drug addiction, drug addict, drugs
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Dubai: Dubai Police have helped a woman overcome her addiction to drugs after her housemaid discovered her problem and reported the issue to the woman’s mother, who in her turn sought assistance from police.

The woman’s life had been going well. She graduated from university and achieved excellence in science. Then she got married and the couple set an example in marital harmony.

However she made new “friends” who started inciting her against her husband, urging her for a divorce so she could live alone with “freedom”. They persuaded her to take drugs and illegal painkillers as a “solution” to facing family and psychological problems.

Her marital disputes worsened and the couple got divorced.

Downward spiral

The “friends” encouraged her to live with her son and maid away from her family, to delve deeper into the world of drugs and to suffer depression and addiction that destroyed her psychologically and ruined her health and beauty.

The maid contacted her mother in a bid to save her. The mother in her turn contacted Hemaya International Centre in the General Department of Drug Control in Dubai Police, to save her daughter and help her to leave the world of drug addiction by taking advantage of Article 89 of the UAE Law on Combating Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances.

Colonel Abdullah Al Khayat

Colonel Abdullah Al Khayat, Director of Hemaya International Centre, said the young woman had got married at the age of 20, and gave birth to a child who is currently six years old. Her husband was a good person, but after she met a group of bad friends, her life turned “upside down”. As every time she would tell them about her personal problems, they would worsen her life, until the marital disputes led to divorce.

Her family insisted she return along with her son to live with them but she refused so that her drug addiction would not be discovered. She lived in a villa with her son and maid - she was far from the eyes of her family and close to “bad companions”.

Maid breaks silence

Col Al Khayat said the young woman’s addiction to drugs was not enough for her “friends” who later pushed her to visit psychiatrists, and as a result of taking some illegal painkiller, she suffered from bouts of screaming and anger to the point that she broke anything in front of her. The maid felt she had to intervene and break her silence about the “tragic situation” that her employer was in.

She took the initiative to inform her employer’s mother about all the changes that have occurred in her daughter’s life, who was approaching insanity.

Col Al Khayat said many people do not know that some types of drugs affect the user with hallucinations, which make him or her hear and see imaginary things leading to perform an act such as suicide.

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Rapid intervention

Col Al Khayat added that families’ denial of the idea of an addict among their members often leads to impeding the success of psychological rehabilitation and containment processes for addicts in general, as they are deprived of timely access to sources of support, especially in the event of the abuse of certain substances that require accurate and rapid therapeutic intervention.

Fortunately, the mother of this young woman approached Hemaya International Centre without hesitation to take advantage of Article 89 of the Law on Combating Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances, where the social consultants directed her to calm down and not rush to confront her daughter in order to avoid any escalation, but rather to take her to the centre, and after meeting the daughter her condition was studied and referred for treatment and rehabilitation.