One of the most interesting and intriguing places I have been in my life, Tham Krabok Monastery resides in the a mountainous and forested area about three hours north of Bangkok, Here resides a colony, a community of monks and nuns, who follow the tenants of Buddhism and help those in need.  This monastery aimed at helping people with drug addictions and other curable behaviors.  The compound houses a world-renowned drug treatment facility run entirely by the monk and nuns.  The treatment of drug addicts here is almost the complete opposite of how we deal with the problem in the west.  In the west most places convince you have a disease.  You are powerless against this disease and there is a complete lack of control and shift in responsibility.  Here at Tham Krabok, you are taught that you must look to only yourself to truly change, that the only thing you only own is your actions and that you must accept your past decisions along with those you make today.  Along with daily meetings and talks with the monks, the patients undergo steam baths to release toxins and daily vomiting rituals and herbal medicines to cleanse the body.  I talked to many heroin addicts there who told me that normally two days into detoxing, they would be curled up in a ball sleeping in their own filth.  Here they were able to talk to me, to smile and laugh. No methadone.  No opioid replacements.  Just helping the body and mind heal itself.  If this sounds silly to you keep in mind that drug treatment programs here in the west typically have a 25% success rate and cost thousands and thousands of dollars.  Tham Krabok cost $2 a day (to cover food costs) and has a success rate around 80%.  If you know someone with a problem, alcohol, meth, heroin, whatever, I strongly suggest sending them here.

If you want to know more about the monetary and their drug treatment program you can go here.

http://www.thamkrabok-monastery.org/