Nasha mukti kendra for families from Firozpur.

A border district sees it first

Firozpur families do not need anyone to explain what chitta is. This district sat in front of the problem before most of Punjab had a word for it, and the result is that two things are true here at once.

The first is that families recognise the signs earlier than families elsewhere. They have watched it happen in the next street. They know the weight loss, the borrowed money, the sold phone, the temper at three in the afternoon.

The second is that knowing has not made it easier to act. In a district where everybody knows, everybody also talks, and a family that has watched a neighbour's son become the subject of the whole street will often spend a year keeping it quiet rather than risk the same. That year is expensive. It is the single most common thing we wish families from this district had done differently.

If that is your house right now, the thing worth hearing is that a phone call is not a public act. Nothing leaves here with a name on it.

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿੱਚ

ਫ਼ਿਰੋਜ਼ਪੁਰ ਤੋਂ ਕਾਫ਼ੀ ਪਰਿਵਾਰ ਸਾਡੇ ਕੋਲ ਆਉਂਦੇ ਨੇ। ਆਸਰਾ ਡਰੋਲੀ ਭਾਈ, ਮੋਗਾ ਵਿੱਚ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਤੋਂ ਮਨਜ਼ੂਰਸ਼ੁਦਾ ਕੇਂਦਰ ਹੈ। ਆਪਣਾ ਮਨੋਰੋਗ ਡਾਕਟਰ, 50 ਬੈੱਡ, ਤੇ ਸਟਾਫ਼ ਚੌਵੀ ਘੰਟੇ। ਗੱਲ ਬਾਹਰ ਨਹੀਂ ਜਾਂਦੀ। ਫ਼ੋਨ ਕਰੋ +91 83601 40700।

हिंदी में

फ़िरोज़पुर से काफ़ी परिवार हमारे पास आते हैं। आसरा डरोली भाई, मोगा में सरकार से मंज़ूरशुदा केंद्र है। अपना मनोरोग डॉक्टर, 50 बेड, और स्टाफ़ चौबीस घंटे। बात बाहर नहीं जाती। फ़ोन करें +91 83601 40700।

Which parts of the district families come from

Firozpur city and the cantonment, and Zira, Guru Har Sahai, Talwandi Bhai, Makhu, Mamdot and the villages along the river and the canals. Families from the Faridkot side can read the page written for that district instead.

He is not a criminal, and that distinction is the whole treatment

In a border district the conversation about drugs is mostly a conversation about police, seizures and smuggling. That framing is hard on families, because it quietly puts the man in your house on the wrong side of a line, and families start behaving as though they are hiding a crime rather than treating an illness.

Dependence is a medical condition. It has a physical half and a mental half, and the mental half is the one nearly every centre ignores.

Behind the drug there is very often depression, anxiety, sleep that stopped years ago, or something that happened once and was never spoken about again. If nobody treats that, the man walks out clean after a few weeks and comes back to the same mind he left with, which is why families tell us the same sentence over and over: he was fine for a month. Aasra has its own consultant psychiatrist on staff, Dr. Amanullah Ghori, M.B.B.S., DPM. Most drug rehabilitation centres in this belt have no psychiatrist at all.

What families here bring him in for

• Chitta and heroin. By far the largest number, mostly younger men. How chitta is treated.
• Smack. How smack is treated.
• Doda and post. Older men more often than young, and treated as ordinary for so long that nobody counts it as a drug until the body gives way. How doda is treated.
• Alcohol. The one families try hardest to handle at home, and the one where stopping suddenly can cause fits and can kill. How alcohol is treated.

The government route in Firozpur

If money is the problem, look at the government side first. The civil hospital and the district health services run de-addiction treatment, and Punjab's OOAT programme provides outpatient opioid treatment at low or no cost. 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 are not going to talk you out of a free option you can actually reach. A great many people have got better through it. Families come to us when outpatient treatment 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 actually 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.

You can come and see the place before you decide anything, with the patient or without him. There is no appointment system.

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. We have handled this a few hundred times and we will tell you what has worked for families in the same position. 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 Firozpur hears anything from us.