Alcoholics Anonymous Helps Drop Drink

By Irina Titova ~ The St. Petersburg Times ~ Friday, June 17, 2005

Ten years ago Vladimir had reached a dead end.

He fed his alcohol addiction with a liter of vodka every day. A butcher by profession, he kept getting fired and losing the income he needed to support his wife and three children.

Born in a village where many people drank heavily, Vladimir was caught by the same habit.

"I couldn't live a day without a liter of vodka," he said.

"I couldn't communicate with people and was angry," he added.

He drank when he was in a good mood and when he was in a bad mood. When he became stressed, he drank alcohol to wind down.

By 1995, Vladimir's marriage was on the rocks. His father had died of alcoholism and it looked a dead certainty that he would follow him down the same road to the grave.

Completely desperate, Vladimir visited some Alcoholics Anonymous classes. He has never touched alcohol since.

"What helped me was the example of the others. I met people who quit drinking, and I understood that I could do it too," he said Wednesday at a news conference on the eve of AA's annual White Nights forum in St. Petersburg on Sunday.

The organization, which came to Russia in 1987, now unites tens of thousands of people across Russia. In St. Petersburg alone there are several thousand people receiving help from AA.

"St. Petersburg has 20 AA groups where groups of four people to 60 people with drinking problems meet regularly," AA member Alexander said at the news conference.

Members reveal only their first names because anonymity is one of the principles of the organization.

Svetlana, 40, another AA member, began drinking seven years ago after she had a family crisis. AA groups had helped her a lot, she said.

Svetlana, who has two university degrees and good jobs, said she had not expected to become a problem drinker. She never drank vodka, but started with light alcohol drinks like gin and tonic, beer and wine.

"Then I needed to have two bottles of wine or 1.5 liters of beer a day. I didn't care what was happening to my children, how I looked, and was just looking for money for alcohol. It was terrible," she said.

AA meetings became a place where Svetlana could come and share her stress and negative emotions, and where people would understand her, she said.

Alcoholics Anonymous found another member, Maria, 28, in a psychiatric hospital. Although she was a mother, Maria had such serious problem with alcohol that she sometimes forgot to pick up her child from the nursery school and didn't work.

"An AA member was the only person who came to visit me in the hospital," she said.

Visiting patients with alcohol problems is the last of 12 steps that AA members follow to overcome their problem.

The 12-step program begins with a member admitting he or she is an alcoholic. Other steps include making a list of people who they have harmed and making good for the harm they have caused.

The organization also has a list of concrete steps that are supposed to help people quit drinking.

One key principle is "never to take the first shot of alcohol." The program says that it's not right when a person with alcohol addiction thinks that as long as they do not take the third or the fifth shot that they won't get drunk; they should not start drinking at all.

Alcoholics Anonymous was formed in 1935 in Akron, Ohio. Its founders were surgeon Robert Smith and stock exchange broker Bill Wilson. Today AA unites about 3 million people around the world. At least 110 groups work in 150 countries.

In Russia there are 300 AA groups operating, which AA members say is not enough for a country with such a big alcohol problem.

Russia has about 8 million male alcoholics and 2 million female alcoholics. About 500,000 people with alcohol addiction are aged under 15, according to AA statistics.