to be I know I keep repeating
internally the most beautiful thing ever
and on the fourth or fifth month of
recovery when I was sitting there when I
drugs on me are on money on me and in
that point in time I had this like small
little like this epiphany and it lasted
for four or five seconds and I realized
that this is the feeling that I was
going after this is the this is what I
wanted
it’s called chasing the Dragons a lot of
the times drugs is compared to chasing a
dragon it doesn’t exist but you’re just
looking for at that pleasure you’re
looking for that hi and that lasted for
and I’m not saying that the it just came
one second that I woke up in the morning
and I was there that I want to quit
drugs it took a lot of effort and it’s
been 11 years for me now eleven years of
clean time which means there’s and there
hasn’t been any shooting popping
snorting and drinking and anything any
mood or mind-altering substances and I’m
not like don’t get mad at me because I
don’t drink
I’m not asking anyone else to stop
drinking and I wouldn’t ask anyone else
to stop using drugs for people like us
who can’t for people who can just who
enjoy or drinking on the weekends or I
have a little bit of fun and then they
wake up on weekdays and go to work it’s
fine for people like me who just can’t
like they become obsessive and
compulsive about the drug use they can’t
think of anything else
I wake up in the morning the only thing
that I’ll think about is where am I
gonna get my money how am I gonna steal
it from my mother
or how am I gonna sell some drugs to
someone else to a friend make a bit of
profit out of that that’s the only thing
so that’s how that’s how a drug addict
things when he’s on drugs he’s like
obsessive his brain is on constant loop
so those are the people I’m talking
about abstinence is the kind of recovery
that has worked for me I’m like yes
there are hundreds and thousands of ways
I have become very spiritual I have
picked up meditation a lot of the things
that work for me in recovery was my
doctor god bless that man he encouraged
us to pursue he encouraged me to pursue
music and there are a bunch of musicians
around me and we’d go around he’d even
let us go and have recording sessions
and he encouraged me to go and study
music music production and later on I
started like different variations of
music one after the other another thing
that really worked for my recovery was
workout yoga fitness
like I mentioned meditation but I I’ve
been doing all of these things but one
of the things that keeps me rooted
because addiction as we consider it a
disease it crops up I necessarily don’t
have to use drugs I don’t necessarily
have to use heroin anymore to feel like
an addict it’s really real I can feel
the disease it crops up in the form of
depression it crops are in the form of
like I’m quite neurotic I started
thinking of things that don’t exist
a lot of the times and the only way I
keep those keep those things though
those demons they’re based by keeping
this process of recovery alive I try to
talk to people I try to speak to
newcomers and at the same time I help my
recovery by speaking they’re like I have
lots of people who dedicate their time
for towards my recovery and the only way
of me giving it back is by reaching out
to newcomers and it’s the most giving
and the most I’ll use it’s I’m just
running out of adjectives beautiful
beautiful process of that I have
experienced in in life yeah I’m gonna
keep it short and there was a point in
time just before I went to my final
treatment center I was 19 I was stuck in
rehab I don’t know four down teen time
and I was just sitting there and I
literally literally afraid to God that
God give me a lot of money so that I can
use a lot of drugs and then give me
sobriety and all those wishes those
prayers came true and a few of the
things that I’ve picked up in recovery
is first admitting that you have a drug
problem
that’s one of the hardest things to do
for a lot of people that a lot of people
with drug problems or drinking issues
they think oh I can control it I’ve not
done it for a month and then they use it
and boom they’re back on it again it’s
just like it’s easy if you look at if
you compare it to a diabetic I mean if
I’m just like a very good diabetic I
don’t I have an allergy with drugs and I
never
use it so stuff like that admitting that
you have a problem with drugs and then
you probably won’t be able to help
yourself you won’t probably won’t be
able to do it alone so you go reach out
to a higher power and a form of
meditation or prayer whatever higher
power you believe in and then you find
yourself a community and these people
are on the same journey as you and the
most beautiful people ever and these
people are coming off drugs and they’ve
had the same experiences they’ve done
all the things that you have done
they’re cheated the stolens of doubt
drugs and another process that works
that I do every day and that is sharing
constantly honestly all your demons and
it’s really really really really painful
all those tiny little things that you’re
ashamed about you share about those
things you don’t necessarily need to
share it with like one particular person
but you pick up two or three people in
your life and then you share it with
them like make sure that whatever you
have inside you you let it out at least
two like a couple of people not just it
doesn’t have to be one particular person
I’m gonna wrap up my life I have to say
it was like a it’s still like kind of
like a movie and it was like a movie
with like drugs and friends and cops and
getting be beaten up by cops and rehabs
and stuff like that it has been much
more exciting after that I have traveled
around and I’ve traveled and I’ve went I
went and studied abroad and I’m lucky
enough that I got to study music and I’m
living abroad again and this was all a
distant dream at this point I’m I am a
friend I’m a brother I’m a son but I
hope to be someone who’s who’s feeling
hopeless at the moment I want that
person to be hopeful and I can assure
you if I can do it and I see hundreds
and hundreds of people around me doing
it the way I am tenuously in 20 years
clean I’ve met people who are 40 years
clean who’ve not had a drink or have not
head of drugs in 40 years and so can
anyone else thank you very much [Applause]
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