In a passageway in the Las Margaritas neighborhood of Soyapango, a group of men struggle to force another man into a van. They grab him by the arms, neck and legs, but he resists — it is clear that he does not want to leave. Seconds later, despite the man’s attempt to break free, they manage to get him into the vehicle. From another car, located a few meters from the scene, a woman records with her cell phone. Her companion asks her to call the police, but the woman continues recording. Minutes later, the group of men would be arrested by the National Civil Police and would spend more than a week detained by the local government in Soyapango.
The video went viral after being posted on an X account dedicated to sharing information about police operations. The account portrayed the event as a possible kidnapping, but a few comments cast a different light on the matter: “Violent drogo [drug user or junkie],” “taken away for rehabilitation,” “what good friends.”
These men were not kidnappers. Evidently, they carried the man against his will, but their goal was not to ask for ransom. In fact, all of them were released after the family, along with the captured man himself, explained to police that it was an attempted “rescue” from an alcohol addiction. The “rescue” was carried out by members of a rehabilitation center that operates in the Santa Anita neighborhood, in the center of San Salvador, under the name El Brit, a Hebrew word meaning “pact.” The center’s catchphrase is “children of chaos.”
The center began operations in 2020 and, according to its members, specializes in addiction prevention and treatment and the social reintegration of people suffering from alcohol or drug addiction. And yes, sometimes, as shown in the video, its methods entail forcing the person to seek help.
When a family calls El Brit, the center sends a team to speak with the person. El Brit’s collaborators recognize from their own experiences the behavior of an addict. First, they warn the person that their family is suffering and they try to convince them to seek treatment. Before this discussion, relatives must sign a document authorizing El Brit to take —voluntarily or by force— the person suffering from an addiction. That only happens, however, in very specific cases; most people come voluntarily after suffering the physical and social ravages of their addictions.
According to official data from the 2023 National Report on the Drug Situation, in the first six months of the year, 5,942 emergencies due to acute poisoning and overdose were attended to in El Salvador. Alcohol poisoning was the highest number of cases, followed by tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, sedatives, amphetamines, opioids, and hallucinogens. The same report reveals that in 2022 there were 291 deaths related to mental and behavioral disorders due to alcohol use. 94 percent of the people who died were men.
In 2022 only seven prevention and treatment centers existed in Fosalud (a nationally funded provider of specialized health services) facilities across the country, along with ten other rehabilitation centers formally approved by the National Anti-Drug Commission. Outside of the healthcare system, non-approved private or NGO institutions such as El Brit exist. 80 men are currently undergoing the rehab process at El Brit. Some of them are from the rural parts of the country, or were deported from the United States and have no relatives in El Salvador. Many suffered from migration-related abandonment as children. The majority have lost their jobs due to their addiction.
At El Brit, activity begins early in the day. Some cook; others clean. Those who are weakened from the withdrawal process rest. The sick are taken to the hospital. In the afternoons, people play cards, exercise, and hold group discussions. Call center workers, farmers, deportees, and university students all converge there. Thus begins a long journey of up to six months of confinement for these men to try to rehabilitate themselves.
The center was founded in 2020, and 4,000 people have already passed through the program. The name, El Brit, comes from a Hebrew word meaning “pact.” It symbolizes the commitment to rehabilitating oneself, agreed upon by those who have voluntarily turned themselves into the center. Currently, there are 80 people undergoing a 90-day period of no drug or alcohol consumption. El Brit supports itself with a shop and donations from family members of current patients with economic means. Those who cannot economically support themselves become volunteers for the center.
In 2020, Ulises Argueta, known as Tarzan, was dying in the street. He was suffering from a liver inflammation provoked by an alcohol addiction he had had since his adolescence. Earlier this year, he found himself wandering outside El Congreso, a well known bar in San Salvador’s Historic Downtown. “My godfather, Eder Valencia, picked me up from there and El Brit was born. They brought me to the hospital and helped me physically recover. I’m 48 now, and I can say that this is my family. I’m a volunteer, and everytime that someone recovers from addiction, I’m happy for them,” said Tarzan, who has gone four years without drinking.
The kitchen area is one of the most active at El Brit. Efraín Portillo cooks everyday for the patients. Efraín is a chef by profession; he is 29 years old and turned himself in 30 days ago, after spending three months drinking alcohol on a daily basis. He has drunk alcohol since he was 13 years old. He has lost his job and his savings: “I started missing work to drink instead, and then I lost my job. I didn’t realize my problem until I began being a burden for my family. I’m learning how to be disciplined here. I’ve gone a month without drinking and I’m hoping my family can accept me again.”
Everyday, at 6:00 pm, communal sessions are held in which each person shares his problems with the group: the type of addiction he struggles with, his fears, his main obstacles to overcoming addiction. El Brit also receives support from Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous.
Daniel Rivas is 30 years old. He has been at El Brit for four months and twenty days to try to overcome his addiction to crack cocaine. He aims not to communicate with anyone from outside the facility for six months, and to only receive phone calls from his mother. Before turning himself in, he had lost his job in a call center and sold all of the appliances in the house that he shared with a few friends. “I was frustrated at not being able to advance in life. I tried crack for the first time when I was 17, and never stopped since. All my loved ones have abandoned me, except for my mother, so I want to show her that I can be better,” he said after completing his daily round of exercises.
Before turning himself in to El Brit, David Hernández went to the Dr. José Molina Martínez National Psychiatric Hospital, one of El Salvador’s public facilities that provides detox services to patients hospitalized due to addiction. “I went to the psychiatric hospital because alcohol was hurting my nervous system and making me violent. I’ve been here for three months. I didn’t want to come, but I had mistreated my siblings many times and my family decided to send me here,” David says while resting in his bed.
Samuel lived in the United States for twenty years. The tattoo of a syringe on his arm refers to a heroin overdose that he survived. After that overdose, he was deported for being involved in an auto accident while driving under the influence of heroin and alcohol. Now, more than a year after his deportation, Samuel has begun a migratory process in which he will have to send negative drug test results to a lawyer every two months before being admitted again into the United States.
Óscar Sorto was beaten up while drinking heavily with a group of people. He, too, began drinking in adolescence, like the majority of patients at El Brit. He turned himself in just over a week ago, and he intends on passing through the three-month process to be able to leave rehab.
On Sep. 16, 2024, Armando Jiménez returned to El Brit after spending the night at Saldaña National Hospital. Alone in the darkness of his room, he complained of pain stemming from a hepatic infection and diabetes. Teary-eyed and with a hushed voice, he said, “The medicine doesn’t work anymore.” The volunteers at El Brit estimate a very low life expectancy for Armando, but are hoping that the treatment can help him live a few months more. Just two months ago, a 22-year-old-man at El Brit died from a series of convulsions due to drug- and alcohol-abuse-related bodily pains.
Drawing done under the effects of crystal meth by a 35-year-old man named Jaime. When he arrived at El Brit, Jaime experienced delirium and hallucinations for an entire week. “That was basically what I was living through at the time,” he explained. Now, thanks to a prescription, he takes Psicodol, a drug intended to treat delirium, hallucinations, and cases of schizophrenia and paranoia.
Kevin, 22, was born in the United States. His parents are originally from Sensuntepeque, Cabañas. He survived three fentanyl overdoses and two auto accidents. He went to rehab in Mexico, but it did not work out. Due to the high costs of rehab programs in the United States ––up to $6,000 a month–– his parents decided to send him to El Salvador. He has been at El Brit since July 1: “The truth is I didn’t want to be here, but I can’t keep messing around. I saw my little siblings cry for me in the hospital after my overdoses. I don’t want that anymore. Not for them, and not for me.”
Mauricio Benítez is originally from Santa Rosa de Lima, La Unión. His sister called El Brit for them to take him to a rehabilitation center. Mauricio, 42, has trouble speaking. According to El Brit’s volunteer staff, this can be attributed to alcohol abuse. “Look, I was drinking uncontrollably, and I was selling away my belongings. Now I have to stay here until December. All I want is to see my mother,” he explained while smoking a cigarette
José Bonilla, center, was scared. His hands trembled, and he felt as if his heart were going to burst through his chest. On September 12, he had gone one week without alcohol and three days without sleeping. Some patients tried to calm him down by explaining to him that this was the body’s typical reaction to quitting “cold turkey.” “I drank 90-proof alcohol for more than a month straight,” José said. The men told him: “If you continue this way, ask to be taken to the hospital because it can be very dangerous. Don’t drink coffee, and don’t smoke either.”
When Édgar Cortez was a child, his parents emigrated to the United States. They left him under the care of an aunt and, at twelve years of age, he began drinking alcohol: “Well, the truth is that I was getting out of the house. To this day I wonder if I was doing it to get my parents’ attention. I felt alone,” he admitted. Upon realizing that her nephew could not stop drinking, his aunt called El Brit and they took Édgar to Lolotiquillo, Morazán.
Steven Ayala was sixteen years old when his mother brought him to live in the United States. He completed the trip to California with the help of a coyote . Upon arriving, he settled with his mother in South Los Angeles and lived there for eight years before being deported for attacking someone in a fit of rage. In El Salvador, he has no relatives left. For the last four years he has lived in Concepción Quezaltepeque, Chalatenango, and he lives off of the $100 that his mother sends him every two months. His fits of rage worsened since he began drinking alcohol in El Salvador, to the point that he was taken into the National Psychiatric Hospital. He has been in rehabilitation for two months at El Brit.
Gerardo could not quit smoking marijuana. It forced him to abandon his university studies and sell his belongings, and it generated tension with his family. When he spoke with El Faro, he had only five days left of his rehabilitation process: “You don’t know how happy I am. I feel clean, and I know that my mom sent me here because she loves me. I never thought that my tattoo would actually make sense, but that’s how it is, man: ‘all we need is love.’”
*Translated by James Langan
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