Drug addicts in conflict-hit Myanmar battle their demons in ‘House of Love’

Experience Myanmar-style drug rehabilitation at Metta Saneain, where tough love and activities help break addiction cycles.

More than a hundred shaven-headed men pour out of their Yangon hostel around 6 a.m. for a day of weightlifting, karate drills, dancing, and Buddhist prayer — Myanmar style of drug rehabilitation.

The group of doctors, musicians, and street food vendors set off for a jog around a verdant, orchid-dotted compound, watched over by supervisors carrying heavy wooden sticks.

Welcome to another day at Metta Saneain — the ‘House of Love’ in Burmese — a rehabilitation centre dishing out tough love to break the cycle of drug addiction.

Myanmar has long been a narcotics-producing powerhouse, with drugs fuelling and financing decades of internal conflict and authorities turning a blind eye to the billion-dollar industry.

The chaos unleashed by the military’s 2021 coup has gutted the legal economy and the country is now the world’s biggest producer of opium and a major source of methamphetamine, according to the United Nations.

Much of the product is smuggled out to other Asian countries, Australia, and Europe, while scoring on the streets of commercial hub and major port Yangon is easy.

Aung, 32, who asked for his full name not to be used for professional reasons, had qualified as a doctor and was running his own clinic when he tried meth for the first time.