Church organization work for rehabilitating addicts

March 19, 2013: A church-run social organization is focusing on the rehabilitation of 1.5 million people addicted to alcohol in Kerala.

An estimate by the Kerala Madya Virudha Samithi, an outfit functioning under the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC), revealed that 10 million Malayalis out of a population of more than 30 million people consume alcohol.

Of these, 1.5 million people are addicts, it said.

“The entire focus of rehabilitation is now on these addicts,” Fr Paul Karachira, noted counselor and former state general secretary of the Samithi said.

He was inaugurating the annual general meeting of the Samithi’s Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocesan unit on Saturday. “As per our estimate, there are 10 million alcohol consumers. We forget the fact that it is non-regular consumers who turn into regular consumers and ultimately end up as addicts,” he said.

“So there is a need to go after those who are not addicts as yet,” he added.

The priest said that some people had questioned the recent decision of the Catholic Church to treat consumption of alcohol as a sin to be confessed.

“The essence of the Ten Commandments is that one should have love for others. Where is love for family in a man who drinks? He thinks of his pleasure only which leaves an entire family in sorrow,” he added.

The Church in Kerala had also asked the state to stop selling liquor. A meeting of the KCBC in December last year had approved a 27-point guideline of its temperance commission to establish a drug and liquor-free society in the state.