Dr. V. Venkata Kiran, Professor of Psychiatry at District Mental Health Programme says, “De-addiction is a process and it needs a lot of time, patience and cooperation from the patient. It involves the collective action of three bodies— the de-addiction centre, the District Mental Health Programme (DMHP) service provider and the NGOs.
“For the first 7-10 days, the patient is given treatment for detoxification. Meanwhile, the doctors detect any comorbidity issues and provide simultaneous treatment for those as well. By the time the patient comes to a passive mode, the doctors assess the reasons for the addiction. Here, the patient enters a motivational phase where the doctors try to lay a path to de-addiction and explain the rehabilitation programme to them. Then, they will be rehabilitated. To implement all these steps, the patient needs to be in the hospital for nearly one month and in some cases, even more than that,” Dr. Kiran explains.
The DMHP provides support to the patients by prescribing medicine and keeping them motivated to overcome their addiction.
Then, the services of Non-Governmental Organisations come to play. They hold awareness meetings and do other activities with the patients, Dr. Kiran says. He said that the NGOs play a greater role in conducting Alcohol Anonymous (AA) meetings, which help the patient maintain abstinence.
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