Push away from the bottom

76% of alcoholics who have undergone rehabilitation in the Center "Old Light" have been preserved by conscious sobriety for several years

We help the old light collected 560 947 r we need 600,000 r

The collection of funds is over

“I am a drug addict. At the age of 15, I also began to drink alcohol, but I do not consider myself an alcoholic. At 16 he tried heroin, received it for about a year and a half. Then he switched to heavier stimulating drugs - domino. With heroin, I tears. Soon I did theft and sat down-all because of use. They gave me three years. He did not go to the colony, did not want to live a thieves' life, left me on a worker as a cleaner. I served a year and a half, I went out at parole. A year later, somewhere, not knowing about his illness (I am a chemically dependent person), began to use again. Mostly ecstasy and amphetamines. "

In the village of Erino, under Podolsky, there is a temple of the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Snow -white, strict outlines, very well -groomed. Bright and spacious inside. The decoration is ascetic: neither frescoes nor gilding - the walls are simply whitewashed; There are no salaries on the few icons. The stand at the entrance tells about the local saint-Archpriest Nikolai Agafonnikov, the rector of the temple, shot at the Butovo training ground in 1937.

Two men who brought me here - elderly and young - are baptized on a porch before entering. I am without a scarf, but they ask not to be shy and bring me to the amvon to show me an old dome from the inside. Evgeny Nikolayevich Protsenko - this is the name of the eldest man - he says that the temple is nearly four hundred years old, unless the bell tower is more and more.

Evgeny Nikolaevich is a psychologist, founder of the Old Light charity foundation, whose rehabilitation center for drug addicts operates in the temple. When I ask him why it was decided to open the center here, he replies that he had grown in Erina, and this temple found in the ruins. The destroyed church was returned to life for a long time, patiently, on bare enthusiasm.

Evgeny Protsenko does about the same thing with his wards - those who are accepted and even almost decent to say: "These are no longer people." “But a long time ago in the scientific community, the idea of ​​dependence as a disease, the occurrence of which has nothing to do with the power of will,” Protsenko explains. - This is a feature of the functioning of the body and metabolism with which a person is born, and which, under adverse conditions, leads to the development of alcoholism or drug addiction. It is genetically predetermined: it is known that in some northern peoples a tendency to alcoholism is almost one hundred percent. ”

Dependence is a disease, the occurrence of which is in no way connected with willpower.

The psychologist is convinced that any alcoholic and drug addict is actually a lost seeker of truth. “Most often these are people whose will cannot be called weak,” says Evgeny Nikolaevich. -It is worth seeing how much effort they are allowed to get something to get something. You can envy their determination! ”

He invites his wards to direct determination in a different direction - to aim at labor, faith, understanding, love. Or just makes it so that there is no time for idle thoughts.

- And why exactly the "old light"? I ask.

-Well ... I wanted to call it somehow non-banally. We have been working since 1992, and then all kinds of “rebirths”, “Sundays” appeared a lot ... At first we did not put any special meaning into this. This is later different connotations. For example, "Old Light" is the birthplace of Christianity. Although the system we work came from the New World.

The “Old World” program takes as a basis the famous American system “12 steps”, according to which since the 1930s, communities of anonymous alcoholics (AA) have been working. 12 steps are the path that a dependent person should go, who decided to return to a normal life. The first step is the adoption of the fact of its dependence. Then serious internal work on oneself; Compensation of harm caused to close as a result of alcoholism or drug addiction. And finally, this is the duty of anyone who has recovered - help other dependent.

The “Old World” program takes as a basis the famous American system “12 steps”, according to which since the 1930s, communities of anonymous alcoholics have been working.

On the basis of “12 steps”, the “Minnesotskaya program” was created, which implies the participation of a professional psychotherapist - its principles in the “Old World” are also taken into account. But the technique that is used in Erina is also the personal research and practical experience of Evgenia Protsenko, who began to work in narcology back in Soviet times. He knows well that neither purely medical, nor psychotherapeutic, nor exclusively “spiritual” and even more so charlatan ways like coding is impossible to return a drug addict to life.

“Sometimes there were some periods of abstinence, but the disease still progressed, I did not recover. Six times lost work; He held good enough positions, and then broke. As I started to use, I don’t understand: I missed the moment when this mechanism began to work in me. In some dreams, bright memories, the disease made itself felt. Only now I understand that I could not do anything, I did not know, I did not know how to control my dependence. And he destroyed everything that he created.

Then I got married, did not use for three years. During the “cleanliness” I had a son. And it so happened that I broke. Since winter with my wife, I don’t live, I don’t raise a child. He helped, while he could, then he still became at everyone else. In the first place I had use.

Probably the bottom is when I sold my father’s car. This is all that I was left. Where I lived, I was not happy, there was no more money. I spent the amount of the paternal car. Decent enough money was ... "

People are sitting on both sides of the bright temple space at two tables. Behind the left - mostly men. Behind the right - mainly women in scarves and without. They talk quietly and drink tea.

On Sundays, at lunchtime, mutual assistance groups work in the temple, two at once: one for alcoholics and drug addicts, the second for their relatives. “We conduct lectures, workshops on addictology (the science of dependent behavior - approx.“ TD ”) for those who have encountered dependence in their family,” says Evgeny Nikolaevich. - By and large, many relatives have the same problem as the drug addicts themselves. Only instead of a substance they have a loved one. ” While some fill their spiritual emptiness with chemical euphoria, the latter do this with hypertrophied care and control; For them, the patient becomes a drug for them or, conversely, power over him. “This, of course, exacerbates the condition of the dependent, because this is not a solution to the problem, but the illusion of a solution,” says the founder of the center. - We have a story of one mother who has long went to a group of mutual assistance. Her son was a chronic alcoholic, a drug addict. Once, leaving the metro, this woman saw a person lying across the road - he apparently rested on the sidewalk - and recognized his son in him. She later told what was happening in her head: the first thought, of course, raise, take home, and offend in every possible way. Do everything that she has already done many, many times. But she stepped over and went on. The son later began to look for a solution to his problem, he began to succeed. "

This is probably why the Iron Condition applies in the rehabilitation center: the patient must come here himself. Stories about parents, by the ears of their son dragging their son into the “narcology”, so that he is fastened with belts to the bed, not about the “Old Light”. Moreover, not any of those who contacted here will be taken. For beginners there is a two -week test period during which they must prove their willingness to change. If they do not prove, no one will condemn them.

You can leave the center at any time: both before and after the start of the two -year program. But, according to Evgeny Protsenko, the refusal to bring the program to the end does not usually end with anything good. For example, according to the statistics of the Center, graduates of the first, annual phase of rehabilitation (this includes alcoholics and drug addicts) retain sobriety in half of cases. Of those who have undergone complete rehabilitation and resociation, occupying two and a half - three years, to use drugs and alcohol stopped everything. If you take only alcoholics who have passed a complete program in the Old World, then 76% live in a stable remission lasting from several years. Among those who cut off the process in the middle, only 70% do not drink alcohol for more than a year.

Of those who have undergone complete rehabilitation and resociation, occupying two and a half - three years, to use drugs and alcohol stopped everything.

Protsenko and his ward, 32-year-old Alexei (artist and skillful carpenter with great experience in alcoholism) show me their not too vast possessions around the temple. Forge, carpentry workshop, where rehabilitants make reproductions of icons and recently the doors to order; A small printing house, the skeleton of the future stable. There are signs of violent economic activity everywhere: building materials, boards, sheds and vans, tools, fragments of forged cast -iron grilles.

At exactly two in the afternoon - they live here on a strict schedule - we return to a two -story wooden house where rehabilitants live. Two yard puppy-teenage puppies run from the booth to meet Evgeny Nikolaevich, and he lingers to feed them. Three young men with large bags of small apples and pears go along the path between the sites. All of them are owners of strong sports physique; It is almost impossible to suspect any disease in them. By the way, no one talks about his ailment here in the past tense; The first thing that rehabilitants understand that alcoholism and drug addiction are chronic and often recurrent diseases. Just stop using - it is not enough for recovery, and it is impossible to heal completely, because you cannot defeat an innate tendency. But this does not mean that it is impossible to start living a healthy, meaningful, happy life.

We walk along the corridor past the gym and computer halls and enter a large room; In the middle is a dining table in one of the corners-something like an improvised iconostasis. On the wall is a white plastic board, one English word is written in the middle - Willingness.

- How would you translate it?

- Will? Determination?

- The desire to change.

We are located around the oval table. Men unfold to the red corner and chants a prayer; Behind them, a portrait of Patriarch Kirill, touchingly decorated with New Year's tinsel, is strictly observed from the wall. Three rehabilitants sit down for dinner, the fourth continues to fuss in the kitchen. Today is borsch and pasta with sausage.

At dinner, the intricacies of baking are discussed; They come to the conclusion that the yeast dough is much tastier than the biscuit. A black kitten Barmaley rides a black with white paws on the knees of rehabilitants. Caring for animals is an important part of rehabilitation, explains Evgeny Protsenko.

Just stop using - it is not enough for recovery, and it is impossible to heal completely, because you cannot defeat an innate tendency. But this does not mean that it is impossible to start living a healthy, meaningful, happy life.

And then they tell me their stories. In them every now and then there is the same word, common to all - “bottom”. Any bottom, as you know, has a characteristic feature: having pushed away from it, you can swim. And yet, it is impossible even to imagine how many drowning people this push was successful.

“Soon I lay down on the drug dispensary, came to my senses. But there they treated drugs, there are no psychologists; I understood that they would not provide special assistance to me. I understood that it was necessary to move in some other direction. While lying, they came to me from a group of anonymous drug addicts. They campaigned to go to some paid rehabilitation center, but I was so pumped up with all sorts of pills that I did not understand anything.

Then I, together with my parents who supported me, went to Moscow. There, the head physician distributed to rehabilitation. I asked for somewhere away, and sent me to the Podolsk rehabilitation center. Not this one, another. Very responsive staff, attentive psychologists. There, in the evenings, groups are carried out as dependent as me, but with a large experience of sobriety. There was Alexey, 14 years of sobriety, Alexander, three years ... Looking at them, I realized that, firstly, I was sick. And secondly, what can become recovering. Thanks to that center, my eyes opened. But I understood that, having come out of it, I could not start living: the course is very small, only two weeks.

From the consultants, I learned that there is a center in Erina. It is free, it was fundamentally for me: I did not want my parents to pay money, but I didn’t have my funds. I called, agreed, waited for two weeks; While waiting, he began to go to a group of anonymous drug addicts in our Khimki, just to have something to occupy. And I realized that something good is happening to me in these groups. I felt much better, I didn’t think about traction at all. Then I was invited here.

Here I am eleven days. The impressions are good. We work a lot, communicate every evening, if something is accumulating with me, I can express to the guys. I know that I am in the right direction, and there are a lot of work, I am at the very beginning. This is my fate. ”

The Foundation "Old Light" exists only for private money. Small production in the rehabilitation center can hardly bring it to self -sufficiency. Sometimes the fund receives grants - in former times, Christian organizations of abroad often helped. The Russian authorities help less often.

Fund is needed also so that the rehabilitation center can work in full force. 600 thousand rubles are required for a year - these are all payments, meals and other current expenses. And less than a hundred thousand were collected ... As a result, only four live in Erina in Erina, with the calculated “power” in Erina. So, in Russia there are at least eight young, strong, capable people who may never get a chance for a long, healthy, happy future.

Help them push off from the bottom - in our strength.