Wednesday August 30, 2006
Jamal not free yet
BATU GAJAH: Popular singer Jamal Abdillah, who once confessed to wasting millions of ringgit to support his drug habit, admits that he still feels the pangs of temptation.
The 47-year-old singer, who has been drug-free for a year now, said he could not promise that he would never go back on his past habit.
“But I will try,” he told reporters after sharing his experiences with inmates at the drug rehabilitation centre here yesterday.
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INSPIRING PRESENCE: Jamal greeting some of the inmates after rendering a few songs during his visit to the Batu Gajah drug rehabilitation centre. |
During the celebration held in conjunction with National Day, the singer spoke frankly about how drug addiction was like “being in love”.
“Trying to beat (the addiction) is like trying to give up your first love. Your mind is consumed by it. You are willing to exist on nothing else but that love,” he said.
“It takes great sacrifice to give that up. Think about how you can destroy that love. It’s no use loving something that won’t love you back.”
Jamal said that once someone recognised him in public because they “went to the same rehabilitation centre.”
The singer, whose real name is Jamal Ubaidillah Mohd Ali, is now a volunteer at Pengasih, a non-governmental organisation founded in 1991 to help rehabilitate drug addicts.
“To fall again and again is normal, but to get up is extraordinary,” he said before belting out three of his hits, Batinku Berlagu Pilu, the crowd-pleaser Gadis Melayu and Seroja.
Earlier, Pengasih president Mohd Yunus Pathi gave an emotional account of how he wasted 15 years of his life undergoing rehabilitation in between feeding his habit.
Mohd Yunus, who used to blame every one for his problems, has been drug-free for 25 years and is now a vice-president of the World Federation of Therapeutic Communities.
Centre chairman Abdul Halim Ma-Hasan said this was the first National Day celebration in which Pengasih representatives had been invited to take part.
“By sharing their experiences with the 544 inmates, they would take the lessons more to heart,” he said.
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