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"I thought I was going to die.”

Ucok (not his real name) was recalling a run-in he had with the police one night in 2005. Wracked by a craving for shabu-shabu which he could not shake, he was hardly in control of his body as he hunted for the drug. He usually bought his methamphetamines from friends, but none of them were holding at the time.

“I had no choice,” he said. He ended up calling a dealer using a number he got from a friend, then went to meet the man somewhere in Senen, Central Jakarta. What he didn’t know was that the dealer was being targeted by a police sting.

Before he knew it, officers were swarming the scene. The policemen chased them down the alleyway, and Ucok was a second away from being caught, but incredibly managed to escape. The experience didn’t cure him.

The 21-year-old Jakarta university student said he got his first taste in high school, when a good friend offered him a marijuana joint, known as cimeng. “My friend told me that cimeng tasted just like cigarettes,” Ucok said. That started him on a path that led to three years of addiction. In 2007, his family sent him to a rehabilitation center, and these days Ucok is no longer hooked.

He describes the first week in rehab, with understatement, as not an easy experience. A major reason was that the counselors there didn’t give him anything for the pain when he was sakau, or craving. “It was like hell,” Ucok said.

He described the withdrawal symptoms as feeling like his body was being crushed by a 10-ton truck. He was often trembling and constantly had a runny nose.

Ucok said he feels lucky that he survived the painful experience. After spending more than eight months in rehab, he felt reborn. “It was a dark moment in my life. I don’t want to experience it ever again,” he said.

After rehab, one of the critical actions that Ucok said helped in his recovery was avoiding his old junkie friends.

“Once you’re an addict, you can’t really guarantee that you won’t use again,” he said. “That’s why you have to avoid all the things that can trigger a relapse.”

Ucok’s story is by no means unusual in Indonesia. He was among an increasing number of young drug users in Indonesia. According to the National Narcotics Agency (BNN), the government’s antidrug body, there were 28,382 illegal drug cases recorded in 2009, involving a total of 35,299 people. Of these, 102 were under the age of 15, and 1,596 were aged 16 to 19.

Last year also saw an increase in the number of illegal drug labs busted by police. Officers shut down 11 in Jakarta and Banten, compared to only four in 2008.

A BNN report in 2008 suggested that there were 3.6 million drug users across the country, including 1.35 million high school and university students. The report said that 41 percent of drug abusers started using between the ages of 16 and 18, and an average of 40 deaths occurred each day as a direct result of narcotics.

BNN head Gories Mere stressed in an interview with an online news portal in North Sumatra, Waspada, that there had been a significant increase in illegal drug use in the country in recent years. He said research by his agency last year showed that about 2 percent of the adult population used illegal drugs. In 2004, that figure was 1.75 percent.

Gories attributed the increase to advancements in technology. He said that for users, it was easier to get drugs using mobile phones and the Internet, while the machinery used in drug production was now smaller and more advanced.

Narendra Narotama, managing director of the Kapeta Foundation, which is dedicated to fighting drugs and spreading awareness about HIV/AIDS, said that emotionally fragile people were the most at risk of drug addiction. “An unstable person usually comes from a troubled family,” she said.

The foundation, located in Bintaro, South Jakarta, runs a rehab center where it provides free therapy to drug users. The therapy includes psychological consultations, group discussions and antidrug workshops.

Not everyone wants help, though, Anastasia, for instance, uses drugs and says she sees nothing wrong with her habit. The 25-year-old English lecturer at a well-known private university in Jakarta said she started using drugs in high school after being introduced by some friends. Recalling how she witnessed regular fights between her parents before they divorced, she said drugs provided the perfect escape from family problems.

Like many her age, Anastasia (not her real name) says she takes ecstasy and marijuana because they make her happy when she’s out partying and give her the energy she needs when she has a lot of work to get through. Anastasia also claims that she can control her use.

She also says that she and her friends who also use wonder why marijuana and ecstasy are illegal while cigarettes and alcohol can be bought anywhere.

“They kill people too. They should also be illegal,” she said.

Agusta Malik, 40, is a former drug addict who started using in 1992. He cannot remember how much he spent on his habit, but when asked if he ever had to sell his car to buy drugs, he answered, “I’m sure I lost way more than just that.”

He decided to kick the habit in 1999. At the time, he was completely broke and had lost the trust of everyone around him. “As a drug addict, I wasn’t even scared of dying,” he said. “All I cared about was how to get the drugs.”

His family intervened and made him see a doctor who specialized in drug rehabilitation. Under the doctor’s supervision, Agusta was completely clean after two years of treatment. He now works as a counselor at the drug unit of Bhayangkara Selapa Hospital in Bogor.

“I want to help young people stop using illegal drugs,” he said.

Agusta explained that when addicts seek help from the hospital, he meets with them and asks some initial questions. These questions usually cover what drugs the addicts have been using, how much and for how long. After the assessment, the patients are placed in a living area for eight to 15 days, where they undergo detox with the help of medicines to flush the drugs out of their bodies.

Bhayangkara Selapa Hospital, which only has a detox center, then sends the patients to a rehab center.

Agusta believes there are three factors that can turn a person into an addict.First is their predisposition. Curious people want to try out things, he said. Second is “a family member who takes drugs or drinks too much alcohol.” The last is if one is friends with someone who does drugs.

Drug-users lacking any one of those three factors were unlikely to be at the level of addict, Agusta said. “If someone only has one of these factors, they will probably try to use but they won’t find themselves addicted,” he added.

Most drug users who check themselves into the hospital are what Agusta terms “old players” — users who yo-yo between addiction and rehab.

Agusta said the hospital had seen more people coming to rehab, something he attributed to better law enforcement. Families used to be able to just bribe the police to release those caught using drugs.

“Now, the cops send them to rehab first,” he said.