Helping them kick the bottle

Alcoholics Anonymous arranges counselling for known offenders

Chennai: Alcoholics Anonymous, the liquor de-addiction support group, will tie up with the city police to help repeat offenders kick the bottle.

At a meeting held at the Zion Church in Chindatripet on Friday, Alcoholics Anonymous invited a group of more than 100 known offenders and their families and counselled on how life without liquor could change them. The invitees even had a role model they aspire to become: a person who had a history of criminal life but had reformed over the past two years.

The coordinator for the programme said the idea was for those present to have someone to relate to. "He is someone they can relate to. He was a repeated offender for over 10 years. He eventually gave up liquor and reformed himself." The organisers said Police Commissioner R. Nataraj, who was the chief guest, was so impressed with the idea that he even offered the auditoria in three new police stations for conducting future meetings.

Representatives of Alcoholics Anonymous said de-addiction programmes and support groups closely worked with police and prison authorities in the United States for the past six decades. They hoped that similar programmes would be possible in the future.

The Hindu