I never realised how close San Blas, the Caritas drug rehabilitation centre, is to Gianpula. For some reason in my mind I always imagined San Blas to be in some remote, far-flung cliff location, some sort of Cornwall-in-Malta. In reality, it is a stone’s throw away from the summer nightclub.

According to one resident who is half way through the rehabilitation programme, when he first got there, listening to the pumping music nearby used to make him crave for a fix.

“Six months on, the craving is gone. I can finally enjoy silence and it’s pleasant to be able to sit and be at peace,” he said to me smiling gently, pressing his hand on his heart.

The other day, he said, he was walking in the gardens and noticed a poppy budding on a solitary patch. For a long time, he just stood there looking at it. “I had forgotten how beautiful and simple life is,” he said.

Much later, on our way back home from the visit, I turned to my significant other and mumbled: “When was the last time you stopped to look at a poppy… because I can’t remember mine.” In fact, for this entire week I haven’t stopped thinking about the residents following the Caritas programme. Even as I sat down to write this column, the conversations with the former drug addicts kept coming to mind.

It was an eye opener of sorts for me. To my mind, people who take drugs fall in two categories. Those who are cool about it and casually take a line of coke at social events. And then there’s the sad junkies, the gaunt, grimy, jobless, homeless drug takers.

It never occurred to me that between the two, sometimes, there is a huge blur, that you can easily be first one and become the second.

The truth is that we all know of people who enjoy drugs without coming to any harm; why, some even going on to become presidents and prime ministers. But for many others, it doesn’t work that way.

Last week I met people who were managers, executives, people who had top jobs in competitive industries, or who ran their own successful business – and they all got trapped in an addictive loop.

“I started off with one-offs at weekends, then it was my friend’s birthday, then it was a summer party, and soon every day became a good reason to take drugs,” another resident said.

Many resort to drugs to deal with emotional and sometimes physical pain

Then one fine day they start not being able to sleep until they know they have their breakfast of drugs on their bedside table.

“If you wake up at 4am and feel like a fix, you make a quick call and in 15 minutes you’ll have them posted in your letter box, that’s how easy it has become these days to get drugs.” Addiction, once it takes hold, is not logical. The priority is never the health, the children, the job, the wellbeing. It’s the fix.

Most had a common story: “At my children’s milestones – baptism, Holy Communion – I was out of it completely.” The sense of guilt for the pain they made their loved ones go through is palpable. “I left my parents skint,” they say.

Most want to stress that they come from a good family. “My sister/brothers are married with children, have a stable job and are happy. I am the black sheep.”

Back home, they have lives like yours and mine: “My son goes to St Aloysius,” one told me, eyes shining with immense pride.

“I want to do this so I’m the good father he deserves.”

Many resort to drugs to deal with emotional and sometimes physical pain. Some were bullied all their lives, others suffered an injury which set them back and drugs provide a convenient form of chemical oblivion to blot out pain. And suddenly their life becomes so wretched that there isn’t anything better than crack and smack. Some end up in prison.

I am writing about this, because the way I see it, ‘the war on drugs’ is a futile exercise. The other day, The Sunday Times of London magazine carried a whole investigative article about worldwide drug routes. Malta is right there in the middle. Frankly, it’s unbeatable, because it’s good money, good business. There is the legalisation lobby, but even that is debatable.

I think there is a third way: a war on lack of confidence. We need an education system that is so thorough that it gives each child the confidence to deal with issues through the right channels. We need an education system which makes us appreciate ourselves more than a materialistic lifestyle.

Last Friday the residents at San Blas and those following the inmates programme in Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq had their graduation. It is the big event not just for them but for our society. They do not merely graduate upon finishing the rehabilitation programme. They graduate after they’ve been out and functioning in society for a year or more.

Some don’t make it and relapse is not uncommon. In the safe and regimental haven at San Blas there is all the will in the world, but once outside, it’s a tough world.

I, however, have faith in that beautiful solitary poppy.

Please call Caritas Malta Outreach on 2123 7935 if you or a friend needs help with drug addiction.

krischetcuti@gmail.com
Twitter: @KrisChetcuti