Never use 'ice'
One incident shocked Hu to his core and made him reassess his priorities. At a bachelor party, he saw how the groom-to-be began to hallucinate after taking "ice", as crystal meth is sometimes known. Believing he was being chased by the police, the young man jumped from a seventh-story window and died, just one day before his wedding.
Hu said he will never forget the terrified look on the man's face as he ran through the room. At that point, he made a decision - never use "ice".
Although, it's unlikely to be the last tough decision Hu will have to make in connection with drugs, it was a wise one. In 2011, 65 percent of Chinese addicts were heroin users, a decline of 13 percent since 2008. By contrast, users of methamphetamine, the official name for crystal meth, accounted for 23 percent of addicts, up from 9 percent in 2008, according to the UN.
A few years ago, Hu's mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor that almost sent her blind. His mother's illness shocked Hu, so he decided to tell her the truth about his addiction and attempted to stop using drugs.
However, his mother seemed not to understand the damage heroin was doing to her son, until one day she discovered him crawling on the ground, face down. Without drugs, Hu was going through "cold turkey", the aches and pains, burning fevers and icy coldness that accompany total heroin withdrawal.
But it wasn't his mother's tears that prompted him to quit, so much as her subsequent actions. She gave him 100 yuan and said, "Don't torture yourself like that. If you're suffering that much, go and take some drugs to feel better."
Hu took the money, but instead of buying heroin, he bought methadone, a prescription substitute. He had made his decision. However, he didn't realize how hard quitting would be.
He tried to quit twice before he finally decided to admit himself for the three-month course. The first time he tried quitting, around a year ago, Hu only stayed at the center for one day. He couldn't stand the idea of seven days of compulsory treatment and without his loved ones around he found it hard to carry on.
Back home, he again took drugs, but after much thought, decided to make another attempt to quit. The second attempt lasted longer, a month, but he relapsed.
"It is rare that addicts completely stop taking narcotics," said Yao Jianlong, assistant professor of the Criminal Justice School at East China University of Political Science and Law. "Just like smoking, taking drugs is a lifelong 'habit' or, more accurately, a compulsion. The damage, both financial and physical, is obvious."
Water gush out of Xiaolangdi Reservoir on Yellow River
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