Smack de-addiction treatment

How smack differs from chitta

In common use around here, smack usually means the brown, less refined form, and chitta means the white powder. Both are heroin at the base. The brown form is typically smoked on foil, the white is more often snorted or injected.

For treatment the difference matters less than people think. The dependence, the withdrawal and the programme are broadly the same. What changes is how far along the person usually is by the time the family calls. If you are not sure which one he is using, read our page on chitta treatment as well.

What it does over time

Sleep goes first, then appetite and weight. The person becomes slow and distant, with pinpoint pupils and long periods of nodding off. Constipation is almost universal and rarely mentioned.

Money problems follow quickly, because the dose has to keep rising. Work becomes impossible to hold on to. Where foil is shared or needles are used, hepatitis and other infections enter the picture.

The withdrawal

It begins within about half a day of the last dose. Cramps, watering eyes and nose, gooseflesh, vomiting, loose motions, severe body pain and a restlessness that makes lying still impossible. It peaks in two to three days.

It is not usually fatal on its own, but dehydration from repeated vomiting and diarrhoea can become serious, and the mental state during those days is what drives people straight back to the drug. That is the whole reason for supervised detox.

How it is treated here

Medically supervised detox with symptom control, staff awake through the night, and fluids where needed.

Full psychiatric assessment by our own consultant, because untreated depression or anxiety underneath is the single most common reason a clean person relapses.

Then about four months of residential rehabilitation. Daily counselling, group work, family sessions, and a fixed routine of yoga, gym and sport so that the day is never empty.

Before you call

It helps if you know roughly how long it has been going on, how much he is taking, whether he has been admitted anywhere before, and whether there have been fits or blackouts. Bring any medicines and reports with you. None of it is essential. Ring us either way.

Nothing you tell us goes anywhere else. No name and no photograph leaves this centre without written permission from the family.

Where this information comes from

This page is written at the centre and checked by our consultant psychiatrist before it goes up. Where we describe how a drug behaves or how withdrawal works, we follow published guidance from bodies such as the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre at AIIMS, and the World Health Organization. You can read our editorial policy.