‘Start with the family’

By GABRIEL LAHOC
THE root causes of alcohol abuse need to be addressed and this to start in the family unit.
This was one proposal made by the community development division of Morobe during the last day of the alcohol abuse symposium in Lae this week.
Community development adviser Amet Fongemale, in expressing this, said the state of mind and the influence of an individual’s choice is moulded by his or her family.
Fongemale likened the division’s office to a police station, which interacts with victims of abuse in the family on a daily basis of which many cases were alcohol-related.
Most of the victims, she says, were women who were physically, mentally and sexually abused by drunk husbands.
She said spending more time with children would effectively reduce the culture of alcohol abuse in their adult life through sound thinking and reasoning.
“It is the state of mind which influences the choice one makes,” she said, adding that this influences whether one should drink and be responsible or not.
The office generally known as the “welfare office” had also noted changes in the drinking culture, especially the increasing number of women as alcohol consumers.
On average, officers see six victims a day, 120 a month and 1320 in a year, with half of them having connections to alcohol abuse.