Do you find yourself reaching for a drink at 11a.m. in the morning? Are you agitated by the people around you without good reason? Do you self-medicate? Do you constantly find yourself battling a hangover and the urge to drink?

If you answered yes, then there is a good reason to be cautious - you may be part of the rising numbers of alcoholics in Indonesia.

"Producers portray alcohol as a sign of modernity. Just like cigarettes, it is said that if you drink or smoke, you are cool. This has a huge impact on a person's psychology. People may sometimes be forced to drink to be accepted in their group, and they then develop alcoholic tendencies. Professionals are prone to this," said Richard Budiman, a psychiatrist at the Dharmawangsa Mental Health Clinic who also teaches at the University of Indonesia.

But fear not, there is a way out. The first step is to admit you have a problem.

"It is not easy to know that you are an alcoholic. Things go wrong and we may blame everything else but alcohol. I surrounded myself with people who drank heavily so that I wouldn't look any different," a recovering alcoholic, Caroline, (not her real name), said.

She felt bad about the things she did when she was drunk and the guilt drove her to drink even more. Her problem eventually became clear to her alcoholic father during a visit home.

"I hated him for being drunk and abusive. But when I looked at myself in the mirror, I saw the same look in my eyes as in his. It shocked me," she said.

She went to a councilor and realized she had to stop drinking. Caroline said she has not touched alcohol since joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) in Jakarta in 1995.

"At the beginning it is hard because you are used to it *alcohol*. Usually people drink when they want to escape negative emotions. When you take that away, you are stuck with those feelings and it is very painful because you are not used to dealing with life permanently sober.

"In the program we learn how to live a normal life, without using alcohol to escape," she said.

The program involves regular meetings, now only in English, over dinner where participants are given a chance to talk about their lives - without interruptions from others.

"It is very therapeutic because you can get everything you want off your chest when you are surrounded by non-judgmental people. Usually alcoholics have a lot of secrets and when you have been drinking you do a lot of wrong things. After you talk about them you realize you are not that bad after all. It is a great relief. There are no secrets anymore," she said.

However, things are still kept secret. Meetings are strictly confidential and Caroline says there has never been a serious breach of that rule.

Richard Budiman, said such support was important for recovering alcoholics, but suggested alcoholics first seek advice about detoxification from doctors.

"Like any other addiction, a sudden cessation of alcohol intake may affect the physical and mental body. Addicts may face psychological withdrawal as well as physical symptoms such as sweating. This may prevent many people from getting off the booze," he said.

The detoxification may also help them clear their head and allow them to think, as alcoholics may be in denial they have a substance abuse problem.

"Only then is therapy likely to them to convince them of the negative impacts of their alcoholic behavior. Before that, they may not be in the right mental state. They may not care if they do anything wrong, like steal or behave badly," he said.

As such, alcoholics may find themselves unproductive and shunned by family and friends. But, Richard said, this was the time alcoholics needed family support the most.

"Most people who came for treatment were forced to by their families. The family can see that things have gone wrong. They are also the people the alcoholics care about and want to change for," he said.

Naturally families should learn about alcohol addictions and ways to recover, including how to heal themselves.

"Families of alcoholics need to shed their stigma about addiction so they can find hope and strength and return their focus to their own life without hanging onto the happiness of the addict," reads information from the Bogor Addiction Treatment and Recovery Community Center website.

The community center assists people with substance abuse problems, including alcoholics, and their families through a combinations of the twelve step program, cognitive therapy and addictive psychology and health approaches.

Singapore Help Center:

Alcoholics Anonymous: 6475-0890 or aa_singapore@yahoo.com.sg

-The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network