We at Jeevan Rekha now believe that addiction as a disease affects every aspect of the afflicted person's life, at the physical and mental level, in relationships, and even causes the person to lose all sense of morality. The disease has a way of recurring and only a total change in attitude can bring any meaningful recovery. Through our experience in De-addiction field of treating more than 4,500 friends, we have developed 12 Principles of De-addiction Treatment:

In India family system is still strong. Generally family assumes the responsibility of rehabilitation of the recovered addict. Therefore we primarily focus on reintegration in the family. During the course of the treatment we arrange two family educative group sessions and motivate the family members to accept the friend as a person while condemning his behaviour. We stress the need to provide watchful support for his sober living. For co-dependents we extend exhaustive counselling sessions and group therapy. We also try to include influential members from the society to help in recovery and reconciliation process.

Security and love are very important needs of the person suffering from the disease of addiction. We feel that dormitory living and community approach provides emotional bonding among the friends. They sense and feel love in the setting. We don't have a separate ward for detoxification. Observing severe withdrawals of new friends helps others understand the gravity of the problem. Further, senior inmates help in nursing the newcomers during withdrawals.