DAIRRC, SUCCESSFUL COMMUNITY LIVING CENTRE FOR ADDICTION REHABILITATION AND RECOVERY IN MUMBAI - INDIA.

D.A.I.R.R.C is one of the oldest and most successful community living centres for addiction rehabilitation and recovery in Mumbai, India. Registered as a Charitable Trust since 1983, DAIRRC is known for healing and rehabilitating people with alcohol addiction, drug dependency, clinical depression and all sorts of behavioural disorders through its recovery program that helps people to understand and resolve the causes behind their addiction problems.

Founded by the late Dr. Yusuf Merchant, who expired in November 2022, the centre is now managed by a professional Board of Trustees, with a consultant psychiatrist and a consultant psychologist on call. The rehabilitation process remains unchanged and continues on the same parameters as designed by Doc.

This quaint community living centre is located in serene, verdant surroundings at the foothills of Haji Malang on the outskirts of Mumbai. The facility has comfortable partly airconditioned living accommodations, with a modest swimming pool, an outdoor gymnasium, areas for outdoor games and quite a few nooks and crannies for silent contemplation. The atmosphere is informal, homely and highly conducive for gaining a fresh perspective on life management.

Our rehabilitation process is committed to evoke recovery on the physical, mental, spiritual and social planes. It enables all addicts to get in touch with themselves and their shortcomings, in order to enable them to overcome them.

Our centre does not believe in medicinal treatment but instead emphasises on curing addiction through a healthy lifestyle, counselling, therapy, group healing, friendships, and includes mental exercises/techniques that help identification and understanding of one’s addictive personality. This thereby ensures the management of everyday stressors of life in positive ways to eventually achieve a successful drug and alcohol addiction free life.

We pride ourselves in being one of the most successful community living centres dedicated to addiction rehabilitation, that has catered to and rehabilitated people suffering from all kinds of addictions be it substance abuse, alcoholism, depression, eating disorders, gambling, anxiety and bipolar disorders. Our continuous success in rehabilitating addicts stems from our community living philosophy and continuous support system which also helps addicts to reintegrate into real life after their rehabilitation time is over.

WHY CHOOSE DAIRRC, Drug Abuse Information Rehabilitation & Research Centre?

The founder of DAIRRC, premier community living centre in Mumbai, late Dr Yusuf Merchant was barely seen as a doctor to the inhabitants and was more like a family member as he provided a strong support system to all the patients and even their families. We are committed to continuing his legacy.

For the first 15 years, the rehabilitation program was run at the late doctor’s home. There was a huge success rate due to the unlimited therapies related to the brain, holistic living approach, strong friendships that formed between the addicts and a strong focus on the positive side of life. This made him move the community living centre to the outskirts of Mumbai in order to be able to cater to the growing demand rate and the increased number of patients.

DAIRRC strongly believes in a medicine free treatment and helps addicts lead a medicine free life. This is one of the reason for the high success rate of recovery amongst addicts from DAIRRC. The recovery program had successfully managed to help patients wean off and cope without the medicines they were dependent on for years. This is done by helping them incorporate healthier and more sustainable coping mechanisms.

In the last four decades the community living centre has seen a success rate of 85 percent from those who have completed the entire program and has gained a lot of recognition as a luxury community living and substance abuse prevention centre.

WHAT MAKES DAIRRC DIFFERENT.

Dr Yusuf Merchant was one of those rare healers who chose to use his instinct and experiential wisdom in order to design one of the most successful substance abuse rehabilitation and recovery programs in the world. His knowledge of addiction was not limited to what he learnt from books, but was tremendously enhanced by his personal experience of living with addicts, understanding and empathising with their pain, identifying with their motivating factors, successfully gaining their trust and then putting them on the road to recovery.

His community living centre at Kushivalli in Maharashtra is one of those rare places on earth, where an addict is treated as an intelligent and sensitive human being, rather than as a criminal or retard, which is the case in most other recovery centres. Our rehab process is purely voluntary. We do not admit anyone by force.

DAIRRC activities encompass all fields involved in the Prevention, Identification, Rehabilitation and Research of Substance Abuse of drug addicts, alcoholism and depression.

DAIRRC is committed to substance abuse prevention strategies, including rehabilitation through community living of drug addicts, implementation of drug demand reduction and HIV Prevention strategies and research in the causes and effects of drug abuse.

Dr. Yusuf Merchant also wrote a book in 2018 ‘Happyness : Life Lessons from A Creative Addict’ which included principles garnered from his own life experiences to help anyone and everyone achieve that one thing which we all are seeking ‘ultimate – HAPPINESS’. In this book, the master of mindfulness offered forty-two different ways to live a more meaningful, peaceful and fulfilling life. He talked about the use of visualisation techniques to achieve our dreams by giving his own examples. In this book Dr Yusuf Merchant brought together scientific theories on the functioning of the brain and how it alters under stress, depression and addiction and used the same in his community living centre to help addicts heal and achieve a lifetime of happiness.