Parents look to rehab centers to get kids off drug habit

By Yogita Tahil Ramani

JAKARTA (JP): Some teenagers choose to snort off nagging mental agitation by "chasing the dragon", the drug user's euphemistic term for imbibing heroin through a straw put up the nostrils or having it diluted, heated and then injected into the bloodstream.

Jetting drug-addicted children between countries and wheeling them from one rehab center to another for years in search of a cure is done through necessity by many parents, according to Nuryani Yahya, a founder of the first therapeutic community center in Sawangan, Bogor, West Java.

Nuryani was a speaker at a seminar on drug abuse here organized by the foundation running the center, Yayasan Titihan Respati, last month. Several parents shared their experiences.

Some had succeeded in weaning their kids off drugs, but the reprieve was short-lived.

"What parents are most confused about is how to get children already off drugs to stay off them," Nuryani said.

"Maintaining their abstinence, other than the struggle to get them off drugs, is a major concern of parents today."

According to Malaysian drug counselor Fadilan, a therapeutic center makes the "drug abuser realize his or her worth as a human being" without the crutch of artificial substances.

Like well-known religion-oriented rehabilitation centers such as Suryalaya, Tasikmalaya in West Java, a therapeutic community center also features spirituality but has professionals working with the residents. Counselors include former drug addicts.

Fadilan, a former drug user who has succeeded in staying clean for nine years, told of his experiences with drugs and the aid of a center.

A drug user since 16, Fadilan said that there was nothing about "taking them (drugs) that was innate... it is a learned behavior, just like smoking and drinking.

"I started off with smoking cigarettes... I graduated to pot and then putauw (heroin). (I) went to jail four times... 10 years later I entered a TC center in Singapore. It changed my life."

The shock of finding your child is hooked on drugs is compounded when you are in the public eye.

A speaker representing parents, said it was her first public admission that her child used drugs. After addressing the audience at length she rushed out of the room, evading the press.

Her 18-year-old is currently undergoing rehabilitation at a center in Malaysia. Above all, she said, parents should not keep blaming themselves, but concentrate on being loving but firm with the child.

Among its other benefits, she said a treatment center was about counselors helping children foster positive changes.

"TC is about a group of individuals with similar problems helping each other overcome life-threatening habits ... it is about ex-drug users trying to awaken the sense of belonging in people who have lost sense of self-worth and who use drugs to regain that sense back," said the woman, who is also a public figure.

Bogor center Yayasan Titihan Respati, built on 3.5 hectares and housing currently five primary employees including psychologist Joy Mangowal Ramedhan, was founded earlier this year. Currently it has 12 residents undergoing rehabilitation.

Nuryani said that parents lent a hand in the founding of the center, coming up with about Rp 60 million.

Malaysian expert Syarif Hamid explained some of the primary reasons children resorted to drugs.

"The world is becoming more mobile and transient... the increase in single parenting, both parents working, parents' hectic lifestyles and fewer extended families."

The 20-year-old expert added that broken families, next to biochemical dysfunctions and inborn vulnerability, was also a main cause.

"Children take narcotics up as a source of reference because values become abstract to them... they see parents fighting, some getting divorced, friends taking up drinking and smoking pot and they want to fit in... there could be a number of reasons."

Syarif listed warning signals of drug abuse.

"Defying norms and rules, lying constantly, rebellious in nature and unpleasant in presence of adults, relates to particular dressing, code of conduct and an inclination toward thrilling music," Syarif said.

"Try not confronting them directly about it... that is equivalent to pointing an accusatory finger at them. It would make them withdraw from you."

He explained that there would come a point when the truth would become glaringly evident.

"Every parent with a child using drugs will know this... children start asking money from parents, they get lost for a couple of days or weeks... children resort to stealing, from cell phones to jewelry," Syarif said.

He told of a more discreet way for parents to find out the truth.

"When your child gets lost too often, start snooping around his or her room. Do not have that mindset that my child is taking drugs... just do your own snooping around.

"You might find tin foil here, a needle there... the point is when you do so, try to break it as gently as possible to your child that even though you know, you are not the enemy and you want to help."

Normal

Syarif explained that most parents made the mistake of dealing with experienced drug users as people who were trying to overcome emotional instability.

"For them (experienced drug users), it is about two things: pain and pleasure," he said.

"It is no more about getting high, but about getting normal ... stabilized."

He said heroin taken in its purest content could cloud senses for more than four hours.

"The problem is dealers want fast money, more profit," Syarif told The Jakarta Post.

"So they sell adulterated goods... either diluted or metabolized. A person could therefore take in up to 20 milligrams to 50 milligrams a day."

Chairman of the Association of Indonesian Psychiatrists Dadang Hawari queried the oft-cited low official figures on drug abuse in the country.

"The official figure nationwide is 0.065 percent of the total population (some 200 million)," said the psychiatrist with 28 years' experience.

"The unofficial figure? 10 times that."

A 1990 nationwide study conducted by the psychiatrist nationwide children aged from 13 to 17 years found that 97 percent consumed narcotics, alcohol and other addictive substances, clumped under the term NAZA.

Eighty-eight percent took them up to overcome stress, depression, fear and insomnia in contrast to 36 percent who used the substances for pleasure.

"According to the study, NAZA is 88 percent alcohol use, 44 percent hypnotic-sedative-use, and 30.7 percent heroin," Dadang said.

Their effects can be disastrous.

"They contribute to 65.3 percent of fights and other violent acts and 58.7 percent of traffic accidents."

For more information on the therapeutic center and on providing financial and other contributions, contact Yayasan Titihan Respati at Tel. 230-5342 or its address of Jl. Surabaya No 38, Central Jakarta.

The contact number of its center, located at Curug village, Sawangan regency, Bogor, is (0251) 618-044/45.