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Hi there!... Ella said I should tell you she
was a bit depressed at the time...
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 She is busy now... she wrote this article after
the Tokaj wine story!  
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She wanted to show she could show both sides of the
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The Drink of Despair

What People Think About Alcoholism

Many of Budapest's homeless are alcoholics - homeless because they were alcoholics or alcoholics because they were homeless. At Lehel square Csaba, an imposing man with long hair and red cheeks, carrying his dirty bags with dignity, asks for Ft 10 for bread. With a sip of vodka he warms up. "If I could find work, I would not live on the street, tramp aimlessly around Lehel ter, sleep on benches" he says. "My legs hurt, I go numb, the end has to come once anyway. What I get I spend on wine. It is easier to survive street life being a bit tipsy. I drink to get warm not because I'm alcoholic!"
It is believed that there are one million alcoholics in Hungary. One-third of the deaths and suicides are due to alcohol, one in six fatal accident is attributed to alcohol. The second cause of divorce is alcohol. Most alcoholics are between 30 and 49 years of age, many die of cirrhosis of the liver.
"Hungarian statistics should be taken with a pinch of salt," said Imre Szallay, a senior student in Sociology at Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE). Two glasses of wine a day and you are categorized as a heavy drinker. Lucky of Clinton he doesn't live here. If he drinks one glass of whisky daily, he would be the one million and first Hungarian alcoholic."
Statistics, he said, are useful at hiding the root cause: stress and uncertainty of life today. "Politicians find it easier to blame individuals than to acknowledge that they are leading the country irresponsibly," he said.		 "It is convenient to say that the situation is critical, for then they get subsidies, they establish foundations for the rescue of alcoholics, and the money just disappears."
Alcoholism is the third largest Hungarian social problem, after poverty and public safety according to a public opinion poll conducted in February 1995 by the Median Institute for Opinion Polls and Market Research.
"We often start the day with a palinka, drink beer at lunch and end the day in a pub," said Mihaly Szabo, a retired teacher: "We drink when happy; we drink when sad; we drink when we have affairs with other women but still love our wives. It is easier to lie and hide it with alcohol than to divorce. This is normal here. And elsewhere too. I saw the Ewing family in the Dallas series, at 10 am they start with whisky."
Some who never drink are not thought to be men. Bela Szakacs, a policeman, never drank anything other than soft drinks. He got kidney stones and went to the doctor only to learn that soft drinks make stones. "Drink two beers and sit at the back of bus # 12 - an articulated bus with a windy route - and off will go your kidney stones," recommended the doctor. "I get drunk from two glasses not two beers," says Szakacs. "My wife cheers in my place at parties. Friends tease me saying she wears the hat in our home. I don't mind them."

What Is Done For Alcoholics

Every third interviewee of the 1995 Median survey considered alcoholism an illness, while two-thirds labeled it as a fault of character or a will power weakness. However the majority (69 percent) said alcoholics should be forced into medical treatment. Of the rest, 5 percent suggested alcoholics should be fined, 3 percent suggested they be imprisoned, and only 15 percent would leave them alone.
"There still is very strong moralizing about alcoholics being sinful, weak people without will power, animals," said a man who gave his name as Laszlo, a recovering alcoholic whom Alcoholics Anonymous (AA).
According to Dr. Gaspar Takach, head of the Addictive Diseases Department of the National Psychiatric and Neurology Institute, alcoholism is a disease in which the sick person drinks more and more alcohol to acquire a state of happiness, or to avoid uncomfortable feelings.
Vicki Underland-Rosow, an American Ph.D. in Human Systems from the Union Institute, says in her book Shame Spiritual Suicide that the root cause of addictions is shame: " ... Shame is used to avoid facing an addiction and then the addiction is used to avoid facing the shame. Both are used to distort, deny or divert feared and unwanted feelings. The use of addiction as a "fix" to avoid experiencing shame is a temporary solution; it merely results in compounding the problem by increasing the shame. And so the cycle continues."
The situation is critical, says Dr. Andras Veer, director of the National Psychiatric and Neurology Institute and director of the Mental and Hygiene Program at the Ministry of Public Welfare. Until three or four years ago, the law forced people to go through detoxification programs, but today - except for those who commit crimes - it is not applied any longer because it violates human rights. If there is no motivation to give up drinking, the results are poor: only one percent of those who forced to go through detoxification became sober. Still society makes pressures to institutionalize aggressive alcoholics.
Istvan Vajda, president of the National Association for the Protection of Sobriety, Health and Family, describes the typical scenario of a family disrupted by alcohol, "From a quarrelsome atmosphere, with evenings of 'Where have you been, why you stayed so late?' an aggressivity builds up. Children are horrified to see their father drunk, their mother beaten up. In vain, the neighbors call the police for they can intervene only in case of serious violence or crimes. In his drinking bouts he sells whatever valuables they have in their home: furniture, TV, carpets, anything in his reach. The only solution for the defenseless woman is to turn to the court and ask for a divorce. In such a situation mothers come to ask our help," Vajda explained the aim of their organization. They host them in temporary homes and help them find a solution through legal channels, be it at the guardianship authority, or court, or by contacting some relatives who can host them temporarily. 		"We try our best to free her from her rowdy husband." At least 150 Hungarian organizations function to help alcoholics give up drinking. Professionals search for new ways of dealing with the problem.
"Clinics of the old type would treat alcoholics beyond help whose health had been badly damaged already," explained Dr. Maria Holzberger, director of the National Institute for Alcoholic Diseases: "They come when there is no way back from their physical sickness and mental distortions, when they are cornered at life's periphery." Now psychiatrists of the Regional General Prevention Health Centers for Alcohol Disease (TAMASZ) don't wait until the patients asked for help, but they induce an early, preventive treatment. They teach the professionals of civil and religious organizations to recognize the symptoms of a drinking problem. "This way we not only stop an alcoholic's career," she said "but also we re-establish for the children of the alcoholic parent a milieu that won't make their behavior deviant, but that they would grow up valuing a healthy and harmonious life."
Children raised in such dysfunctional households do not get the attention and direction they need. They are abandoned emotionally. According to John Bradshaw, one of the most popular American specialist in recovery from addictions abandonment sets up compulsivity. "Since the children need their parents all the time, and since their needs are not met, they grow up with a cup that has a hole in it," he said. This hole in the soul is the fuel that ignites the compulsivity. The person looks for more and more love, attention, praise, booze, drugs, money, etc. The drive comes from emptiness. Compulsivity is set up in families. Addictive people create needy marriages and engender families in which children are shamed through abandonment. The victimized children from these marriages become equally compulsive and continue the cycle.
Takach says that the so called "alcoholic career" critical starting period is the age of 16-24, when the young turn mature. "Alcoholism is a behavior disorder," he says. Childhood decides who will be an alcoholic or not. Family role models, cultural heritage, then social factors, peer pressure plus a stressful environment with difficult relationships are added into the making of an alcoholic person. Is it possible to free oneself out of alcoholism? Many succeed, he said. The road towards sobriety starts through acknowledgement: "I am an alcoholic, I can't go on like this, I already paid too much for it." When the person wants to stop, he looks for new alternatives, experimenting new behaviors and learns new techniques to stop drinking.
If one doesn't want to go through a classic Hungarian detoxification going through psychotherapy, family therapy, reality control, or transaction analysis, there is possible to get help at the American originated 12 steps self-help group program of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)

In Budapest an AA group started about 6-7 years ago and now there are twenty two.
According to them recovery from alcoholism is about two things: first, healing itself, that is a reduction and cessation of the aggravating symptoms; and second, empowerment, which to some may be construed as "spiritual awakening" and to others may be seen as a growth of living vitality and productivity as well as self-esteem.
"First you have to wash out the physical aspects of alcohol addiction, the liver, the nervous system has to heal, and that takes several weeks," said Laszlo. Then you have to overcome many habits that are part of the drinking problem and you learn methods for avoiding those pitfalls that will make for a slip like: never let yourself be hungry, tired, angry, don't be lonely, be around people.
At their meetings alcoholics try to encourage the new comers by telling them their own stories of distress. Listening to them one can hardly believe that they were the same person.
One Hungarian member, Miklos, said he drank for 35 years. He had periods of abstinence, once for one and a half year, but when he re-started drinking it was worse than before. He got cornered, his family wanted to put him in a homeless shelter or force him to detoxification. He chose the hospital.
He met there with people from AA who didn't drink for years and it seemed miraculous to him that they could abstain from drinking for two years without any medical help. "They didn't tell me not to drink, for they said I will drink anyhow if I wanted to. 'Come to 		90 meetings, 90 days, to get sober enough to decide if you need or not this program.' I started to believe that it would work for me too."
"I am still as in the first day of sobriety, for each day I start again, trying to stay sober. When I came in for the first time with shaking legs and hands, they received me with love. Today truly a new comer is the most important person for me too, for he reminds me of the horrible drinking fits that I had in past days. If I can't leave following the 12 steps, then in the end I will go back drinking. Our past is following us, and often waves us back."
Alcoholics are everywhere. "Executives, MPs, politicians dressed up smartly are actually as wretched in their sickness as their homeless homologues," said Julian who is a diplomat.
"I drank out of boredom. I couldn't get rid of it by healthier ways." When he read about the Georgian diplomat he looked back at his life. "We drink a lot in our profession. Almost every evening there is some ceremony to attend, some champagne glass to cheer. 		I didn't like to make my chauffeur wait for me, so I drove alone. But I never made an accident, for there is a God of drunks. Sometimes I felt bad about drinking, but I said to myself 'Well, after all Winston Churchill was a drunk and he did his job just fine!' When I first came to AA I was so scared that they would make me public and some envious colleagues would take advantage of my weakness and put an end to my career. But then I realized that everybody there came for the same reason as me."
The stereotype Hungarian about alcoholics is that is a "he". But in the last 17 years the number of women treated in hospital for alcoholism increased three fold. One of them, Eva, another AA member, complains about the way she was mistreated previously in the hospital. She has been to detoxification nine times. Doctors never told her she was an alcoholic. They patted her on her shoulder and said, "You are just exhausted. Don't work that much, don't worry that much." In face of the alcohol one person is helpless, but the solution is not in hospital treatments, she said.
"The detox ward was filled with actors, party secretaries and rich Gypsies loaded with golden jewelry. They could pay fat bribes, not I, a poor 		teacher. I was just 'overworked' and free to go home, leave the bed to a rich client."
Her son was ashamed of her. He told her, "You'll end either in a madhouse, prison or cemetery." He never thought that there was another one: the AA, she said. She found out there that she is not a criminal but a sick person, who lost everything that was lovable and important for her because of the alcohol, she said. Here she heard for the first time that this sickness is curable without medicines. Life doesn't change, the environment doesn't change at all, the difficulties come in the same way, but that she has to learn such a life style that preserves her physical and spiritual health.
But 12-step meetings may be completely unfit environments for many people, said Julian who left the program but visits groups from time to time. "Some people in 12-step programs go so far as to believe that they need to be 'in the program' for the rest of their lives," said Julian. "Many people feel that this 'life sentence' is negative and self-destructive, and actually defeats true recovery. Some are building their life on counting how many days had passed since they quit drinking, which is absurd."

Al-Anon

Next to the AA group grew another one, the Al-Anon, for the families and friends of alcoholics. They believe that an alcohol related problem is co-dependency.
"I see co-dependency in the Hungarian family related to men becoming addicted," said Laszlo."
A co-dependent person is one who is addicted to human relationships. Many define co-dependency by their behaviors which may include: always being attracted to alcoholics, drug addicts or other similarly needy and emotionally unavailable people; feeling as if they must be in a relationship with someone - anyone - for their lives to be worthwhile; trying to control others behaviors, especially loved ones; feeling as if they are incapable of ending a relationship that they know is not good for them or that they are unhappy in; trying to please everyone else and never taking time for themselves, or even forgetting that they need to take care of themselves.
Mirella, an Al-Anon member, comes from a family in which the father suffers from schizophrenia coupled with alcoholism and her mother is a co-dependent. She was 18 when she met her husband. 		She knew he drank, but they loved each other and she thought he would give up drinking for her sake, but he didn't. She never understood why he can't stop drinking. There were times when she followed him to the pub. "My thoughts were at how much he drinks, what he drinks, when he drinks, where he drinks," she said. "I raised his four children alone and did everything in his place." After three years of marriage she got at Al-Anon. Here she learned that it's not her fault that he drinks and that only he can give it up; that she had to give back the responsibility to the alcoholic, he is the one who had to deal with his own problems, instead of she permanently trying to prevent or solve his crisis situation. "If we permanently save him, actually we prolong the time before he might recognize he is ill."
Her life totally changed since she came there. At the beginning it was difficult not to watch the alcoholic and let him go to the pub as many times as he wished. She stopped yelling at him for drinking. He came to AA. There are six years since he is sober.
"When I stopped watching his drinking I realized that a lot of my personal problems surfaced. Watching all the time the alcoholic kept me from facing my own denied problems. It's as if I got sober myself."

Conclusion

In Hungary there are one million alcoholics, supossedly each with one spouse and a child suffering from co-dependency. If we add to them the workoholics, the drug addicts, the smokers, the gamblers, the sex addicts, the approuval seekers, etc. and their families, it might be that most of the population is addicted in someway.
One American expert has a theory that modern society operates on an addictive level. Anne Wilson Schaef, a psychology Ph.D., in her book, When Society Becomes An Addict (San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1987), she describes an addictive society as one in which social problems are denied, the majority of the population are not able to achieve personal fulfillment, individual lack of success is regarded as a personal flaw, the importance of feelings is denied, and unsuccessful people are ashamed of themselves and seen by others as a disgrace.
This results in individuals, families, organizations and the entire society all operating addictively. 		"Non-recovering addicts of any kind are classic examples of spiritual suicide," said Schaef. On a larger scale, group or societal spiritual suicide can be seen in the way we treat our planet and its resources. "Pollution, crime, epidemic drug and alcohol abuse, discrimination, institutional sexual harassment are all examples of a society moving into spiritual suicide.
"Physical destruction and eventual death is the logical progression following spiritual suicide." Perhaps global rethinking is needed.

Radio Bridge, Short Cuts Program, Fall 1996, The Budapest Week, June 5-11, 1997

 (hickups) 
...Well, actually things are not that bad...
She was a bit depressed at the time...
 (more hickups) 
 She is busy now. She told me she wrote this article after
the Tokaj wine story!  
(more hickups) 
She wanted to show... Haven't I told you this before?
Sorry! This show dries me out... or off... whatever! I am not a native speaker.
I am a Tokaj Aszu wine bottle
(infinetely more hickups)
 Let's drink me to our health!

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