Survivors tell tales of alcohol abuse

Alcoholism can be on the rise in Asia, wreaking havoc upon individuals, families plus innocent strangers

Presenters dress as victims of alcohol abuse and hold placards about the dangers of drinking during a forum marking today's National No-Drinking Day. (Photo: Penchan Charoensuthipan)
Presenters dress as sufferers of alcohol abuse and hold placards regarding the dangers of drinking during a forum tagging today’s National No-Drinking Day. (Photo: Penchan Charoensuthipan)

Jessada Yaemsabai was raised surrounded by individuals with drinking problems yet he never dreamed he would end up being a victim of abusive drinking.

Not really that he was in to the habit of drinking himself.

Mr Jessada grew up in a slum exactly where consuming alcohol and drugs was a typical sight. He comprised his mind in order to steer clear of both. He moved out of the local community, set up a small business and got married.

One night, the father of two great wife were waiting at a red light when a car rear-ended their motorcycle and dragged him fifteen metres down the road. The driving force of the car had been drunk.

Twenty-two years on, Mr Jessada can be confined to a wheelchair. His wife has recovered from her injuries.

The family has worn out one million baht of their hard-earned cost savings to treat him. Their own assets were furthermore sold to cover the extra costs of their treatment.

Helpless and in despair, Mr Jessada was sapped of the will to live. But he or she managed to pull himself together and conquer his suicidal thoughts.

At the back again his mind, although, is lingering anger at how recurring drinking — dismissed by many as a relatively normal way of life — can destroy other people’s lives.

His story had been aired at a current discussion hosted with the Network of People Affected by Drinking in conjunction with the Kid Youth and Loved ones Foundation and the Men and women Progressive Movement Basis (WMP) with support from the Thai Health Promotion Foundation (ThaiHealth).

The big event, which marks Nationwide No-Drinking Day, features four people whose lives were flipped upside down by consuming, or as a result of someone else imbibing.

Rung-arun Limlahapan, director of ThaiHealth’s Workplace of Health Risk Control Plan, mentioned National No-Drinking Time is held on Buddhist Lent, which this year falls nowadays.

Numbers show more than twenty percent of road incidents are caused by people driving drunk of alcohol, using the damage costing some 90 billion baht a year. That percent doubles during holidays, she said.

About 80 percent of people surveyed stated they had been harmed by someone else consuming, often in brawls or as a result of other problems.

Alcohol is also proven to lower a person’s immunity, an additional health problem during the Covid-19 pandemic.

ThaiHealth and its networks have campaigned to educate people about the danger of alcohol abuse despite a rise in drinkers, particularly among women and youths.

The campaign has been highlighted by two commercials centred on the theme associated with parents being at the particular forefront of consuming reduction and eradication efforts.

One commercial is known as ‘Mr Dad, Enough with Alcohol” as well as the other “Beware of Cancer” which hammers home the information that prolonged drinking can lead to stomach, oesophagus or breast cancer.

One of the audio speakers, Jakkrapan Klanruengsang, mentioned he started drinking whenever he was younger and became hooked on alcohol after this individual was employed at a company. His hands would tremble anytime he didn’t consume alcohol.

The condition left him unable to work and he had to quit the company. Addiction to alcohol drove him to the stage where he would be throwing up blood. He later on developed cirrhosis from the liver.

Weak and unemployed, he is now becoming cared for by his mother.

Nathee (surname withheld), another heavy drinker, told the discussion board he started when he or she was 14. Searching back on his youngsters, he said he enrolled in a vocational school where fraternal ties run strong. He engaged in inter-school brawls and even took things to win the particular acceptance of his peers and older students.

While he had been having a drink with some school friends one day, he learned that students from a rival company were spotted close by. Feeling a bit intoxicated, he immediately contacted them and photo and injured one of these.

“It was to show I was loyal in order to [my friends] and that we were close-knit, a team, would you die for one an additional, ” Nathee stated.

He went to jail for that crime. None of his friends from the school went to visit your pet in prison.

At the forum, Fon (also the pseudonym) said that throughout her first marriage, she was assaulted frequently by her husband, even while expecting. At one point he stabbed her with a knife, cutting some of the tendons in her hand.

Fon left him and remarried only to learn the girl second husband seemed to be an alcoholic. “It was like jumping out from the frying pan in to the fire, ” she said.

During the pandemic, her second husband dropped his job plus hit a people. The stress was too much for him to bear. He hanged themselves a few months before Fon delivered her baby.

“This is what alcohol can do to you. Your life crumbles before your extremely eyes, ” she said.