She started injecting drugs at the age of 21 and continued it for three years to maintain her figure.Later, she had to be admitted to a rehabilitation center by her family members to free her from her habit of addiction.
However, as soon as she started recovering from the habit of drug abuse, her frustration level rose.
"I weighed around 50 kg when I consumed drugs. But I reached up to 75 kg during my time in the rehab. After I came out of the rehab, I started using drugs even more than to lose weight and look beautiful," informed Sapana.
She was so obsessed with the idea of looking slim that she began taking all sorts of drugs randomly without thinking about her family members, career and even her health.
She believed that consuming drugs to lose weight was the most effortless way to look slim.
"I really felt good after using drugs because it was helping me gain good shape. My friends and acquaintances showered me with good compliments," she said at Sober Recovery Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, Jorpati, where she is currently recovering.
Sapana, 28, who worked as a model for a while, said that she felt more confident when people complimented her for her perfect body.
"Consuming drug not only gave me utmost pleasure, it also made me more confident for facing the camera and acting on music videos," she added.
Sapana, who is five feet and seven inches tall, now thinks that it was already too late when she finally realized that she had become a drug addict.
She said that she is now recovering and trying her best to think about society she lives in, her family and her modeling career. "Now I want to take out all the drugs from my body. I want a new life."
Likewise, Sashi started smoking marijuana as soon as soon as she turned 23 because she started putting on. She said it was very depressing for her when she felt she wasn't losing weight even after smoking marijuana for more than five years
She gradually tried other drugs and started consuming various kinds of drugs by the time she turned 25.
"I believed that taking drugs would help me lose weight easily. So, I started consuming brown sugar, heroin and injecting drugs," she informed, adding, "Some of my friends encouraged me saying that using more drugs would help me achieve my dream of getting slim but I didn't realize that I was becoming a drug addict."
Sashi, 32, a mother of a two-year old girl, informed that she was able to lose some weight while she was using drugs, but started putting on soon after she stopped. "However, being able to give up the drug habit with the help of family at the age of 28 is most important for me," she said.
Tsering Wangdo, Founder Director at the Sober Recovery Treatment and Rehabilitation Center, opines that drugs abuse was rising among both girls and boys of late.
Wangdo said a lot of girls who are admitted to his rehabilitation center got into drugs after they were told that it would help them become slim.
"We have found that the correlation between glamour and drugs has been growing. We have dealt with as much as 20 cases where girls have used drugs to maintain their figures and later become drug addicts," said Wangdo, adding, "In most of the cases, such drug users don't reveal that they are using drugs to maintain their figure out of shame."
However, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) of Nepal Police is not aware about the new trend.
"We haven't recorded any cases as such where we found girls and boys using drugs to maintain figure," said DSP Apil Bohara from the NCP.
The common causes of drugs abuse, as recorded at the NCP, are peer pressure, family problem, curiosity, fun and study problem, among others.
Central Bureau of Statistics data shows that the only 3,035 girls in the age group of 15 to 65 were found to be abusing drugs 10 years ago, while a recent data shows the number rising to 6,630.
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