ASSAM: From being a drug addict to helping others recover from the scourge, the life of Bedanta Bora has come full circle. The 34-year-old from central Assam’s Nagaon symbolises how dangerous curiosity leads one to doom. His is also a story of a never-say-die attitude and sensitivity towards those suffering from substance abuse.
On January 1 this year, Bora and two others — a former alcoholic and a former poly-drug user — teamed up to start ‘Healing Hand Wellness Centre’, a de-addiction abode in Guwahati. It has shown this is possible and how even after addiction, a strong will and creative mind can help in coming out of it.
The only son of retired school teacher-parents, Bora was an alcoholic, who got introduced to heroin in 2006, when he was sent to Guwahati to pursue a bachelor’s degree in business administration. “I had been an alcoholic. After I cleared graduation and enrolled for MBA, I left the hostel and started staying with a friend in a rented accommodation. Initially, I thought he was a teetotaler and wondered how one can live without any intoxicant,” recalls Bora. Soon he was proved wrong.
One day, Bora saw him preparing a dose of heroin. “I was curious about it. Soon, I started injecting it myself,” says Bora. This went on until mid-2011, after which he did not get it for about two months. His mother was selected for an award in Nepal and he accompanied her on a weeklong tour to Kathmandu. Upon his return, he learnt he got selected for a job at a private bank. He left Assam for Kolkata for training and later, was posted in the Arunachal Pradesh capital of Itanagar. Over the next two years or so, he would take only alcohol — his day would begin with it.
In 2013, he came to Guwahati to see his ailing father without officially being on leave. He did not return to his workplace. “I settled in Nagaon again, bought a car that I would rent out for a living,” says Bora. He was soon drawn to drugs again; this time it was brown sugar. “In 2014, I got married without the knowledge of my parents and sister. My wife knew I was an alcoholic, but had no idea I was a drug addict too.”
The turnaround in his life came in October, 2018 when he decided to go for rehab in Guwahati. Following counselling, he returned home. He has not touched drugs or other intoxicants since. In 2019, his counsellors asked him if he would like to join a de-addiction centre they were planning to start. He joined as a member. Due to differences among the seven persons running it, the centre closed down. “I wanted to help the addicts recover. I wanted to start a centre,” Bora says.
Help came from a former alcoholic and drug user, leading to the formation of ‘Healing Hand Wellness Centre’. Currently, it has 50 patients from Assam, Meghalaya and Arunachal. “I used to take everything, alcohol, cannabis to hard drugs. But I was always conscious that I was killing myself. I wanted to come out of it. It took me eight years,” says Bora.
The Assam government has launched a crusade against drugs. The police is taking Bora’s help to create awareness. At a drugs-destroying programme at Nagaon recently, Bora shared his experience before Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma. He narrated how families get destroyed due to substance abuse.
A Nagaon local, who lost his two young sons to drugs, also spoke. He urged the police to gun down drug dealers and peddlers. Bora endorsed it. “In 2010, we struggled to get drugs. Today, it is available all over. I feel that drug dealers should be shot dead. But we must not view addicts as our enemies. They are patients and we have to treat them,” Bora says. Since May 10, drugs worth Rs 163.58 crore have been seized. During the operations, police shot at and injured some drug dealers and peddlers.