15% increase in tipplers’ calls after extension of lockdown

Dehradun/Rudrapur: With the lockdown extending for another 19 days, the helpline numbers of Government Doon Medical College (GDMC) witnessed a 15% surge in calls from anxious

tipplers

on Wednesday.

Many who were expecting the government to end the lockdown on April 14, are now even more harried because of the extension and no intimation from the government on easing the restrictions on sale of liquor and alcoholic beverages anytime soon. A day after PM Narendra Modi announced the extension of lockdown, the central government on Wednesday issued advisory to states to ban the sale of alcohol and tobacco in the next phase of the lockdown -- from April 15 to May 03.

Dr Suhil Ojha of GDMC’s helpline told TOI that they receive over 800 calls every day but there was no case of tipplers calling for any kind of help in the initial two weeks of the lockdown. “We started getting calls from anxious people since the past 5-6 days. But the number was still very less. However, just after news of lockdown extension broke, the number of such callers has increased by 15%,” Dr Ojha said, adding, “We are asking them to do some exercises and have also referred some to the psychiatric ward at Coronation Hospital. The callers are showing withdrawal symptoms with body shaking and other complaints and we are providing them necessary help.”

Not just in Dehradun, the situation is similar in other cities of the hill state as well. Doctors said that the people approaching them are complaining of anxiety, restlessness, insomnia and peevishness. Doctors opined that these are withdrawal symptoms which occur when alcoholics or addicts do not get the intoxicants they are addicted to. Dr SP Singh, neurologist at Narayan Hospital, Rudrapur, said that people coming to them are asking for remedies. "Most of them are suffering from insomnia and abnormal behaviour for which we are prescribing them short term courses of medication and also counselling them. Some of them shiver and also loose control over their bodies, they have also gone delusional which comes under severe withdrawal symptoms. We are administering them treatment and also asking them to do yoga and meditation", Dr Singh added.

Dr Gautam Kumar, another neurologist, said that it was expected. "An alcoholic person's body takes time to adjust under such conditions. More than a dozen such patients are being registered at our OPD everyday. Some of them seek counselling over phone as well. The stage can be cured with medicines but it is also right time to provide them such medicines which may improve their immunity. If they are not provided treatment, they may get worse and it can result into these people turning violent or self-harming", he added.

Dr Sonia Adlakha, a senior physician, said that the lockdown also gives an opportunity to detoxify. "I believe that the going may get tough for severe addicts of alcohol, drugs and psychotropic substances and also for those presently under rehab. But the withdrawal can be managed successfully using medications,” she added.


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