Daughter's request for 5 changed alcoholic forever in Surat

SURAT: She screamed at him wanting to know where had the Rs 40 that she had saved for their little daughter gone. However, Rajesh, husband of Reema Patel (name changed), stared at her with blank eyes. Reema flung a glass at her drunk husband in their small rented house. This hullabaloo was an everyday affair in their house until a few years ago.
Rajesh, who is 42 now, had picked up the habit of drinking in 1989.He was in school then. He was a good for nothing fellow yet Reema married him in 1998. As he was not doing anything, she was forced to work to keep the home fires burning.
"I thought he would change after we were blessed with a daughter in 1999. But he didn't. I don't know when I lost my cool and turned psychic," Reema said, who is mother of two daughters aged 15 and 13.
"It is known as extreme reactive depression. It could end up with a person committing suicide," well-known psychiatrist Dr Mukul Choksi said.
However, one day in 2007 when Reema was not home their six-year-old daughter asked Rajesh for Rs 5 to buy some candies. Rajesh could not give her Rs 5. This shook him to the core and he started attending the meetings of Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) and stopped drinking. Things started to change for Reema too. She began going to the family group of AA: started for the suffering members of alcoholics.
"I realized there in the group that my miseries were nothing compared to those of some others," Reema said.
"I was possessed. Now I have learnt to live for my family," said Rajesh, who shunned liquor after eight months of counselling in 2008.
Rajesh now has an embroidery unit, which has eight machines on Udhna-Magdalla Road. He also bought a new house at Tadwadi last year.