Stories from SPYM

PRAVIN Pravin is the oldest of them all. He is in his early twenties and has spent nearly five years at this centre. He is now a peer counsellor. (Peer counsellors are reformed drug users who counsel those in rehab about their own bleak personal experiences and their path to recovery.) Pravin used to smoke smack and one day ran away from his home in Delhi’s Karol Bagh where his family runs a petty garment-making business. The centre pays him Rs 5,000 a month to counsel the boys. Asked whether he would like to go back to join his family trade, he says he will someday, but even after being five years off drugs he confesses that he feels too weak right now and isn’t sure that he won’t suffer a relapse.   VIKAS   This 10-year-old lives in the Nepali Camp in Delhi’s Vasant Vihar and has studied till the sixth standard. One day at school he got into a fight with a student and was expelled. When he was nine, Vikas started smoking biris and cigarettes and soon also...

EHSAN He is just six-years-old, and yet smoked biris . He has used inhalants and also country alcohol. One day a tube containing puncture-fixing material fell out of his torn pockets and he was found out. He says he would take a few rupees from his mother on various pretexts without arousing her suspicion, but eventually he got caught and confessed. His mother was alarmed and brought him to the Delhi Gate centre about which she learnt from a child helpline. Ehsan was caught by police in Mehrauli and spent two days in the lock-up, after which his mother took him away. Poverty and neglect often led him to beg for money and food outside the local dargah.      Ehsan’s father lost both his arms in an accident and sells candle sticks, joss sticks and puja goods on pavements. With such a background it is not likely that Ehsan will have appropriate aftercare support at home after he is discharged. Like many other children who come from impoverished households, Ehs...

Starting from today we begin a series documenting the stories of children admitted to SPYM's de-addiction centres. In these we tell you what made them leave their homes, about their travels and travails and how they were found and finally brought to SPYM for detoxification and rehab. We trust our readers will help us help these children from marginalised and often broken homes to enter the national mainstream and start a new life free from drugs, want and fear.  (Please note that all names have been changed to protect identity.) KADUPPA This 15-year-old, unlike most others in rehab, always looks cheerful, and has an appealing sense of humour. What’s more he is a diligent lad, and spends hours helping with housekeeping work at SPYM’s Delhi Gate centre. Kaduppa ran away from his home in Chennai (he still calls it Madras) because his step father, an alcoholic, beat him up every day. But now he plans to go back. Asked whether he is not afraid of getting thrashed agai...

Worryingly, the age of drug abusers has continued to decrease, so that it is not unusual to find even six-year-olds inhaling and sniffing a variety of toxic chemicals to go on a ‘high’ to escape the drudgery of their lives and the trauma of broken homes. It is the most marginalised and vulnerable sections of society living in unhealthy shanties, on the pavements or under bridges that get drawn to finding solace in drugs.   It is the easy availability of low-cost chemicals and over-the-counter prescription drugs that makes these substances popular among members of this underclass. None of them can afford to buy smack and other expensive mood-changing drugs such as cocaine, morphine and ephedrine combinations.   The three inhalants in common use include ‘puncture solutions’, thinners (that remove ink and paints) and whiteners and nail polish removers. Puncture solution is a whitish paste sold in tubes and used to repair tyre punctures. Most of the inhalants are highly t...

A major problem that is encountered while interviewing children undergoing de-addiction treatment is their general tendency to  clam up, fumble with words or lie about their experiences, fearing to be punished or shamed. Dependence on drugs can substantially interfere with a person’s cognitive and other brain-related functions, besides leading to sometimes extensive organ damage. As a public health problem, we need to examine the subject more broadly if we are to provide an appropriate response. All drug users have their own peculiar stories to tell, and it is only by listening to them closely and empathising with their personal journeys that a real beginning can be made. Most children at this centre previously used or became dependent on inhalants, ganja or smack (an impure form of heroin also called brown sugar), while some used all three. All of them come from impoverished families and are hooked on cheap, mostly adulterated, drugs that are both easily accessible...