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A decade of freeing drug addicts

NAIMUL HAQ
Young Khurshid Mohammad, a British citizen, has been on dope for the last ten years. Considering his bright future as an intelligent and smart youth from a wealthy family settled decades back in UK he was admitted to a drug rehabilitation centre, for only male now, in the heart of the city. The same day Khurshid got admitted Maya from a slum in Mohammadpur suburbs walked out with honor and dignity claiming to have completely kicked the habit of abusing narcotics and changed his behaviour spending six and half months in the correction centre where addicts bring discipline in their life through persistent practice of day to day various learning process. As Khurshid walked in with his guardians in the corridor of the centre proud Maya in smiles and on way out advised Khurshid to have patience and maintain discipline. "I am now a
recovering addict and I would advise all others not to even try dope even if it means fun for a moment. There is no punishment on earth like being a drug addict. It may not be physically painful but socially, mentally and practically in all other aspects you are isolated. Eventually, you wear away inside when there is no return at one stage," said the young man from Bogra to be reunited with his family.
Like Maya about 700 mostly youths freed themselves from the curse of drug addiction at the centre that started almost a decade ago with a dream of bringing highest number of addicts under restoration scheme. With only one drug addict Brother Ronald Drahozal, a school teacher with the holy mission of serving humanity, set sail to rehabilitating thousands of drug addicts that was unexpectedly on the rise in the urban areas at the time of beginning of his noble mission with the slogan 'an addict is sick not bad not mad.' The mission was named Apon founded on the 1st of October 1994.
The centre, under his direction, was soon recognised as providing a much needed service to addicted persons and their families offering counseling and advocacy services for both parents and the addicted persons. Because of the increasing demand for basic addiction treatment in Bangladesh at that time, and the reputation and experience of APON, many people started to drop into the centre for admission and rehabilitation. "I have to admit that the centre is
unique in the sense that it teaches self confidence to quit drug abuse. Unlike most other addiction centres nothing is imposed here. From the very beginning one learns how to bring self control and maintain discipline in life," said Uday, a heroin addict and now an instructor for new comers. Uday, from Jessore, said, "The environment at the centre is such that new comers do not have to be instructed to follow discipline. Everyone is helping each other. In fact, it is like a picnic where we sing, smoke, cook, eat and play games and do exercise together in perfect harmony." Uday continued, "In last six and a half months, that is the length of stay for a resident to complete rehabilitation, was fantastic. No one ever quarreled and engaged himself in any fight. Many break down in emotions while leaving the centre. After all, six and a half months is enough to bring strong social intimacy and it is often hard to accept that the picnic is over."
APON adapted the Minnesota Model for drug addicts using 12 principle steps programme of alcoholic/narcotics anonymous therapeutic community based activities. After family discussions and willingness to give up drug abuse the addict is simply asked to maintain and remember "I am an addict and I want to get off drugs. Once admitted the adicted go through a process of confessing their sins and bring back discipline in life.
As it turned popular, more and more addicted persons were being admitted for primary treatment. Eventually, the centre, originally at Shajahan Road in
Mohammadpur, became the main centre for rehabilitation of addicted persons in the country then. Almost after a decade the centre now located at Iqbal Road in Mohammadpur in the city continues to admit largely poor and young addicts many of those pay little or nothing. "We never discourage anyone from being admitted here at the centre. Brother Ronald always says that money cannot be a barrier for an addict from seeking residential treatment here. He believes a person who wishes to free himself from drug abuse should have the right to do so and for that reason no one goes back without promises," said the Humayun Kabir, Programme officer of the residential rehabilitation centre of APON, (ashokti punarbashon nibash or addiction rehabilitation residence). Kabir continued, "In such rehabilitation centres strong antidote and remedial medicines are generally used for detoxification in the beginning of the programme for any addicted person. It is a common practice though but we don't use any drug at all. What we believe here is if an addicted person himself is convinced and pursues his strong will power to drive out the habit he can accomplish his goals of licking the habit no matter how hard we try with antidotes and other medicines. More importantly, once we admit an addicted person and he is free of any addiction for over 72 hours, it is generally taken as a rule that the person's withdrawal symptom if strong and he can continue to follow our programmes which are no magic but largely personal couseling,
exercise, prayer, group therapies, relaxations and family interaction from time to time. Apart from these I mentioned, we also have strict rules in the centre where every individual no matter which class of the society you come from has to make their own beds, cook food in groups, clean toilets, tidy rooms and verandahs, cleanse garden and nurture plants and play together while attending classes in training, and advocacy programmes."
"The environment which is created here is self-moving. There is strict discipline and petty punishment system where an offender is regarded as having committed serious misdeed and he himself is asked to decide how should he be punished for the misdeed," said Kabir adding, "We never see any addicted person here negatively and we always encourage people to talk to us or someone he likes to enable recovering from drug addiction."
Most of the residents seeking help are from poor community and are in their tender age. So to motivate, especially high-risk youngsters, it is relatively easy to convince them since they feel they have a future ahead and with the centre also runs workshops for skill woodwork and metal
work to train them for any possible employment if opportunity comes.
So, while learning complete discipline of life and being faithful to him the process of abstention from narcotics is pursued and at the same time the new addicted persons learn to respect those who are already half way or fully recovering addicts also in the
same centre. Without any failure every individual must learn to obey seniors and follow good practices of life "We don't have any magic here. It is practiced all over the world but the difference here is that people who seek help must learn to help themselves rather than depending on others to correct his sickness," said Kabir. The centre can accommodate roughly one hundred residents at a time but when there is pressure it is very difficult to accommodate the new comers. "We badly need space and a separate place in the open to expand our project," said another official of the centre.
The centre is now the focus of all those who wish to correct sins and go back to normal life. There is no denying the fact that APON is perhaps one of many such centres in the world where people got actual satisfaction for its services.
All names used in this feature are fictitious. We have also concealed identity and address of the addicts as per request of the centre and some individuals.
WHAT FACILITIES THE CENTRE GIVES?
The centre has an aftercare and halfway house with skill training and income generation project. This largely supports a post rehabilitation programme consisting of aftercare counselling, meetings, and a strong APON based network to assist with the continued recovery from drug abuse. "We have had very few dropping out from the programme and go back to old sins. Those who give up are mostly from rich family, as they often believe they can come back repeatedly since their parents can afford admission costs which is Tk 6500 per month," said Kabir saying, "Even there are occasions when we have noticed old addicts coming back to us for rehabilitation.
It's interesting to know that many of those who relapse into addiction confess they have had very different reasons for the sins unlike in most cases when addicts greet fresh addicts before having sex first time.”
APON's ACHIEVEMENTS
The centre never refused any admission and more than ninety eight per cent of the residents unit with family who never slipped back to old habit.
WHY DO YOUNG PEOPLE START USING DRUGS?
i Feel lonely and upset;
i There is very little that young people can do;
i Some are curious, some used to feel superior than others;
i Parents who always quarreled;
i Negligence;
i Persuaded by friends to try drugs;
i Failure in love affairs;
i To be a diligent person;
i To increase the number of sexual acts.