I had become a crack addict at the age of 19. I was a member of the band Jocasta, and the day our album was released we were dropped by our record label. In the same week, my girlfriend left me and I lost my flat. In hindsight, I realise that I had had a nervous breakdown. I thought my life was over, which it wasn’t, of course. Then, last year, after several years of addiction, I knew I needed help to quit.
I had heard about the treatment centre at Thamkrabok and, with the help of my mother and her old friend June Brown (who plays Dot Cotton in EastEnders), I got the fare together to go.
On arrival, I was handed a pair of pink pyjamas, which all the patients wear, and was shown to the huge dormitory. It was basic, but comfortable enough, with a few Buddhist statues. Many of the other patients were hardcore addicts who had been in prison. I’ve always been a bit of a wimp, so I was the one most likely to have my head flushed down the toilet, but everyone was supportive.
We were mostly men — along with the Thai patients, there were a couple of Scotsmen, an Irishman, a French guy and a German, plus an American woman. Most were heroin addicts, some methadone-dependent, but you can be treated there for any narcotic addiction, as well as alcoholism.
The first step of the treatment is to take the sajja, a vow to complete the course. It’s a spiritual vow, but you don’t have to be a Buddhist to take it, just as long as you believe in something. The purging takes place daily during the first five days, each afternoon at 5pm. You line up and the monks give you a shot glass full of dark-coloured medicine made from 108 different herbs, including tree bark. The same secret formula has been used at the monastery since it was founded in 1958; since then, more than 100,000 addicts have passed through the centre.
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The medicine tastes vile: the monks say it acts like a magnet for toxins — physical, mental and spiritual. You drink some water to help you throw up; usually two to three litres does it. Some patients find the public vomiting embarrassing at first, but that soon wears off. After a few days of this, I started puking up black bile — it was a great feeling to get it out of my body.
We also had two herbal steam baths a day, during which there was a great feeling of camaraderie — everyone sitting around together, classless, because nobody has to pay for the treatment, no matter how rich or poor (you pay only for your food, though the monastery does accept donations). I think that is an important part of why Thamkrabok works: where private-sector rehab clinics have to make money, the treatment here is provided out of compassion.
Luangphaw Charoen Parnchand, the monastery’s abbot, is a charismatic man, a visionary even, and the monks are not harsh or judgmental in their attitude — they just believe that addiction will hold you back from a good future.
Thamkrabok has a reputation as a strict place. I didn’t find it so, but there are some rules. For example, no mobile phones are allowed, as you are expected to detach yourself from your usual life. In fact, they take away most possessions you bring with you for the duration of your stay, and if you leave before the end of your treatment, you can’t come back. Everyone has to get up at 5am and help to sweep the grounds, you must take the sajja and you must follow the treatment — oh, and you have to sing the Thai national anthem twice a day.
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After the five days of purging I felt tired, but good. The cravings had stopped, and I started doing sit-ups — there is something about the energy of the place that makes you determined to better yourself in every way. The full treatment lasts about four weeks, but the biggest challenge for me was to be certain I could go back to the UK without returning to my habit.
The monks emphasise not just stopping drugs but also starting something new in your life, and there are music and sculpture studios to encourage this. Eventually, my experience there became more about music than about drugs. The abbot is also a composer, and he told me about a method he created, whereby you trace the cracks in the rocks of the mountains and translate it into music that is said to have a healing energy. I recently completed an album of the music I made there, and most of the profits will go to the monastery’s treatment centre.
I wouldn’t advise people to go to Thamkrabok without thinking extremely hard about it first. When Pete Doherty (former front man of the Libertines) went there recently, he lasted only a few days — he wasn’t ready to have such a life-changing experience and to clean up.
The medicine got my body clean, but it’s the sajja and the holistic approach that has kept me off the drugs. It’s a year since I went, and I’m still clean. I feel as if there is someone with me all the time, watching over me. I don’t want to be an addict again — it’s a horrible and lonely existence. All I ever wanted was to make music, and now I can concentrate on that and stop wasting time.
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Tim Arnold was speaking to Lindsay Baker
Further information
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Thamkrabok claims a 70% success rate, though this figure has not been independently verified. The National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse reports that the numbers of people successfully completing treatment in the UK is 18%, and figures from Addiction Today show that 50% of patients at the Priory Group complete the aftercare programme. A charity, East-West Detox, has been authorised to help bring British patients to Thamkrabok; some have already been referred through this charity by the NHS. It is raising funds to complete research with the Maudsley Hospital and also to set up a halfway house for patients preparing to go to, and returning from, Thamkrabok. The charity hopes eventually to establish a similar treatment centre in the UK
Contacts
East-West Detox: 0118 962 3332, www.east-westdetox.org.uk, or e-mail info@east-westdetox.org.uk
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Tim Arnold’s foundation: www.tkbuk.com; www.timarnold.net
The album Lokutara by Tim Arnold is out on Sajja Records.
For more information on all drug-related issues, call DrugScope: 020 7928 1211