Deathrow

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The Death Row
Mr. Sonam Wangchuk, in his speech of acceptance, on being conferred honorary doctorate said, “I haven’t done anything which deserve the honour of this kind, all I did was what humanity demands from human beings...when a house is on fire, there is no special deed done when somebody throws water on it. It is your duty. What is surprising is when you don't act that way, at that time".
Sometimes, I feel how lucky some people are, if they have not seen someone close dying of alcohol; in their family, relatives, neighbours or community. Of accidents, cold exposure, cancer, stroke, quarrels fights, homicide, suicide, myriad of diseases and other conditions related to alcohol consumption. If they have seen, heard and still not ready to act, then it is shockingly surprising, how frivolous and pitiable they are? Something by the name of alcohol is killing by the thousands and you are still in denial, silent and indifferent. Isn't our house on fire? Surprisingly, people are just watching it, doing nothing about it?
Each individual of our society must understand and realize the disastrous impact of liquor on the society. Alcohol does not affect everyone at one time, but one by one, each one of us have suffered and will continue to suffer the consequences. If you never had someone close who died of alcohol, you are indeed most lucky. And if you had, and still advocates it, you are indeed, the most stupid and insensitive person on earth.
Thousands dead, and thousands of young men will silently die of alcoholism, one by one. We have the urgent task, calling our attention. We need to be more sensitive. At an average, at least 10 people of each village of Ladakh are suffering from severe alcohol addiction. The precise number of addicts in Leh town is not known, but certainly several hundreds! They will die in next few years, unless urgently intervened. That means thousands of people are in the vicious queue of this preventable untimely deaths. To prevent their death is our moral duty. No other person from outside will bother about this issue. Our house is on fire, we must throw water instantly!
Most of our people won't act because they feel that it is futile and will not succeed. Most among them are drinkers themselves, bigoted and seduced mortals, standing in the long pernicious queue. Few are the beneficiaries of the business of death; they will defend their business and care for none. But there are few, who say we must act even if we fail, and we must act again and again, till success knocks at our door. The latter group shall prevail ultimately, that is the universal rule.
Sometimes I wonder, how the parents of our little children advise them about addictions? By the evening the father is a drunk, stinking, slurring, staggering, circumlocuting slumber, what role model can he be to the little sensitive minds? Drinkers de-sensitize their own children about the dangers of addictions. Children come to believe that alcohol is not a serious matter at all, and no wonder children of such parents become addicted to various substances at an early age. They have lived a childhood of stress, and has ingrained the belief that alcohol is the solution of all ‘tensions’. They go on to replicate the horrible and disastrous ancestral history and replicate they do completely, and unfortunately, this we see so frequently! Our dear fathers can't sacrifice their artificial transient euphoric fluff, even for the sake of their own little children!
‘Drunkenness is voluntary madness’ said Seneca. Madness is a dangerously wretched affliction. Madness of any duration, at anytime is not acceptable. Induced madness also is equally not acceptable at anytime, anywhere. No one wants to get mad, but a drinker does. The drunk does, what a mad man does, from day one, and he is insane to that extent. After years of transient insanity, one enters into a more permanent state of madness, which persists even after abstention. Many of them suffer from depression, phobias, psychosis, dementia, cerebellar degeneration, stroke, sub-dural hematoma, post traumatic neurological deficits, paranoia, hallucinations, suicidal tendencies, epilepsy, neuropathy etc, the whole spectrum of mental and neurological illnesses, to be precise. It is a routine observation that most of the suicides and homicides are committed after consumption of alcohol.
The impact of alcohol is devastating to say the least, as far as their families are concerned. Family stress, tension between spouses, financial drain, loss of jobs, work hours, yet the blatant bragging of the alcoholic goes on. Paranoia, a suspicion over the spouse is the rule, which almost certainly occurs at some stage of their stupid tribulation, contributes to family breakdown and divorces. It must be understood to be pathological, due to one of the diseases of long term alcohol consumption, called Korsakoff psychosis. Within reasonable limits people get convinced, but when he says he is going to be the next prime minister, it should be understood that he is ‘the gone case’.
I always insist people to visit hospital, but nobody ever came for a visit enquiring about how many people are admitted for alcoholic diseases. Strange, but the real reason is that alcoholics are the new social outcasts like the lepers of yore. Nobody wants to go close to them. Even the closest family members request doctors for their death by euthanasia and very frequently so! Caring such a person is nearly impossible, but they have to. But, how long? how long? For a few years! then they die, but not always, many remain maimed for life, with paralysis, dementia, epilepsy and many other chronic untreatable diseases. For the care givers, even these few years are the kind of hell, each day pass like a year, each month pass like a lifetime. Request for death is understandable!
In a village I inquired, “Are there any serious alcohol addicts here?” “No” replied a villager. “Don’t say no. At least one, I know. He was admitted in hospital for TB, he don’t take his medicines and created hell of a problem inside the hospital”, I said. “Oh, he! This guy! We don’t call him a human being, he is a gone case”. Apparently he is already derecognized and deleted as a human being, socially dead. As Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “There is this to be said in favor of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world.” Someone dies in the gutter; makes no news, because he was a drunkard, not a 'human being'. Someone commits suicide by jumping from the window of the hospital, someone dies frozen in a winter street,  someone dies in accident by the roadside, make no news, because he was a drunkard, not a 'human being'. Forty men were killed by terrorists, two countries prepare for war. Jets clashed, emotions ran high, sabre rattling was aloud.  Forty people died in hooch tragedy in UP, nothing happened, no news, no issue, no TV discussions, no arguments and no response. It happens again and again, such tragedies have become accepted facts of life, because here alcoholics die, not humans. Thirteen boys were stuck in a cave, the whole world was mobilized to save them, more than thirteen young men may die of alcoholism every month in a district, nobody cares. A person dies of swine flu or Ebola, it is in news headlines; 3.3 million people die every year worldwide from alcoholism, it is no news, because here alcoholics die, not humans. In such cases, worthless alcoholics die, though some among them may not be so advanced cases, yet they get the label. No one laments on the death of an alcoholic. The worthlessness of a human being is directly proportional to the amount of alcohol consumed. Human life is precious, but life of an alcoholic is worthless, (he deserve to die!). Alcohol converts a human being first into an alcoholic, even with first dose and then kills him with impunity.
Our society is full of paradoxes, the son of an alcoholic becomes alcoholic, he develops no aversion to alcohol even when it killed his father. Wife of someone who died of alcohol is seen selling alcohol, she develops no aversion to it. Devout religious people are major dealers of alcohol. In the morning papa prays for hours, doing every conceivable religious rites, by the evening papa is dizzy, drunk, drowsy or rowdy. People go to the funeral of the dead drunkard; they realize that alcohol has killed him like so many others. They talk of all the evils of alcohol, yet no aversion to it, rather they start drinking at the funeral site itself. One may die of cancer caused by alcohol, but they say that he died of cancer but alcohol is exonerated. One may die of liver disease caused by alcohol, they say that he died of liver disease, alcohol is exonerated. One may die of stroke or head injury caused by alcohol, but it is said he died of stroke or head injury, alcohol is exonerated.Today, many people are scared of cancers, highly conscious of cancers. But still people are not prepared to accept the fact that alcohol is a major cause of cancers. Our people call themselves Buddhists, while they cannot enumerate even the five precepts of Buddhism, let alone following them. With the failure to observe the fifth precept, all precepts are depleted anyway.

One alcoholic, who was terminally ill with cirrhosis fell down outside his room, he landed up with head injury and coma, bleeding from his nose and ear, gasping, breathing his last breaths. Yet, he had the sense of making the typical hand signal, his last instinct, wife said, “See, he is demanding rum”. Then he died of course, his last wish unfulfilled. So many real life stories happens every day with alcoholics, I believe that if a TV serial crew follows an alcoholic daily, they don’t need to shoot with any actors. The stories would be much more interesting and natural than any conceived story line. But there are few problems, three of them. First, what the TV screen actors will do? Second, even the crew won’t like to be with an alcoholic. And the third the story always has a tragic end. So, let’s assuredly surmise that it will never happen.

From years of experience, we have to admit that there is no medical treatment for alcoholism. We treated thousands of alcoholics, but ninety-nine percent of them died. Doctors treat alcoholics, they return home sober, start drinking again, many times on the same day, sometimes in a week, months or rarely years. They get admitted again and again, and soon, irreversible diseases grip them. Still they want to drink, even when saying, ”Now I will not drink”, and quickly adds, ”As long as I am on medicines”. Doctor says, ”You have to continue the medicines lifelong”, he gets the real shock of his life… yet drink, he will. Therefore, we say doctors do not have a cure for alcohol addiction. It is a social disease, it requires social treatment, social solution. Our house is on fire! And it is time to throw water urgently. It is our duty.


Part II

Today, so much publicity is being made about various healthcare schemes floated by the government. So much money is being spent, men and materials mobilized for diseases never heard before, leave alone suffering from them. But, here is a disease which afflict ten million people in India, kills 3.3 million people worldwide every year, and cause untold misery to the families and society and for this disease, governments have no national program! Rather alcohol outlets are encouraged with the excuse of generating revenues for the government. They do not consider the healthcare cost, loss of work hours, jobs and human resources, which result from rampant use of alcohol. Government officers and leaders are also cleverly seduced by alcohol.
Lot of activities by LBA and Healthy Ladakh Movement happened over the last few years. Today, the commitment of LBA towards alcohol control, are overwhelmed by the drinking habits of the LBA executives themselves. Drinking liquor is the only qualification they have to prove themselves as Buddhists. They follow the same old adage that, ‘if you drink, you are Buddhist, if you don’t you are a Muslim?’ Such ideas led to a situation that brought disgrace to the Buddhist community as a whole and dharma became feeble, ineffective and largely out of bounds for a large section of the society. We have not grown a bit, we are on the path of regression. That's bound to happen when we have leaders who cannot follow even the basic five precepts of Buddhism and still call themselves Buddhists. The malady is so well demonstrated by the fact that at least three of the past presidents of LBA youth wing, are dealers in liquor business today, as if they have learned and got the inspiration from the LBA.
"Better is the death today even, than a long life by erroneous means of existence." -Shantideva
There is no worse erroneous means of living than living on alcohol and intoxicants. It is the source of all other sins and immoral actions. The most unfortunate ones are the dealers of alcohol. Our own stock, stinking rich they have grown, they were rich to begin with. Bottomless cups will never be filled, their bottom of cups are as immeasurably deep as are the heights of their inflated egos. Incidentally, the dealers are also drinkers with great fondness for liquor, without any touch with dharma nor any concern for the society. They are indeed, the most unfortunate people on earth. Each of them must have killed hundreds of men, never do they realize that the karmic consequences shall befall on them and their generations to come. Any petty murderer may have killed one or two humans and landed in prisons or got hanged, but these shameless licensed criminals are the respectable members of our society, what an irony?
Sins resulting from alcohol use remains as prevalent as ever. Out of the ten unwholesome actions, alcohol causes all, but the minimum is gossip (musavada), which is the forgotten sin, due to such common place occurrence. Unlimited other negative actions harmful to self and others are seen everyday and accepted as reality of life. Surprisingly, the Buddhist culture has not contributed to discourage alcoholism in Ladakh and the Himalayan region throughout history. Even in other parts of Buddhist dominance of the Himalayan regions people have an attitude as if Buddhism encourages drinking. Shockingly, Buddhists have always misused names of deities and Buddhas like Guru Padmasambhava and use of alcohol in Buddhist rituals to justify drinking. The religious community has been not just complacent but rather indifferent to the seriousness of this social problem, despite the fact that they know too well, that alcoholism is a great hindrance to both spiritual development and social welfare. The truth is that alcohol has been admonished and censured by Buddhist teachers of all times. It is high time that the monastic community take positive and proactive role with an uncompromising interdiction of alcoholism in order to develop a true Buddhist society. Failure of such an approach has resulted in tremendous damage to Himalayan Buddhist culture and religion. The whole Himalayan region is deeply sleeping with the devil called alcohol. People of the whole Himalayan region, have become de facto communists, without any idea of religion. Only the rituals are left, which cannot survive long in modern times. So, this issue is a trans-Himalayan issue, the impact of alcohol is widespread throughout the Himalayan belt. A successful action here, can have cascading effect through Himachal, Nepal, Sikkim, Darjeeling up to Arunachal Pradesh.
There are certain people who believe that if alcohol is not available, the tourist industry will suffer. Our tour operators have seen that how many tourists fall ill and die during one tourist season and they also understand the role of alcohol in most of these cases. The first question tourists ask on arrival is, “Can I drink in the evening, little, one or two pegs?”. Doctor says , “No” but still… drink they will. High altitude illness strikes by night. Friends say, “He’s sleeping”. Actually, he is no more. If alcohol is made unavailable, I bet, illness and deaths of tourists from high altitude sickness, stroke, accidents and weather exposure, can be effectively minimized.
Army ex-servicemen are one of the groups worst hit by alcohol. Unfortunately, they get habituated to alcohol while in service. And once retired, they feel the kind of freedom that they go on drinking hopelessly. Sad part of the story is that the ex-servicemen organizations do not have any service to these affected personnel, neither they have any insurance in such cases. Their liquor card is their most cherished possession.
Doctors have confessed that there is no cure for alcoholism. Experience has shown that alcohol addiction is almost impossible to treat. Since it is freely available in every street, the temptation to drink can’t be resisted; more so if there is a company. Once de-addicted, he return home and soon starts drinking again. Relapses after relapses lead to serious damage to his body and mind leading to a disabled life or more frequently early death. Majority of the alcoholics have died in-spite of prolonged treatment, survivors are very few. Our problem is that they come to die in front of us, one by one, as we watch them die helplessly. How long can we stand witness of this familiar scene, silently?
The society in general and particularly our leaders, religious leaders, great lamas, influential educated persons and public representatives including women’s groups prefer to turn a blind eye to this serious issue. Our leaders had a disastrously prejudiced view of the affairs of liquor, in the past. They wouldn’t listen to the stories of its consequences. Good news is that our leaders have realized it lately, and has come forward positively; people of Ladakh will soon see the light of the day. Now that Ladakh Gonpa association and Choskyi Donmey Tsogspa along-with several other social organizations have come forward to carry on with the campaign to end the malady of alcohol. There is also the need for participation of other societies and individuals at all levels and to take the mission to its successful conclusion, i.e, a Ladakh free from alcohol. We shall overcome some day!


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