In the disease of Addiction, there are three distinct phases. Each phase has its own signs and symptoms. EARLY PHASE Increased Tolerance This is the first warning sign of the development of dependence. Higher amounts are needed to produce the same effect which was produced in the beginning by lesser amounts. The effect that two pegs of alcohol produced earlier is not experienced and larger quantity is needed to produce the same high. Similarly, to get the effect which a joint produced initially two or three joints are needed. Blackouts Blackout does not mean that the person becomes unconscious, it is not that he or she falls flat. The person is able to go through all the activities but he or she is not able to remember anything at all. The person is able to walk, talk or even drive a vehicle ‘apparently normally’, but has no recollection of it afterwards. This is primarily seen in alcohol addiction. Pre-occupation with Drugs and Alcohol Even when the person is not taking alcohol or drugs he or she is always pre-occupied with the thoughts of how, when and where to get the next drink or fix. The person keeps on thinking why won’t the day pass soon, so that he or she can have his or her drinks. When will the guests leave so that he can have a joint in peace. Avoiding any talk about Alcohol or Drugs This is because of the associated guilt feeling. Even if somebody else bring up the topic of alcohol or drugs the person conveniently avoids the topic. They do not want to talk about, read anything that has any reference to alcohol or drugs.
WHO CAN BE CALLED ALCOHOL OR DRUG DEPENDENT? A dependent is one who continues to use alcohol or drugs despite receiving negative consequences. A person who has problems in any area of his life, e.g., family, relationships, job, health or financial etc, and continues to drink alcohol or use drugs despite them. Initially, alcohol and drugs give pleasure. Problems arise but the person is unaware that alcohol and drugs are causing the problems. He or she mistakenly believes that if the problems disappear he or she will stop drinking alcohol or using drugs. The dependence on alcohol or drugs prevents the person from seeing the problems. WHAT IS THIS DEPENDENCE? The person develops physical and psychological dependence on alcohol and drugs. The body gets so used to the presence of alcohol or drugs over a period of time the when he or she suddenly stops taking it he or she experiences withdrawal symptoms, which range from tremors, sleep disturbances and nervousness to cramps, disorientation and hallucinations. Alcohol and drugs become central to thoughts, feelings and activities and the person is unable to think of anything else. The person is constantly thinking and struggling with thoughts of how, when and where to get their next drink or fix. ADDICTION LEADS TO ASSOCIATED PROBLEMS It has been well established that addiction to alcohol and drugs leads to physical, emotional, interpersonal and financial problems. These associated problems can be solved only if the addiction is addressed first. ADDICTION IS A PROGRESSIVE DISEASE Unless the person abstains totally from all mood altering substances the condition will deteriorate progressively. The person has to make a decision to stop taking alcohol and other drugs and seek help and support for moving from dependence to independence. ADDICTION IS INCURABLE BUT TREATABLE Addiction to alcohol or drugs can be treated. In the process of treatment the addict or alcoholic will receive medical help, which will enable him or her to stop taking alcohol or drugs without experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms. The withdrawal symptoms are made less painful and less unpleasant. After this, the person is given psychological therapy. which will help the person lead a comfortable life without feeling the need for alcohol or drugs.
Addiction to drugs or alcohol is a treatable condition like any disease but most people think it is a lack of will power or they think that the person is morally weak. Let me share my experience on giant wheel where I had gone with my friends to enjoy in a fair. At first, as the giant wheel was about to start there was a sense of anticipation and excitement. Then it started and the experience was very thrilling. It went up and down. As the speed increased my excitement began to wear off and I started to feel scared. I looked at my friends and they were still enjoying it. I held on tightly and prayed for it to stop but it went on and on and I started to feel nauseous but my friends were laughing and enjoying themselves. I held on tightly and started to panic. I was afraid that it would crash and that I would die. I realized that shouting will not help and wished I had never gotten on this ride. This is very similar to our experience with drugs and alcohol. Many people continue to drink alcohol and use drugs and still enjoy themselves but some like me can’t and become addicted and start experiencing the harmful effects of addiction. What was fun and enjoyable in the beginning turned into sorrow and pain. How many times we wished we had not started at all.
Sahyog Nasha Mukti Kendra is located in Satbari in Chattarpur, South Delhi and it is an excellent Nasha Mukti Kendra run by a doctor who is a recovering addict and alcoholic himself. It is unique that it is the only Nasha Mukti Kendra following the Twelve Step Program being run by a doctor. It is spacious with different categories to suit all budgets but it is more of a luxury Nasha Mukti Kendra as the charges and the facilities are on the higher side. The patients are not kept in cramped quarters and there is a lawn and trees and greenery. There is air conditioning in the special categories. The food is very good with non vegetarian fare being served thrice a week. The food is cooked very well and there is no limitation on the size of helpings one can take like in other Nasha Mukti Kendra. The patients are not required to do menial chores like sweeping or swabbing the floors.
As a doctor and an individual who became clean and sober in 2002, I began to appreciate what an excellent opportunity I had to help other suffering addicts and alcoholics and do my part to help improve the treatment and recovery scenario in our society. From this was born Sahyog, the Rehabilitation Centre that I founded in 2006 and have been running since. Sahyog Rehabilitation Centre is committed to providing the best treatment possible, treatment that can and does lead to steady and sustained, rich and meaningful, productive and responsible recovery from addiction and emotional issues. We introduce troubled and often disheartened sufferers to a disciplined, systematic and comprehensive self-care regimen and the support groups and communities that actually liberate them not just from substance abuse or dysfunctional behaviour, but also from dysfunctional thinking, emotional patterns, perceptions and responses and the self-destructive coping mechanisms that perpetuate the condition. We don’t make our patients do menial chores and we provide excellent, tasty food. We treat people by empowering them. Sahyog Rehabilitation Centre has a significantly higher success rate than the average. While focussing on the core disease of addiction and alcoholism, we also ensure proper treatment of co-morbidities. We seek to promote benchmark services and best practices. While providing the patient referred to us with a comprehensive residential programme that addresses all the basic aspects of medical attention and recovery from substance abuse, we work jointly with referring doctors for best results. For best results, the convergence of clinical specialists, rehabilitation centres, therapists and support groups to treat addiction should really be a systematic, coordinated and continuing network of resources that a recovering person can draw on to address all the varied forms of damage that the condition gives rise to. The initial presentation may be before a doctor or psychiatrist. In many if not most cases, immediate medical treatment and detoxification becomes the first priority. Some are taken coercively by family members straight to a rehabilitation centre with their own health and well-being in view. Their subsequent trajectory depends on the nature of the training given there, whether the centre follows benchmarks and protocols such as the use of Twelve Step Recovery Programme, interacts with other relevant treatment professionals and facilities, and ensures that the patient stays long enough to take a meaningful pause in life, receive the necessary inputs and practice living accordingly. The proliferation of centres is a necessary and welcome part of bringing addiction issues to the forefront and providing necessary services, and provider/patient ratio. But with time, we may see how inadequate expertise, uneven standards and lacunae in inter-professional connectivity with other medical professionals have impaired enduring success in this already challenging and distressing segment of medical care. As a doctor and a recovering person myself, I am fortunate in being able to bring my medical training and experience as an addict and alcoholic to ensure that all key issues are flagged at the outset so that an appropriate, comprehensive and multidimensional life training plus clinical treatment approach is followed from the start. Besides this, I conduct sessions myself and counsel patients regularly. Counselling too varies. Counsellors who are recovering alcoholics and addicts practicing Twelve Step Programme, with several years of recovery and experience are employed. Professional psychologist and psychiatrist also form a part of our team and comprise a vital form of input. The Twelve Step Program plays a central role at Sahyog at all stages-from experience sharing and dealing with denial at admission to multiple formats of Twelve Step Program based meetings- through the entire period of awareness building and life training during the patient’s stay- on to introducing the person to 12 Step recovery meetings in the outside world- to lay the foundations for a healthy future using the meetings and the program to deal with life on life’s terms- to providing mentoring, guidance and handholding as the foundations for a new life are laid- to finally as a commitment to being there for the person whenever the need arises. AA and NA have helped hundreds of thousands of people around the world become clean and sober. At Sahyog we conduct meetings and the reading and writing work is also based on AA/NA literature. The input sessions are also based on Twelve Steps. These multiple Twelve Step inputs are set in a day that also includes yoga and meditation. What gives us the greatest joy and satisfaction is escorting those who are completing residential treatment to the AA and NA meetings that will play a central role in patients’’ ongoing effort to maintain sobriety and develop the life skills that can help reintegrate them into society.
Sahyog Nasha Mukti Kendra located in South Delhi is the best Nasha Mukti Kendra in Delhi for the simple reason that it is the only Nasha Mukti Kendra which follows the 12 Step Program and is run by a qualified M.B.B.S. Doctor who himself is a recovering addict and alcoholic and it is a known fact that the 12 Step Program offers the highest success rate in curing the disease of addiction and alcoholism. It is located in a spacious farmhouse with a capacity for 20 patients with a lawn and trees and greenery. The food is excellent and non vegetarian food is also served regularly. The patients are not required to do menial chores like sweeping and swabbing or cleaning the toilets. But the primary reason why it is better than any other Nasha Mukti Kendra is that our success rate is much better than other place. The success rate for Alcoholism and Addiction is very low but Sahyog Nasha Mukti Kendra offers the highest success rate.
As a doctor and an individual who became clean and sober in 2002, I began to appreciate what an excellent opportunity I had to help other suffering addicts and alcoholics and do my part to help improve the treatment and recovery scenario in our society. From this was born Sahyog, the Rehabilitation Center that I founded in 2006 and have been running since. Sahyog rehabilitation center is committed to providing the best treatment possible, treatment that can and does lead to steady and sustained, rich and meaningful, productive and responsible recovery from addiction and emotional issues. We introduce troubled and often disheartened sufferers to a disciplined, systematic and comprehensive self-care regimen and the support groups and communities that actually liberate them not just from substance abuse or dysfunctional behavior, but also from dysfunctional thinking, emotional patterns, perceptions and responses and the self-destructive coping mechanisms that perpetuate the condition. We don’t make our patients do menial chores and we provide excellent, tasty food. We treat people by empowering them. Sahyog rehabilitation center has a significantly higher success rate than the average. While focusing on the core disease of addiction and alcoholism, we also ensure proper treatment of co-morbidities. We seek to promote benchmark services and best practices. While providing the patient referred to us with a comprehensive residential program that addresses all the basic aspects of medical attention and recovery from substance abuse, we work jointly with referring doctors for best results. For best results, the convergence of clinical specialists, rehabilitation centers, therapists and support groups to treat addiction should really be a systematic, coordinated and continuing network of resources that a recovering person can draw on to address all the varied forms of damage that the condition gives rise to.
Sahyog Detox and De addiction Clinic is a rehabilitation center which works to help suffering addicts and alcoholics. We admit patients for a period of 4-5 months(average) but it can take longer also. We follow the 12 Step Program of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. Even medical textbooks say that the 12 Step Program offers the highest success rate in treatment of addiction and alcoholism. The success rate in treatment of alcoholism and addiction is very low to begin with. Sahyog Detox and De addiction Clinic has a much better success rate than most other facilities.The treatment at Sahyog Detox and De addiction Clinic is mainly through counselling, behavior therapy and group therapy. After the detoxification process is over the patients have to follow a proper routine. Wake up at 7, do yoga and meditation and after breakfast there are 5-6 sessions during the day. We start with a reading session where people read from the Big Book and other Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous literature. They also share their identification in the reading session. The reading session is followed by the writing session. In that they first write about themselves and later write about the 12 Steps till Step 5. Writing session is followed by the Input session which stands for information put forward. It is like a lecture and there are many diverse topics ranging from the Disease Concept to the 12 Steps. After Input there is a lunch break followed by rest time. In the afternoon patients have a session called Group Discussion. In that they relate the topic taught in Input to their own lives and talk about themselves. After that thrice a week they write their thoughts and feelings of the day in Inventory writing and share them aloud with the counsellor. In the evening they have a in-house Alcoholics Anonymous meeting followed by dinner, meditation and lights out at 11. This is how the day is structured and they follow this regimen from Monday to Saturday.
As a doctor and an individual who became clean and sober in 2002, I began to appreciate what an excellent opportunity I had to help other suffering addicts and alcoholics and do my part to help improve the treatment and recovery scenario in our society. From this was born Sahyog, the Rehabilitation Centre that I founded in 2006 and have been running since. Sahyog rehabilitation centre is committed to providing the best treatment possible, treatment that can and does lead to steady and sustained, rich and meaningful, productive and responsible recovery from addiction and emotional issues. We introduce troubled and often disheartened sufferers to a disciplined, systematic and comprehensive self-care regimen and the support groups and communities that actually liberate them not just from substance abuse or dysfunctional behaviour, but also from dysfunctional thinking, emotional patterns, perceptions and responses and the self-destructive coping mechanisms that perpetuate the condition. We don’t make our patients do menial chores and we provide excellent, tasty food.
Alcoholism is a disease and it is a very nasty disease to have. This is the only disease that denies its own existence and resists treatment. Secondly, the medical definition of alcoholism is that it is a chronic relapsing disease. That means that it is incurable and even after a person leaves alcohol he can start again. Thirdly, it is nasty because the success rate is very low. At the best of times it is 20% at the end of 1 year and goes on decreasing as time goes on. The ism in alcoholism is “incredibly short memory. Alcoholics tend to forget very fast what all bad things have happened to them as a result of alcohol abuse. They forget the arguments at home with loved ones, the vitiated atmosphere at home, difficulties at work, the physical harms, accidents, all is forgotten. Alcohol is an excellent solution-it dissolves marriages, careers, health, finances. But the alcoholic is the last person to acknowledge he has a problem even though he is the first to experience that something is wrong. The fact that there is something wrong with the alcoholic is apparent to the people around him. The denial of the alcoholic is so cunning, baffling, clever and powerful that he or she becomes powerless in front of it. Not every person who drinks alcohol is an alcoholic, in fact only 12% of people who drink alcohol are alcoholics, rest are social drinkers. The difference between a social drinker and an alcoholic is that the social drinker is able to guarantee the amount he is going to drink and is able to guarantee his behavior after drinking alcohol, whereas, the alcoholic is not able to do so.
