'We could meet only for two hours at the bus-stop and it was very hard to have to see her leave,' he said.

His mother cannot stay with him here as Rudi cannot afford to rent a place of his own, and is temporarily staying at a friend's flat.

He began taking drugs at age 16 in 1995, while studying in Johor. His family had moved there in 1986 when his father found a job there.

His father passed away and his mother remarried.

Rudi started with marijuana and progressed to heroin within three months.

He said: 'I was addicted though I kept telling myself I could stop any time I wanted to.'

He told his family about his addiction only in 1998 when he had to return to Singapore for his national service.

'My parents helped me go through a cold turkey treatment. It worked, and I managed to kick my habit before I came back to Singapore,' said Rudi.

Then he picked up his drug habits again, working as a waiter in nightclubs.

He also started to experiment with party drugs like ecstasy, ketamine and amphetamines.

Rudi said he lost many of the jobs he found because of his drug habits. He would fail to show up for work at times.

His girlfriend tried to persuade him to kick the habit, but he resisted.

In 2004, they got married, and he stopped taking drugs for a year.

'But I became an alcoholic instead, and after a year, I went back to any drugs I could lay my hands on,' said Rudi.

In 2006, his wife filed for divorce.

'She finally grew tired of my empty promises to quit my drug addiction and said she couldn't wait for me any more,' he said.

Still Rudi said he did not regret his drug addiction until this year when he discovered he was HIV-positive.

He said he now avoids his former drug addict friends.

'Some of them have HIV but they continue with their drug addiction because they want to escape the reality,' he said.

Rudi hopes that others can learn from his mistake.

'You think you can trust your friends, share needles and get high together. But you could also get HIV and spread it without knowing.'

This story was first published in The New Paper on Dec 14, 2008.