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Carrie Jeffers meditates at the Thamkrabok Monastery and rehab center in Thailand.
BANGKOK – Carrie Jeffers feared she would never kick her heroin addiction after relapsing repeatedly in her native Michigan. Then she flew to Thailand, and her life changed.
Jeffers, a 37-year-old yoga teacher, says she broke her dependency thanks to treatment at a remote Buddhist temple. The rigorous regime includes meditation and the daily ingestion of a foul-tasting herbal drink that induces projectile vomiting to cleanse the body of toxins.
“I got my strength back slowly but surely after the treatment,” Jeffers said after spending months at Thailand’s Thamkrabok Monastery, a drug rehabilitation center in Saraburi province about 90 miles north of Bangkok.
The center, in the heart of a sunlit forest surrounded by limestone crags, has won a worldwide reputation as a place with harsh but effective addiction treatment and has attracted thousands of foreigners from Europe and the U.S.
Harsh, but effective
Jeffers said she had been addicted to heroin since the age of 14 and underwent rehab treatment twice in the United States. The fees were $1,000 a day, which, fortunately, were covered by insurance. "A lot of drug addicts don’t have that [insurance] and they get turned away,” she said.
Thailand's Thamkrabok Monstery is an unlikely drug rehab center. But it has won a worldwide reputation as a place with harsh but effective addiction treatment and has attracted thousands of foreigners from Europe and the U.S
Thamkrabok, by contrast, offers its services for free. And Jeffers said she found it far more effective than rehab in the West.
“At other rehabs they feed you drug after drug; there is no meditation or teaching you to look into yourself,” she said.
Monks at the temple say another key to the success of their treatment is the special tonic, made with 108 herbs according to a secret recipe.
“I remember feeling a kind of a burning sensation, but it soaked up all the toxins,” said Jeffers, who is now helping teach yoga to foreign patients at the temple.
The Thamkrabok monastery has another rigorous feature: addicts must take a vow swearing that they are 100 percent committed to being drug or alcohol-free. They can only be admitted to the monastery for treatment once; if they break their vow, they are not allowed to return.
Same treatment for celebs to civilians
At Thamkrabok, everyone is treated equally regardless of wealth or status. Patients have to wake up early each morning to clean their bedrooms and bathrooms, and sweep the temple compound. They all wear the same red uniforms and sleep in dormitories on thin mattresses closely packed together.
The detox center is a complex of low-rise whitewash concrete blocks set apart from the main compound, which is dominated by several giant Buddha statues.
"It’s very humbling here. It doesn’t matter who you are, you are using the same bed,” said Jeffers, who plans to return to the U.S. in May.
Some don’t last. Pete Doherty, the controversial British singer and former boyfriend of model Kate Moss, was a patient at the temple but only completed three days in 2004 because he found the treatment too austere. One of the monks told me that Doherty lacked the patience that the treatment required and that he did not enjoy the spartan living conditions.
Ploy Bunluesilp / NBC News
Patients at Thailand's Thamkrabok Monastery trying to kick their drug or alcohol addiction line up to get herbal drinks; they often throw up after drinking the special tonic.
However, another British musician, Tim Arnold of the band Jocasta, returned home drug-free after completing the treatment. The temple said they have treated other celebrities, but they wanted to keep their names confidential.
The temple has treated more than 100,000 addicts since it started the rehab program in 1959 and about 30 percent of former patients, including Jeffers, become ordained as monks or nuns after completing their treatment to help out the new patients.
Many of the young Thai monks are tough-looking chain-smoking youths with tattoos. They enforce the temple rules and keep new patients in line.
"Only three more minutes, get inside. Just get inside,” one of the monks shouted at patients outside the packed herbal steam bath room during my visit.
Patients are not allowed to carry money at the temple, in part to prevent them sneaking out to buy drugs. Instead, they buy coupons at the start of the treatment for food, which costs about $6 a day for three meals.
Cleaning body and mind
“When I first arrived, it felt very surreal because we all have preconceived idea of what the monastery or rehab might be – but this is very far away from any kind of imagination,” said Nick Thorp, a musician from London and one of many of the foreigners who found out about the temple through the Internet or from friends who had been treated there.
“They clean up your body and they give some input in your mind,” said 57-year-old Ong Boon Beng from Malaysia, who had been taking opium and heroin for more than three decades before seeking help. “At the other rehabs, you pay money, but it is just like you go for holiday. They give you sleeping pills – that doesn’t help.”
Mike Sarson, a founder of the East West Detox Center in southern England, works with the monastery and sends some patients there. He said about 95 percent of the patients the charity has sent to the temple remain drug-free.
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What are TOXINS?
Exactly , - this is STUPID! ... if you are projectile vomiting, how is it toxins coming out? - it is just whatever is in your stomach so unless you are continuing to ingest toxins at the monestary, after day#1 you are throwing up everything except the toxins already in your body. Sorry, - those "toxins" are leaving via another route ;-)
Toxins are anything that you put into your body that makes you feel good, or tastes good, or in any other way is pleasurable.
;)
The toxins are the behavioral triggers that help you continue an addictive habit. If you keep walking past a place you used to take drugs, keep the same company, and the same routines, it'll be hard to kick the habit.
If you are introduced into a radically different environment, physically your brain has to rewire to the new environment. In time, neurons that trigger cravings fall into disuse and are abandoned routes.
Sleeping pills won't work. Complete life change does. That is how this facility works. It's completely foreign to the addict. The projectile vomiting probably doesn't do much.
Regardless, with a 95% success rate it clearly works better than other options.
I'm certain it's a form of aversion therapy.
Think "Clockwork Orange".
To all the doubters and non-believers....
I spent 3 weeks at Thamkrabok Monastery in Aug/Sept 2009. In those 21 days I was helped to rid myself of a 12 year heroin habit. Since then I haven't had ONE single craving - does it work?? YES IT DOES!!!
As for the remark about losing one's teeth - most junkies I know have knackered teeth anyway, but the puking goes on for about 5 minutes per day for the first 5 days of treatment only - that's a total of 25 minutes - a pretty fair trade for a second chance at life methinks!!
In reply to Chris Wanker's comment re. aversion therapy - you obviously have absolutely no understanding of the problem, or the 'cure', lmfao. You'd have thought that spending an hour, 3 or 4 (or even 5 or 6) times a day making hundreds of holes in your body just to get a hit would be aversion therapy enough, together with all the lumps, bumps and hurty patches it causes - yet still people persist - day after @!$%#ty day, year after @!$%#ty year. Some people I know have lost limbs through their addictions and everyone who uses needles to administer this hideous drug has the scars to prove it. There are many many people who have lost their lives through heroin.
Knock it, doubt it, disbelieve it if you will, but certainly don't discount it. My advice to anyone who REALLY wants to rid themselves of a nasty little habit is to research it. Find out about it. Speak to people who've done it. There is a google group - join it!! In the words of the Traveling Wilbury's song, Heading for the Light - I didn't realise the mess I was in until I came out the other side of it. I will be forever thankful to the monks and nuns of Thamkrabok (most of whom became so after their stay in the treatment centre - they DO know what they're talking about) for my second chance at life. If I hadn't spent those three short weeks there in 2009 I'd still be banging up as much of that @!$%# as I could lay my hands on.... or dead.
Costs.... Yeah, the flight from England cost me a grand, in the school holidays - cheaper during term time. The monastery asks NOTHING of you, other than committment. You need a few quid per day for food (if you feel like eating) and a donation at the end would be a nice thing to do. Compared with the amount of money I used to shoot into myself daily, this is a molecule in an ocean. Within my first two weeks of being home after my stay at Thamkrabok I had saved myself the entire cost of my trip - WIN/WIN SITCH!!! TRY IT - DON'T KNOCK IT!! :D
Andrea Moore - clean now for 2-1/2 years. In that time I have NOT spent over £90,000 on heroin. I am now on the right side of the law - it's all good.
I went to Thamkrabok Monastery 4 years ago after contacting the charity East West Detox in the UK due to my dependency on opiates. The health system put me on the substitute drug methadone which was even harder to get off. The experience of taking the journey to the Monastery in Thailand and going through a very spiritual cleansing experience helped me to rid myself of my demons. The process was not easy but I believe that this is part of the reason it worked for me. No pain no gain.I still meditate daily and have not taken any drugs since. There are no quick fixes but if you believe in this option go for it and put your heart into it because it worked for me. Lots of love Celia
Well, I'm sure it's great. But until they set up shop in the US, this story is meaningless to 99.999% of us. Slow news day?
Actually, it's very informative in contrasting the methodology used by rehab centers here. I truly believe that like weight loss programs or quit smoking, you can't just keep on taking pills/patches hoping to break away from your prior habit. You need to physically directing your attention away from such thing by keeping yourself busy with activities (cleaning, building, excersise, etc) and let your body to do the healing over time. When you are taking alternative drugs, your body have to do extra work by cleaning out your toxin and the new drug. These people are vomitting what they drank so it implied that whatever drugs they are taking just for psychological reason and they will puke it out after.
How about going to a remote island (with no environmental dangers) with plenty of water and survival tools. I am pretty sure after a month, you will be drug free.
They already have something like the "survival" concept. They send you out in the woods for a few weeks, and learn to survive. I have seen stories using this as rehab for teens, but I am sure they must have a version for adults too.
The cost of the plane ticket is far less than what a private drug treatment center would cost, so it is relevant to people who live in the US. It is also an interesting story.
Disgusting I bet they wont be too happy when thier teeth fall out from this!
Disgusting is dying from an OD, teeth can always be fixed
If they are already addicts I would think the least of their concern would be their dental health. Besides, most of these drugs cause incredible amounts of decay to the tooth and body already, so what's a few more weeks vomiting up to cleanse ones body and become drug free?
The shocking part of this story is that she had health insurance that PAID $1000.00 per day for other rehab. My insurance won't even pay for a colonoscopy!
They're free in San Fransisco.
nibor,
I would be more than a little leary of a free colonoscopy. Are these free ones actually using a camera?
more likely an inquisitive eye
99 cents a minute to watch. Visa and Mastercard accepted.
Ewwww!
WHATEVER method work for these sick people - good!
They may be 'sick', but you are 'stupid' for thinking that without even reading how effective it is.
This is what celebs need to do to get over their drug habits, rather than being coddled by these fancy "rehabs" that do NOTHING to help them get over their problem and instead feed them more pills. At least this seems to work!
While NA and AA work for some people, more up-to-date alternative methods are desperately needed, not more jails, expensive rehab hotels or wannabee drug rehab counselors.
Their system, as reported, sounds like a straight forward approach. Rebuild the troubled person from the inside out; mind, body and soul.
If true at 95% drug free results all I can say is, “If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck … it's a duck!”. We need better ideas and systems in our country.
I wonder if their methods would rid the body of toxins left over from chemo therapy. My doctor told me that it takes at least 6 months for the body to rid its self of the drugs I was taking. Its been 7 months and I still feel some side effects from the chemo.
The problem with chemo is that they have to give you toxins. Stuff that is powerful enough to kill the problem without killing you. It would be nice to be able to get rid of the toxins faster.
Even if it could cut the time from 6 months to 3 months, I would do it.
@James, Sorry to hear about your chemo, after nursing my father and my husband through it I know how hard it is on your body/mind and how long it takes to build that strength back. Hang in there, stay focused and as positive as you can and the strength will return. You will be in my prayers today.
Thanks Laura. Your comment was unexpected, but welcome.
If your going cold turkey from 20 years as a heroin addict, you need no help with projectile vomiting.
Heroin and other drugs should be free, and they should be administered in places that state that if you choose to get high, you are locked in the facility until you are "sober" for a specified amount of time. No theft, prostitution, etc to get your drugs. No more drug lords, trafficking, etc. Although the facility would be costly, it would be less costly than a prison, and would dramatically reduce the number of prisoners. You'd need security, but you wouldn't need a staff of corrections officers and anywhere near the level of confinement protocols and technology. (You're keeping in a high person who's not a criminal. Your worse case scenario is that someone gets out who is high.) Street drugs might still exist on a dramatically lower scale, but most people, especially with serious addictions, would choose to be confined in the facility and sit and watch tv or stare at the wall or something. And I'd bet you'd see people more motivated to quit on their own, and deciding to quit is the only way anyone ever quits. For example, who is more likely to decide to beat their addiction move on with their lives? A young girl who is just tired of sitting in a room getting high and wants to move on, or a young girl who has prostituted herself, lived a horrific street life, etc. in pursuit of her drugs? I say the damage from the latter lifestyle, and from other terrible situations, (the move toward criminal behavior, prison time, etc.) decreases the chances of facing the addiction and probably in many cases fuels the addiction.
My only question is, and many other social issues, is when will the kids who sat in the advanced class making As take control of the policy-making from the kids who were making Ds in the remedial class?
They should just make them all legal. The addicts would think twice about breaking the law to support their habit because they don't want to jones out in jail.
They should make them read things like this. They would be so busy for so long trying to make sense of it they wouldn't even noticed they've dried out.
You know, life use to be so much simpler.
In days gone by it was Gablin' and Whiskey and Wild Wild Women those were the things that kept me a livin'
:) - Oh well - Now I just cry in my beer (and nobody likes watered down beer)
The problem with this program is that they have provided no data on what the rate of recidivism is. Anecdotal evidence sounds great,but doesn't translate into proof.(of course I suppose it's at least as effective as some of these vacation rehabs)
Katheryn
I was qwip in my earlier post, I disagree with you and others who would say "it's at least as effective as some of these vacation rehabs".
I think being an old Marine and martial artist the therapy is probably more effective than you may give it credit for. The reason is because the effort and pain one has to go through to achieve the end, the goal is something of value to the person going through it. Think of the first car or item of worth or achievement you attained on your own (not given) it is something no one can take from you. For those who have been saddled with addiction and have wrestled it off and realize the choice of which side of the fence they want to be on is theirs ...........
Sadly our society has taught most parents that they need to provide for their children's every want and desire rather than teach their children to achieve and provide for themselves.
Hilarious case in point: 4 years ago my 15 year old (at the time) daughter contacted the police because I shut off her phone service for stupid prank calls her and her friends were making (I was a single father from the time she was 12) and the cop was idiotic enough to threaten to arrest me for child endangerment. Sadly (and gladly) to say my now ex girlfriend, cop and daughter were all on one side trying to make me hold the bag and the bill (i.e. phone bill).
The point is I kicked the girlfriend to the curb, my daughter is going through college on her own efforts and scholarship, the cop is probably trying to figuring out how to get powdered sugar stains out of his crotch (who really cares) - In this scenario the only one who really matters is my daughter and how she decided to achieve what she wanted - she pays her own phone bill now (pranks calls and all)
Jeff - I agree that you have to own the problem before you can really master it. I think so many of these rehabs sound like the participants want to be cured while they are busy trying to get around taking any responsibility. I call those, vacation rehabs and honestly -anything will be at least as effective as those. Feel me? So I like the strong structural component of this program and I like the meditative,inward direction of the program. But there are elements of it that raise my eyebrows - the projectile vomiting,the monks who smoke and have tats and attitude-honestly these are not your grandmother's monks. But the bottom line is I still want to see empirical evidence that this approach is working or else it falls in line with all of the rock stars running to India to find gurus in the 60s - just another trendy movement.
I whole heartedly agree with your approach to child rearing - I raised my son the same way. While he bemoaned that he was the only kid who didn't get to do this or had to do that... he is a responsible college student (probably more due to his character and my husband's calm demeanor than my parenting!) As I use to tell my son - everyone needs to have a story about how deprived they were in their childhood - here's another one to add to yours.
oh,Lord - Jeff - on rereading my post above,I realized the last line sounded like I was telling you to add to your story cache -and I was not. I should have put quotation marks around it - I use to tell my son to add another story to his "I was so deprived in my childhood" depository. That line was not directed to you. No disrespect was intended. I will just beat feet here before I insert foot anymore...
Katheryn
No offense or problem.
My kids will be happy tell you how I had walk 10 miles up hill both ways in the snow with no shoes to high school :) - And that was just from the parking lot.
Ha! :~))
10:1 says she falls off the wagon again, soon enough. Then it will be on to some other stupid idea.
Not necessarily. Give some people credit. When you really want and earn something, like recovery from addiction, sometimes you don't fall back into those old habits.
Looks to me like what the monks are doing works. Too much money is spent in the U.S. sending people to a nice comfortable rehab with Starbucks. You go in for a short time and right back out where you can buy more drugs. The rehabs have it great. You don't get better but you probably won't die either.
My husband once checked himself into a rehab facility because he'd become addicted to painkillers. Their advice, no their requirement, was that he take another drug. He insisted that he came there to get off painkillers (Vicodin), but they told him he would not receive treatment unless he took this other drug. Unfortunately, after being convinced it was the way to go he went along with it and took the new drug (Suboxone), and the doctor kept him on it for several years, raising the dose from time to time, while he slowly became nothing but a vegetable. Getting off the Suboxone was extremely difficult and since that time, although he's had much support from his new physicians and family, his brain simply does not function well. He cannot feel anything but anxiety and depressioin. This was not the case prior to him entering rehab. Even ECT did not kickstart him and although he's been off the Suboxone for two years I fear he'll never be a happy man again.
I tell you all this because if there is a treatment available that does not require that you take more drugs, which I understand most U.S. treatment facilities do, then why not try it. My guess is there are some facilities in the U.S. that do not, and it would have been nice if the article provided a list of similar facilities in the U.S.
Bucko608, I might suggest that your husband try one of the holistic health rehab centers.Nutritional therapy may help him to rebalance his neurochemicals and aleviate his symptoms.you might look at www.healthrecoverycenter.com
A rehab that is run by "the young Thai monks are tough-looking chain-smoking youths with tattoos. They enforce the temple rules and keep new patients in line."
Isn't Nicotine a drug?
Morons.
Hmmm, I wonder how fat, arrogant Rush Limbaugh would do in that setting? Probably leave because there are no Cuban cigars or any little girls to fondle.
As a former counselor for the brain impaired, I salute this technique, because it is my long experience that - until the addiction is arrested, no recovery can be secure, even for one day. The input must cease and then one re-formats their blueprint for their life. US treatment centers would serve a better purpose by demanding any patient be drug/alcohol free for six months prior to treatment and the treatment would focus on a rebirth of the patent's very existence - physical, mental and spiritual. In other words, once a reason for living or being is firmly implanted in recovering patient, he or she has a chance.
The results from an independent research evaluation study carried out by 2 British Universities can be found on the research section of the East West Detox Website: www.east-westdetox.org.uk
My name is Vince Cullen. I live in the UK but I have been associated with Wat Thamkrabok in Thailand since 1998.
In my opinion and experience, the physical detox provided by Thamkrabok Monastery in Thailand does actually work but this is only the first baby-step on the very long road to recovery.
The physical detox at Thamkrabok on it’s own works for a number of people who are already determined to change their life… but for many it simply does not… it is not enough.
I have set out my opinion of what is needed to secure a comfortable, long-lasting and happy recovery at html/foundations.html which goes beyond the physical detox at Wat Thamkrabok.
The links below have more information about Thamkrabok and recovery.
Kind regards and Metta to all.
Vince
What are the most effective components of the Thamkrabok Monastery program?
The original treatment process was devised by the 1st Abbot, Luangpor Chamroon and his aunt Mian (reverently known as Luangpor Yaai). The program developed over many years since the first addict was treated in 1959 into a highly effective systematic regime. There are perhaps five main identifiable elements of the program that work on two complementary levels: the spiritual and the physical. These elements are, in no particular order -
Firstly, the location and relative isolation of the monastery, the removal of the addict from their usual environment; a separation from home, ‘family’ and all that is familiar. Once accepted for treatment, the addict must hand over all of his/her belongings including their passport and exchange their clothes for a uniform of a white tee-shirt and loose red trousers. After 5-days, the white tee-shirt is exchanged for a red one indicating that the addict has completed the crucial vomiting treatment. Voluntarily giving up one’s cloths and possessions is an act of surrender, perhaps the first essential act of letting go. The uniform and lack of possessions doesn’t seem to stop some addicts from running away but it does deter most of them!
Secondly, the vow and the mantra. Sajja is a Pali word found in Buddhist texts which has the broad meaning of embracing truth, loyalty, purity and honesty; as in The Four Noble Sajjas. As well as Sajja in this broader sense, the Thamkrabok community use individual Sajjas or vows, not only as a key component of the detox treatment but also in their day-to-day approach to Buddhist practice. It does not matter whether you take a Sajja not to use drugs for life or a Sajja not to be angry for 7 hours. What is important is to see this commitment through to the end.
The Sajja that is taken not to use drugs is considered to be the most important part of the detox and recovery process. The ritual drug and alcohol Sajjas are presided over by senior monks who recite the words of the vow and the addict repeats the words, line by line, as best they can. One of the most important reasons for taking this vow in the presence of a ‘High’ monk is that it gives a greater sense of personal obligation. Bowing before a ‘mystical’ ally can also be considered an act of trust and surrender.
After 5-days of treatment, an addict may request a personal Sajja to help with his recovery. This may be as simple as “I will honour my parents” and may even be time-limited. At the time of taking this personal Sajja, the addict is given a piece of paper on which is written a unique mantra, called a Kahtah, known only to them. The Kahtah can be used as an object of meditation or as a blessing for food, but most importantly it is to use in times of high stress or temptation. After 7-days the paper is swallowed by the recovering addict. Now the addict really does embody his Sajja and Kahtah!
The third critical success factor is peer support. Thamkrabok gives it’s accommodation and services for free; addicts only pay a small amount for food and sundries. All addicts wear the same uniform and everyone is treated the same regardless of social status outside of Thamkrabok. Addicts in their first days of treatment are helped, supported and encouraged by those addicts who have already completed the critical 5-days vomiting treatment.
In the past, there was little or no support for addicts after leaving Thamkrabok but in 2003 I sowed the seeds of an online community that is now hosted by Google Groups and is called ‘Friends of Thamkrabok Monastery’. The group provides ongoing mutual support and a no-holds barred answering service to questions from addicts considering treatment at Thamkrabok. As previously mentioned, in 2009 I arranged an exclusive retreat for ‘Thamkrabokers’ facilitated by Martine Batchelor at The Barn Buddhist Retreat Centre in Devon, UK. In May 2010 there was another retreat at The Barn with Kevin Griffin author of ‘One Breath at a Time : Buddhism and the Twelve Steps’ and ‘Burning Desire: Dharma, God and the path of recovery’ as our guest teacher. Also in 2010 saw the opening of a new 60-bed residential after-care facility for ex-Thamkrabok addicts in Chiang Rai, northern Thailand. The Chiwit Him (New Life) Foundation project is being built and funded by a grateful ex-addict from Belgium.
The fourth factor of success is meditation and Dhamma (or Dharma) talks. Thamkrabok practices a unique approach to Buddhism and for most addicts the monastery is their first introduction to Buddhism in any form. There are weekly Dhamma talks given by one of the ‘High’ monks and opportunities to learn Thamkrabok style, and traditional style sitting and walking meditation techniques. Addicts in treatment sweep up leaves from around the monastery twice a day and some, but not all, see and appreciate this as a type of work meditation. A lot of addicts do leave Tham Krabok with the rudimentary beginnings of meditation practice. It may be anecdotal on my part but I see the addicts that accept sweeping leaves - without complaint - as the one’s who find long-lasting recovery. To further aid recovery in a small way, I have recently started a Fifth Precept meditation group in my own home town. The group is open to anyone in recovery from alcohol or other drug addictions, being Buddhist or otherwise, regardless of meditation experience.
Lastly, the infamous aspect of the Thamkrabok program: “It’s that monastery in Thailand where they make you vomit.” Well, that may be so, but there is a lot more to this purging than just emptying the stomach. The herbal ‘medicine’ was developed over a number of years. It is said that the recipe of 109 natural ingredients is known only to the current Abbot and the Herbalist monk. The concoction is emetic, often producing “projectile vomiting.” This part of the treatment has many important components; including the ritual dispensing of the thick brown liquid, the real and symbolic cleansing, the physical effect of purging toxins from the body and the resulting physical weakness. This public display of vomiting is another act of letting go but on a physical level
In addition to the emetic detox mixture, the addicts are dispensed purgative herbal pills and encouraged to drink a special herbal tea, particularly before and during the daily visits to one of the three herbal steam saunas.
Make no mistake; this is a very real and very rapid detox.