In Montenegro, almost all gatherings traditionally begin and end with alcohol. Many are not even aware when they slip into alcoholism, and statistics show that there are as many as 30.000 registered alcoholics.
"If there are 30 thousand alcohol addicts in Montenegro, we should take into account that that number is multiplied by the so-called dark number three, because there are many people who have never asked for any kind of help," said Jovan Bulajić from NGO Preporod.
Dr. Borislav Mitrić said that according to some norms, those who drink one glass of brandy every morning for several months are called alcoholics.
"In Montenegro, we are all alcoholics," he said.
And how do experts really determine alcohol addiction?
"The first is the drop in tolerance. It means that the small amount of alcohol, the usual dose, which he takes, which gave him some answers before, now he has to drink much more to achieve the effect he had before. The second rule is the desire for alcohol, enormous the desire for alcohol, for a person to constantly think about how to get alcohol, so that we have actions that are not characteristic of our society, for example, he goes and gets drunk at a funeral," Mitrić explains.
Twenty or more years ago, men drank significantly more than women. Some of the latest researches say that today that ratio is even.
"Men and women drank equally in 2017," Bulajić said.
Mitrić states that women always drank secretly and rarely allowed themselves to be drunk.
"The only difference is that we do not tolerate alcoholism in women, we prefer it in men - he is a man, he should drink. They say that women are much more passionate about it when they take some drink and some drug," Mitrić said.
Although Dr. Mitrić believes that Montenegrin healthcare is capable of tackling this problem, Bulajić does not share this opinion.
"We have a specialist hospital in Dobrota in Kotor, where there are, I think, about 20 beds in the department of addiction, about 10 beds in the department of the General Hospital in Nikšić, and a little less in the psychiatric department of the KBC in Podgorica. The rest is limited to outpatient treatment, which it concerns other cities and I think it's really insufficient".
The interlocutors of TV Vijesti conclude that alcohol as a substance is allowed in Montenegro, that it is easy to get, so people who abuse it are less convicted and more difficult to recognize and treat than users of illegal drugs.
Also, alcoholism is almost always accompanied by divorce, increased violence in the family, neglecting obligations at work...
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