Once an Addict, Now a Counselor
Galih Pakuan gives two year at most for addicts. In these two years, addicts are taught many skills to manage their lives in line with public norms and to re-adjust themselves emotionally with the environment.
Evidence of drug distribution.
Seemingly at high speed, the car approached Andri Auzal Nizar, 40, on his motorbike. Andri then accepted the challenge from the motorist, who approached him from the opposite direction.
Andri was then defeated in the race. He fell from his motorbike, got thrown under the car and his motorbike was thrown off to who knows where.
Andri was half conscious after his nearly-fatal accident in Lampung on the night before Idul Fitri in 2008. He only remembered that people dragged him out from under the car and took him to a hospital. It was only after he regained consciousness that he realized that the car driver was neither driving the car at high speed or wanting to hit him. In fact, the car was in a complete stop. It was just that its lights were glaring.
“I was very drunk and had just left a drug party,” said Andri at Putra Permadi social rehabilitation center (PSPP) in Galih Pakuan, Putut Natug village, Ciseeng, Bogor regency, on Friday (6/3/2018).
Because of the accident, Andri got five stitches on his forehead and he had wounds all over his body. “No one in my family sympathized with me. They all jeered and considered it a risk that I took as a drug addict,” Andri said.
Jeers from his family members offended him. For years since the early 1990s, he was often jeered by his relatives who were aware of his habit of taking cannabis and morphine.
The nearly-fatal accident was a turning point for him. “I was grateful that God still let me live. At that point, I decided to go into rehab,” he said.
Andri got a positive response from his family. They then took him to PSPP Galih Pakuan. In his first days in the state-owned rehabilitation center, Andri felt tortured. He needed to spend his day in a community with endless activities all day long. He was already awake at 4:20 a.m. and only went to bed again at 10 p.m. with other members of his group under guidance from counselors.
PSPP Galih Pakuan head Beni Sujanto said that the rehab center implemented a community therapy method. Addicts are gathered in what is similar to a family unit. They are responsible for the cleanliness and orderliness of the rehab center as well as the management of rehab activities.
In the “household” everyone take turns in different roles. Their similar background as addicts and goal of releasing themselves from the snares of narcotics unite them in empowering each other.
Beni said he guaranteed that all addicts in the rehab center are cleansed of narcotics. He routinely holds urine tests but the exact schedule was never announced.
Addicts in the rehab center are required to take a six-month core program. Afterwards, they are ready to return to life outside. However, the social infrastructure in Indonesia is sometimes unprepared to welcome them back. It is difficult to erase the stigma that former drug addicts are public enemies.
Galih Pakuan gives two year at most for addicts. In these two years, addicts are taught many skills to manage their lives in line with public norms and to re-adjust themselves emotionally with the environment. They were also given vocational skills to ensure that they can be productive in life.
Unpreparedness to rejoin the society after getting out of the rehab center was felt by Ramadhani Ibrahim Zulkarnain, 19. Before he went into rehabilitation at Galih Pakuan, he once underwent rehabilitation in Yogyakarta after he was arrested by the police three years ago. After undergoing a one-year process and let go, he relapsed at home.
“I could not bear the stigmas from the people closest to me. I was shunned and ignored. I thought that, rather than being humiliated again and again, I just became a [drug] user again,” said that former meth user and dealer.
The one-year rehabilitation in Yogyakarta only managed to instill an orderly daily life pattern in him. However, at his level of maturity, he did not yet understand the dangers of narcotics. He still enjoyed easy access to narcotics.
Ibrahim has now convinced himself to leave narcotics behind. After he went into rehab in Galih Pakuan, he said his parents have paid more attention to him. He said that he had never felt that attention before.
Ibrahim has spent 11 months in rehab at Galih Pakuan. After completing the six-month core program, his status was upgraded from resident to assistant counselor. In the position, he is required to help counselors hold activities for regular residents.
Beni said that currently the rehab center had 245 addicts. They live in two barrack-style dormitories. Each dormitory has between 15 and 20 former addicts serving as assistant counselors. They also join in activities in the 7.8-hectare complex.
Apart from dorms, the center also has a library, a fitness center, an outbound arena and other facilities for residents. Addicts are required to come up and implement their own daily schedule. “We clean the center together or hold seminars,” Beni said.
According to Beni, this method is done to enable the residents to learn how to manage their ideas and express their opinions publicly. The results are positive, such as residents’ growing self-confidence when talking with visitors. They speak loudly and in clear words.
A core indicator of residents’ success in maintaining their recovery process is their ability to lead their friends in a group. After serving as assistant counselor for some time, former addicts can be counselors. They are required to take a written exam and an interview and create an activity proposal in order to become counselors. They are not volunteers as they receive a monthly salary as government employees.
Sepriyanto, 24, a former addict and a counselor since 2015, said that the job was good for his mental development. He was sent to Galih Pakuan in 2014 after he was arrested for using and dealing cannabis and meth. At first, he was angry at his family as he felt he was banished from the family. However, after serving as counselor, he feels his sympathy for others grow. “I want to help others suffering from similar fates as me,” he said.
For Andri, who has served as counselor since 2010, working at the rehab center has increased his self-image, especially after he married a Ciseeng resident who worked at the rehab center.
He is often thanked by parents of recovering addicts who he counsels. They are grateful for his help in bringing their children’s body proportion back to ideal and teaching them good verbal manners. Most importantly, he helps them to leave drugs behind. “It is like I am reborn. I used to be a drug addict that no one took seriously. Now, I have a role in society,” he said.
(DD01)
