Stigma hinders recovery for former drug addicts

Stigma hinders recovery for former drug addicts

Debbie A. Lubis, The Jakarta Post, Bogor, West Java

A skinny teenager with hollow eyes was trying to hide his pain
when Minister of Health Achmad Sujudi visited him in the drug
rehabilitation ward at the Dr. Marzoeki Mahdi Hospital in Bogor
last Sunday.

"I wish my addict friends could get treatment here too. There
are still lots out there who need help, Sir," he said, lying in
bed with an intravenous drip in his arm.

He was going through the detoxification process to rid his
body of the putaw (low-grade heroin) he had used for six years.

For a week he went through drug withdrawal, with nausea,
vomiting, diarrhea, fever, insomnia, anxiety, spasms and physical
weakness.

"The withdrawal symptoms vary. They depend on the kinds of
drugs the patient has used. But the recovery stage is the most
critical period for patients after the withdrawal stage, because
they tend to crave drugs," the director of the hospital, Amir
Hussein Anwar, told The Jakarta Post.

The hospital, previously known as the Bogor Mental Hospital,
has treated 245 drug addicts, including a 40-year-old mother and
her nine-year-old daughter.

Amir urged the public and families not to discriminate
against, stigmatize or neglect drug users, because that would
prevent them from dealing with their problem.

"Most drug users, especially injecting drug users, are not
well-informed about hepatitis C, HIV or the mental illnesses that
they are susceptible to," he said during a commemoration of the
120th anniversary of the hospital.

Amir said 80 percent of drug addicts were vulnerable to
hepatitis C. He added that most of these could also have what was
called a "dual diagnosis" -- suffering from some form of mental
illness.

"Patients who abuse amphetamines are usually paranoid and have
hallucinations. But some 40 percent of the dual diagnosis
patients here can recover," he said.

Amir said his hospital aimed to raise awareness about the
barriers to mental health care, and also to provide solutions to
mental disorders by removing the myths and stigmas linked to such
disorders.

He said that during the recovery process, patients needed
encouragement from their peers and families to return to the
outside world.

Rudolf Valentino, a peer counselor at the hospital, said it
was important for the community to provide after-care support to
keep recovering addicts from becoming isolated and secluded.

"We are not throwaway people like public has said. We can also
achieve things, just like anybody else. Especially after we have
recovered," Rudolf, a former addict, said.