Steven the conqueror
Steven Roux died as he lived, alone. Not without a loving family, not without support and understanding, but utterly alone in a battle against heroin dependency.
His long road to recovery from addiction, finally led him to an open field in Brakpan, where his body was found, covered by a blanket on June 5.
The Oorwinnaars, a drug-support group with Jesus at its core, took him in on May 5, after his hopeless mother dropped her bundle of joy, turned sad, lost, hopeless and depressed, on Koppie Street’s stoep.
She probably heard about the Oorwinnaars from some or other relieved parent, whose child also went knocking at death’s door.
Heaven knows, Kriel has spawned serial addicts, many of whom seeks help from the Oorwinnaars, where there’s still a hearth and home for the damned.
Steven didn’t knock twice, he was welcomed before his heroin starved knuckles connected with the Oorwinnaar’s door.
He was saved, just in time…
While his mother walked the streets, selling vetkoek for his salvation, his withdrawal symptoms tangled his guts.
His guts gave in.
He absconded from Bread of Life, a centre founded for recovering addicts, helping them to become human again, to fit in.
It lasted but a day.
He was last seen on June 4, one day after the Oorwinnaars dropped him in Hazyview to become Steven Roux once more.
Now he is gone. Gone to heaven.
“I’ve been involved with addicts a very long time, but when Steven was baptized in the bathtub of Pastor Jannie Jacobs, merely days before his admittance at Bread of Life, God was there, I will never forget the childlike abandonment in Steven’s face, the shackles were broken, Satan was conquered,” Ms Elna Lewis, of the Oorwinnaars told the Observer.
When he told Bread of Life he wanted out, they bought him a bus ticket to Springs, where his sister lives.
He never arrived. Pleas by Pastor Jannie Jacobs, Steven’s fall-back guy, to skip the bus, was lost in translation. Too many voices sang in his head that day.
A countrywide search was launched, and on 18 June the search ended at the Brakpan morgue.
The initial autopsy report stated that Steven died of double pneumonia.
The gavel however came down so hard on his family, that they demanded a second autopsy, which was done on Tuesday.
“We don’t want to speculate over the cause of death,” ds. Francois Kruger told the Observer on Wednesday.
He could however not rule out the perpetual demon that haunts heroin addicts – the big OD. Addiction never ends well.
So many pages were left in Steven’s life story, but the book was shelved too soon.
Ds. Kruger believes Steven was saved because of the way he helped other addicts to conquer – with love and acceptance.
Like heroin, Steven will persist.
• Please read the anti-drug supplement, published on page 18, 19, and 20 of this week’s edition. Together we can overcome addiction.
