Every fifth person is an alcoholic. Our countryside and villages are well-known for their alcoholism. The number of drug addicts is rising with terrible swiftness, and includes schoolchildren and youth. Numerous children are born drug addicts because their parents are drug users. Furthermore, the number of people who suffer from AIDS is increasing.
Christian women are ashamed of their alcoholic husbands.
They simply pass anonymous notes forward at church requesting prayer for them, as is the practice in traditional Russian Protestant churches. They suffer moral insults and physical abuse, and are left practically without recourse. The police rarely interfere, and when they do, it usually takes the form of the husbands being beaten, which usually leads to their being rendered incapable of working. Consequently, even more spiteful relationships emerge within families. Treatment for alcoholism exists, of course.