The life story of Ravi Padhye, the director of Maitree de–addiction and rehabilitation centre, can be termed as a rag to riches story, albeit with a twist. The twist in the saying, which would fit Padhye would be ‘from addict to de–addiction expert’. After his successful treatment, at the city–based Muktangan de–addiction centre, Padhye is now running one of the very few de–addiction centres in Nagpur and was honoured by the state government in the first ever de–addiction literary meet held in Pune on Tuesday.

By his own admission, Padhye was an alcoholic for 12 years, which affected him in various ways. "Other than financial losses, I suffered physical, mental, emotional and spiritual losses also," he said. Padhye’s tryst with the bottle started at the age of 20 and he blames it on the wrong company. Padhye said that instead of trying to overcome the habit, he blamed his parents for his alcoholism.

"After losing 12 precious years of my life to alcohol, I was forcefully admitted to the Muktangan de–addiction centre by my family," he said. During his three and a half years of de–addiction, Padhye said the steering of his life got changed. Also, during his stint with Muktangan, Padhye happened to meet his future wife Pratibha.

Pratibha, had already registered a trust for addicts, and after the marriage, the couple decided to open Maitree de–addiction centre in 2000. "The biggest hurdle before us was the lack of finances. Also, we had a very difficult time getting premises on rent for running the centre, " he said.

In the last 10 years, Maitree has helped more than 5,000 addicts. "With the availability of easy money, alcoholism has become a very serious problem. In Vidarbha, many farmers are falling prey to alcoholism thanks to the money they are getting after selling their land," he said.