PENANG: Looking at Abdullah Mohd Isa today, it is hard to imagine that he was hooked on drugs for 10 years, injecting himself with diluted opium in desperation. Smiling and shirtless inside his home, he now looks the picture of health. These days, he runs a drop-in centre that is helping a small therapeutic community of recovering drug addicts around the fishing village of Teluk Bahang in northwest Penang to kick the habit the holistic way. But it is an uphill struggle.

Even after 25 years of staying clean from drugs, Abdullah himself admits that he is still a “recovering addict”. “There is no cure for addiction — recovery takes a life-time,” he says.

In a community of 70 heroin addicts, Abdullah has worked with 57 of them.

After a few years, 25 of them made a clean recovery while 32 were put on the drug buprenorphine, used in drug substitution therapy to treat addicts. Out of these 32, 12 are leading fairly normal lives.

Abdullah seems pleased with the success rate of the holistic method, which involves the larger community, religious institutions, and the local police in the recovery process.

“Our treatment is oriented towards taking them away from artificial highs,” he says.

Abdullah’s methods are different from the usual way of treating addicts in Malaysia. Those nabbed by police are charged in court within 14 days if they test positive for drugs. Many are sent to one of 28 government-run rehabilitation centres.

Over 9,000 addicts, 98 per cent of them male and 70 per cent of them ethnic Malay, are confined at these government-run centres that dot the country.

Abdullah’s holistic method has caught the attention of the National Drug Agency, which has enlisted help from recovering addicts to provide fresh ideas on how the centres should be run. —Dawn/Inter-Press News Service