Among the 16.500 participants, who started one of the most popular European marathons today at 9.30:XNUMX am from the Olympic Stadium in Amsterdam, will be Nebojša from Kolasin - Neno Ćetković.
The famous athletic competition means more to him than other competitors - he said he went to Holland for "another piece of himself and another victory over himself".
He registered the first after participating in the Belgrade Marathon. By participating in marathons, Nebojša marks months without drugs and alcohol. The forty-two-year-old, former athlete, was in the hell of addiction from the nineties of the last century until last year.
"I'm going to Amsterdam for a part of that former Nebojša basketball player. They say "if you want to change your life, run a marathon". In my life, that sentence has a literal meaning, and participation in the Belgrade Marathon was a turning point in my life. Belgrade was dedicated to my mother and my children, this second marathon means that I woke myself up. In Belgrade, I spent a lot of time in the world of drugs and alcohol, so it was very important for me to return to sports in that city".
According to Kolašnac, the time it will take to overcome the slightly more than 42 km long track, which passes by the biggest sights of Amsterdam, is not important.
For him, athletics races are a way to show how you can get out of the "vicious circles of addiction". It is important, Nebojša claims, that one moment "when you honestly face who you have become and start gathering strength to fight with yourself".
"The disintegration of my life began with the disintegration of Yugoslavia. I neglected what I was, what my mother taught me, a whole system of values was collapsing around me, everything I loved and valued... I succumbed, so instead of showing my "manliness" by the number of baskets I shot and the number of training sessions, I started to prove it with the amount of alcohol I drank. drinks. Later came drugs, all kinds... And so began the forgetting of what I am and who I am. Fortunately, narcotics and alcohol did not completely destroy me, what remained was what later made me successfully break away from them".
Nebojša says that his recovery began with a visit to family friends in Sweden. There, former fellow citizen Marina Vlahović provided him with support and motivation, and he started running with her. He achieved his first victories over himself, he remembers, "running through the Viking forests".
"Marina is a wonderful woman, among other things, and a good marathon runner. In addition to the enormous sisterly support and love, she instilled in me self-confidence and faith that I can return to Kolašin and look my fellow citizens in the eye. With her I learned to "walk" again. She brought me back to everything I left behind because of drugs and alcohol. It wasn't easy when I came back. It is very difficult to go out into the street, among people, with the burden of a former drug addict and alcoholic. Nevertheless, many people supported me, many of them believed that healing was possible, that I would have the strength..."
Nabojša is aware that he still has many life and athletic races ahead of him. For everything, he says, he feels strength. His plan is to participate in marathons in Chicago, Boston, Tokyo, London. The crown of his career will be if he succeeds in running the marathon in Australia.
“I think I can do it. I also think that many are capable of similar struggles. We live with the attitude that we are a heroic country with a heroic past. Why wouldn't each of us decide to be a hero of everyday life, by winning here and now, by changing what poisons life, what destroys the family, what harms us and others, what causes pain...? That's courage.”
When he runs, for the first 30 kilometers he thinks only of his mother
According to Kolašinac, the prerequisite for protecting a child from vice is the family and the support of both parents. He always received love, support, and tenderness from his mother, he says. That was not enough, because he grew up without a father. That "handicap", claims Nebojša, marked his adolescence.
"Perhaps the decisive moment for my transformation was when I realized that I was doing the same to my children. I indulge in vices and leave them fatherless. That probably made me aware. Those emotions, of a child who grew up without his father's love, are still strong in me. For example, when I run, the first 30 km of a marathon I think of my mother, her care and protection, and towards the end I only think of my father. The heart begins to pump and I gain strength for a much longer distance..."
Employers, don't shy away from hiring ex-addicts
Nebojša, he says, will devote the rest of his life to the mission of showing young people that drugs and alcohol are not the purpose. For this purpose, he plans to establish an association, which would be a refuge for all those who want to get out of the jaws of addiction, but also a place for educating young people.
"My appeal to employers is not to shy away from hiring former drug addicts and alcoholics. We are no worse workers than others. Perhaps it could be said that we have a different, more penetrating strength, which we have shown in the struggle with our illness. We are looking for a new chance, we are fighters. Employment will be a helping hand on the way to a healthy life". Kolašinac is in favor of stricter control over the serving of alcohol to minors. This, he says, is of crucial importance. Minors must not have access to even a drop of alcohol.
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