Hykie Berg: Ultimate Survivor. Hykie Berg
who understood me, someone who didn’t condemn me. Who wanted to build a real relationship with me. He naturally understood that smoking wasn’t good for me, but it was a thing we had in common and he earned my trust that way. We laughed a lot and it was fun spending time with him.
I always made sure that I did my Sunday-school homework, and listened when oom Kriek spoke. Oom Kriek knew that preaching about sin didn’t work; to keep on threatening kids and making them feel guilty would not give them true freedom – although I’m not in any way saying that parents and teachers should simply accept children’s unhealthy and defiant behaviour without consequences.
But oom Kriek? He did everything for a purpose. He knew he couldn’t preach about a principle he didn’t respect himself. He knew, in contrast to my schoolteachers and the principal – who smoked in front of us but beat us with a switch when we were caught – that children mimicked adults. Children do what adults do, not what they’re told.
Integrity is this: do what you advise others to do.
Oom Kriek has since died, but his packet of Mills cigarettes, his friendly welcome and his Sunday-school classes are etched in my memory.
Despite his guidance, I couldn’t silence the restlessness in my soul. I felt like I didn’t belong, anywhere. It was only by messing around with guys like myself that I felt I could be part of something.
Alcohol played an important role in my life. I couldn’t wait for weekends to go partying with my friends. I looked forward to getting as drunk as possible. Even when I was underaged, there were always ways to get alcohol. A couple of beers were never enough – I had to overdo it. Peers regularly asked me why I couldn’t just drink one or two beers and leave it at that. I was always the one who would throw up somewhere and pass out.
I also didn’t care where this happened: whether it was in the trash, in the middle of a park, or outside on the pavement in front of a friend’s house, it was all the same to me. I allowed the alcohol to take control and followed wherever my drunkenness led me. It was fun, people gave me attention. Today I know that from early on my addiction was pretty apparent. I’m just thankful that, in my drunkenness, I was never in a very serious car accident or got an underaged girl pregnant.
I lost my virginity in grade nine with a girl from school. We’d hung out at a bar in Pretoria East one night, and got plastered. Butt-naked in a field next to the bar, on top of a dump heap, we ended up having sex. I didn’t have a condom and she wasn’t on the pill. It was stupid and irresponsible. It was my first pregnancy scare: for a whole month, I was convinced I was going to be a father.
Anyone who has been there will know that this is the time in your life that you pray the most – whether or not you believe it. You swear on your heart and soul that you’ll turn your life around and go to church every Sunday, as long as that girl hasn’t fallen pregnant.
The alcohol abuse became more frequent, as well as my dagga use. I didn’t even have to travel a kilometre from our house in Lynnwood Glen to buy dagga. The petrol attendants at our local petrol station sold it to me. It wasn’t the best in the world, but back then I thought that’s all there was. Smoking dagga was exciting. Because it was illegal, the lure of smoking it became all the greater. It fuelled my rebelliousness and made me feel like I belong. It gave me a sense of identity. It also gave me a feeling of power, because I was the one who knew where to get it and I could give or sell a stash to my friends. I realised I could make money from distributing it but, more importantly, I began to earn respect from the people around me. I sold dagga to my peers and the older pupils. In my eyes, I was The Man.
Numerous times I stood on the verge of being expelled. During my first school dance in grade eight, the principal caught me passed out with my head in a bag of benzine. We sniffed benzine and paint thinners, because it was a crazy way of getting high. It was a pretty common and a very easy thing to do. Of course, the principal wasn’t impressed.
Ihan, a friend from a neighbouring English school, was also caught. Our parents were notified and there was trouble.
The first parent-teacher conference my mom attended at Die Wilgers was also her last. The feedback was too bad. It must have been so humiliating for her.
Later she became more involved with my sister and her activities, because Magrikie was like an angel. It mystified the teachers why we were so different; my angel-like sister. Me – so disobedient.
Because of my impulsiveness and inability to concentrate, characteristics of acute ADHD, every day was a struggle. My thoughts were everywhere, and I couldn’t complete anything. The alcohol, and all the other trash I used, didn’t make it easier.
My parents were completely in the dark. Back in those conservative days of Afrikaner society, people weren’t aware of the symptoms of drug abuse and knew little of mental illness. No one talked about depression or bipolarity. People thought it was nonsense. The pastor from our congregation came to see me a couple of times, praying that Satan would leave me, and yes – you guessed it – it didn’t work.
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