Own It

Can running help you accept yourself?

A Joburg Man’ s journey – from the madness of drugs to the joy of finishing one of the world’s most iconic marathons.

- Lisa Abdellah

HELLO. MY NAME IS COSTA CARASTAVRAKIS, and I am an addict.

I remember the atmosphere on that crisp, autumn morning when I ran the New York City Marathon. There was music: Frank Sinatra’s New York, New York was played at the starting line, and when we ran through Harlem, there was a gospel choir of some 300 singers. On First Avenue, thousands of spectators had formed what looked to me like a ‘corridor’ – five or six people deep – at the edges of the route.

I motivated myself to the finish by repeating a mantra: “Own it, bitch!”

There is no greater feeling than finishing that race, and then seeing your name appear in the New York Times the following morning. When I crossed the finish line – my first marathon – I felt healthy, fit and happy. The madness of addiction seemed a distant memory.

It’s hard to imagine that just years earlier, in 2005, you would’ve found me in a deserted crack den on the outskirts of Mexico.

I was backpacking there at the time, and had ended up on the Riviera Maya, in Tulum. I stayed at a beautiful resort on the beach – where I hung out with a crowd of Americans for a week, drinking tequila and smoking weed. When their holiday came to an end and they flew back home, I was left sitting in my hotel room by myself.

Feeling lonely, I went to a random nightclub. It was there I met a DJ, and he asked me if I’d like to get some drugs with him. We walked to a little house, on the edge of a little town – it was obvious he’d been there before. It was deserted, dusty, old, and it had broken windows. Once inside, we used a bag of crack cocaine. It blew my mind, because that’s what crack does; I liked how it just switched me off. So I gave him more money, which he used to buy three more bags.