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Former Drug Addicts Tell How They Kicked The Habit

THE ILLEGAL DRUGS TRADE is a $300 billion business globally. The World Health Organization says that narcotics abuse is on the rise in Asia—thousands will die from it this year. But addicts can quit drugs with the help of group therapy.

"An addict feels alone," says Jaime del Rosario, executive director and co-founder of a Manila-based addiction treatment center called New Beginnings, and himself a recovering addict. "Group counseling helps him see there are others like him with the same problems and pain. This gives him strength to try to kick the habit."

Here are the life stories of three former addicts.

Kazuki Watanabe,26,Tokyo

    Kazuki sniffed paint thinner almost daily for nine years.

Kazuki Watanabe was raised strictly by her father, a salaryman, and mother, a housewife. At 15, she rebelled in typical teenage style, sometimes missing curfews and skipping classes. But she drew the line at taking drugs. When kids asked her to join them in getting high on paint thinner, an inhalant popular with some Japanese teens, Kazuki always said, "No, thanks."

But then Mariko, her best friend, started hanging around with kids who sniffed paint thinner. When Mariko wouldn't return her calls, Kazuki felt deserted. She went to Mariko's home and, this time when she was offered the drug, Kazuki, didn't refuse.

Mariko showed her how to pour a capful of the solvent into a plastic bag and inhale the vapor. Kazuki felt buzzed, giddy. 

    Soon she began skipping more classes to get high. Her grades slipped. When Kazuki's parents discovered what she had been doing, they pleaded with her to attend a daily self-help group for alcohol and drug addicts.

Kazuki finally agreed to go but she couldn't relate to anyone else in the group. Most were older and admitted that drugs ruled their lives. Drugs aren't controlling me, Kazuki thought. She went back to her addict friends.

After failing out of secondary school, she attended a night course occasionally, worked days at a fast-food restaurant and hung out in parks inhaling paint thinner.

As the chemical, along with her unhealthy lifestyle, gradually caused the walls of her veins and arteries to thin, she began experiencing frequent nosebleeds and bloody diarrhea.

By the time she was 20, most of Kazuki's addict friends—including Mariko—had quit drugs to take jobs and marry. They've all left me by myself, she thought. She had never felt so alone.

Kazuki was working as a nightclub hostess in Tokyo's night life area, Shinjuku, when she met and moved in with a man. Hideo, too, was into sniffing paint thinner. Before long he began to beat her when he got high.

How could I let my life get so out of control? Kazuki despaired. I need help. For two weeks she stayed at the Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Center (DARC) in Nippon, downtown Tokyo. She attended the group discussions but found talking, even thinking, incredibly draining. Others tried to be nice to her, but Kazuki wanted her old friend back—paint thinner. 

    Back home with her parents, all she could think of was Hideo. So when he called from jail—he'd stolen a car—she begged him for his apartment keys so that she could stay there until he returned. But when Kazuki arrived she found it was a drug den. The temptation was too much for her and she called addict friends, who brought speed and amphetamines.

The three-and-a-half years that followed were a blur as Kazuki struggled to stay in control. Finally, real help arrived.

    "Why don't you try detox for ten days?" the counselor at a self-help group urged her in late 1994. "Then decide what you want to do."

Kazuki was skeptical. What's the point? She despaired. Yet another thought was close behind: You've got to try something. 

    She took a deep breath and replied, "Yes, I'll go."

Her stay in the hospital gave her new hope, and she re-entered DARC. This time, she took part in the group discussions, and felt relieved when the counselors and other addicts patiently listened to her. They really understand, she realized. At age 24, Kazuki was ready to quit drugs.

She attended DARC meetings every day for nine months, while working part-time in a video shop. Her parents were overjoyed.

    Now26, Kazuki works as a waitress in Shibuya, Tokyo, and regularly volunteers at DARC. "It's been a hard road, but now I am happy," she says. "I feel I am ready for the future."

Maria Velasco,43, Manila

Maria's addictions ranged from sedatives to methamphetamine hydrochloride, and lasted more than 16 years.

The phone rang that warm March evening in 1977 as Maria Velasco, 24, left her parents' spacious Makati home, car keys jingling in her hand. "It's Bill," the housekeeper shouted. Already late for the birthday party, Maria ran back to speak to her friend. Would she like a ride to the party? "Good idea," she told him.

Later, driving down Manila's South Superhighway behind a large truck, neither Bill nor Maria saw that the heavy traffic had come to a standstill ahead. Suddenly the truck stopped. Bill slammed on the brakes, but they crashed into the truck, crushing the right side of the automobile.

When she opened her eyes at Makati Medical Center 33 days later, Maria had no memory of the accident and no idea of the extent of her injuries. While Bill had received relatively minor injuries, Maria's right collarbone and knee were broken, she had sustained seven skull fractures and the right side of her face had been crushed. She was now blind in one eye. 

    Told that she'd need "a little plastic surgery, "Maria, under the calming influence of sedatives and painkillers, joked, "Tell them to make me look like Candice Bergen." Her family and friends praised her positive attitude.

When she left the hospital for the first time—she would be in and out several times for reconstructive and plastic surgery—Maria's doctors told her she no longer needed the pills. But after a few weeks without them, grim reality hit hard. She felt ugly and weak. People stared at her. She couldn't smell, and her hearing and sense of taste were impaired.

Fearing she would be letting everyone down if she was seen to be feeble or self-pitying, Maria asked friends with connections to buy her sedatives, mostly Valium and Tranxene. Soon she resumed her job in the travel industry and was back on the social circuit.

Manila newspapers and magazines carried the story of her near-death and recovery, and praised her optimism as an example for everyone. But Maria knew it was a sham. Nobody knows I'm popping pills just to get through the day, she thought grimly.

Eventually she had to take more pills to get the same effect. Combining them with alcohol helped but not enough. She tried marijuana, LSD, cocaine and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Her search for something even more powerful ended in November 1992, when she was 39.

"Maria, come here, "someone called from an adjacent room at the house party. Entering the room, Maria saw her friend Jun holding a flame under a metal dish filled with white powder. "Have some shabu," he urged. "I think you'll like it."

Methamphetamine hydrochloride, called "shabu"in the Philippines, is one of the most widely used illicit drugs in that country. Maria had tried it, but this time, as she deeply inhaled the black smoke, she felt a more intense high than ever before. And she did like it.

Over the next six months, Maria stopped working, and abandoned her lifelong friends. At first she smoked shabu with her new set of friends, but soon she had isolated herself.

Though numerous surgeries over the years had restored her glamorous looks, Maria no longer bothered to style her now-thin hair or even dress on most days. She ate little and hardly slept. She left the house only to meet her supplier on the front doorstep.

    One day, Maria was taking her afternoon hit in her room when her father knocked and walked in. "My God, Maria! "he gasped. When she looked up from the dish and focused her glazed eyes on her kindhearted, elderly father, she broke down. Oh Papy, please help me! "she wailed.

Vowing to quit, she took a trip around the world and visited her brother in New York, during which time she managed to stay clean for a few months. But as soon as she got back to Manila, Maria called her pusher. Her father, desperate, got in touch with the executive director of New Beginnings, a Manila rehabilitation center. Jaime del Rosario, himself a recovering cocaine addict, advised him to be tough with Maria.

Her family excluded her from gatherings and even arranged for the police to "arrest "her. After two days in jail, she agreed to go to the detoxification ward at the hospital.

The co-director of New Beginnings, Serge Grynkewich, visited her almost every day. "I don't have an addiction, "Maria insisted. But when her parents told Maria they wouldn't have anything to do with her until she went to the rehabilitation center, she agreed to go on condition that she could leave whenever she wanted. I'll give it one day, she told herself.

But one day turned into the next, and the next. In the company of other addicts, she realized that she hadn't been living—she'd been surviving. After 45 days of individual and group therapy, a new Maria Velasco walked into her family's home.

Now clean for almost three years-she doesn't touch alcohol or drugs-she has renewed her old friendships and started going to church again. "I know now the pain I caused my family and friends, and I am so ashamed," Maria, now a marketing executive, says. "I have a lot to be thankful for after surviving that accident, but I had to go full circle to see that my life is worth living."

Henry Li,29,Hong Kong

Henry was addicted to heroin for ten years.

The young man who confronted the teenage addicts in the concrete park had the tattoos and streetwise face of a triad gang member, but he didn't talk like one.

"Why are you wasting your youth? "he asked them.

But the boys merely glared at him and walked away, cursing. "There's help if you want it, "Henry shouted after them. "I'll be back."

Sighing, he turned to go. I know what it's like for them, he thought. I was the same way.

Henry grew up in a crowded Hong Kong public housing estate, where he lived with his parents and four siblings in a 120-square-foot room.

"Bad boy! "his mother screamed at him from the time he was a toddler. Canings by his father were the norm, and at the age of ten, he and his brother were often chained up to prevent them from going out to play. When Henry was 13, he ran away. For the next year he worked as an electrician's apprentice, sleeping above the workshop.

"Why do you work so hard every day?" one of a group of older boys mocked Henry one morning as he sat in front of the workshop repairing a cord. Without looking up, Henry said nothing. He'd seen them before, and knew they were triad gang members because they never seemed to go to school or work.

"This kid's boring," another sneered. They sauntered off toward the video arcade. Watching them, the lonely 14-year-old thought, where do they get their money?

The next day, they were back. "Why don't you join our triad?" one asked. "You'll earn more and have fun." Henry looked up.

"Or maybe you want to join our rivals?" said another youth, narrowing is eyes and stepping forward.

"How can I join your group?" Henry quickly replied, standing.

At a simple ceremony, Henry paid a token initiation fee and became the triad's newest "little brother". He was soon into shoplifting, robbing elderly women, gang fights, gambling-and taking pills. At age 15, he began dealing heroin and soon was using the highly addictive drug himself.

"Let's chase the dragon," he'd say. Holding a flame under foil to melt the powder, he'd inhale the smoke through a straw while "chasing "it. It made him feel invincible.

By the time he was 20, Henry had moved up in the ranks and was demanding "protection money "from businesses, terrorizing staff and owners and threatening to vandalize premises. But Henry's drug their toll. He coughed constantly, his teeth were falling out and he had frequent throat infections. When will this end? he thought.

Soon after, Henry was forced to go through painful withdrawal when he was sentenced to 14 days in a detention center for drug possession. Now I can really quit for good, Henry thought confidently when he was released. But he was able to steer clear of drugs for only six months.

Then he tried to quit by going to a neighborhood clinic where he could get methadone, a synthetic narcotic less addictive than heroin, but it was in vain. Hoping a change of scenery would help him kick his habit, he visited Hainan Island, China. His weak resolve again crumbled.

On one of Henry's infrequent visits home to ask for money, his sister told the 25-year-old, "I won't lend you any money until you promise to go to rehab."

"Okay, okay," he lied. Taking the money, he headed straight for a heroin den and for the next 11 days, his longest binge yet, he lay on the floor, smoking heroin or sleeping. He was at his lowest point ever, and felt it would be a relief if he died of an overdose. On the 12th day he ran out of money.

    Henry went back to his sister. The apartment was empty, but he spotted a letter from his sister and some cassette tapes. The letter urged him to listen to the tapes. He turned on the cassette player.

    It was a recording of a radio show, and the speaker was a former heroin addict who said he knew how hard it was to quit. He spoke about his experiences at a drug rehabilitation center. In her letter, his sister begged him to go to a rehab center she'd found ort about.

I've got nothing to lose, Henry told himself. He was welcomed at the center by counselors. For more than a month he struggled day and night, while two voices in his head battled for control-one telling him to go back to his old life of drugs and crime, the other urging him to persevere.

He talked for hours with the counselors and the visiting pastors about spirituality, and with other recovering addicts abort their experiences, hopes and dreams. Gradually he started to feel strong again.

Today, four years later, Henry, 29, is a full-time counselor at the center, helping to rehabilitate the 40 recovering addicts who live there.

"It was the counseling at rehab that helped me kick heroin. Now I want to help others. "He sometimes attempts to get his former triad friends to stop taking heroin and seek counseling. So far he's had no takers.

"But, "he says, "maybe one day my example will prove to others that there is life after addiction."

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