Nasha Mukti (De- Addiction) & Education awareness

Venue: Mandari Ki Mata Village, Gwalior
(January 11, 2012)

SETU organized a Nasha Mukti (De-addiction) & Education Awareness workshop at Mandari Ki Mata Village in Gwalior Area. There were approx 100 attendees with mixed ratio of male and female. SETU team members began the seminar by introducing the guests & briefly explaining the audience the gist of intoxication and its effects on human mind & body.

They spoke about, how in this contemporary world, a man for his corporeal satisfaction, falls for abhorrent and dangerous lifestyle like addiction to intoxicants in desire to acquire some peace of mind, to escape worldly troubles, to get an ecstatic feeling or to get rid of social embarrassment leads people to the use of drugs.

Nasha or in layman’s language – drunkenness, inebriation or intoxication is an impermanent state resulting from excessive consumption of the following:

Alcohol (Yellow): all types of alcohol products like country liquor, beer, wine, laththa etc.
Nicotine (Red): products like bidi, cigarettes, mava, tobacco chewing, snuff etc.
Drugs: this consists of Opium, Marijuana,Cocaine, Charas, Ganja, Bhang, Brown Sugar and so on.

An elaborated discussion on the evil effects of addiction on human body took place; some of the pointers explained to them are as follows:

• Alcohols have poisonous effects on the nerves, the heart as well as the digestive system.
• Nicotine is explicitly described in medical dictionaries as a powerful and active poison.
• Smoking brings in nicotine, as well as the highly poisonous gas, carbon monoxide, into the lungs. That is why even a pack of cigarette holds a statement saying “SMOKING IS INJURIOUS TO HEALTH”
• Nicotine causes increased discharge of adrenalin and noradrenalin into the blood stream, which leads to hardening of the blood vessels.
• The arteries also become crammed and frail, resulting in hypertension to angina pectoris and heart attacks.
• Persistent use of these drugs leads to severe damage to the liver, the heart, the kidneys, the brain and the nerves.

The crowd was also enlightened about how addiction not only leaves a negative effect on human body of the addict but the families of such individuals also suffer. This could lead to an unharmonious relation between husband & wife and in some cases their children too. We all have heard stories from our neighbors or our house cleaners for that matter that their husband beats them brutally after coming back home in a drunken & a state of intoxication. It puts a huge scar of depression for the whole family. The children are neglected, emotionally scarred & witness the vulgar & violent nature of an addict (in this case, their own parents or related adults) and often fall prey to criminal activities. Such families suffer from economic crises and ultimately from social & financial stigmas, as they tend to splurge money on their addiction leaving them to struggle in making everyday’s expenditure along with hampering the basic need of food, health and education for their children.

Local volunteers were motivated to spread the word of knowledge whenever possible. Some of the wives decided to put an end towards this evil habits of their spouse and husbands took pledge to cope up with their problem of addiction towards alcohol & drugs.