Combatting alcoholism

Alcohol in the villages Alcoholism is really a major problem in the local villages, and it is getting worse. Twenty years ago only older people were drinking, and they would drink only in the evening. But today people drink at any time, on any occasion, and boys as young as 13 or 14 are drinking. They don’t feel guilty about doing this; they want to show they are mature. All this is happening because we are no longer following our cultural standards. There used to be great respect for age but this is no longer so. Children do not respect their mothers and fathers and there is no discipline.

Today there are robberies and harassment in the village and on the roads around; before this was very rare. The widespread drinking has definitely made this worse. I have spoken to criminals. Most of the time when they are involved with crimes they are drunk because it gives them courage.

Alcohol is cheaper in Pondicherry State than anywhere else in India. In this area we have liquor shops in many of the local villages which are in Pondicherry State, so it is very easy to obtain alcohol. When people start to drink, they normally begin with beer, but then they progress to brandy and other liquor. The final stage is drinking arrack, which is very cheap and very destructive.

The alcoholic’s downward path

I know all this because I am a recovering alcoholic, although I have been sober for seven years. I know the pain, the feelings of what they are doing when they are drinking alcohol. You don’t want to go to work because you smell of alcohol, and anyway you are not eating well so you cannot work. However, you need money to buy alcohol. So you start borrowing from friends on some pretense, then you cannot repay them, so you spoil all your relationships. This makes it worse. When I couldn’t face a problem I needed the alcohol just to forget.

Drinking causes big problems in the family. If my wife gave me money to buy ten kilos of rice, I would buy only eight and spend the rest on alcohol. If I didn’t have money and my wife didn’t give me money for drink, I would fight with her.

I can very clearly remember how it started. My father was drinking heavily and there were always fights between him and my mother. We children were very scared of my father because when he came fully drunk he didn’t know what he was doing. It is very damaging to the family, and I told myself that I would never become like that; that I would never drink.

But it is like a family disease, it is in my blood. I started drinking with friends, just for fun. Once a month we would buy a bottle of beer, and five of us would share it. Then gradually I drank more, and soon it was never enough. I started drinking brandy, and then I went on to arrack. In the end, I couldn’t even drink anymore. Physically I was in very bad shape, I could not eat anything and I was shaking and very nervous.

My brother took me to the Health Centre and to PIMS hospital, but they could not do anything for me. I was in the last stages.

Hospital treatment

Luckily, Auroville teachers saw that my children were coming late to school or not at all, and they found out what was happening. They wanted to help me so they sent people from this group called ‘What we can do for Auroville’ to ask me to go for treatment. But at first I wouldn’t listen to them. I thought I could manage my life.

Then Arun my brother found out there was a hospital in Chennai, TTK, which specializes in treatment for alcoholism and drugs. At first, there was no place. I had to wait for 40 days and I was really on the edge of madness. I could hear sounds, I could hear people calling me, but there was nobody there. One time I thought somebody was planning to kill me, so I ran to the Pondicherry Police Station and asked them to put me in jail because there I thought I would be safe.

Finally, I got admission to TTK hospital with the help of my brother and the Auroville Council. Some Higher Power had given them an indication that this guy is suffering and needs help.

I had to stay 26 days in the hospital. The first three days they do detox. They also gave me tablets which made me vomit if I tried to drink alcohol. We were not allowed to go outside the hospital grounds, but we could buy any amount of food, only no cigarettes, beedies or alcohol. They wake you up at 5 o’clock, you do some yoga exercises, after breakfast there is counselling. Everybody has a counselor. They don’t confront you, they help you to confront yourself. What happens is that all 60 people of the people under treatment sit together and share stories about their alcohol addiction. It was amazing. Every story was about something that had happened to me. So we all realized we were not the only one with these problems, and we began to accept our condition rather than denying it: before then we had been hiding it behind a screen. Suddenly the pain, the suffering, was shared. This really gave me strength.

At the end of each week, some recovering alcoholics would come in and get a medal from the authorities. They would speak about how they were now and how they had been before. What the changes were and how they were respected now in their communities and in their families. This really gave us hope, because we saw it was possible for us to change.

The Alcoholics Anonymous programme

After 26 days we had to leave the hospital. I wanted to stay there because I feared that if I met my old friends the whole thing would start again. But the counselors gave us good advice. Among other things, they said avoid your old friends, don’t go to marriages at night, which is when the drinking happens, but only in the morning and with your wife. I took their advice and never started drinking again.

These counselors also told us about the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) programme and advised us to join it. The contact they gave me was in Cuddalore but then I was told there was an AA person in Auroville. When I contacted this person and said I needed help, there was immediately a big ‘yes’. That was really my spark. I began going to regular meetings in Auroville and an AA member also took me every Sunday to the Pondicherry AA meeting, even though, as a foreigner, he couldn’t understand a word of what was being said. He just wanted to help.

The AA meetings really gave me strength and hope. I like the meetings because when I go there they do not ask anything; they really welcome me from the heart and make me feel I am in a safe place. People share their own experiences but we do not talk about them outside.

Awareness of the problem is definitely growing. When we started meeting in Auroville there were only four or five regulars, now there are six or seven and a lot of other people attend some meetings. Alcoholism is a problem in Auroville as well. The Pondicherry AA meeting, which began with only two or three of us, now has 15-20 people coming every Sunday. Meanwhile new groups have formed. I and another member have started a second Pondicherry meeting and two other people have started one in Muthialpet. There is also a treatment centre in Mudaliachavady called Concern.

The message goes out

The idea is that every AA member should give a message to others in need: there is a 12 step programme (see box). The organizers let people know their phone number so that people can call them, and in some places they also put up posters.

The Auroville AA group is entirely open so villagers are welcome. Some Auroville units have referred workers with an alcohol problem to the meeting. Also, people can join who do not have an alcohol problem but have a relation who is alcoholic. There is also a meeting in Pondicherry exclusively for people who are not alcoholics but who have an alcoholic in the family (the Alanom group). This is a programme to help the family help the alcoholic because without them no alcoholic can succeed: the family is the foundation.

In Kuilaypalayam about seven people have become sober as a result of having come to our meeting; in my village, Edayanachavady, three people have recovered. These are not big numbers, but when others see how these people have changed, they may also come forward. This is the key. I am very much an example in my village because the people remember how bad I was and they see how I am now. I have recovered my respect and the respect of my wife and family. Every day somebody from the village phones me, every second or third day people are coming to my house to ask how they can stop drinking. I tell them they need to get the treatment or to go to an AA meeting.

I’m very happy that I’m in Auroville. If I had not been here, I would be dead as I would not have got this help. I really want to thank the founders of AA in Auroville; they are doing a great work.

I am happy that God has given me this new life. I am like a child who has been reborn.

The twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous

• We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.

• Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

• Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

• Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

• Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.

• Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.

• Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.

• Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

• Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

• Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.

• Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

• Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.