AA, Al-anon: A silver lining in alcoholics’ lives for 25 years

Surat: Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and Al-anon family group working for alcoholics and their families in the city will celebrate silver jubilee on April 20-21. The 2-day programme will be attended by 500 local members along with more than 90 members from outside Surat. At present there are five such Al-anon family help groups functioning in the city at Nanpura, Amroli, Bhimpore, Bhatar and Adajan areas. At least 50 alcoholics or members of an alcoholic’s family attend the daily meetings of the group.
“These meetings aim to create an awareness among the addicts that alcoholism is a diseases which needs treatment and can be cured,” said Shilpa D, a member, who has been regularly attending such meetings at Divya Jyoti Al-non family group for the last 25 years.

“Though I am a gold medallist in MSc and have also done my PhD, I always suffered from inferiority complex and thought of myself as useless and not a good wife, or mother or even a daughter -in-law,” she said.

Revealing her life’s story, Shilpa said that she felt helpless when at times she couldn’t get her alcoholic husband to leave booze. “I lost my self-esteem, family incurred heavy financial losses and frustration and insecurity peaked. While my husband is still in and out of AA, I attend these programmes regularly which gives me strength to live a happy life and to handle my family and myself during the lean days. Our relationship is better now and I have learnt to live life on a daily basis,” she explained.

Another family member of an alcoholic, who has given up drinking for last 15 years, Meena S said, “There was a time in our family when my husband’s alcoholism led us to have serious fights and for which my daughter suffered from lack of my attention towards her. My child became a victim of my frustration and anger. But, since the time I joined Al-non classes, I was made to understand that alcoholism is disease and it is in his genes. My behaviour towards him and the situation changed and I started treating him patiently. After 15 years today, when he is sober, I attend these classes to help others live a healthy life too.”

Meena also said that they run a group, Alateen, which has completed five years to help city’s teenage addicts get rid of their malaise.

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In the Diamond city

Surat city and nearby areas have around 50,000 serious alcoholics.

Al-non group says that one alcoholic in a house affects at least 32 other members of the family — directly or indirectly.

Al-anon family groups’ programmes help nearly 700 families on yearly basis

At least 20,000 families’ lives have been made better by these groups.