As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Anyone can read what you share. TEHRAN - For most of his life, alcohol rehab for Mehdi consisted of regular stretches in prison and lashings that left dark marks on his back. Now, at 36, he has prematurely gray hair, solitaryai.art but with the help of an Alcoholics Anonymous group he swears he has finally stopped drinking. In recent years, Iran, AI Art where alcohol has been illegal since the 1979 revolution and is taboo for devout Muslims, has taken the first step and admitted that, like most other nations, it has an alcohol problem. Since 2015, when the Health Ministry ordered addiction treatment centers to care for alcoholics, AI dozens of private clinics and government institutions have opened help desks and special wards for alcoholics. The government has also allowed a large and growing network of Alcoholics Anonymous groups, modeled after those in the United States. This a rtic le h as been written with GSA C onte nt Ge nerator DEMO.
The relaxing of prohibition has allowed addicts like Mehdi to emerge from the shadows and embrace a new circle of friends - recovering alcoholics - who greeted him as he entered a West Tehran apartment one recent evening. "I’ve given up the bottle for 12 days now," said Mehdi, a tall computer specialist who requested anonymity because of the stigma still attached to alcoholism in Iran. The government is even running public campaigns warning Iranians not to drink and drive, something it never would have done in the past. Along roads leading to the Caspian Sea, a favorite holiday destination, billboards showing bottles of whiskey and crashed cars surprised many drivers. The Iranian police still organize media events where bulldozers squash thousands of bottles and cans confiscated from smugglers. But in contrast to the past, when the official line was that there was no drinking problem because no one drank, they now provide officers with breathalyzers. Hair as Resistance: Defiant resistance to Iran’s hijab law among Iranian women has exploded in the wake of the nationwide uprising triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini last year. This da ta was writt en with GSA Con tent Generator DEMO!
Iranians Return to Streets: Protests calling for an end to the Islamic Republic’s rule erupted once again across Iran after hundreds of schoolgirls were hospitalized for wiki.competitii-sportive.ro symptoms that some fear might have been caused by deliberate poisoning. A Currency Crisis: The decline of Iran’s currency, which was fueled in part by years of Western sanctions, is adding to Iranians’ sense of despair and grievances against the government. A Military Upgrade: Satellite images and details in a video that aired on Iran’s state media suggest the arrival of advanced Russian jets at an Iranian underground Air Force base. President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013, has been trying to insert realism into Iran’s often strict ideology. The decision to open more alcohol treatment clinics came from his Health Ministry, and reflects the way many social changes are introduced in Iran: quietly ordered and carried out by local governments under the radar.
The change in attitude by those in power is driven by changing realities in Iranian society. Official statistics show that at least 10 percent of the population uses alcohol in the Islamic country. For some among the country’s urban middle classes, drinking has become as normal as it is in the West. The Iranian news media have reported that those Iranians who do drink tend to do so more heavily than people even in heavy-drinking countries like Russia and Germany. One reason is that alcohol is relatively easy to procure. There are alcohol suppliers anyone can call, and they will deliver whatever you want to your doorstep. Dealers receive their goods through a vast illegal distribution network that serves millions with alcohol brought in from neighboring Iraq. To some extent, the sheer availability of alcohol is driving the changes in official attitudes. "These days there is so much alcohol available, simply punishing everybody and using force is no longer working," said Reza Konjedi, 36, a former alcoholic who runs several Alcoholics Anonymous support groups in Tehran.