THE four fingers of his left hand have been reduced to stumps.
He lost a toe from his left foot.
It could have been worse.
He could have lost a leg too, his doctor told him.
The reason: Ah Bon, as he prefers to be known, abused Subutex and a
cocktail of other drugs over a period of time.
He only wants his nickname to be used because he is scared that he
will be identified.
'I didn't know it would lead to this,' he said in Mandarin.
He added: 'Since it was legal at that time, I thought that it would
be safe.'
Subutex was classified an illegal drug in August this year.
Ah Bon told The New Paper: 'I hope you tell my story to others.
Don't mess with drugs.
'They (the abusers) don't realise how harmful it is.'
He has been undergoing rehabilitation for the past month at
Christian Care Services Centre, a halfway house for drug
addicts.
Data from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) reveal that since
2003, the number of Chinese addicts being arrested for drug abuse
has been rising each year compared to the other races here.
When The New Paper met Ah Bon at the halfway house earlier this
month, the 43-year-old was still in pain and his wounds were still
raw.
There were bandages on his left knee and left foot.
Ah Bon was admitted to the National University Hospital (NUH)
several times because of health problems associated with drug
abuse.
In August, parts of his four fingers had to be removed and a toe
had to be amputated because gangrene had set in.
He said his drug problem worsened when his 71-year-old mother had a
heart attack in September last year.
SORROW
He had already switched from heroin to a cocktail of prescription
drugs in 2004, but he increased the dosage to overcome his
sorrow.
After a few weeks of heavy abuse, he ran into problems.
Said Ah Bon: 'By that time, I was having difficulties locating the
veins on my wrists so I poked the needles into the
'highway'.'
He showed The New Paper the deep incision scar on the left side of
his torso between his waist and groin.
'That's the 'highway',' he said, pointing to the 15cm-long deeply
hollowed flesh above his groin.
He said he reached a point when he wanted to die. By then, his
fingers and toes had become purple and were swollen. Pus began to
seep out and there was a bad odour.
His legs blackened and there was poor circulation.
For Ah Bon, help came only when he hit rock bottom. He was found
unconscious somewhere along Alexandra Road last October.
A passerby took him to Alexandra Hospital, and he was later
transferred to NUH. He spent five months there.
The doctor had to cut deep into the area above his groin because
there was severe gangrene and the blood vessels were clogged
up.
Any delay, his leg would have to be amputated.
Dr Leslie Leong, orthopaedic specialist at Changi General Hospital
(CGH), said it's common for subutex addicts like Ah Bon to lose
fingers and toes.
Dr Leong told The New Paper: 'There is a greater tendency for the
injected chemicals to accumulate at the fingers and toes because
the blood vessels there are finer and are less tolerant of
blockage.'
Dr Leong was involved in studying Subutex abuse 'due to the large
number of patients that registered in the past one year'.
When The New Paper met Ah Bon, he was still having difficulty
walking.
He left school at 12 because he had failed his Primary 6 exams. By
16, he was smoking heroin.
He said: 'My friends introduced me to it (heroin) and it was easily
available at that time.'
He said he initially worked as a painter, but after getting hooked
on drugs, he stopped working and did whatever it took to get money
to buy drugs, including 'lying, begging, cheating and
stealing'.
He has been in and out of prison so many times that he has lost
count. His last jail time was in 2000 for a four-year period for
heroin addiction.
He said he is estranged from his family except his late mother. He
has five siblings.
He said she never gave up on him and was the only one who visited
him in prison and spoke to him kindly.
He said he lives with his family, but claimed his siblings do not
talk to him.
Without his drugs during a one-month period at NUH in August, Ah
Bon suffered withdrawal symptoms, which included hot and cold
spells, vomiting, diarrhoea and insomnia.
He now claims he has overcome his addiction.
Said Ah Bon: 'I have learnt my lesson the hard way. I don't want to
lose any more limbs.'
But Reverend Edward Job, the executive director of Christian Care
Services, said: 'Addiction is a long-term problem. Although Ah Bon
said he has quit, the moment he goes outside, he becomes
vulnerable. We need to help him overcome the psychological effects
of drugs.'
Meanwhile, CGH said the number of Subutex abusers 'have declined
substantially since the government crackdown'.
But it did not give any figures.