Narcotics Anonymous: Addicts helping addicts
JAKARTA (JP): It's Wednesday evening again. Outside a small hospital in South Jakarta, 12 recovering drug addicts come together for a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting.
Enthusiasm for the meeting to start is obvious.
They know that once they step into the meeting room, they can leave their masks at the door. They know they are in a place where they are accepted for who they are and for the promise of who they can become. They know everyone is there for the same purpose, which is to achieve a clean and sober life, free from drugs.
No one is interested in judging them, no one points accusing fingers at them. They can just simply be themselves. They can speak "junkie talk", a language of the heart, shared solely by the community of addicts across the globe. An addict knows the heart, the mind and the soul of an addict, and the one day at a time daily struggle of maintaining sobriety.
As the meeting starts members begin to share their current problems, thoughts, feelings, happiness, sadness and everything else under the sun related to their personal recovery. They trust that what they share will be kept anonymous and confidential. No one will reveal their names in public. It is not important who their parents are. NA members only care that the addicts who attend these meetings want to live their lives clean and sober, and are willing to do what it takes to ensure success.
How much does NA mean to them?
"A lot!" says Bono, 24. "Seven months ago, I was a raging addict. NA helped me accept my disease of addiction. I did not know how to stop using on my own. I went to various hospitals for help. It did not work. They gave me more drugs for sleeping, pain, headaches, for everything. It zonked me out, more than anything.
"They don't understand I have a problem with drugs. I used the drugs they gave me along with putauw (low-grade heroin) to get me high. NA makes me think, stop playing my junkie games, one day at a time. And it's free! It's hard to believe I am where I am today. My brothers in NA have been very supportive. I am grateful for my life today."
While Randy, 25, who stopped using on his own said, "I had not had a drink or drug in two years and my life didn't get any better. I've been in NA a month and a half and I feel so much better! It's truly a miracle. They make me feel and think and share!"
NA was founded in 1953 as a program by addicts and for addicts. It is fairly new in Indonesia and was until the present, limited to the Jakarta area. Yet, NA is gaining rapid popularity from many addicts wanting to stay clean and sober and recover from a destructive lifestyle that hurts themselves and other people around them. Many have destroyed their entire households physically and emotionally. Stealing, lying, cheating, violence and other destructive behavior often come included in the package of the addiction nightmare.
Several expatriate teenagers attempting to treat problems associated with putauw use started the first NA meeting in Jakarta on April 1, 1997, with the help of a senior NA member. NA has several meetings weekly now, two of which are held in Bahasa Indonesia. Approximately 20 to 30 young Indonesian men and women attend these NA meetings regularly. They attend NA through their own free will, usually after talking to an NA member and hearing about how others are staying clean and sober through NA.
In NA, members confront their difficulties in staying clean and sober. Kevin, 25, has been in the NA program for seven months now. "I bumped into a junkie friend yesterday who used to shoot putauw with me. My heart missed a beat. We exchanged pleasantries. I did not dare to ask whether he was still using. Thank God he did not ask me if I was. He looked awful. I could not relate to him anymore. It's like being in a different world inside!"
Programs like NA do make a difference. That is why NA may well become Indonesia's leading program for continued recovery, as the number of addicts are increasing and drug arrests are becoming part of our daily news.
NA has been very successful in preventing reformed drug user relapse, and provides ongoing support and aftercare toward a lasting recovery for addicts. However, you need to be a member to appreciate the difference NA can make in an addict's life. NA, like Alcoholics Anonymous, confronts addiction from inside the heart and mind of an addict. The group has the experience and knowledge to face the coming challenges and hardship addiction brings to Indonesia.
Yet many local health care professionals working in the area of addiction have yet to learn the wisdom of AA and NA. Some addicts were of the opinion that some so-called professionals in Indonesia are keeping addicts addicted for their own personal interests.
The Coordinating Board for the Implementation of Presidential Instruction No. 6 of 1971 reported that the total victims of drug addiction in Indonesia averaged 130,000 people annually. Research in 1998 by Prof. Dr. Hawari indicates this figure has increased tenfold to over 1.3 million addicts, 17.16 percent of which have died of an overdose or from drug related problems -- a total of 223,000.
Meanwhile, the Fatmawati Drug Dependency Hospital has reported that the number of drug addicts presenting at the hospital has increased from 1,500 in 1996, to 4,000 in only the first five months of 1999. This number could easily jump beyond 5,000 by the end of the year.
Fivefold
Minister of Social Services Yustika S. Baharsyah, in the launching of the Karang Taruna National Anti-Drug Task Force in East Jakarta on June 23, indicated that the market for drugs has increased more than four to fivefold compared with last year. He also stated that drug abuse had spread to all strata of the Indonesian community, including elementary schools and Muslim boarding schools (Pesantrens).
He is right. Many have been lured into using ecstasy, putauw, and shabu-shabu (methampethamine), all currently popular drugs. The young and old, students, executives and housewives are told by dealers that using shabu-shabu will help them lose weight and gain more energy, and that shabu-shabu can cure putauw addiction because it is not as addictive. Let us get this straight. Shabu- shabu is highly addictive and creates paranoia over a period of use.
In some countries such as the USA the police, judicial systems and courts now regularly compel individuals convicted of specific offenses under the influence of drugs and alcohol, to attend AA and NA meetings. These offenses include carrying illegal drugs, drunk driving, domestic violence, and other violations directly involving alcohol and drugs. AA and NA also hold meetings and bring their messages of recovery into hospitals, institutions, jails and prisons.
Both AA and NA are very effective in these institutional and confined settings when it comes to helping addicts. These programs certainly reduce the social cost resulting from crime connected with alcohol and drug abuse, estimated to cost over US$57 billion annually in the USA.
There are many men and women in jails and prisons today for criminal offenses directly related to drugs in Indonesia. However, we may have to wait several years before AA and NA may be allowed in jails and prisons here in Indonesia.
Yet many people outside NA and AA misunderstand these groups. Some question whether addicts can actually help other addicts.
George, 57, a American senior member of AA from Jakarta shared, "I have been clean and sober since 1972. I would have died on skid row if there was no AA. I am grateful each day for my sobriety. The NA program has the blueprint for happy living without any drugs. It is too bad our drug oriented societies can't or won't see that.".(Joyce/David Djaelani Gordon)