Ambassadors of Sobriety Encounter Warm Reception in Soviet Union

The Americans arrived in the Soviet Union with flower seed packets and brightly colored pins to hand out as gifts during their recent two-week visit. But the most important thing they took with them was not in their suitcases.

It was the spirit of sobriety.

The 18 men and women were members of Creating a Sober World, a nonprofit organization established last year to carry the message of sobriety to the Soviet Union.

Made of up recovering alcoholics and others in alcoholism-related programs, CASW’s mission received full approval and cooperation from the Soviet Ministry of Health. Only two other such groups had preceded them.

Each member of the group paid $2,500 to go on the trip.

Reaching Out

“We went as citizen diplomats, as one human being reaching a hand out to another,” said James Crossen, program director of the Chemical Dependency Recovery Center at the Medical Center of North Hollywood.

Crossen, who is also director of the Chemical Dependency Studies Program at Los Angeles Mission College and director of education and training for the San Fernando Valley chapter of the National Council on Alcoholism, was one of the few health professionals on the trip. Most had experienced alcoholism on a personal basis.

They did not go “to proselytize, lecture or sermonize,” according to one group member, but rather to “show them by example how many of us are recovering.”

The group traveled to Leningrad, Moscow and Tallinn, holding small meetings in homes, churches and hospitals, where they discussed their personal experiences before and after recovery.

Campaign Against Alcohol

Two years ago, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev instituted a rigorous anti-alcoholism campaign. It included raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21, limiting the sale of vodka and fining employers for employee drunkenness. Despite these measures, alcohol abuse continues to be one of the Soviet Union’s most pressing problems, according to studies conducted there.

Studies show that Soviet alcoholism claims an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 lives each year, a rate four to five times higher than in the United States. It also has been linked to a loss of productivity through job absenteeism, divorce, and increased rates of birth defects and child abuse.

“There really are four areas when you talk about alcoholism, and those are prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery,” Crossen said. “The Soviets know a lot about the treatment aspect, but not a lot about recovery.

“They have organizations like the Anti-Bacchus Society and the Temperance League, which basically are designed to keep the alcoholic busy,” Crossen added. “But we know from experience that people don’t stay sober just by going on a lot of Sunday picnics.”

Reasons Are the Same

Although sociologists have blamed the long, cold Russian winter and lack of organized leisure activities for the Russians’ heavy drinking, Crossen says he believes the reasons for alcoholism and chemical dependency are basically the same anywhere in the world.

“People turn to alcohol and drugs because they are filled with fear and a lack of purpose or meaning in their lives,” Crossen said.

“In Russia, that lack of meaning may stem from the social atmosphere of conformity, and in the United States from just the opposite--because we are taught to be independent and not to rely on anyone but ourselves. So the reasons are different,” he said, “but also the same.”

Many members of CASW belong to a 12-step program of recovery they believe has helped them abstain from alcohol or other mind-altering chemicals. Before their departure, some group members had doubts about whether the Russians would be receptive to two elements of that program--believing in a “higher power” and personal anonymity.

Stereotypes Smashed

“There were all these stereotypes I had about the Russian people before I went, that they were aggressive, hostile, not spiritual, and that they wouldn’t accept the idea of a power in the universe greater than themselves,” said Judy, a recovering alcoholic from Sunland who asked that her full name not be used.

“But, everywhere we went, they were warm and very loving toward us,” she said. “It was an incredible awakening to realize that they’re not those things we imagined them to be, that they are just like us.”

Other members of the group apparently share that belief.

“I remember sitting in a meeting at the Narcological Institute in Moscow, and everyone in the group talked a little bit about themselves and their feelings,” recalled Paula Carlson, assistant to Crossen at both the Medical Center of North Hollywood and Los Angeles Mission College, and a member of the last group.

Share Same Fears

“I looked at all these people nodding their heads excitedly, like, ‘Yes, I felt that way too,’ and I knew then that it didn’t matter if we were in Russia or the United States. We all have the same feelings, the same fears.”

At one meeting in Moscow with one of the Soviet Union’s leading doctors in the treatment of alcoholism, Crossen asked whether it was possible for small groups to meet anonymously in peoples’ homes.

“He said ‘yes,’ and then just chuckled,” Crossen said, adding that he took the doctor’s amused response to be “recognition of an obvious stereotype on our part about how the Russians watch whatever you do.”

CASW members met daily to discuss their feelings with each other, as well as to tell other members of the group what they wanted to talk about at upcoming meetings.

“We each would only have two or three minutes at a time, and so we wanted to make certain that we communicated the most we could without repeating ourselves,” Judy explained.

Kept Daily Journal

A “daily scribe” also was appointed to record each day’s events and any personal feelings in a group journal:

We were taking a tour of the Metro when a man recognized our yellow sobriety buttons and remembered the people from the first (CASW) group. Arrangements were made to meet him later that evening.

Five members of the group traveled two hours by train to the man’s house, where they talked with him, his wife and a friend who translated for the group.

He talked to us, sharing his story of alcohol and how he had hit his bottom. It was very moving.

Another entry in the journal described an encounter between the wife of a Russian alcoholic and a member of CASW whose husband is an alcoholic as well:

I felt such a unity in my heart for her. I told her we were sisters, and we hugged each other. As we were leaving, I saw there were tears in her eyes, and you can guess that I had them too.

In the city of Tallinn, CASW members gathered in a crowded Methodist church that claimed a successful program for alcoholic members through the use of prayer. After a service that included singing “Oh, What a Friend We Have in Jesus” in Russian, two members of CASW spoke from the pulpit about their purpose in coming.

After the service, they were so excited to see us and meet with us. They couldn’t hold our hands tight enough and they couldn’t hug us close enough.