To address the problem of alcohol misuse and abuse in the force, the BSF today launched a week-long alcohol de-addiction programme in association with Alcoholic Anonymous here.
BSF's Guwahati Frontier Inspector General S K Srivastava, inaugurating the programme, said so far "our approach to treating alcohol abuse tends to be old-fashioned and now we want to use modern medicine for detoxification, by use of medications that can combat cravings."
Another problem is an over reliance on hospitalisation and in-patient rehabilitation facilities, rather than the outpatient care that characterises most civilian addiction treatment but now BSF proposes to use the latter, he said.
Addiction tends to be chronic and that the basic pathology of the addiction had a memory which doesn't go away that quickly.
BSF has plans to have its own counsellors who with better training, with help from Alcoholics Anonymous would prepare material for training the BSF personnel.
BSF would integrate prevention and treatment efforts more into primary health care and do more to preserve confidentiality for those seeking help, to reduce the stigma attached to getting help - and thus drawing more troops into its programme, he added.
The week long programme, organised as a part of Gandhi Jayanti, was attended by 15 Officers and 80 personnel of BSF out of which 28 BSF personnel of Dhubri, Cooch Behar and Falakata sectors of the BSF who were alcoholics also participated.
