Hykie Berg: Ultimate Survivor: Saved from my drug hell

By Hykie Berg

Hykie Berg is well known as a film and TV actor, and as the winner of the first Survivor South Africa. He is also an addict. At the height of his success, Hykie lost everything, including, nearly, his life. Here he shares his story, frankly and honestly. From the drug dens of Hillbrow to a maximum security cell in Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital, God was with him, and saved him from certain death. Hykie reminds us that God's love is meant for each of us. God never gives up on us, no matter what.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lux Verbi
• Release date: Aug 1, 2018
• ISBN: 9780796321121

Hykie Berg

Hykie Berg is in Pretoria gebore en het ook daar skoolgegaan. Hy het drama studeer en was al te sien in reekse soos Egoli, Plek van die vleisvreters en Binnelanders, en rolprente soos Dis ek, Anna. In 2011 neem hy aan die realiteitskompetisie Survivor South Africa deel en wen die reeks. Hykie is passievol daaroor om mense te help wat in verslawing verval het. Hy is getroud met Melissa en bly in Johannesburg.

Book preview

THE BEGINNING

‘My name is Hykie Berg and I am a recovering addict.’

That’s how I and thousands of addicts across the world introduce ourselves within the Narcotics Anonymous (NA) community. We say ‘recovering’, because no one is ever fully recovered. A person can get clean and start leading a wonderful life, but someone with the illness of addiction will never ever be able to use drugs or alcohol without it taking over their life. You’ll never be able to control it. The only solution is complete abstinence.

Addiction is a life-threatening disease, an illness that can never be fully cured. It can, however, be seized, handled, exposed at the source and fought. Like someone somewhere once said, ‘It isn’t the alcohol that’s the problem, but the alcoholism – the -ism – the illness that has to be tackled with all our might.’

Today I’m able to say that I’ve broken free from active addiction. It certainly wasn’t an easy path to walk. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do: to get clean from heroin. It’s a fight I had to keep on fighting. Every time I stumbled and fell, I had to get back up and start all over again.

My recovery process is something that needs my daily attention, and remains the most important aspect of my life.

The obsession with using drugs disappears if you do what you have to in order to stay clean. I find that I’m only able to stay clean by focusing on my spiritual health and the way I live my life. Today I have a life, a real life. My life has a purpose, a reason and a direction.

Before I became an addict, I was just a child – one who needed to know that, regardless of my instability and rebelliousness, people still loved and accepted me as I was, and am. Like many children, I felt like I just didn’t belong. I was different. I was the crazy one in the family. For example, something that really fascinated me as a child was illusions. ‘Kul jou hier, kul jou daar en siedaar!’ [I trick you here, I trick there, and hey presto!]

Martino, the renowned magician (and also a photographer), came to our house one day to take pictures of my sister.

‘Here he is! In my house! Martino who I’ve seen on TV and the best magician in South Africa,’ I whispered in awe. I was ecstatic. Martino showed me a trick. After that, I practised the trick over and over. My new-found interest in magic drove me to order a magic box from overseas, filled with tricks that I saw advertised on TV. The day I collected that trick-filled box from the post office remains one of my most exciting childhood memories. (That, and when I got my first 50cc motorbike in grade nine, or standard seven in those days.)

My parents’ guests always had to watch me do tricks. I couldn’t wait to impress anyone I happened to meet. I drove my brother and sister crazy! Without knowing that one day I’d be an actor, I’d already started to entertain people. I was in no way a pro, but I enjoyed it.

I grew up in Lynnwood, Pretoria, in a household that had no lack of money or luxuries. Like any other family there were problems, but we dealt with our problems as time went by – or so we thought. During those times it was normal to sweep anything that might cause the family embarrassment or shame under the carpet, and hope and pray that the problem would go away.

For many years I thought our family, with its challenges and feuds, was unique. I thought there was something wrong with each of us, or at least with me. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. Today we know that all families are inherently dysfunctional. The only difference is the scope or degree of that dysfunction.

When children grow up in extremely dysfunctional households, they don’t learn to express their pain in a healthy way. Excessively strict control over children, projection of internal conflicts from parent to child or vice versa, emotional manipulation, and an inability to be vulnerable and take personal responsibility for choices and actions ultimately damage the adult-child relationship.

Everyone has problems, everyone has issues. These can lead to lifelong wounds that are repeated if the child doesn’t stop the unhealthy cycle of behaviour. When someone does, finally, decide to break the cycle of generational ties and habits, it usually causes intense conflict between the adult and child. The relationship becomes irreparable if true forgiveness doesn’t take place. That’s what I saw in our own family.

My mom was and still is a beautiful woman. She was Rag queen with peer and actress Jana Cilliers, and made men fall over themselves. Looking after her appearance has always been important to her.

For quite some time, my mom had been a teacher. But after many a back surgery, she couldn’t stay on her feet for long periods of time any more. The pain was just too unbearable.

To make things worse, one doctor botched a surgery: he accidentally severed a nerve in her left leg. It caused her lifelong pain and discomfort, and naturally had repercussions on her body. One complication led to the next; one operation was followed by another.

Yet as a full-time mom she did everything in her power to raise me, my younger sister Margrikie and elder brother Nielen properly. She was strict and tough, but also sincere and loving.

My dad is a senior advocate. Anyone who’s had dealings with him would agree that he certainly is one of our country’s most learned and progressive advocates. Being in such high demand, my dad was rarely home when I was young. But financially he provided us with the very best life. He invested in our school and tertiary education to ensure that each of us could have the best chance in life. He always believed in us. His life attests to the unconditional sacrifices he made for his children. When coming home late at night, he’d always wake us up to give us a goodnight kiss. Those precious moments were few, however. My dad was there, but he also wasn’t.

Every boy has a longing and a desire for a dad – someone to carry him on the shoulders of his heart and spend quality time with him. My dad wasn’t always aware of how much I missed him. He wasn’t a father who had a close relationship with his children, but I’ve never doubted his love for us.

Later in life, I discovered my dad’s love language. Only then was I able to get to know him better – the same was true for my mom. We don’t always get the love from our parents in the way we might want it. However, there are reasons that we don’t. Such situations force us to reach for something Greater; something that can better tend to our needs.

Both my parents were believers, and we were raised in a religious home. We learned about the Bible and God, but our spiritual education wasn’t driven by the Spirit.

It’s as if we’d been given the firewood, but not the matches.

I was eleven years old when my mom and dad got divorced, and we went to live with our mom in a townhouse that our dad bought her. As a single mother, my mom had to be both parents for us. It created a lot of underlying tension in the family.

Before the divorce, my mom had already, in fact, been a single mother. She was strict and wanted to teach us from an early age what it meant to behave responsibly. She did what she believed was right, always remaining true to her values. When my brother and I had to deliver newspapers – which I hated – I really resented her.

And yet, today, I understand why she did some of the things that she did. I had to learn that effort was required in order to achieve anything.

It definitely wasn’t easy raising three children virtually alone. Besides, I wasn’t an easy child. I challenged everything that was the norm or status quo in those days. I definitely didn’t want to be like my parents.

What happened between my mom and dad, and whatever had gone wrong in their marriage, had nothing to do with us kids. Their lives were their own; they made choices for which they had to take responsibility. There are always three sides to the unravelling of a marriage: the two spouses’ respective sides, and the truth. It’s what happens during and after a divorce, and how the parents and/or third parties handle it, that determine how much damage is caused.

In no way do I blame my parents’ divorce for my behaviour and addiction in later life; yet, the divorce was certainly a traumatic time for everyone in the family. None of us really knew how to cope with it.

There isn’t a divorce in the world that doesn’t disturb the family dynamics in some way. The children get hurt, the parents get hurt. Parents blame each other, children blame parents, parents blame children and children blame each other. We do this because we simply don’t know how to handle our discomfort and pain in a healthy way.

My parents are both good people, but to this day I still don’t know why they married each other. The only thing they seemed to have in common was us children.

In those years, a divorce was considered a scandal. You couldn’t talk about it openly, and the Church condemned it as a sin. There wasn’t any access to the information, experts or support groups that we have at our disposal today. Our Christian friends condemned us. I tried to deal with it all by pretending that everything was fine.

As a teenager, I rebelled against Christianity: my parents didn’t always practise in their daily lives what was preached every Sunday. The fights, power games and humiliation were in direct contrast to what we kids had been told to do.

During the divorce, we were used as pawns in our parents’ personal vendetta. We were always caught in the middle of their problems, and served as their crutch in some way or another. When they dumped their issues on us, sometimes the roles became reversed: we were, unconsciously, forced to take their place. In a family where a parent suffers from a behavioural disturbance, children often develop something known as ‘adult-child syndrome’.

This syndrome is characterised by excessive guilt, powerlessness and low self-esteem, which leads to self-destructive behaviour. (For more information on this, read Life Lessons for the Adult Child by Judy Kiplin.) We tried our best to support Mom and Dad, but as children we weren’t emotionally mature enough to handle the situation.

It was unfair of our mom to constantly criticise our dad in front of us; and it was unfair of our dad to remove himself from the situation and not take responsibility for his actions. Yet, they didn’t know any better. Pain and suffering sometimes make us do things that we regret later. The situation at home caused a lot of bitterness, guilt, fear and division among us kids.

I was at odds with myself, every day. Children aren’t supposed to pick a side; it shouldn’t even be an option. Parents should resolve their differences without involving their children. Aren’t they, in their personal capacity as Christians, meant to present an image to their children that glorifies God? Shouldn’t they rather put aside their personal issues, regardless of how they feel? Instead of poisoning their children by bad-mouthing each other, parents should remain mutually respectful, even when one spouse is absent.

It confused me incredibly. Today we know: children don’t become what they’re told to be; they become what you are, as a parent. I always heard one thing, but saw the opposite.

Children become a product of their parents and their parental home.

Both our parents proved their love for us in different ways. They made sure we were always abundantly provided for. But I had a festering pain within me that my parents never knew about. I associate my childhood and teenage years with feelings of detachment, fear and loneliness. I felt like a stranger in my own home.

I began to steal from a very early age, long before my mom and dad got divorced. It gave me some kind of kick; it was my little secret that no one knew about. I didn’t steal because I wanted something my parents couldn’t buy me, or I couldn’t buy myself. I stole things because it gave me some measure of control over my situation. I felt in control of one thing, while feeling completely out of control in other areas of my life.

The fear of getting caught gave me such a rush. In my desk, I had a secret compartment where I could hide all my stolen things, especially expensive lighters. I had a whole collection of gold, bronze and silver lighters. This, of course, allowed me to occasionally light up a cigarette in primary school. Later, I also used this secret compartment to hide packets of cigarettes and pornographic videos.

I began smoking cigarettes when I was quite young. I took my first puff in grade two, because I wanted to try new things. My grandma – my mom’s mom – smoked. It looked so enjoyable. That day on Ballito beach, at a holiday town in KwaZulu-Natal, I coughed my lungs out. It was terrible!

I was naughty and defiant. My grade two teacher informed my mother that I was a problem child and that I’d end up in prison someday. She wasn’t completely wrong.

By grade seven,