Word: grouped
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...despair. Having drunk heavily since his teens, he says, "I thought I would never be able to stop. I went to clinics where I would dry out, but I could never stay sober. I felt I did not have what it takes to help myself. And then came the group. It was like a miracle...
...interesting choice of words in an officially atheist society, and A.A.'s teaching that members must learn to rely on a "higher power" creates an inevitable conflict for Moscow Beginners. Some of the members are uncomfortable with the group's religious tone; others, understandably, are afraid to tamper with the organization's time-tested tenets...
Already the group is reaching out to others. Some of the Moscow Beginners spend Saturday afternoons visiting inmates in two of the city's alcoholic prisons, and this month a clinic using American treatment methods and run jointly by Soviets and Americans will open for outpatients. It will be the first alternative to the state-run program. Beyond that, according to Volodya, "people are writing to us from all over the country...
...Until I joined this group, I felt isolated," says Sasha afterward. "Now I am helped by my friends -- and by my strength and my example, I can be of help to them." By helping others help themselves, Moscow Beginners is rebuilding the sense of self-worth that society had stripped from them. In a limited way, the A.A. style could turn out to be just what the doctor ordered for a society that is trying to humanize itself. Says Volodya: "What I like about A.A. is that it ends our dependence on a cure from above. We are rediscovering...
Shinkaretsky's voice is a lonely one, since the consumer movement is just awakening in the Soviet Union. Besides a small group of activists in the capital, there are fledgling consumer groups in Leningrad and Kiev. A draft law was introduced in Moscow in February that would allow customers to exchange shoddy goods, but Shinkaretsky is not impressed. He wants to start a consumer journal and set up a council that tests cars, stereos and, particularly, television sets, a fire hazard because they have a tendency to explode...