76 September 2013 www.womanthismonth.com Drug abuse has grown wordlessly to become an enormous menace in Bahrain. The International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31 aims to break the culture of silence. A drug addict is, very simply, someone whose life is controlled by drugs. An addict’s entire existence and thinking is centred on getting the next fix – a complete waste of what could otherwise be a promising life. Substance abuse is gaining in alarming proportions in a small country like Bahrain and is perhaps, the Kingdom’s best kept secret, feel community watchers. “While we have no definite statistics for obvious reasons, the United Nations estimated in 2006 that there were about 20,000 to 30,000 drug addicts in Bahrain, some of them as young as 16,” observes Ahmed Fadhul, vice president at Addict Friends Society (AFS) in Bahrain. Such is the magnitude of the problem that drug abuse had led to higher incidence of HIV in the Kingdom. “About 70 per cent of Bahrain’s HIV cases stem from the use of shared IV needles. There are other addicts who feel ashamed to come forward and seek treatment as they fear that they might have contracted HIV themselves,” he notes. As a specialist nurse, Ahmed works to rehabilitate drug and alcohol addicts at the Almoayyed Drug and Alcoholic Rehabilitation Unit under the Ministry of Health. Users in Bahrain range from teenagers as young as 16 to people in their late 40s. Women also form a segment of this addiction pool, though their numbers are not very large. by SIMI KAMBOJ Saying No to Drugs lifestyle | community Ahmed Fadhul
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