Narcotics Anonymous: Addicts helping addicts

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)