A Nigerian woman, Umega Favor, has shared her journey to recovery after struggling with substance use, recounting how it affected her education, career, relationships, and how she viewed herself.
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Nigerian woman, Favor, reveals substance use affected her education and career, leading to repeated expulsions from school.
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Favor recounts how she depended on begging when she struggled to cope with sobriety and says she has learnt to manage her triggers.
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The Nigerian woman reveals that substance use affected her education and career, leading to repeated expulsions from school.
Favor recounts how she depended on begging when she struggled to cope with sobriety and says she has learnt to manage her triggers.
Favor, who is from Benue State, recently completed rehabilitation and is preparing for reintegration into society. Reflecting on her experience, she said the process has helped her develop a new perspective on herself and her life.
Sharing her story on social media, Favor recalled how she initially underestimated the impact of drugs before her substance use became difficult to manage.
“Coming out of rehab and preparing for reintegration, I feel alive. Looking at myself from before, my mindset has changed. I don’t see myself as a monster anymore. God has helped me rebuild.
The drug was making me feel hard. It was making me feel like a wicked person, but now I have been taught how to love; I’ve been shown forgiveness.”
Her recovery journey also changed how Favor understood her relationship with her father.
She recalled that she once felt her father was too strict and did not love her enough. With a new perspective, however, she said she now understands that his actions came from his desire to see her do well.
“I felt my daddy was too hard on me and didn’t love me enough, but now I have seen that he just wanted the best for me. If I could see things the way I could see it now, I wouldn’t have made the mistakes that I made.
My relationship with my dad now is beautiful. We speak almost every day. He prayed for me, he forgave me, and helped me too.”
Favor described the period when she became dependent on begging as one of the lowest points of her life, saying she struggled to cope with sobriety at the time.
Her substance use also disrupted her education and career, according to Favor, who said she moved between schools and faced repeated expulsions.
“Substance abuse affected my education and my career. I kept jumping from school to school, kept being expelled. I couldn’t put my head down because I had tasted the high and anything not giving me that is boring, so I wasn’t stable enough to be in a relationship.”
As part of her recovery, Favor said she has learnt to recognise and manage some of the emotions and circumstances that could serve as triggers for her.
“I have learnt to manage my triggers, like being in my head, my emotions, inferiority complex, feeling unloved and unworthy. I’ve learnt to think that my life is good.”
Although she was initially hesitant to share her experience because of concerns about how people would perceive her, Favor has now chosen to speak openly about her recovery.
“At first, I was scared to tell my story because I was like, ‘ How will people see me?”
After completing rehabilitation, Favor said she now feels more hopeful about her future as she prepares for the next stage of her recovery and reintegration.
