I started with a joint

Hélène is twelve years old. She lives in a normal family. She is a discreet, sensitive and tormented teenager. Like many young people, she is afraid of the adults’ world that seems dark and tough to her. She can’t picture herself in any future.

At twelve, distraught of her mind with anguish, she finishes all the adults’ glasses behind their back and starts smoking herb. Very quickly, she drifts towards any kind of drugs. Then, she switches to heroin. A few years later, she is a junkie and a squatter whose friends and companions in misfortune die one by one of overdoses. Every day is a wild race for her dose… until she tries to commit suicide.

Hélène comes through by chance when she is eighteen, after six wasted years which almost cost her life. She is now in her forty. She is a mother of two daughters and is running a magnificient Spa in Tahiti.

Twenty years later Hélène felt like being outspoken about that time of her life. To tell with simple words how anguish and unrest can lead to a descent into Hell. Hélène has always been writing, and she is laying bare her life for her readers today in order to help all these suffering teenagers and their powerless relatives, in order to save lives.

This testimony was written with the help of Marie-Thérèse Cuny who is the author or co-author of many best sellers, such as, published by OH! Edition.

Postface by Sylvie Angel – psychiatrist