Nasha mukti kendra for families from Mansa.

He is already on the clinic tablets

A large share of the calls from this side start with the same sentence. He is registered at the government clinic, he collects his tablets, and it is not working the way everybody hoped.

Sometimes that means he is still using on top of the tablets. Sometimes the tablets themselves have become the thing he cannot do without. Sometimes he goes for a few weeks, stops going, and the family only finds out when the old habit is back.

None of that means the clinic was a mistake. For a good number of men it is the right first step and it holds. What it means is that for your son, at this point, an outpatient tablet and the same street every evening are not enough on their own.

One thing worth saying clearly: do not stop the clinic tablets suddenly at home. Coming off them causes real withdrawal. If he moves to residential treatment, the change is made by the doctor, under supervision, in the first stage here.

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿੱਚ

ਮਾਨਸੇ ਤੋਂ ਕਾਫ਼ੀ ਪਰਿਵਾਰ ਸਾਡੇ ਕੋਲ ਆਉਂਦੇ ਨੇ, ਕਈ ਵਾਰ ਸਰਕਾਰੀ ਕਲੀਨਿਕ ਦੀਆਂ ਗੋਲੀਆਂ ਤੋਂ ਬਾਅਦ। ਆਸਰਾ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਤੋਂ ਮਨਜ਼ੂਰਸ਼ੁਦਾ ਨਸ਼ਾ ਛੁਡਾਊ ਕੇਂਦਰ ਹੈ। ਆਪਣਾ ਮਨੋਰੋਗ ਡਾਕਟਰ, 50 ਬੈੱਡ, ਤੇ ਸਟਾਫ਼ ਚੌਵੀ ਘੰਟੇ। ਦਾਖ਼ਲਾ ਰਾਤ ਨੂੰ ਵੀ ਹੋ ਸਕਦਾ ਹੈ। ਫ਼ੋਨ +91 83601 40700।

हिंदी में

मानसा से काफ़ी परिवार हमारे पास आते हैं, कई बार सरकारी क्लीनिक की गोलियों के बाद। आसरा सरकार से मंज़ूरशुदा नशा मुक्ति केंद्र है। अपना मनोरोग डॉक्टर, 50 बेड, और स्टाफ़ चौबीस घंटे। दाख़िला रात में भी हो सकता है। फ़ोन +91 83601 40700।

Which areas families come from

Mansa town, and Budhlada, Sardulgarh, Bhikhi, Joga, Bareta and the villages spread between them. Families ring from places we have to look up on the map, and that is perfectly all right.

Families on the Bathinda side usually read the page for Bathinda, and those towards the Haryana line often use our centre at Mandi Dabwali.

Moving from outpatient to residential

Families worry that leaving the clinic means starting from nothing. It does not.

• Tell us on the phone what he is on now, how much, and for how long. That decides how the first week is planned.
• Bring his clinic card and any prescription he has. The doctor here reads them before anything is changed.
• The first stage is medical detox under supervision, which is where the clinic tablets are tapered properly rather than dropped.
• After that he is somewhere else for a few months, away from the routine that kept pulling him back, which is the part the clinic could never give him.

What families here bring him in for

• Chitta and heroin. The largest number, mostly younger men, and often the habit behind the clinic registration in the first place. How chitta is treated.
• Medical store tablets. Started for pain or for sleep, and sometimes mixed with the clinic tablets. How that is treated.
• Doda and post. Older men more often than young, and ordinary for so long that nobody counts it as a drug until the body starts giving way. How doda 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 tablet alone so often does not hold

A tablet can quiet the craving. It cannot reach the reason he started.

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. Aasra has its own consultant psychiatrist on staff, Dr. Amanullah Ghori, M.B.B.S., DPM, not a doctor who visits twice a week. Most drug rehabilitation centres in this belt have none at all.

Our programme runs about four months, residential throughout.

• Medical detox first, under supervision, because the first week is the dangerous one. What detox involves.
• Counselling, daily, individual and in groups, which is where the reason behind the drug gets dealt with rather than parked.
• Rehabilitation, the part most places skip. Routine, yoga, gym, sports, and enough time for the habit to lose its grip. The full programme.

If the clinic is working, stay with it

We are not going to talk you out of a free option that is actually holding. If he is going regularly, taking only what he is given, and the rest of his life is slowly coming back, that is a good outcome and it should be left alone.

What is available through Punjab's OOAT programme and the civil hospital changes from time to time, so confirm the current position directly with the clinic or the district health office rather than trusting anything you read online, including this page.

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 the 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 Mansa hears anything from us, and that includes the clinic unless you ask us to speak to them.