BACK FROM THE BRINK
‘Shopping,’ life on the streets and buy-bust
We don't force them. City Health's role is to provide the venue for rehab. The only requirement for them to join is that they want to be clean. When you admit you have a problem, you solve one half of the problem.
Niño Joel Lumontad, 27, was 14 years old when he started taking alcohol and marijuana.
He blames peer pressure and curiosity. “I wanted to be in with the school barkada,” he said.
A year later, he was introduced to methamphetamine (shabu), which he used for nine years.
“I was unable to finish college. I was kicked out of the house because I had started to go ‘shopping.' Everything I could sell, I would steal (to feed my habit),” he told SunStar in a mix of Cebuano and English.
So he lived in the cell phone shop of a friend, where he had been designated caretaker. That friend was the one who introduced him to the Talisay City Outpatient Rehab and Aftercare Program.
“I was his trigger. He kept relapsing because I often used shabu in his shop,” Lumontad said.
Dr. Rey Cesar Bautista, who runs the program, said he gave the cell phone shop owner an ultimatum: “Either you go back to him (Lumontad), or bring him to us.”
“We use that as a recruitment tool,” Bautista said. “When you speak of the drug users' network, the recovering drug addicts here are their friends. They are the ones who refer their friends to us.”
Lumontad was kicked out of the cell phone shop.
“I lived on the street for a year. It was really a struggle. I became a jeepney conductor. But after some time, no driver would trust me anymore because I stole some of the proceeds.”
He resorted to begging until the time came when he no longer knew where to go. On Facebook, he contacted his friend, who gave him the schedule for Talisay's rehab program.
Lumontad walked into the
program on June 27, 2014 and has been clean ever since, as verified by twice weekly drug testing. Little by little, he has also gotten his life back.
After two months of being clean, he returned home. Asked how his mother reacted, he said: “Walay
kabutangan ang kalipay.” (She could not contain her happiness.)
Under the "Strategies Toward Acceptance, Reintegration and Transformation of Poor Recovering Drug Dependents" (Start) program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, he was also able to complete a computer hardware servicing course in a private university.
Today, he is addicted to something else—duathlons. He took up running a year after getting clean. He placed second in the Halad Ni Leon Kilat Run in April 2016.
Lumontad is now a recovery coach at the center. He is happy to be able to help others.
“The nice thing is the domino effect,” he said. “My friend was able to help me. I was also able to help my cousin, who is his friend. Then, my cousin was able to help someone else. Six people in my original barkada are now part of the program.”
His advice for the youth: “I was unable to finish school. I was kicked out of the house. If you don't want to end up like me, don't take drugs. It's been proven and tested that it will only take you downhill. Wa �yuy ikahatag na maayo ang bisyo (Nothing good ever comes from a life of vice).”
Running afoul
George (not his real name), 31, another recovering drug dependent at Talisay's outpatient rehab center, is a registered nurse who used to work in a hospital.
There was a gap in his relationship with his father because George is gay.
“So I needed attention. I started drinking in college with the barkada. I knew they were into drugs. Then in 2013, due to curiosity, I tried drugs also. I used it for work. I justified my drug use by saying it could keep me awake during my graveyard shift.”
As an emergency room nurse, he knew shabu was toxic to the body. But he continued to take it because he was afraid to lose his friends.
“My drugging friends made me feel important, like we were brothers and sisters, and walay
biya-ay (we said we wouldn't leave each other). My partner before was also into drugs,” he said.
He landed in the city's rehab center after a buy-bust conducted at a friend's house while he was hanging out there resulted in his being apprehended.
“I was in my friend's house in September. I didn't know he had turned it into a drug den. I was included among those arrested. I was detained for 10 days. They filed a drug possession case against me even if I didn't have any drugs on me,” he said.
George said the center has been a big help: “I realized what I did wrong, and that even if we came from being addicts, we can still be productive.”
A month after entering rehab, George learned that his father had been killed in a car accident in the South Road Properties.
“It was a very low point,” he said. “My struggle was great. But I was able to deal with it, with their (the center's) help, and without taking drugs.”
“Here, we are taught how to stand again. We regain our self-confidence. We bring out our issues. Only those like us can understand how we feel.”
Bautista said he would give George a job in the city's HIV (Hu- man Immunodeficiency Virus) program. He has already employed another nurse, also a recovering addict, whom he described as “very good, an A1 talent.”
“That belies the belief that we should just kill drug addicts because they are no longer of any use,” Bautista said. “That's not true. They are very gifted. They are brilliant. They just became addicts.”
Are addicts human?
Last September, President Rodrigo Duterte had said he would be happy to kill three million drug addicts in his relentless campaign against drugs, sparking outrage from human rights groups and foreign governments. More than 7,000 people have been killed nationwide in the name of Duterte's war on drugs, some during police operations, others in vigilante-style attacks by unknown perpetrators.
In August, responding to critics of his drug war, Duterte asked the public to ponder on whether drug users were human.
Meanwhile, rehab centers in Cebu are rife with stories of people who have turned their lives around and returned to their jobs in call centers, factories, schools, government offices and other private firms after rehab. Dropouts returned to school; professionals returned to their trade.
Still others, recalling the lifeline they received, are now helping others similarly situated. They work as house parents, dorm managers or other staff in the facilities that put them on the path of recovery. In one case, a former partner of a drug lord now works full-time to help others recover from their addiction.
“This is the second life that God has given me,” George said. “With all the struggles I have experienced, He still gave me life and hope.” /
DR. REY CESAR BAUTISTA