Feature: Italy's San Patrignano healthy haven for recovering drug addicts

The day starts early and is very busy at Italy's San Patrignano, the largest facility in Europe which offers treatment to drug addicts through an educational program that imposes rules of an ordinary life.

"In this place, we do not only aim at stopping the use of drugs. We want to eliminate any drug dependence, we want these people move back," Antonio Tinelli, coordinator of San Patignano's social committee, told Xinhua.

San Patrignano at present counts some 1,300 recovering drug addicts - some from foreign countries - aged 25 on average, including more than 150 serving sentences handed down by Italy's justice system and around 40 minors. The facility is organized like a village and functions as a social business.

All the residents are integrated into one of the more than 50 life and training sectors available. Bakery, livestock farming, carpentry, chemists, dairy, graphic design, kitchen, laundry, medical center, wine cellar, restaurant and hairdressing are just a few of them.

"Meals are organized in two turns, so that those eating in the first turn can serve in the second one," said Matteo Diotalevi, a press officer at San Patrignano.

There is a choice of dishes cooked by their fellow residents every day in what the facility's drug addicts do not call a 'canteen' but a "dining hall," Diotalevi noted. "It is because they consider San Patrignano to be their family," he said.

After lunch, there is some free time to rest before everybody returns to his or her everyday activities.

After work, they can chose to go for a walk or take part in leisure or sports activities such as soccer, volleyball and horseback riding, watch a movie in the big conference hall or play cards and chat with friends before going to sleep.

The program lasts three or four years on average. "Of course, especially as regards minors and during the first months, we do not expect our guests to be fully focused on their activities here, be it school or work," Carmen Sisti, the head of the center for young girls, said.

"They have too many thoughts in their mind, as they come from terrible life experiences, so we just try to be close to them as much as possible in the recovery process. We know the time will come when they will realize how important it is to build their future here," she said.

The training courses at San Patrignano are very useful for the residents, who enter the facility voluntarily exclusive of minors who are often forced by law. Nobody pays anything to take part in the program but everybody comes out with skills that are fundamental to finding a job.

In fact, San Patrignano has become an identifiable brand. Many of its products, from wine to textiles, are available on the market and often are the result of collaborations with prestigious firms. That is why the facility manages to recoup roughly 50 percent of its costs by the sales of self-produced goods and services, the rest by private donations. But the objective is to entirely cover costs through its production.

"San Patrignano certainly is a well-functioning model, but also faces difficulties. The work to assure constant psychological support for our guests is huge," said Antonio Boschini, head of the therapeutic program at San Patrignano. Like most of the some 300 volunteers and employees working at San Patrignano, he was a former drug user himself.

"We do not envisage pharmaceutical treatment and just resort to psychotherapy or psychiatric methods if they are deemed necessary to treat specific problems. Gratuitousness and love are the bases of our rehabilitative approach," Boschini added.

The percentage of drug addicts who fully recover at San Patrignano is more than 72 percent.

"The biggest satisfaction? Those minors that are brought here unwillingly. They are allowed to leave San Patrignano on their 18th birthday, the day when they usually change their mind," he said. Endit