美国国家公共电台 NPR Why An Indonesian Rehab Center Doesn't Insist On Abstinence

 

NOEL KING, HOST:

Reporter Julia Simon is in our studios in New York.

Hi, Julia.

JULIA SIMON: Hey, Noel.

KING: So you are bringing us a story today that took you halfway¹ across the world, but it actually started very close to home with your mom in California.

SIMON: Right. So my mom's an alcoholic². And growing up, my mom would go to meetings of Alcoholics³ Anonymous⁴ - AA - in my hometown of Los Angeles. And keeping with AA's tradition, we're going to keep my mom anonymous. Anyway, her AA groups would give these sobriety birthday cakes.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And the rest of AA makes fun of Southern California for it.

SIMON: Right. So these cakes are mostly a Southern California thing. But they get to a bigger idea at the heart of AA, which is this emphasis on not drinking at all. In some AA groups, that can make it really hard to admit that you've relapsed.

KING: Yeah, because you go back to square one. And now you've got a cake with no candles on it, right?

SIMON: Yeah. But my mom - she was very into it. And then one night a few years ago, my mom was thrashing around in her sleep. And my dad took her to the ER, and the doctors found alcohol in her blood. It turned out that for seven years, my mom had been drinking and lying about it.

KING: That must have been a really awful feeling to find this out.

SIMON: Yeah. I was upset about the lying. And I sat down with my mom to talk about it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: I mean, it was very disingenuous⁵.

SIMON: But why didn't you tell anyone? We could have helped you.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Because it was more important to me to keep up the illusion that I was sober. I was committed to looking like I was OK.

SIMON: My mom's the kind of person who, as she says, wants things to look good. She lied to make everything seem like it was OK. And I wondered, how do you help people like that with their addiction⁷? I used to live in Indonesia. And there's actually a word there for this need to make everything look good. It's called malu. There are a lot of ways to translate malu. But one way is to think of malu as a mask.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SAM NUGRAHA: Yeah, because the culture tells us we have to be polite. When we don't know the answer, then we have to smile. When we feel threatened, we have to smile.

SIMON: This is Sam Nugraha. He's from Indonesia.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

NUGRAHA: In our culture, we are not supposed to expose our shortcomings to other people. We are not supposed to tell our feelings.

SIMON: In the '90s, there was a lot of heroin⁸ coming into Indonesia from other parts of Southeast Asia. And Nugraha became addicted⁹ in college. He landed at a rehab program with the AA approach.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

NUGRAHA: They always introduced themself by telling, hi, my name is X. And I'm an addict⁶. And the group immediately responded, hi, X. Like, what's going on? (Laughter).

SIMON: Was this just, like, kind of mind-boggling to just...

NUGRAHA: Absolutely. I was scared, to be honest, because it's twisting everything that you believe.

SIMON: Nugraha called this American culture.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

NUGRAHA: Because it's very American when people saying out loud their feelings to strangers and all that.

SIMON: But Nugraha made it through the 12 steps. He graduated from client to peer counselor¹⁰, and he had this client who he really liked. This guy graduated from the program, and then he overdosed. And he died.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

NUGRAHA: And that's actually - give me - get me thinking, what was wrong? I mean, what can prevent him from dying?

SIMON: Nugraha wondered, what if preventing people from dying was more important than keeping them sober? Nugraha decided¹¹ to start his own rehab in Bogor, a city about an hour south of the capital Jakarta.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

SIMON: Look at - who are these dogs?

NUGRAHA: These are also addicts¹².

(LAUGHTER)

SIMON: What are they addicted to?

NUGRAHA: Human, I suppose.

SIMON: Humans (laughter).

NUGRAHA: Yeah.

SIMON: Nugraha's rehab is called Rumah Singgah PEKA. There's therapy, job training. And clients here are not required to be completely sober.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

NUGRAHA: We do not decide what's best for our clients. The client have to decide what's best for them.

SIMON: Do some of them keep doing heroin just, like, once a week or something?

NUGRAHA: Yeah, some of them are still using.

SIMON: The patients can't use on the premises¹³, but Nugraha does allow them to do drugs and drink alcohol while still in the program. It's the first rehab like this in Indonesia. But it's part of a movement around the world that's sometimes called harm reduction. That can include a lot of things, like prenatal clinics for people addicted to drugs and exchanges with clean syringes. Nugraha was attacked for his approach, which includes a methadone program. But Nugraha says addiction's a disease.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

NUGRAHA: You know, many people feel ashamed when they slip and they use again. And then they don't want to admit because it gives that feelings of, I'm being a failure. It should be like, I still need more help.

SIMON: Nugraha measures success on his patients' quality of life - how healthy they are, how their relationships are going. And this harm reduction approach is really catching¹⁴ on in the U.S. too.

KING: OK. So, Julia, you go across the world to Indonesia. You get in really deep on this cultural concept of malu. And then you come back to the United States, and you talk to your mom again. And you tell her about it.

SIMON: Yeah. And in the same way that the Indonesians I met are kind of adapting malu and AA, my mom is also adapting AA in her life. She still goes to AA meetings. She feels like she really gets a lot from that support. But she's also realized that there are some things about AA that no longer really work for her. Like, there's this prayer where she used to say things about herself that she didn't like.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: It feels - especially when we talk about character defects, it feels like that's all I am. You know, it was helpful till it wasn't helpful anymore.

SIMON: Yeah.

And, you know, she tells me that if she relapses, hopefully, she'll tell us. But for now, she's celebrating her sobriety by herself with no birthday cakes.

KING: Julia Simon, thank you so much.

SIMON: Thank you, Noel.

KING: That was reporter Julia Simon. And this story comes from our podcast Rough Translation. They're out with a new season now on rebels around the world.

1 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

2 alcoholic   

adj.（含）酒精的，由酒精引起的；n.酗酒者

参考例句：

• The alcoholic strength of brandy far exceeds that of wine.白兰地的酒精浓度远远超过葡萄酒。
• Alcoholic drinks act as a poison to a child.酒精饮料对小孩犹如毒药。

3 Alcoholics   

n.嗜酒者，酒鬼( alcoholic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many alcoholics go on drinking sprees that continue for days at a time. 许多酒鬼一次要狂饮好几天。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Do you have a copy of the Alcoholics Anonymous book? 你手上有戒酒匿名会的书吗？ 来自互联网

4 anonymous   

adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的

参考例句：

• Sending anonymous letters is a cowardly act.寄匿名信是懦夫的行为。
• The author wishes to remain anonymous.作者希望姓名不公开。

5 disingenuous   

adj.不诚恳的，虚伪的

参考例句：

• It is disingenuous of him to flatter me.他对我阿谀奉承，是居心叵测。
• His brother Shura with staring disingenuous eyes was plotting to master the world.他那长着一对狡诈眼睛的哥哥瑞拉，处心积虑图谋征服整个世界。

6 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

7 addiction   

n.上瘾入迷，嗜好

参考例句：

• He stole money from his parents to feed his addiction.他从父母那儿偷钱以满足自己的嗜好。
• Areas of drug dealing are hellholes of addiction,poverty and murder.贩卖毒品的地区往往是吸毒上瘾、贫困和发生谋杀的地方。

8 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

9 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

10 counselor   

n.顾问，法律顾问

参考例句：

• The counselor gave us some disinterested advice.顾问给了我们一些无私的忠告。
• Chinese commercial counselor's office in foreign countries.中国驻国外商务参赞处。

11 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

12 addicts   

有…瘾的人( addict的名词复数 )； 入迷的人

参考例句：

• a unit for rehabilitating drug addicts 帮助吸毒者恢复正常生活的机构
• There is counseling to help Internet addicts?even online. 有咨询机构帮助网络沉迷者。 来自超越目标英语 第3册

13 premises   

n.建筑物，房屋

参考例句：

• According to the rules,no alcohol can be consumed on the premises.按照规定，场内不准饮酒。
• All repairs are done on the premises and not put out.全部修缮都在家里进行，不用送到外面去做。

14 catching   

adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住

参考例句：

• There are those who think eczema is catching.有人就是认为湿疹会传染。
• Enthusiasm is very catching.热情非常富有感染力。