COOKING CRAB, NOT CRACK –
Dec. 21, 2022 – This centre is dedicated to helping individuals with substance disorders to recover and reintegrate into society, and it is the biggest of its kind in Europe.
Arianna Merlo is Vite’s restaurant manager as well as an ex-member of the San Patrignano programme. Like most of the restaurant’s workers, she joined the three-year course after developing an addiction to drugs. “I arrived here as an addict having already tried another pharmacological programme that didn’t work for me,” Merlo said. “In fact, half an hour after leaving that programme I immediately returned to drugs.”
The San Patrignano approach – a psychotherapeutic programme that doesn’t employ pharmaceuticals – helped her “find an equilibrium”, she said.
