Treatment for YaBa Addiction

[Thongkorn]

Been here done that, I tried for three years, I got her off the drug, she put weight on , her attitude changed for the better. then i had to go home to the UK for a while, She was back on it the day after i left. its all about , if they really want to stop. When i returned i found out what she had done after all the time effort .blood sweat and tears. I just walked by, and meet some one who is a dream to be with. I asked about her to a friend of hers last year, I was told she got caught with Yabba on her, selling it for a policeman. Probably a set up. but she has got a long time to do.

Edited March 30, 2014 by Thongkorn

[Hugh Geen]

Yeah - my next door neighbor's GF is reportedly doing "long time" too. No connection but same drug. I did everything in the sixties and seventies except for meth and crack and ecstasy but what was a lot of fun seems to have been replaced by a lot of heartache and misery with more habit forming drugs. I don't even drink alcohol now.

[kriswillems]

Maybe a positive message. We know somebody that went to jail for dealing and using ice. He's out now (since about a year) When he got out I asked the same question on this board. It has been a few months and it looks like he has stopped using. What helped was close support from his family. You need a goal in life, a job, responsibility. By giving that to him he kinda changed. He got married and works now (but not much).

I am not sure about his future. He has disappointed his family so many times, but for now it looks like he's on the right track.

I can give you only one advice, if your gf really doesn't want to stop, leave her. Not any word from you is going to change her.

In the end she'll take you down.

Only a dramatic event in her life might have some influence (like you leaving her, or she being put in jail).

[cgphuket]

Options are limited in Thailand. As a licensed addiction counselor (master level) who recently left the field out of disgust with the employers, I can tell you that there are 3-4 rehabs (Western style) in Thailand and none are run by proper clinical staff and most are run by foriengers with raging drug problems themselves. Same goes for nearby Malay and Indonesian "rehab centers". There is no regulation or oversite so anyone with a few dollars to spend can open a dodgy, unqualified "rehab". There a few counselors in the Kingdom (don't use Thai, never met a qualifed Thia drug counselor) but none specialize in addiction or have any real experience in addiction recovery. Your best option is to find a place outside of Asia, or contact one of the few out-patient counselors who are good and can combine a hospitalization detox with ongoing out-patient counseling. PM me if you would like some leads.

[Khunangkaro]

Options are limited in Thailand. As a licensed addiction counselor (master level) who recently left the field out of disgust with the employers, I can tell you that there are 3-4 rehabs (Western style) in Thailand and none are run by proper clinical staff and most are run by foriengers with raging drug problems themselves. Same goes for nearby Malay and Indonesian "rehab centers". There is no regulation or oversite so anyone with a few dollars to spend can open a dodgy, unqualified "rehab". There a few counselors in the Kingdom (don't use Thai, never met a qualifed Thia drug counselor) but none specialize in addiction or have any real experience in addiction recovery. Your best option is to find a place outside of Asia, or contact one of the few out-patient counselors who are good and can combine a hospitalization detox with ongoing out-patient counseling. PM me if you would like some leads.

Hi, cgphuket,

Feel sorry for your many so bad experiences.

I wish next info may give you relief.

Website: Wat-Thamkrabok.org

Email: [email protected]

Directions to Thamkrabok Monastery

(Also see Important Information For Addicts)

(Also see Picture Directions to Thamkrabok Monastery)

I'm surprised if with your background did you never visit Wat-Thamkrabok near Saraburi?

IMHO you should pay a visit and see/hear for yourself and for the sake of your professional interest.

Very friendly monks nuns and laypeople with life experience about successful detox for themselves and for so many people, Thais and Foreigners over many years.

There are also communities with follow up in Thailand and abroad. (See also http://www.thamkrabok.net/)

[rjcampbe]

http://www.wat-thamkrabok.org/

The above is the premiere treatment center in Thailand and appears to have a good success rate and is well known to most Thai and respected (so that should go a long way if person is Thai).

I agree with lopburi3, except that Thamkrabok is NOT a "treatment center". It's a monastery... shaved head, sleep on the floor, Thai chanting, etc... However, I agree that it's a good option, especially for a Thai.

A non thai relative of mine spent a month there... He went right back to using, but that is his fault, not the monastery's. (FYI, NA, AA, private counselling, and 3 months in a rehab center before the monastery didn't help either. He wasn't ready to quit using, and still isn't.)

There is a Thai hospital which focuses on rehab in Rangsit. I forget the name but it shouldn't be too hard to google.

There are also private rehab centers on Koh Chang, Koh Samui, and a couple in Chiang Mai that range from 8k/month on up to how much money do you have...

As for suggestions of NA, you will find that meetings are practically non existent outside of the main parts of Bangkok. AA is a little more available, but not a lot better, and 12 steps are 12 steps regardless of the addiction.

I would also caution you to consider that if you get busted with drugs in the car or in the house it could be very bad for you, even if you have nothing to do with it or even know it is there.

The simple fact is that most people addicted to drugs don't change until their life hits a wall... This is harsh advice, but unless you are married to this person or have kids with them, if I were you I would run, not walk, to the nearest exit. People who care about addicts have the best of intentions but they usually end up enabling the addicts behavior... this comes from painful personal experience...

An addict has to want to change their life and in order to be successful they have to make it the most important thing in their life. Nothing less will work and there is nothing in God's green earth that you can do to make them want to change if they don't want it themselves.

Wish you the best of luck in dealing with this.

[rjcampbe]

Could never have put it as well as djvolak and ericthai have, but I WILL add, since apparently he is too polite, that all of the self-serving, even murderous (Adeeos) approaches above are, to quote Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction, "pretty f***ing far from OK." To all of those advocating this so-called 'tough love' I'd ask if you are prepared to confront the friend, sibling, or possibly the mother of your children in the wraith-like state of the advanced methamphetamine addict. Or, just as likely, in death in a squalid Banglamung hovel (as that's where many of them end their days).

I relocated from Ubon Ratchathani to Albuquerque a decade ago, after almost 20 years in the trenches of SE Asia, and long before poor Walter White was diagnosed with the cancer that morphed into the even more deadly disease of ambition which lead to his climb up the corporate ladder and eventual spectacular fall from same. I fancy myself as rather more informed of the topic than many, from both perspectives (the addict and the mental health practitioner). And perhaps it was not coincidence that several episodes of Breaking Bad were filmed in the home directly opposite my own and on neighboring streets.

<deleted> DO NOT set her adrift. You'll never see her alive again, nor live down the guilt you will rightfully feel for having done such a thing. As bad as meth addiction is, and it is physical, neurological, psychological, sociological, and spiritual All-in-One, its not all that difficult to beat, given the right approach, resources, and methodology. Some of the pharmacological pathways that are being used to treat the underlying CAUSES of the disease of methamphetamine addiction (a symptom which, in and of itself, is not currently considered pharmacologically treatable) include prescription of methamphetamine's mirror image, dextroamphetamine salts combination (Adderall) and certain of the SSRIs (buproprion aka Wellbutrin, citalopram aka Celexa) and a phenyltriazine (lamotrigine aka Lamictal, a mood stabilizer) are cutting edge and, in my experience, often brilliantly effective.

Although it may be difficult to find a clinically trained professional experienced in the monitoring of such intervention anywhere in Asia, much less in your village, the pharmaceuticals are generally far easier obtained at far less cost than they are in the west.

I'm not advocating you undertake the difficult, nay, torturous path alone, but it's certainly worth more than a little effort to find yourself such a professional abroad who may be willing to assist remotely.

I wish you and your loved ones all the success. I'm very familiar with the extended support networks that exist within the Thai village structure. It sounds as though you are able to access parts of them for help. Don't overlook the fact that she, too, has accessed other elements of the network to get where she is. Only a few portals exist between those parallel networks, but they are there, and people usually know where they are, at least generally. You won't want or need to go through one of those yourself, but you SHOULD procure the help of someone who can and regularly does. It will make all the difference to her eventual return to the family. And remain confident that that is precisely what the result will be.

I usually don't jump in to rip things up, but this soft and fluffy "we can fix it with modern pharmacology" shit just makes me SICK.

I've been struggling with a child who is an addict for years... I've done everything I can think of to help him, and I've listened to all the medical bullshit about the right mix of prescription pills... Been there done that, and I've never seen any of it work. It's a bunch of voodoo crap and it works about as well as if I had him bleed with leeches and threw chicken feathers around the room.

It's no wonder we have so many drug addicts when we have a damn pill for everything, all marketed at the general public, and the medical profession creates a new "syndrome" every week so they have something to prescribe the new pills for. It's sickening.

The fact is that whether or not an addict ends up "in the wraith-like state of the advanced Meth addict" or dies in a "squalid Baglamung hovel" or any other place is entirely THEIR CHOICE and it REMAINS their choice regardless of whether or not we choose to support and enable them. There has never been a truer sentence than "I can quit anytime I want to." The problem is they DON'T WANT TO.

The non addict does not have the power to change the situation. We can only control how we respond to it. Usually, with the best of intentions, we try to help, but most of the time our help only serves to enable the addicts behavior. At some point, tough love is the only hope and possibility you have left. We pray for the addict to reach a point where they decide to change their life, but you also know full well that there is a good chance that they will ruin their lives, destroy their health, or die before they make that decision to change.

Telling an addict that you care about them and want them to live a healthy and sober life, and at the same time cutting them off from support is not an easy thing to do. I know first hand.

But what is the alternative? Support their addiction? Pay their rent and utilities while they use? Let them destroy your life, your relationships, and your finances? Let them steal from you? Let them lie to you? Let them put you in legal risk by bringing drugs into your home? Watch them lie to and use everyone else in their life, spouse, kids, boss, whatever? Let them put you and the rest of your family in harms way of other addicts or dealers coming to your home for money, or vendettas, or god knows what?

It's not pretty and its not easy, but addicts make the choice to choose the drugs over everything else in their life, so don't jump up here with your holier than thou bullshit and preach about the guilt we would "rightfully feel" when we are forced to accept the choice that the addict has made because there is nothing we can do to change it.