The Journey Toward a Dream That Became an Awakening

Treatment at Predná Hora became my final refuge.

It was a place where people learned how to breathe again, how to believe again, and, above all, how to live again.

Everything there followed its own rhythm.

Breakfast.

Group therapy.

Lectures.

Sports.

Silence.

A silence that was sometimes louder than the greatest scream.

A silence in which you were forced to stand face to face with everything you had once hidden behind a winning ticket or another bet.

One evening, Ivan—a fellow patient whom I came to see as a kindred spirit, trapped in the same swamp of gambling addiction—and I were sitting in what everyone jokingly called the "conspiracy room."

That was when Miroslav walked in.

There was a calmness in his eyes that the rest of us had long forgotten.

He seemed composed, thoughtful, almost as if he already knew the answers to questions that were still tormenting us.

Then he presented us with what sounded like an offer from another world.

A job in the Netherlands.

Cleaning scaffolding.

Company apartments.

Excellent pay.

According to him, it was only for friends.

For people who knew what rock bottom felt like.

For the chosen few.

It sounded too good to be true.

And perhaps that was exactly why we wanted so desperately to believe it.

I know I did.

I immediately began calculating how quickly I could pay off my debts.

How many months it would take before I could finally start over.

I would leave Bánovce behind.

Disappear from my old life.

Vanish from the memories of everyone who associated my name with shame and failure.

I would be far away.

And, most importantly...

I would have Ivan with me.

For once, I wouldn't have to face everything alone. As the news spread through the treatment center, the reactions came like an avalanche.

"A gambler never trusts another gambler," the therapists warned us.

"He is a manipulator. He may lie even when he has no reason to."

But we simply brushed their words aside.

"We've been through hell together," we told ourselves.

"Why would he lie to us?"

After we were discharged, we met one of his associates in Brezno.

A few brief instructions.

A handful of practical details.

Bus tickets stored on our phones.

The journey would take us from Trenčín, through Prague, and on to Rotterdam.

Hope echoed in our minds.

For the first time in a long while, our hearts carried a destination instead of fear.

During the trip, I pointed out places to Ivan.

"I've been here before."

I remembered my years driving a delivery van across Europe.

The Netherlands was not unfamiliar to me.

And yet this time, it felt different.

This was supposed to be a new beginning.

When we stepped off the bus at the enormous station, I sat on my travel bag, watching the crowds of strangers passing by.

For a brief moment, I felt as though I had walked into my own dream.

We had made it.

We smiled.

Neither of us could believe everything had gone so smoothly.

But the dream dissolved...

before it even had the chance to become reality.

The car that came to pick us up delivered the first shock before we had even reached our destination.

"You won't be living together," the driver told us.

"You'll each be staying in a different house, about three kilometers apart."

My stomach tightened.

Something inside me quietly broke.

Even then, I kept telling myself we would manage somehow. When I finally arrived, what awaited me looked nothing like the apartment I had been promised.

Bare walls.

Mosquitoes.

Bloodstains.

A suffocating smell.

Stifling heat.

No air conditioning.

When I opened the window, I discovered that it overlooked a flat asphalt roof radiating even more heat into the tiny room, turning it into something that felt like an oven.

At that moment, frustration, anger, and disappointment collided inside me.

And with them came a decision.

I wasn't staying.

I would leave everything behind in that place and walk to Ivan.

I had only a rough idea where he was staying.

Nothing more than a general direction.

But I knew I had to get out.

Immediately.

Every minute I wasted felt like money slipping through my fingers, and I needed to know whether I was overreacting—or whether someone else saw what I saw.

I needed Ivan to tell me I wasn't losing my mind.

So I started walking.

No map.

No navigation.

Just a stranger crossing an unfamiliar city.

Every step fueled my anger.

The sun beat down relentlessly on the back of my neck, my clothes clung to me with sweat, yet I kept moving.

I stopped people on the street.

Asked for directions.

Made wrong turns.

Eventually, I found the house.

Ivan opened the door.

The expression on his face told me everything I needed to know.

He felt exactly the same.

It was the kind of look that needed no words. We sat down together and booked bus tickets back online.

For once, luck was on our side.

The very same bus that had brought us to the Netherlands was returning the following day.

The only problem was that we could only afford tickets as far as Prague.

That night, I slept on the floor of a room where it was impossible to sleep...

or even to think.

All you could do was endure it.

The next morning, I took a shower, thanked everyone, and set off to collect the belongings I had left behind.

One of the residents kindly offered to help me carry my bags and showed me how to navigate the local public transport.

Together, we returned to the house.

Everything happened in silence.

I packed my things, boarded the bus, and left the place where my new life was supposed to begin.

This time, neither of us dreamed.

We sat quietly, watching the Dutch streets disappear behind the bus window.

I felt empty.

Disappointed.

Exhausted.

And yet...

a small part of me was proud.

Proud that I had turned back before it was too late.

When we arrived in Prague, nothing was waiting for us.

Only dry bread rolls at the bus station...

and the bitter taste of disappointment.

But there was something else waiting too.

A decision.

In the meantime, Ivan had found temporary work in a warehouse in Kralupy nad Vltavou.

A contact.

A glimmer of hope.

A destination.

I still remember sitting at the station, chewing on a dry bread roll because I couldn't afford anything else, counting the coins in my pocket just to buy my next ticket.

Rock bottom.

But this time...

it was different.

It was no longer a place of despair.

It was the kind of rock bottom from which I refused to dig myself any deeper.

I no longer wanted to simply survive.

I wanted to understand.

In Kralupy nad Vltavou, another battle awaited us—criminal record certificates, the post office, employment agencies.

It was chaos.

But it was our chaos.

And perhaps...

it was also the beginning of something new.

No, it wasn't a Dutch fairy tale.

It was reality.

And reality has a way of teaching its hardest lessons when we least expect them.

They hurt.

But they also change us.

The story of Kralupy nad Vltavou, however, deserves a chapter of its own.

– JK –