Sunday 26 December 2010

In India (3)


Copyright @ Hans Durrer

The pics above were taken in the City Palace in Jaipur.

What do you work? a guy in my Jaipur hotel asks. I'm an addiction therapist, I say. A counsellor? Yes. Oh, I'm a drug addict, he says and adds: NA. I know what NA is all about, I'm a twelve-step therapist, I smile. I went to therapy to a treatment nearby, he continues. I still go there from time to time. To remind me that I do not want to spend time there again. Would you mind showing me the center? I inquire. Not at all, he says. And so I get to see my first Indian treatment center and have a talk with the people there, all of them former addicts and volunteers. I learn that only a small minority come into treatment out of free will, that most are brought here by their families. And what is the success rate? 20 percent, I'm told. If that is true - and I have no reason to not believe them - that is not only impressive but higher than the rate of treatment centers that insist their clients must be undergoing treatment voluntarily.

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