Returning to Farming and Seasonal Work After Treatment

For a large proportion of people leaving treatment in Nepal, the work waiting at home is
agricultural — own land, family land, or daily wage labour. That work is one of the strongest
supports for recovery available, and it comes with three specific risks that nobody warns about at
discharge.

Why farm work supports recovery

Structure without supervision. Animals need feeding at fixed times. Irrigation has a schedule.
Planting has a window. The work imposes a daily rhythm that recovery requires and that no family can
enforce as effectively.

Physical exhaustion. Hard physical work improves sleep, reduces anxiety and occupies the body.
Sleep disruption is one of the most persistent problems in early recovery, and manual work addresses
it better than most interventions.

Visible outcome. A field weeded, a wall repaired, an animal healthy. Early recovery is
characterised by a sense of uselessness and accumulated failure; visible daily accomplishment
counters it directly.

Company without conversation. Working alongside people, without being required to explain
yourself, is a comfortable form of social contact for someone who is not ready to talk.

Immediate purpose. A person who is needed for the harvest is a person with a reason to be up at
five.

Risk 1: alcohol in the work culture

In many communities, alcohol is part of agricultural work rather than adjacent to it. Raksi or
jaand at the end of a day’s labour. Drinking as part of parma — reciprocal labour exchange.
Alcohol offered as hospitality by the household whose field is being worked. Drinking as part of
festivals tied to the agricultural calendar.

This is not casual social drinking. It is embedded in how work is organised, and refusing it means
stepping outside a social arrangement.

Managing it:

Speak to the group leader or the household in advance, not on the day. “He is not drinking now
— please do not offer.” Said privately, before work starts, this is usually accepted without
comment.
Bring your own drink. Tea in a flask, water, lassi. Having something in hand ends most offers
before they are made.
Leave before the drinking starts. The transition from work to drinking is usually predictable.
Arrange to finish and leave at that point, at least in the early months.
Work with family rather than in labour groups initially. Own-land work avoids the social
pressure entirely while the person is most vulnerable.
Take payment in cash, separately, where labour is sometimes compensated partly in alcohol.

Where the entire work group’s culture makes attendance unmanageable, it is legitimate to avoid
that work for a season. Losing a season’s labour income is a smaller cost than a relapse.

Risk 2: the idle months

Agriculture is seasonal. There are periods — after harvest, in the dry months, during heavy monsoon —
when there is little to do.

Unstructured time is the highest-risk condition in early recovery. A person with no work, money
in hand from the harvest, and long empty days is in exactly the situation that produced the addiction
in the first place.

Plan the idle months before they arrive:

A second activity — a skill course, construction work, a small trade, driving, repair work.
Many districts have vocational training available, sometimes free.
Household projects with a defined start and end: building, repairs, fencing, a new shed.
Livestock, which requires daily attention year-round and does not have an off-season.
A daily routine that does not depend on work — fixed wake time, a walk, a task, a scheduled
activity — maintained through the slow months.
More frequent counselling contact during these periods, planned in advance rather than
arranged in crisis.

Watch the money. Harvest income arriving in a lump, into the hands of someone in early recovery
with nothing to do, is a foreseeable risk. Handle it under the family money agreement.

Risk 3: labour migration and the return

Many rural households depend on seasonal migration — to India, to a city, to the Gulf. Both directions
carry risk.

Going away removes the person from family support, aftercare and structure, and places them in
accommodation shared with other men, often with heavy drinking, and with money in hand.

Coming back brings a lump sum, social expectation of celebration, and often a period of
unemployment.

If migration is financially necessary:

Delay it if possible until at least six months of stable recovery.
Establish telephone counselling that continues across the border or overseas, with a fixed
weekly slot and a tested connection.
Identify one person at the destination who knows the situation.
Arrange for money to be sent directly to the household rather than accumulating with the
person.
Plan the return. Someone meets them. The money arrangement is agreed in advance. There is work
or structure waiting.

Do not send someone abroad in the first months after treatment if there is any alternative. It is
among the highest-risk decisions a family can make in that period, and it is frequently made for
understandable financial reasons.

Practical guidance for the first season

Start with reduced hours. Physical capacity after a period of heavy substance use and treatment
is lower than the person or the family expects. A full day of transplanting in the first week
produces injury and discouragement.

Work with someone. Not supervision — company. Particularly for the first month.

Fixed start and finish times, even where the work would allow drifting.

Protect meals. Agricultural work with irregular eating, in someone whose nutrition is already
compromised, causes problems quickly. Three meals, at times.

Watch for injury. Reduced coordination and strength in early recovery is real, and some
medications affect alertness. Machinery, heights and animals all warrant extra care in the first
weeks.

Alcohol-adjacent tasks. In households that brew raksi or jaand, the person in recovery should
have no role in production, storage or sale — and the household should think seriously about whether
producing it at home is compatible with someone’s recovery. This is a difficult conversation where
brewing is a source of income, and it needs to happen honestly.

Alternatives when farming is not viable

Not every returning person has land, and some households cannot absorb another worker.

Options worth pursuing, in rough order of accessibility:

Livestock — goats or poultry require small capital, provide daily structure, and generate
income within months
Vocational training — masonry, electrical work, plumbing, tailoring, mobile repair. Some
programmes are free or subsidised; ask at the ward office
Small trade — a tea shop, a vegetable stall, a repair service
Driving — where a licence and vehicle access exist
Construction labour — available and carrying similar drinking-culture risks to agriculture
Community and cooperative work — forest user groups, cooperatives, local organisations

Work matters more than the specific work. A person with a reason to get up, a task, and other
people around them is in a substantially better position than one waiting for the ideal job.

For families

Do not overload them immediately. The instinct to hand back every responsibility at once, to
demonstrate trust, produces exhaustion and failure in week two.

Do not treat them as incapable either. Removing all responsibility communicates that they are not
expected to recover.

Pay them properly for work done, under the money agreement. Working without any income is
demoralising and it does not build independence.

Watch the calendar. Plan for festivals, harvest celebrations and the idle months in advance —
they are foreseeable and each one is a risk period.

Ask how the work is going, and listen to the answer. Difficulties at work — pressure, teasing,
exclusion — are frequently the first sign of a problem developing.

Frequently asked questions

How soon after treatment should someone start work?
Light work within the first week or two, building gradually. Structured activity is protective;
waiting until they feel “ready” usually means waiting too long.

What if the work group all drinks?
Speak to the leader in advance, bring your own drink, and leave before the drinking starts. If it is
unmanageable, avoid that group for a season.

Should the family stop brewing alcohol at home?
It is worth serious discussion. Where brewing is a household income, look at whether production and
storage can be kept entirely separate from the person, and whether an alternative income is possible.

Is going abroad for work a bad idea after treatment?
In the first six months, yes, wherever there is an alternative. It removes every support at the most
vulnerable stage. If it is unavoidable, plan telephone counselling, a contact at the destination, and
the money arrangement in advance.

What about the idle season?
Plan it before it arrives — a second activity, livestock, a project, more frequent counselling. Empty
months are the highest-risk period in a rural recovery year.