Gene D’Silva, Founder of Jeevan Dhara, a rehab centre for addicts, tells us how he moved from depression and addiction to helping addicts to recover.
I come from Mumbai. I studied in Don Bosco High School, Matunga, as a boarder from June 1975 to April 1980.
I cherished these five years very much because it was these years that groomed me into whatever I am today. The leadership qualities, discipline, honesty, transparency, the never-say-die attitude, courage and, most of all, the conviction: fear no man, but only God.
My parents went to Dubai to make ends meet. My siblings were older than me by 8, 9, and 13 years. By the time I finished school I landed into an empty home. My two sisters went to Dubai alongwith my parents and my brother worked on a ship.
This was the beginning of me being alone and depression as a way of life. As time went by, I suffered long spells of loneliness and depression which would sometimes last three to six months. I did drugs and alcohol. I became a poly-addict. I have a physical handicap. When I was refused permission to represent India in the Handicap Olympics, I felt so bad I went deeper into drugs and alcoholism. I was denied a chance to play in the corporate football teams.
I was medically unfit for several industries—shipping, rigs, hotels. Reason: I was physically challenged.
I was bitter with my parents for leaving me all alone at the age of sixteen.
Dr. Charles Pinto, a leading psychiatrist of Mumbai, diagnosed my condition as manic loneliness and depression.
I realized nobody can get me out of this situation, except me, so I decided to forgive my parents.
I learnt to relax when depression would overwhelm me. Instead of pressing the panic button, I would accept it and flow with it. Before going to bed, I would listen to Indian or Western classical music to put myself to sleep.
I would go for long runs which would help me keep my nerves calm.
I would hear Mass and spend one hour in the chapel every day. This helped me to surrender to the almighty.
Initially I worked for nine months in Asha Daan (run by the Missionaries of Charity), doing such chores as sweeping, mopping, dressing wounds, administering injections, feeding, bathing and shaving. This helped me to put my Mass into action and understand my neighbor. In Asha Daan I realized there were people who were worse off than I was and that there is no reason for me to complain.
I also realized I could stay away from drugs and alcohol. From self-pity and rage I began to feel joyful while serving the poorest of the poor. Loneliness and depression began to disappear slowly. Gradually I came to this realization: This is what I needed to do for the rest of my life.
Until 1997 I made a living by selling computers, encyclopedias, hardware and plumbing items to builders in Goa. I also continued to do voluntary work for Asha Daan, obtaining free medicines from pharmaceutical companies.
1998 was the year I began the journey which I call my new-found vocation.
I started an organization called Jeevan Dhara and began welfare work in Chita camp, providing food ration, cataract surgeries, free spectacles, hole in the heart surgeries, chemotherapy, etc. We conducted more than 1200 HIV tests, and built houses for HIV-positive widows.
Today in Chita camp and another slum we have eight balwadis, forty-five study classes and various vocational and capacity-building programs.
In six slums we conduct football coaching for more than five hundred children. The idea is to prevent these children in the slum from chewing tobacco at an early age. Some of them start with tobacco at age eight, and later “graduate” to drugs.
On September 8th,2008 our chairman, Fr. Richard Lane Smith SJ, allowed me to use 2,000 sq. ft. from his 4,000 sq. ft. house behind the Taj Hotel, Colaba, to start my first rehab. In June 2009 we left Colaba, and landed up renting a place at Titwala.
In November 2012 we shifted to the Don Bosco Teachers quarters, Lonavala. We have the capacity to accommodate fifteen to twenty inmates. We run a three-to-six months program. Simultaneously, from 2014 to 2015 we ran another centre at Seva Dhan, Dahanu. A UN study suggests that a drug addict needs a minimum of one year of rehabilitation. Our observation is that those very few that have stayed with us from six months to one year have had a very strong recovery rate, when compared to those who did only three months. The UN study also suggests you cannot force anyone to leave the habit. The addict must have the willingness to give up. Willingness only comes after you hit rock bottom, as the rock band Queen says “Another one bites the dust. As for me, I had literally hit the dust when everything went wrong for me. My dreams to run in the Olympics and play in a corporate football team were dashed. I had no job. I was lonely and depressed, and I became a poly-addict.
We primarily work with street- and slum based drug and alcohol addicts and have till date treated around 700 inmates. We find it very difficult to follow up with the inmates after they leave our centre, since they keep changing their rented rooms and mobile numbers.
What are the results of our rehab work with addicts? Confidently we can boast of more than forty percent recovery rate. We owe this to our approach and the willingness we seek from our clients.
I would like to add that there is a need to start a female rehabilitation centre, since there are many females in the slums and brothels of Mumbai who have no place to go when they need help. Also the need to start Al-Anon groups for family members of drug addicts that have cleaned out from Jeevan Dhara. The idea is to help them to cope with their family member who is an addict or recovering addict.
I was in Alirajpur, Madhya Pradesh, recently. Fr Stany Pereira SDB (former rector) has seen twenty-five of the thirty hard core alcoholics in Suket who have cleaned out their act and settled down after spending three months in our rehabilitation centre. We wish to do the same in Alirajpur. We are networking with the CNI Pastors from the whole of Madhya Pradesh and the chief of the Adivasis to send us willing alcoholics and drug addicts.
I will take the opportunity now to thank all the Fathers and brothers who helped me and my work ever since I was in school till this very day. The list is almost endless. Thank you for the good education you gave me, and thank you for your active support in my rehab work for addicts.
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