Helping addicts takes some tough love

Helping addicts takes some tough love

Leony Aurora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

"How do you tell if a kid is smoking a joint from a regular
cigarette?" asked the man in his 50s.

"If they blow on it like this," David Djaelani Gordon
answered, putting his thumb and index finger in front of his
mouth, miming a few short drags and passing the imaginary joint
to the next person.

His face creased into an imitation of someone getting high.

"What's the effect? How does it feel?" asked another parent.

David grinned. "Colors are brighter, music nicer, food tastes
better, even sex is better."

The men in the room guffawed in laughter, while the women
frowned or gave embarrassed smiles.

"If you try it, you'll just feel the sensation," David
continued. "But an addict won't be able to stop."

It was a rainy Sunday afternoon at the addiction treatment
center and recovery community of Yayasan Harapan Permata Hati
Kita (Yakita) in Ciawi, Bogor, south of Jakarta. Parents had been
visiting since 10 a.m. and, as usual, they gathered after lunch
at Bhisma house to attend the aftercare meeting.

It's then that the barriers come down and parents ask the
difficult questions they cannot ask of others. It's also an
opportunity for them -- free of the burden of shame or the
judgmental attitude of others -- to unload and share the strain
of coping with an addicted child.

Most of all, parents learn from David and his wife Joyce,
Yakita's directors, the right approach to helping their loved
ones and the understanding that addiction is much more than the
physical urge to get high.

"Addiction is an illness, and it will not go away just by
detoxification," said Joyce.

While some institutions use medication to ease the painful
withdrawal symptoms, Joyce believes this approach merely adds to
the problems, for recovering addicts will eventually have to be
weaned off those "helper" drugs -- a process that can take up to
a year in itself.

"You can't do detoxification with intoxification," she said.
At Yakita, addicts face up to the pain of withdrawal as they
undergo a 12-step program with nothing stronger than tea and the
solace of having people to talk to.

Detox cleanses the body, but the power of the mind and the
craving for another high can be much harder to control.

Prio, 28, has been through the revolving door of detox centers
for years, coming out of institutions only to slip up once he
fell in with his old crowd.

"I was clean for a time, but then I got bored. Life without
being high was no fun," he said.

The craving that addicts have to wrestle with each day is much
harder once they are outside the protective confines of the
center.

It's something that David knows only too well; an active
addict for 15 years of his life, he admitted, "I fight the
craving every single day".

His empathy and his willingness to talk frankly about his own
past makes it easier for the addicts and their parents to open up
about themselves.

"Armand," 32, has spent the last two years at Yakita, and has
stayed clean on trips outside the treatment center.

Even now, however, cravings hit several times a day, his
mother, "Nuni", said.

For Armand and his peers, the best approach to dealing with
their addiction is to take one day at a time, repeating their own
life mantra of, "Just for today".

"When Armand is battling it, I just ask him whether he wants
me to stay by him," said Nuni, who is fondly called "Mami" (mom)
by the patients at Yakita.

Other parents are not as calm in facing up to the situation.

"I wish I could talk to my mom when I crave drugs. But she
always panics," said "Bayu", another recovering addict.

People who are "normal", who have never been addicts, would
not understand what it feels like, said Bayu. "It's much easier
to talk to addicts and accept their feedback."

Although recovery centers provide a safe refuge for healing,
ultimately the addicts have to step back into the real world.

It's then that parents must practice tough love, a term
referring to the approach of giving addicts what they need, not
what they want.

"Dio", an addict who has been in and out of Yakita at least
four times, said the motivation to overcome his addiction this
time came from within him, boosted by his family's support and
uncompromising attitude.

"I have a 22-month-old baby and I really need to clean up. My
wife is really tough on me now. She always asks me precisely
where I am going. You can't give freedom to addicts ... She
stands by me and bears the hardship with me."

Some recovering addicts balk at the restrictions placed on
them once they return to their families. Bayu had his cellular
phone and car taken away, and was put on an allowance by his
parents.

"Even when I was allowed to go out, I was forced to take a
cellular phone and my mom would constantly call and nag me," he
said.

Bayu relapsed three days after getting out of rehab by
drinking alcohol with friends that his mom trusted because, "she
knew they were not doing drugs".

Five days later he used putaw (low-grade heroin) with money
from his girlfriend.

"Of course, she'll give me money when I ask, she loves me."

Choosing to mete out tough love to one's child is no easy
task, which is why parents need support from others in the same
situation. While the ultimate success of recovery hinges on the
addict's willingness to change, it's that push in the right
direction from their parents and loved ones that can make all the
difference in staying clean.