From pioneer to leader

Sometimes, wrong choices bring you to the right place.

I was born in a privileged family of educated parents. I studied in elite schools and fared well academically. I experienced no trauma or abuse while growing up. I was intelligent, very well-read beyond my years, and wrote my first book at the age of 17.

Yet, I was caught in addiction for twenty-five years. It started with occasional drinking and smoking cigarettes in school just for fun.

Then, it spiralled during college. I was at the University of Delhi during the early 1970s when hippies from the West were arriving in droves in India seeking spiritual bliss. They landed in Delhi on their way to the Himalayas and Nepal. There was plenty of marijuana and guru talk.

After graduation, I joined the advertising industry, where being high was somewhat acceptable for creative people, as long as the output was good. And alcohol was part of the culture – it is still a very acceptable social drug

Now I know that addiction is a disease with its distinct characteristics. One of them is progression. As time went by, the quantity and frequency increased.

What happened is a long story with all the drama that happens to all addicts – job losses, broken relationships, and low self-esteem. Of course, I never acknowledged these because of another typical sign of addiction: denial. I didn’t think I had a problem, so why should I seek a solution? I blamed, justified, rationalized my behaviour, and suppressed feelings with more substances.

A stage came when my wife divorced me and left with my daughter. My own parents disowned me.

That’s when I sought help. Not because I really thought I had an addiction problem, but to somehow manage the situation by learning to control my drinking!

I was lucky to find a therapist who knew about addiction, that it is a bio-psycho-socio-spiritual disease, and gently took me on a path of rebuilding my life. It took time, it always does.

I burned bridges before crossing them, forcing myself to swim across to reach the other side. But once I made it, I rebuilt those bridges—not just for myself, but so others could follow. Out of that journey, Hope Trust was born.

Because I believe you keep what you have by giving it away.

Then I got remarried to my ex-wife and had a son, who had no idea what a rollercoaster life we had before his birth.

My wife and I decided to pass on the lessons to still suffering families and individuals. That’s how Hope Trust was born. After all, we learned from the University of Life what no college can teach. We travelled to the US and UK and learnt the best practices for addiction treatment. Soon, Hope Trust became the brand leader in addiction treatment.

Then Covid hit. The pandemic compelled many people and organizations to adapt. We realized that we had learnt a lot about family dynamics, psychiatric issues, relationships, parenting, and spiritual progress.

We roped in more specialists and launched online services under a broad umbrella of Psychological Wellness.

Today, 24 years later, we are here to serve with humility, expertise, experience and uncompromising ethical standards.

- Rahul Luther