Patients recount their addictions

TASIKMALAYA, West Java (JP): The lack of love, care and a good home environment often forces children on to the streets where they are introduced to drugs.

In many cases they enjoy the drugs because they temporarily ease their pain.

Pondok Inabah, an Islamic drug rehabilitation center, understands the problem well. They smother the patients with love and teach them about religion. That is the main treatment and it works. Drug addicts' conditions get better after several weeks of intensive treatment at the center.

Even after recovering many addicts refuse to go home and stay to do voluntarily work.

The Jakarta Post talked to several patients recently to get their stories on how they became drug addicts.

Dewi, 28, was born rich. She had everything she needed. As she could afford almost anything she had many friends. But the money could not to buy her mother's love. Nor could it stop her parents' quarrels.

Dewi did not feel comfortable living at home because of the fights. "It was an inferno," she said.

The longer she stayed away the more comfortable she felt.

"Nobody stopped me. Both of my parents were so busy with their own business," she said.

She seemed happy but it was not real happiness. In fact, she was suffering. One day, her friends offered her a barbiturate pill to help ease her pain. She found it worked. She was only 15.

Dewi became addicted to a variety of pills like Megadon, BK, Rohipnol and Ecstasy. She took drugs for more than 12 years and was addicted when she went to university three years ago.

Her parents were surprised when they found out last year their daughter was a drug addict. But they were too busy with their work. Fortunately, a relative took her to Pondok Inabah in Tanjungkerta village near Tasikmalaya, about six hours from Jakarta.

After three months intensive treatment she was no longer an addict.

"I now can see a bright future in front of me," said Dewi, now 28.

Dewi said "I don't hate my mother but I never got her love like Ibu Gaos gave me,"

Gaos is the chairwoman of the women's ward where she was treated.

Dewi hoped her parents would lead a peaceful life.

"I hope my mom and dad want to join me to pray to Allah so that God will open their hearts widely," said Dewi.

Anggi, 16, also lacked her parents' love and care.

Her parents divorced when she was small. She was an only child. Like Dewi, she had money.

"They gave me everything I wanted except love because they were overwhelmed with their work," Anggi said.

At 12 she started smoking marijuana and eventually moved on to cocaine. Sometimes she injected drugs.

"At the age of 14 I was already selling heroin and Ecstasy pills in Jakarta and Bali," she said.

Rico comes from a religious and happy family in the wealthy Central Jakarta suburb of Menteng. Although his parents were busy with their activities, they still had time to be close to their children. His parents were very upset when they realized their son was a drug addict.

Rico, 18, said it was his brother who introduced him to drugs when he was 10.

His drug (particularly heroin) dependency worsened when his parents sent him to Australia to study economics.

During a holiday last year Jakarta police arrested him in Menteng and sent him to the Inabah rehabilitation center.

"It might have been be my parents who asked the police to send me here," he said.

Julie, 23, a drug addict from Brunei Darussalam, said: "I started to smoke and take (barbiturate) pills, such as Rohipnol, when I was 15 because I couldn't stand seeing my parents quarrel for days. The pills made me happy and sleepy. The pills also made me really sick but I kept on taking them until I became addicted. It was better than hearing my parents' quarrel," she said.

Jimmy, 18, from South Jakarta said "at the age of 14 I tried taking some barbiturate pills. Two years later, things turned worse after I took cocaine while studying in Texas, the United States."

His parents later sent him to Australia but he did not get better.

"I was away from my parents and buying such stuff was no big problem for me because my parents were successful business people."

Noorisa, a 15-year-old Singaporean girl said she began taking pills when she was 13. Her parents were so busy with their work that they did not have any time for her.

"I was free to take drugs with friends," she said.

Ali, 18, from Cinere, South Jakarta, was also from a wealthy family. But he was not happy because his parents always fought.

"I"ve taken drugs, including pills, marijuana, heroin and injections since I was 12 because I was really fed up with my family problem. I was involved in a series of crimes, such as car stealing and student brawls," he said.

Two years ago, his parents sent him to a high school in Melbourne, Australia. Away from home Ali kept taking drugs.

"When I was in Melbourne, the local anti-narcotics police arrested me. My parents were very angry with me and sent me to Inabah." (bsr)