David, who is now 46 years old, had his life changed by two phrases from Dr. María Luisa Marín. The first phrase was: “You are not leaving here.” Until then, David said that he drank “normally.” The normal thing was “a carajillo for breakfast and one or two drinks, two or three beers at noon, two or three glasses of wine for lunch and another carajillo and a shot, plus two or three beers in the afternoon and whatever fell in between.” dinner at night.”
He had a job, a house, a partner... And he lost everything. Dr. Marín, 76 years old and with a life dedicated to others, explains that alcoholism has four endings and all of them are bad: “On the street, dead, in prison or without mental health, among other pathologies.” When she finished her degree and specialized in rheumatology at the Clínic hospital, she discovered how poorly prepared “we left the faculties in issues such as addictions.”
In addition to practicing in private healthcare and working as a guard at the Clinic, that young graduate collaborated with a Jesuit who cared for homeless people in Barcelona. She didn't know what was wrong with them because she didn't ask the right questions. She would ask them if they drank and when they told her "normal" she did not cross-ask what was normal. When she found out, she discovered that drink is the worst and most accessible drug in the world.
In 1989, that was the seed from which the association he presides was born: Rauxa, an altruistic and multi-award-winning entity that helps homeless people and people enslaved by alcohol. The allusion to slavery is not an exaggeration. Alcoholics are sick who do not drink out of addiction. The brain has the reward center and the reasoning center: alcohol activates the first in heavy drinkers and deactivates the second.
That's how David was. Without the ability to reason. He was a manager at a foundry. An ERE left him without a job and with more time to drink. He got separated and ended up on the street, sleeping in places he prefers not to remember. One day he woke up with a broken leg (chipped tibia and fibula) and limped to a bar. The owner told him: “I don't want to see you again. “Last night you got into a fight with another drunk and you almost destroyed my place.” He didn't remember anything.
Then the social worker told him about Rauxa. There is not space here to explain everything that this institution does, created by eight crazy people like Dr. Marín, who put money out of their pockets to start one of those projects that make the world a better place: a van with bunk beds for the homeless. They can sleep and learn about the existence of a therapeutic community. Social flats, abstinence, employment...
Work reintegration is the culmination of rehabilitation. It is not an easy or short path. When David arrived in Rauxa, he was in a wheelchair because he had not yet recovered from the broken leg and weighed 40 kilos (36 less than today). He lived in an unreal world. Christmas was approaching and he wanted to enter when the holidays were over, as if he could afford it. “You are not leaving here,” Dr. Marín warned him.
Eight years later, David is a different person and takes control of his life again. Today he is in charge of one of Rauxa's star projects, the restaurant La Terrasseta, in the Gràcia neighborhood, a soup kitchen where more than 150 vulnerable people dine every day in shifts of 25. Until before the pandemic, La Terrasseta had a double life: conventional restaurant at a few hours, soup kitchen and solidarity at others.
Aid, donations and a thousand juggles make the miracle possible. La Terrasseta is a homemade and healthy restaurant that could compete with any business, but it is not for profit, it only serves clients referred by social services and does not serve a single drop of alcohol. All employees, like David, are rehabilitated consumers. They say consumers, not drinkers, to emphasize that drinking is a drug.
David thanks the family. The blood one and the Rauxa one. He was not an easy patient. He had violent outbursts and was about to leave several times. Tired of his rudeness, María Luisa Marín pointed to the door and said: "Well, come on, go!" That made him see the ears of the wolf and change the chip: "Not even the Mossos will get me out of here." That day he heard the second cathartic sentence of his life: "Now your real rehabilitation begins."
