A Man

A Man: Rehabilitation Centre

“I need rehab”, I remember saying to a visiting relative while sitting at a coffee shop sometime in 2011.

I’d been drinking steadily and heavily for almost a decade and a half and it was the first time. I’d admitted to anyone other than my own self that I had a problem. And about time too.

My life was in tatters.

Professionally, my career as a musician/concert promoter/writer was at an end.

On the social front, most of my family (with the exception of an ailing mother), were abroad and seemed too far away to be able to help much. I’d alienated almost all of my friends, acquaintances and former colleagues as a result of my drunken antics and eventual withdrawal from society.

As far as my physiological health went, I’d incurred a series of accidents while under the influence which is how I managed to shatter my shoulder, get burns on my legs, rip the thumbnail off my left foot and tear open my forehead above the eyebrow. I had also kick-started the diabetes that runs in my family. The majority of my daily diet was neat rum and my blood sugar levels ran in the 400’s.

Psychologically, I was in depression. My confidence shot to hell, I had no ambition or long-term goals for myself and with the exception of brief drunken urges, almost no desire for any social interaction. While I didn’t put it into words, thoughts of suicide were not too far from my mind.

Fortunately though, I still had some friends and relatives around who kept hope alive and through their own happy and successful lives, reminded me that while it wasn’t easy, with some effort and commitment life was still worth living.

In April of 2013, it was some of these people who came through for me. My sister, aunts and uncles (all abroad), coordinated with two of my closest friends here in Delhi and arranged for my mother to go into a care facility, my dog to be put into a kennel, and for me to be admitted into the Tulasi healthcare and rehabilitation centre in Delhi.

That is how I got my second chance at life. Continue…..

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