Will Russians Sober Up?

_"First Steps: AA and Alcoholism in Russia" by Patricia Critchlow, in Current History (Oct. 2000), 4225 Main St., Philadelphia, Pa. 19127._

Some 20 million Russians are much too fond of their vodka. That’s the estimated number of alcoholics in Russia, a nation of only 145 million. Russians consume, on average, a staggering 3.5 to four gallons of pure alcohol a year—well above the World Health Organization’s "safe level" of two gallons per year. Among the adverse consequences: between 25,000 and 40,000 deaths annually from alcohol poisoning, and shortened life expectancy. For various reasons, Russian males born in 1999 have a life expectancy of only 59.8 years, four years less than for those born in 1990.

Excessive drinking has long been "a scourge of Russian society," notes Critchlow, who did fieldwork on the subject for a master’s degree from Harvard University. But, she reports, a ray of hope has appeared, in the form of Anonimnye Alkogoliki (Alcoholics Anonymous, or AA) self-help groups.

Such organizations were not allowed during most of the Soviet era. Before Mikhail Gorbachev rose to power in the 1980s, Soviet leaders welcomed alcohol sales as a source of state revenue and did not view heavy drinking as a significant social problem. Gorbachev, however, launched an "anti-alcohol campaign," which proved ineffective. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Critchlow says, "economic insecurity, low morale, and a sense of disillusionment have contributed to an increase in excessive drinking." President Boris Yeltsin was "a poor role model." His successor, Vladimir Putin, has criticized excessive drinking by officials. He also has hiked taxes on retail sales of alcohol, but this apparently prompted a turn to bootleg liquor, some of it deadly. In the first five months of 2000, a total of 15,823 Russians died of alcohol poisoning—a 45 percent increase over the toll during the same period in 1999.

Under Gorbachev, restrictions on AA groups were eased, and by the end of his regime, the self-help organizations could be found in 12 cities. By late 1999, there were 180 AA groups in 90 cities and towns. Physicians (whose income is threatened) and Russian Orthodox clergymen (who see AA as a foreign religious cult) have resisted. A St. Petersburg program claims that 45 percent of its more than 500 patients have stayed sober for at least a year—a very impressive figure, Critchlow says, but the mathematics of alcoholism is daunting.

As the AA movement spreads in the next 10 years, she calculates, it may be able to help perhaps 35,000 alcoholics at most. "Ultimately," Critchlow concludes, "any broad-scale solution ...must come from within Russian society."