Nasha mukti kendra for families from Talwandi Sabo.

When a vow is not enough on its own

This is a town built around Takht Sri Damdama Sahib, and for a great many families here the first thing they try is the most natural one. He is taken to the gurdwara, he makes a promise in front of everybody, and for a few days the whole house believes it is over.

Then, somewhere in the second week, it is not.

Families tell us they feel ashamed of that, as though the vow failing says something about him or about them. It does not. The promise was sincere. What broke it was the body. A long dependence on chitta, doda or alcohol is not only a habit of the mind, it is a physical state, and the withdrawal that comes in the first days is something no amount of resolve can switch off.

So the honest way to put it is this: the vow and the treatment are not in competition. Treatment gets him through what the body is doing, so that the promise has a chance to hold.

ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿੱਚ

ਤਲਵੰਡੀ ਸਾਬੋ ਤੋਂ ਕਾਫ਼ੀ ਪਰਿਵਾਰ ਸਾਡੇ ਕੋਲ ਆਉਂਦੇ ਨੇ। ਸੁੱਖਣਾ ਤੇ ਅਰਦਾਸ ਆਪਣੀ ਥਾਂ, ਪਰ ਸਰੀਰ ਦਾ ਤੋੜ ਇਲਾਜ ਨਾਲ ਹੀ ਨਿਕਲਦਾ ਹੈ। ਆਸਰਾ ਸਰਕਾਰ ਤੋਂ ਮਨਜ਼ੂਰਸ਼ੁਦਾ ਕੇਂਦਰ ਹੈ। ਆਪਣਾ ਮਨੋਰੋਗ ਡਾਕਟਰ, 50 ਬੈੱਡ, ਤੇ ਸਟਾਫ਼ ਚੌਵੀ ਘੰਟੇ। ਫ਼ੋਨ +91 83601 40700।

हिंदी में

तलवंडी साबो से काफ़ी परिवार हमारे पास आते हैं। मन्नत और अरदास अपनी जगह, पर शरीर की तलब इलाज से ही निकलती है। आसरा सरकार से मंज़ूरशुदा केंद्र है। अपना मनोरोग डॉक्टर, 50 बेड, और स्टाफ़ चौबीस घंटे। फ़ोन +91 83601 40700।

Which areas families come from

Talwandi Sabo town, and Raman, Rama Mandi, Sangat and the villages around them. Families from Bathinda city itself usually read the page for Bathinda, and those towards the Haryana line often use our centre at Mandi Dabwali.

His faith does not have to be left at the gate

Families from here ask this before almost anything else, and it is a fair question. Nothing in the programme asks him to give up his faith or his daily path.

If that matters to your family, say so when you ring, and we will tell you honestly what a day at the centre looks like so that you can decide. Many families find that a man who has been clean for a few weeks returns to his faith more steadily than the one who made the promise while still in withdrawal.

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 the longest. How chitta 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 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.
• Medical store tablets. Started for pain or for sleep and carried on long after the reason went away. How that is treated.

Why willpower runs out in the second week

The first days of stopping are the hardest physically, and the second week is when the mind starts bargaining. That is why so many promises break at the same point.

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.
• Rehabilitation, the part most places skip. Routine, yoga, gym, sports, and enough time for the habit to lose its grip. The full programme.

The government route

If money is the problem, look at the government side first. Bathinda district runs de-addiction treatment through its civil hospitals and district health services, 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. 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.

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

In a town where most families know each other through the same gurdwara, this is the worry that keeps people from ringing at all. 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 Talwandi Sabo hears anything from us.