Pubdate: Sat, 17 Aug 2002
Source: Times-News, The (ID)
Copyright: 2002 Magic Valley Newspapers
Contact:  http://www.magicvalley.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/595
Author: By Chris Brummitt, The Associated Press
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/rehab.htm (Treatment)

ISLAMIC PRAYERS AND COLD BATHS OFFER HOPE FOR INDONESIAN DRUG ADDICTS

CIBEUREUM, Indonesia -- Shivering in the early morning mist, recovering 
heroin addict Slamet prepares to start another day of Islamic prayer and 
meditation. The 28-year-old man used to spend most of his time stealing and 
shooting up. Now, after eight months in an Islamic drug rehabilitation 
center high in the hills of west Java, he is becoming a rare success story 
in Indonesia's often feeble war on drugs.

"Before, people used to look at me like I was trash. All I could think 
about was heroin. Now, I can eat, sleep and pray like a normal person. I 
feel good," he says.

Indonesia is undergoing an explosion of illicit drug use and some social 
activists believe the solution lies in Islam, the faith which some 90 
percent of Indonesia's 210 million people adhere to. Slamet, along with 30 
other ex-addicts, receives no specialized counseling or detoxification 
treatment at the center -- just a steady diet of religious devotion. In the 
end, the center claims a higher success rate than conventional clinics 
trying to combat the drug crisis.

The center is run by a nearby Islamic boarding school, or pesantren, named 
Suryalaya. There are hundreds of thousands of similar schools across 
Indonesia. Most teach a mixture of religious and secular subjects and are 
rarely inspected by state officials.

Fears that Indonesia is leaning toward Islamic extremism have been fanned 
by reports of pesantren where students are indoctrinated with hardline 
anti-Western teachings. Some pesantren have been accused of having links to 
regional terrorists groups. But Suryalaya specializes in the study of 
Sufism, the mystical form of Islam that stresses devotion to God and 
religious tolerance. Its 90-year-old leader is revered as a holy man who, 
according to tradition, can trace his teaching in a direct line back to 
Islam's prophet, Muhammad.

Suryalaya's 30 drug rehab centers revolve around three Islamic principles: 
communal prayer, the chanting of God's name and ritual bathing. The day 
starts at 2 a.m. with a cold shower. The first prayer of the day is then 
performed in the mosque followed by Arabic chanting of the phrase "There is 
no god but God" -- part of the Muslim profession of faith -- at least 700 
times. The recovering addicts then drink a cup of coffee before saying the 
dawn prayer, followed by more chanting. Apart from meal breaks and a couple 
of hours of rest or sport in the midmorning and afternoon, this combination 
is continued until bedtime early in the evening.

Anang Syah, the religious teacher who heads the complex in Cibeureum, says 
faith alone is enough to break an addict's habit: "We don't heal them, we 
don't even treat them. All we do is make them aware that they belong to God."

The centers' wealthy clients, who have included the children of high- 
ranking politicians and police and army officers, subsidize those from 
poorer families. No one is turned away, Syah said.

The clinic's founders say that around 40 percent of the addicts they treat 
go back to drugs when they leave, normally after about a year. No 
statistics are available to back up their contention. Skeptics doubt the 
claim, and point out that conventional detoxification and counseling 
centers admit to relapse rates of around 85 percent.

Indonesia has approximately 4 million addicts. Cheap heroin accounts for 
many of them, though the country has been awash with cheap Ecstasy and 
amphetamines since the 1990s. Thousands of nightclubs function as little 
more than drug dens, allegedly with the backing of corrupt security forces.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager