The purpose of this series of paintings is to encourage people to have more compassion for drug addicts. Drug addicts need understanding and help instead of condemnation and neglect. Drug addicts need help getting on the road to recovery.
I worked on this series of paintings for one year and two months.
Abandonment (1/9)
Overdose (2/9)
High (3/9)
Destruction (4/9)
Condemnation (5/9)
Behind a closed door (6/9)
Indifference (7/9)
Dying of life (8/9)
Help in rescue (9/9)
P. S. Appeal to organizations to help drug addicts and to individuals involved in this. If you are interested, you could somehow use my paintings and publish them on your platforms. This series of digital paintings is a non-commercial project aimed at influencing people and society to promote greater compassion for drug addicts. Write if you are interested, I will contact you by email and then I will send you my digital paintings in full size.
Nice artwork! You’re very talented.
Were all your pieces inspired by your own experience with addiction? Or from work/volunteer in the field?
Thanks a lot!
No, I started drawing this series of paintings after I saw a user on the Internet who spoke very viciously about drug addicts. I felt very outraged, I was outraged at the cruelty and coldness of his words, and this served as inspiration. I delved deeply into this topic, read a lot, tried to delve into and dismantle everything in order to better depict the situation of drug addicts, spent a lot of effort to explain this in my paintings, and to make the viewer feel compassion for drug addicts as much as possible.
_
However, later I unwittingly encountered a similar problem. I tried to treat myself with doctor-prescribed antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications (Simoda, Neogabin (Pregabalin, Gabapentin, Lyrica etc.) and Lamotrigine (Lamotrine etc.)). When I came off these medications (I did it slowly, as the doctor said), I began to have a really, really very terrible withdrawal syndrome. I’ve been off these medications for 9 or 10 months now, but I still have severe withdrawal symptoms, although milder than at first.
I’ll say right away that I never had the symptoms listed below before taking medications.
At first I was shaking very badly, there was constant trembling and panic attacks. More precisely, not even panic attacks, but constant panic, PANIC. Insomnia. Severe drowsiness. My armpits were very itchy. Individual muscles also twitched. It lasted so strongly for a month, later it became a little weaker, but still very strong. I shivered violently periodically for many months to come. The feeling of panic was terrible. Absolute apathy. High temperature.
Now I still have extremely high anxiety. My armpits still itch, although not as bad. There is still mild insomnia, although it is much weaker. Some muscles twitch every few days (several seconds now). And so on. This is after 9-10 months.
(Later I learned that for many people Neogabin (Pregabalin, Gabapentin, Lyrica, etc.) can generally be addictive, and it is very difficult to get off it).
(Also: I took Lamotrigine for only a year, I took the other medications for longer (all at the same time, and I came off them at about the same time). But it was because of Lamotrigine that while I was taking it, I had a feeling of constant nausea, which gradually went away when I stopped taking it).
The doctor did not warn me about this withdrawal syndrome: neither when he prescribed the medications, nor when we talked about the fact that I would refuse these medications. She also did not warn me about the side effects that were present. I feel betrayed and deceived.
I ran into the same thing when I was prescribed narcotics for pain management. The withdrawal was horrific and I ended up turning to the streets to get the same pills to avoid it. My doctor tried to wean me off but it wasn’t slow enough for me to adjust. Eventually, I became a full blown addict, taking whatever I could get my hands on to avoid the sick feeling, including fentanyl. I’m lucky to be alive. Thankfully, I had enough sense to get myself into a detox. The doctor that owns the detox became a good friend. She saved my life and I’m forever grateful.
I sympathize with you. It’s good that you’re doing well now)
I’m glad you are recovered from your addiction. I wish you happiness 
The paintings are vibrant and compelling, @AnastasiiaAsp: I love the way you contrast colour-vs-gray, and clear-vs-vague-border-lines; the way you manipulate size and shape; the way faces and feelings and lines of force are threaded through the work, both in prominent places and in vaguely-discernible background spaces; and the way all of it, together, draws attention to personhood (and presence, and agency, and power) in the lived experience of people recovering from addiction.
It reminds me of the works of Natalia Goncharova, not so much in the style, but more in how it is about the person-in-place, the moments of life which illuminate their humanity.
Thank you very much for such a detailed comment about my paintings, for such good words.
Wow. Personally (non-knowledgeable in art) so expressive and dramatic. I found them moving. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks a lot!
Wow these are amazing and really captures the deepness of addiction.
So much depth and thought and perhaps experience has gone into these.
I could look at these for hours!
Thank you for sharing 
Those are really beautiful, you are extremely talented!
Oh WOW!!! These are so captivating and powerful!!! This is an incredible expression of art, very meaningful and potent. I agree @Twizzlers, I could look at these and keep seeing more all day! Well done. 
These are beautiful
Wow, thank you for such nice words about my paintings. This is really important to me.
Thank you!!!
Thank you very much! I put certain meanings in each painting.
Thanks!!!
Wow! Oh wow! So powerful. Thank you for sharing these with us. 
