Ever thought of those beyond this place ?
Your friend in need
Give your brain a break
It's never too late to get clean
Beware, it could be you next
The treatment lies in the method
Here's how you can help
Reaching out
Hold a candle to their lives
Listen, they have been there
Getting trashed is fun!
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Voices

Extracts from what visitors experienced at Freedom Foundation

It was the day after Ramzan. As we entered the hall where the inmates were seated in a semi circle waiting for the speaker of the day, heads turned towards us. A few of them smiled … others looked away in indifference… some did not even notice our entry. One of them, Raj, an inmate from Bombay,said

``Mithai nahin milega? Hum to gum bantne valon me se hai'' (Won't we get sweets for the festival? We share sorrow -- you are the ones who share happiness). It's strange, the kind of things these people taught us in two weeks.

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We were talking to a counseller at the AIDS centre when a girl, who has been a patient here, brought us tea in a tray. Due to apprehension or whatever, we declined. From the reactions of the girl and the counselor, we realised this was something that happened often. It was an embarrassing moment for us. But more importantly, we realised the magnitude of the problem the patients face from their own families and friends. We had reacted … even though we were educated and knew about the disease.


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At the centre we spoke to a number of patients. They came from varied backgrounds. … a businessman from Calcutta with a 50-year-old family business in homeopathic medicine, two doctors from Chennai, an assistant cinematographer who had worked with Amitabh Bachan and Mahesh Bhat, a state hockey player, an MBA from Delhi University with an experience of over 25 years in an advertising sector… the list could go on. And they looked no different from you or me. One of the counsellers we talked to, an ex-addict told us how ten years of his life just passed by without his knowledge. When he came to this rehab a year ago and was asked to fill a form, he had on impulse written the date as 1985….


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The therapy sessions with children of alcoholics came as an eye-opener for us. The children were shown some liquor ads from different magazines and asked to comment on them. One kid said he didn't understand why the ads showed pictures of people drinking and having fun when all the experiences he had had with alcohol was a drunken father coming home and creating an uproar. Tragically, that is the flip side of advertisements. And it came from the mouths of these babes.


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The treatment method at the AIDS centre is similar to that of the drug dependency centre. The only difference is that while there they work towards a brighter future, here they just pray and hope to delay a rude death. Many of the patients go through their own form of denial. Some still believe there is a cure for the disease. One patient believes he could have acquired the virus by habitually eating out. A dentist with the virus still maintains he could have got it from one of his patient's saliva or something!


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