Alcoholics find the support needed at AA to battle the bottle

By Juliane Gunardono

JAKARTA (JP): Steve is an alcoholic. He has been drinking for 30 years. The first 10 years were fun, the second decade difficult and the last 10 years pure hell.

Steve (all names in this article have been changed) ruined his relationships with his friends, his wife and everybody else he had ever known before finally deciding that he had to change his life.

Jim spent 10 years of his life proving to himself that he was not an alcoholic, but just loved drinking because when he drank he believed he was smart, tall, handsome and witty. Only after years of hangovers, blackouts and waking up in jail did he finally accept that he had a problem with alcohol.

Ida was drunk again last weekend and smashed up her apartment.

All three of these people are from different countries, have different jobs and different stories, but they all have three things in common:

They are alcoholics.

They know they are alcoholics.

And they want to quit drinking.

On Monday evening at 8 p.m., a group of 14 people -- six Indonesians and eight expatriates -- gather at the ICAC (International Community Activity Center) building on Jl. Kemang Raya, South Jakarta. They are waiting for their Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting to start. While they stand around talking to each other, one sound is heard more often than in most other groups of people; the sound of laughter.

"These people are my family," says one of the members of the group. "I can be myself here more than anywhere else."

Here, in front of the other members of AA, he can say what he seldom is able to say to anybody else without being judged.

"Hi," he says, after everybody has sat down around a table in the meeting room. "I'm Larry, and I am an alcoholic."

This is how the meeting begins.

Alcoholics Anonymous is no ordinary organization. There is no official membership, no fees and no leader. Every branch of AA in every country and every town is an autonomous, self-supporting group. The branch pays for the use of the meeting room through voluntary contributions, which are collected after meetings. A member is anyone who shows up for a meeting.

Whoever feels like taking responsibility for the task finds a room to hold the meetings. If someone wants, they can hold their own meeting to discuss special topics, or they can hold meetings in different locations or at different times. There are no doctors, therapists, psychologists or counselors. Most of the members have tried all of these things before joining AA. Now they meet people who are competent in their fields because of their own experiences.

On Mondays the meeting is open, which means that people who are not alcoholics can sit in on the meeting. Other meetings are closed to visitors. While the AA meeting takes place from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., next door a meeting for the families of alcoholics and drug addicts is held.

At the beginning of the meeting, one of the members reads out a chapter from the Alcoholics Anonymous textbook explaining how the organization works. There are 12 steps for overcoming alcoholism as laid out by AA. The first step, and probably the most important one, is for the members to admit that they are powerless over alcohol and that drinking wreaked havoc on their lives.

After the meeting is opened, the members tell about themselves.

Mike, who attended AA meeting for three months before he got as far as step one, says, "My life wasn't unmanageable because I left it all to my wife to manage. And even though I used to wake up thinking 'Good morning, I want a drink', I felt life was still manageable."

A woman starts to cry. "I have been drinking again," she sobs.

"Nice you are here, stay with us," the other members say.

"At AA you find somebody who understands your problems without judging you," explains David Djaelani Gordon, a psychologist and drug and alcohol consultant. "The people in AA know more about alcohol than anybody else, and they all speak this very special language of addicts that nobody else speaks."

Because everybody has been through the same troubles, they do not threaten, urge or point fingers at anybody -- they simply share their experiences to help each other.

"People are honest about their bad sides, to you and to themselves. They make clear that people don't become alcoholics because they are wonderful people", says Gordon. "That gives you the courage to be honest as well."

In Indonesia, AA is even more important for alcoholics than in most other countries because there are no other organizations helping alcoholics. Three recovery centers for alcoholics and drug addicts have been recently opened in Jakarta.

The lack of organizations is even more problematic considering the "tremendous" number of addicts in Indonesia, says Gordon. "Up until now it wasn't allowed to do any research about the number of drug and alcohol addicts in Indonesia, so we don't have any data on the problem," he says. "But we know there are lots of alcoholics and still more drug addicts." According to worldwide statistics, one in 10 people has a problem with drugs or alcohol.

The number of AA members in Jakarta, though, is only between 15 and 20. Alcoholism is still a taboo subject in Indonesia, and because AA does not promote itself, only those who read the classified advertisements very carefully know about the meetings.

Most people who hear about the meetings usually do not immediately begin attending meetings. First they contact an AA member through the ICAC (Tel. 719-4235), meet the member at his home and talk.

"What happens in the meetings is only the surface of it," explains Gordon. "Behind that is a community which helps each other at all times of every day."

People who are not alcoholics probably cannot imagine the hardships alcoholics go through when they stop drinking. Most have to cut ties with their friends who drink because drinking is a social activity, unlike using drugs. At AA one is able to make new friends whose stories will give them hope.

"At my first AA meeting somebody said to me, 'I guarantee that your life will change if you stay with us,'" says Mike. "Luckily he didn't say it would get better because it got much worse before it got better. But any change was better than my previous situation. And I thought, if others can do it so can I."

After the meeting ends, AA members stay at ICAC for a while, talking, telling each other about their experiences, making appointments and talking with newcomers who are beginning to learn how to change their lives.

"This is not about stopping drinking," says a veteran member, "this is how to live a sober life".