Yu Hongfang's soft voice lowers to a whisper as she recalls how much she lost to drugs: her youth, her self-esteem and her first husband.

Yu Hongfang, the founder of a club that provides psychological therapy and support to former drug addicts, receives a TV station's interview. [baidu]

As a teenager, Yu accepted cigarettes from a woman she barely knew -- a mistake she always regrets. "She was a drug trafficker, but I didn't realize that until I became so addicted. I'd rather have killed myself than wait a minute for another fix," says Yu, 37.

She was institutionalized several times, but would return to her junkie pals shortly after she was released. She felt little pain even when her first husband -- an obstinate drug addict -- died of an overdose. "Once you become addicted you're numb and apathetic."

It was Yu's daughter who eventually got her out of the mire.

"When I came home from detox treatment in 1995, she went down on her knees and begged me to quit drugs for her sake," Yu says. "She knelt for nearly 20 hours and refused to stand until I gave her my word."

The six-year-old's bloodied knees persuaded her mother keep her word. Yu stayed away from her old friends and found a temporary job at a bathhouse, where she met Wu Shunguo in 1999.

Wu had been sentenced to "reform through labor", a lesser penalty compared with imprisonment, but had fled the labor camp. "He dared not go home. So he stayed at the bathhouse day and night," Yu recalls.

She soon noticed the thin man was a drug addict. "I saw him carefully put away the tinfoil paper of his cigarette packs, and doze off after he was intoxicated."

Out of pity, she quietly put a blanket around him.

"It caught me by surprise," says Wu. "No one had been so affectionate to me for many years."

Wu was the black sheep of the family. He sold his father's house to get money for drugs, incurring the hatred of his brothers and sisters. His ex-wife lost faith in him and filed for divorce a year after they married.

"Yu cooked me porridge, told me her own experience and said I could quit drugs, too," he says.

So he followed her advice, went back to the labor camp and was discharged in early 2003.

Later that year, they married, settled down at Sanjiang Farm, a community of 1,000 people in Lu's hometown, 25 kilometers from the provincial capital of Guiyang, and opened a hotline at home to help other addicts.

"We didn't have to advertise -- the news spread quickly among our former junkie friends and many people called," said Wu, 36. "Some asked to meet us in person, or even stay with us in order to quit drugs. That's how our club started."

Housed in a former school on Sanjiang Farm, "the club" is a non-governmental, self-disciplinary body that provides psychological therapy and support to former drug addicts.

"We chat with them and they tend to confide in us because we have had similar experiences," says Wu. "We often talk late into the night, about our pasts, our futures -- and drugs."

The talks help them to adjust to a life without drugs.

The club has taken in more than 100 people in the past three years. "Most of them were natives of Guiyang, but there were also people from Sichuan and Hunan Provinces and even Liaoning in the northeast," says Yu.

In their busiest days, the place has been home to 30 former addicts. The couple, who finished only junior high school, felt heavy pressure. "We we could accommodate no more than 12 at a time," she says.

Each member of the "club" pays 500 yuan (62.5 U.S. dollars) a month, which covers their living expenses and a monthly health check. Yu manages the fund, hands out pocket money very carefully and makes sure not a cent is spent on drugs.

With maternal care, she observes members closely and makes notes on their health, mood and the occasional relapse into drugs.

Wu recalls sadly how he once slapped a girl on the face when he caught her with heroin, offering to share it with others. "I knew what was up her sleeves when she went out, so I hid and waited for several hours for her to come back."

The girl, surnamed Jin, says she was in tears. "I was hurt, yes, but it was strangely comforting to know that he did that because he cared."

She never bought drugs again.

Unable to shake off his addiction, club member Li Dapeng walked out in April 2005, but was soon caught by police and institutionalized at a reform center 500 meters up the road.

"We wanted to say hello to him when we visited the center two weeks ago, but Li avoided us, and said he was sorry he had failed us," says Wu.

People on the farm are friendly to the couple and their club members. "Hongfang is my friend since childhood and we often chat and drink together," says a farm worker with the name of Jin.

Life on the farm can be boring for the former addicts, most of whom grew up in the city. They take turns cooking and cleaning, go swimming or fishing and play cards to kill time.

"I hope we can do some farm work, too," says Yu Hongfang. "I'm sure everyone will be happy to eat our own fruit and vegetables."

Chen Guangwu, a drugs enforcement official in Guiyang, praises the couple's efforts as "brave and valuable". "It's a necessary supplement to the government's fight against drugs, and we'll closely follow its development."

He says some members of the club have carried on the couple's campaign by establishing similar organizations in other parts of the country.

Official statistics show China had 1.072 million registered drug addicts at the end of 2004. Of the country's 650,000 HIV carriers, 44.3 percent were infected through drug injection.

Last year, Customs houses across China handled 9,627 drug smuggling cases, involving a total value of 9.85 billion yuan (1.23 billion U.S. dollars), the General Administration of Customs reported.