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Here are their stories ---how they got involved in their work and what feels important to them.
YAKEBA: AIDS/HIV and NARCOTICS AWARENESS PROGRAM IN THE SCHOOLS
This program brings former addicts into the schools to talk to the students on their level.
Mega's story
 My name is Mega. I am 35 years old. In l987 I married someone from outside Bali. I gave birth to four children. From the beginning of the marriage, I was a model housewife who only took care of her children and waited for her husband to come home, as my husband worked outside the city. But after a while, I began to feel lonely and started to go out of the house. It turns out that all my friends used narcotics and offered them to me. In the beginning I refused but in the end I started trying them.
When I first starting using drugs, I had no idea what the effects would be. After I started using I felt like I was a different person, all my problems seemed to disappear. And then I began to misuse the drugs; every day I had to have some. If not, I would feel awful. My husband found out about my drug use because my behavior had changed. I didn't care about my kids or my family and I had sold everything in the house. I even used my kid's milk money to buy durgs. My husband took me to the hospital, to a pesantren (Muslim school) and other places but to no avail. So he divorced me.
In 1995 I returned to Bali, at that time I didn't realize there were lots of drugs available in Bali as well. In order to fulfill my daily needs, I tried working here and there. I was offered work in a karaoke bar and I took it. My circle of friends enlarged and so did my circle of friends who were drug users.
I began to try drugs again because I missed them. And I didn't stop. In l997 I was busted by the police for carrying and was sentenced to 18 months in jail. But even in jail, I continued to use drugs-heroin became my drug of choice. After I was incarcerated, I starting shooting up heroin, as my funds and the availability of drugs was limited. There were other side effects from using needles that I was unaware of. I became infected with HIV. Being released from prison, I was not less of a drug user, but much more of a drug user.
I continued to use heroin, until I was arrested by the police and put in jail again. That was my life, in and out of jail. Finally a friend took me to a rehabilitation center called YAKEBA. There I was able to stay clean for nine months. After I got out of the center I started using again and was busted again. After getting out of jail that time I promised to stop and stay at YAKEBA, but all those promises about not using were put to a very strong test and I kept on using drugs. After I had nothing left, I finally decided to return to the rehab center. I had to undergo a three month program there and then I was given employment.
Now I have been clean for seven months. After not using drugs, I feel much better and am grateful to God that I was given the opportunity to change myself and live. I can now take responsibility for my children, my parents and my work even though I don't bring in a large salary. But I am proud of myself and the changes I have brought about in myself. I will try to retain what I have now and the trust others have put in me. If there is anyone out there who reads the bitter story of my life, I ask that you be careful in who you choose for friends. Don't be tempted by their words or go with them to places that aren't good for you. Because I don't want the next generation to be like me; it is enough for only me to experience that kind of life.
Wayan's story
 Before I used drugs, I lived a life like all others my age. I had goats and hopes, I went to school, studied, hung out with friends and socialized.
My relationship with my family, friends and community could be called positive at that time.
I am the first of three children and I am the sole male-the one who should become the backbone of the family. I had a fortunate life before because I always got what I wanted even though my family lived a simple life. When I hit Junior High School in the city of Denpasar (I am from the village of Batubulan), I was introduced to a new world, a world where I felt a stranger but at the same time enjoyed it as I easily make friends. However there I fell into a bad crowd as I liked the feeling of being cool. But it turns out that those friends shaped me into a new and negative pattern in my life.
I began to learn how to smoke, act out against my parents and teachers and other negative things. Each day took me further away from my former self. When I was in ninth grade, I had already become an alcoholic. I was hardly at home or school and had changed drastically. It was impossible for me to hide my new character from my family-I was completely open about what I did. This really got to my parents. All my goals were no longer important anymore, all I knew was that every day I would hang out, drinking and doing drugs, lying, come home in the middle of the night. Free sex was no stranger to me and I had many partners. I was hardly at school and often asked to quit school but my parents wanted to see me graduate and they did whatever they could to ensure that I would. When I was in my senior year, I was introduced to a new drug: heroin (Putaw). Since I started using putaw, I stayed at home more than not, hardly socialized, read a lot and was a changed person. I was able to graduate from High School and that made my parents blind to my drug use, as they only saw the changes in me. I even began to go to college where I experimented with sakaw and began having financial problems. I sold everything in my room, including the shirt off my back and that made my parents suspicious. Finally the school sent them a letter informing them that I had dropped out because I never went to class or paid my school fees. That was proof that what I had done was only a mask to cover up how awful I had become. Everything came out in the open, what I had done my parents found out about and I was taken to a rehab center to be treated.
After being released from the rehab center I wasn't cured, I was worse. My life spun out of control and I did whatever I could to get drugs: sold everything, lied, tricked people left and right so they began to hate me. I became isolated from my family, friends and community. That still didn't make me stop but just made me hate myself and everyone else. I became more brutal and starting doing criminal acts in the community at large. Every day I simply stole . Because normal people wouldn't let me get near them, I cheated my own friends.
After six years of this kind of life, I had experienced everything: sleeping in the street, beat up by gangs, jail, insulted by others, in and out of rehab and the discrimination I felt-all of this I began to mull over. Now I am working at an NGO (YAKEBA) and my hope is to stay sober/clean. I also feel comfortable with all the people at YAKEBA-they are very supportive in my effort to reform. My intuition tells me "I want to change and be healthy".
Dayu's story
 I was born in Bedugul 31 years ago. Before I started high school in Denapsar, I went to Junior High in Baturiti village. At that time, everything was going well, my parents cared for me, I was diligent in my prayers and I was always ranked third in my class throughout my junior high school career. That alone gave me the thirst to want to attain my and my parents' goals. I got along really well with my folks. I could perform Balinese dance, I was active in the Youth Organization in our village. The people in our village respected my family a lot. This is just a small glimpse at my life before I started using drugs.
After I graduated Junior High School, I wanted to develop my talents in the tourism industry as I had watched my older sibling be able to continue his/her studies in Denpasar. My parents, after much deliberation and consideration, allowed me to go to school in Denpasar, where I studed Hotelery.
When I first stepped into High School, I was nervous but I kept at it because I was there to study and learn. In my first year, I did okay but in the second year I began to change in the way I dressed, I had a boyfriend and I loved him, and he introduced me to things I had never dreamed of. In the beginning he taught me how to smoke and drink alcohol, take tranquilizers, smoke grass and shabu-shabu (crystal meth), ecstasy and eventually to what made me an addict for almost ten years. Not only that, but this boyfriend taught me to pickpocket, steal, cheat, lie. The money I had to pay school fees I used to buy drugs. I was given a motorbike-I sold that too along with everything at home. All for drugs. It might be that there is no dignity or self respect left for those of us women who are drug addicts. When I was a teen I wanted to do things I had never done before-I had even been a small scale dealer in order to buy drugs. Time went by, I got better at hiding the fact that I was a junkie. But the fact that I was a thief became known to the police and I was thrown in jail twice in l998 and 2002 for narcotics.
In jail, for the first time I felt revenge. When I get out I want to use it again. Not that I was going to repent-that was the furthest thing from my mind. I had split up with my first boyfriend and looked for another one. He was a dealer and because at that time I was a heavy user and then I got pregnant and had a son. When he was a month old I left my husband. I was really sad but not sad enough to stop using drugs, in fact I left my son with my parents in Bedugul when he was three months old. The whle time I was in enpasar I did not think of my child or my home village. My life was the street. Day became night became day. In November 2002 I went to jail for the second time and only then did I begin to think of my future. Thinking of my son with the wayang-like eyes, I could only pray that God Alimighty would show me a way out. And would want to forgive all the sins I had committed up to then.
After I got out of jail, I went thru methadone therapy. It was not easy for me to reform myself as I was tempted from all sides. But I had the will to change my fate, especially after I got work at YAKEBA and began to give seminars at schools about the dangers of drugs so that the younger generation won't become users. My family and community are beginning to accept me back. And I want to say thank you so much to YAKEBA, especially my firens who have given me support thus far, without them I would be nothing. Thank you also to my family who have always supported me. And finally, thanks to ALMIGHTY GOD to the gifts given me.
Hopefully what I have written here can be understood. If you want to use durgs, think about it l000 more times.
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