Nasha mukti kendra in Mandi Dabwali.

A town on the line, and what that changes

Mandi Dabwali sits on the Haryana side of the Punjab border, and the built-up area runs straight into Punjab. For a family living here the state line is a line on a map and nothing else. People shop across it, work across it and marry across it.

The drug supply does not notice it either. What does notice it is everything official. Which state's de-addiction scheme you are eligible for, which civil hospital will take him, whose ration card and address proof the paperwork wants. Families lose weeks to that question alone, and some give up in the middle of it.

That is the practical reason this centre is here. We admit patients from the Haryana side and from the Punjab side, and the admission does not change. Nobody is sent away to find the right district office first.

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿੱਚ

ਆਸਰਾ ਮੰਡੀ ਡੱਬਵਾਲੀ ਵਿੱਚ, ਗੁਰੂ ਨਾਨਕ ਨਗਰ ਵਿਖੇ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਤੋਂ ਮਨਜ਼ੂਰਸ਼ੁਦਾ ਨਸ਼ਾ ਛੁਡਾਊ ਕੇਂਦਰ ਹੈ। ਪੰਜਾਬ ਤੇ ਹਰਿਆਣਾ, ਦੋਵਾਂ ਪਾਸਿਓਂ ਦਾਖ਼ਲਾ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। ਆਪਣਾ ਮਨੋਰੋਗ ਡਾਕਟਰ ਤੇ ਸਟਾਫ਼ ਚੌਵੀ ਘੰਟੇ। ਦਾਖ਼ਲਾ ਰਾਤ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਹੋ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ। ਫ਼ੋਨ +91 83601 40700।

हिंदी में

आसरा मंडी डबवाली में, गुरु नानक नगर में सरकार से मंज़ूरशुदा नशा मुक्ति केंद्र है। पंजाब और हरियाणा, दोनों तरफ़ से दाख़िला होता है। अपना मनोरोग डॉक्टर और स्टाफ़ चौबीस घंटे। दाख़िला रात में भी हो सकता है। फ़ोन +91 83601 40700।

Where the centre is

Guru Nanak Nagar, Mandi Dabwali. It is a residential centre, not a clinic that shuts in the evening, and there is no appointment system. Come and look at the place before you decide anything, with the patient or without him. The registration number is on the board at the gate.

Which areas families come from

On the Haryana side, Mandi Dabwali town, Kalanwali, Odhan and the villages between them. On the Punjab side, Malout, Gidderbaha, Lambi and Bariwala. Families ring from villages we have to look up on the map, and that is fine too.

Families further into Haryana usually use the Sirsa page instead, and those on the Punjab side towards Muktsar have a page for Sri Muktsar Sahib.

What families here bring him in for

• Chitta and heroin. The largest number, mostly younger men, and the one families discover last because it hides longest. How chitta is treated.
• Doda and post. Very common on both sides of the line, older men more often than young, and treated as ordinary for so long that nobody counts it as a drug until the body starts giving way. How doda is treated.
• Medical store tablets. Started for pain or for sleep and carried on long after the reason went away. How that is treated.
• Alcohol. The one families try hardest to handle themselves, and the one where stopping suddenly at home can cause fits and can kill. How alcohol is treated.

Why the short admissions keep failing

What we hear on the phone here is nearly always the same sentence. He was admitted somewhere, kept a few weeks, came home, and was back on it inside a month.

That happens for one reason. Only the body was treated.

Behind the drug there is very often something else that nobody looked at. Depression, anxiety, sleep that stopped years ago, or something that happened once and was never spoken about again. Treat the withdrawal only, and the man walks out clean into exactly the same mind he walked in with. Aasra has its own consultant psychiatrist on staff, Dr. Amanullah Ghori, M.B.B.S., DPM, not a visiting doctor. Most drug rehabilitation centres in this belt have none at all.

The government route

If money is the problem, look at the government side first. Haryana runs de-addiction treatment through its district health services, and on the Punjab side the OOAT programme provides outpatient opioid treatment at low or no cost. Which one applies depends on where you actually live. What is available and what it costs changes from time to time, so confirm the current position directly with the civil hospital or the district health office rather than trusting anything you read online, including this page.

We will not talk you out of a free option you can actually reach. Families come to us when that route has been tried and has not held, or when they want him somewhere else for a few months rather than at home.

What the treatment involves

About four months, residential throughout, in three stages.

• Medical detox first, under supervision, because the first week is the dangerous one. What detox involves.
• Counselling, daily, individual and in groups.
• Rehabilitation, the part most places skip. Routine, yoga, gym, sports, and enough time for the habit to lose its grip. The full programme.

Bringing someone who does not want to come

Almost nobody arrives here willingly. If he is refusing, that is not a reason to wait, it is the usual starting point.

Ring and tell us the whole situation, including the parts that are hard to say on the phone. Never plan it alone at the last minute, and never make a promise you cannot keep, because it costs you his trust for months afterwards.

Confidentiality

No name and no photograph leaves this centre without written permission from the family. The men in our video testimonials chose to speak. Most families do not, and that is completely normal. Nobody in Dabwali hears anything from us.