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Addiction has moved into Punjabi homes on both sides of the world – and shame keeps most families silent. For over twenty years I have worked with the people inside that silence: the person using, and the family holding everything together around them.
Years in medicine, addiction and community health
Hospital consultancies – Health Sciences Centre & St. Boniface, Winnipeg
Camps, forums and lectures across Punjab and Canada
Languages – consultations in Punjabi, Hindi and English
Punjab did not wake up one morning to an addiction epidemic. It arrived village by village, household by household — and it is now following Punjabi families to Canada, the UK and beyond.
What used to be alcohol and opium is now heroin and lab-made synthetics that are stronger and far less forgiving. Tolerance builds fast; overdose risk is unpredictable.
Parents sell land. Wives cover for husbands. Siblings stop speaking. The family is usually exhausted long before anyone picks up a phone — and they need care of their own, not just advice.
“Lok Ki Kehnge” - what will people say - costs lives. Addiction gets treated as a moral failure instead of a treatable medical condition, so help arrives years late, if at all.
I was born in Winnipeg to parents who came from Punjab. I learned Punjabi so I could speak properly with my family back home — and it is the reason I can now sit with a mother in a village outside Tarn Taran, or a father in a Brampton living room, and have a real conversation instead of a translated one.
A trip to India in 1992 showed me what happens when a whole region has no reliable access to care. I went into medicine because of it. Today I work as an addictions consultant in private practice, consult with Health Sciences Centre and St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, and return to Punjab every year to run camps and awareness work.
Whether you are the one using, the one worrying, or the one organising a community response — there is a door here for you.
Confidential, judgement-free assessment and guidance for the person using and for the family around them — in Punjabi or English, whichever lets you say what you actually mean.
Lectures, seminars and media in Punjabi and English — colleges in Amritsar and Chandigarh, community organisations in Brampton, radio in Winnipeg, legislative grounds on 26 June.
Free medical camps, blood pressure and blood sugar screening, medication, school visits and connectivity projects — run with local hospitals and volunteers.
The mentality and behaviour of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction.
Russell Brand
From village camps in Tarn Taran to lecture halls in Chandigarh and radio studios in Winnipeg.
A full broadcast in Punjabi on the addictions seen in practice and the role of an addictions consultant in a hospital setting.
Time with students and teachers at a volunteer-run school in a neighbourhood that lost a generation of fathers to addiction.
Presenting on the nature of addiction and what real community support looks like, at the Legislative Grounds in Winnipeg.
Most people who contact me open with some version of “I don’t even know if this counts as a problem.” It counts. If you would rather read before you reach out, the resources page lists vetted Punjabi-language services, treatment programmes and family support — with a plain description of who each one is actually for.
If someone is unresponsive, has stopped breathing, or is at immediate risk of harming themselves, call your local emergency number now — 911 in Canada and the USA, 112 in India. This website is health information, not emergency care.
Addressing addiction and restoring well-being in rural Northern India — and in Punjabi families wherever they live.
Winnipeg, Manitoba
& Punjab, India
Consultations in Punjabi
and English
Enquiries answered
within 48 hours
© 2026 Punjabi Doc — Dr. Kernjeet Kaur Sandhu, MD. All rights reserved.
Educational information only — not a substitute for emergency care.