The perfect setting: Alcoholics Anonymous, Gujarat, Sunday

Gandhinagar to host 3-day national convention of Alcoholics Anonymous, even policemen invited as speakers.

This Sunday when India tunes in to find out which way Gujarat voted, some people in Gandhinagar, including specially invited policemen, will have other things on mind — they will be busy wrapping up a three-day national convention of the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in the capital of the dry state.

The convention of the AA, the voluntary group that helps alcoholics overcome addiction, has invited policemen to address alcoholics who will start assembling at a resort this Friday.

It is no secret that bootleggers thrive in Gujarat, the only state in the country that has never relaxed its prohibition laws since Independence. Result: CII estimates say, Rs 2,500-crore loss annually as excise revenue.

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Despite this, liquor is freely available, the neighbourhood bootlegger a phone call away and the bottle delivered home.

At least three reputed organisations, including a top bank, sought AA help recently to organise campus meetings on curbing absenteeism, the result of drinking too much.

There are several chapters of AA across Gujarat — in Surat, Ahmedabad, Vapi, even small towns like Valsad, with more than a thousand members. In fact, Surat boasts of as many as four groups. And the oldest one, in Vadodara, started 18 years ago.

“We have invited AAs from all over the country, we expect around 150 to show up for the convention,” says one of its active members, William (no surnames are used in AA which maintains anonymity of its members).

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The convention is self-sponsored, as is AA which does not accept donations. But members are free to contribute. The first day of the convention will focus on awareness and will be open to the general public.

The organisers have invited Ahmedabad psychiatrist Hemang Desai as chief guest. “We have also invited several officers who deal with the law and order aspect of the problem,” says William.

The next two days of the convention are open only to members. The AA believes that someone who has ceased to be an alcoholic has exceptional faculty for “reaching” and helping “uncontrolled drinkers”.