We need to speak up: Aussie Alcoholics Anonymous member

She began drinking when she was 12 and couldn’t stop after that. From then on, the 53-year-old Perth resident would get drunk every day. She was first admitted to a detox unit before being introduced to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meetings.

“AA changed the way I look at life and believe in myself,” she said in a seminar organised at KEM Hospital to address the issue of women alcoholics. She said women in Australia, too, cannot announce that they are alcoholics and need help.

It is to break such taboos related to women alcoholics that 82 foreign women, all recovering alcoholics, have been touring India and urging women alcoholics to speak up and address the problem.

AA member SK Bhalla, coordinating the programmes, said, “According to statistics, we have 30,000 known women addicts, and one-third of alcohol addicts in India are women.”

Aamir Khan, who was also present at the seminar, promised that he will try to highlight the issue in season II of his show Satyamev Jayate.