Some Spiritual, Social, Cultural and Hystorical Aspects of Alcoholism Prevention in North-Easter Bosnia

Mevludin Hasanović^1,2,3* and Izet Pajević^1,2,3

DOI: 10.26717/BJSTR.2017.01.000132

Received: June 08, 2017   Published: June 15, 2017

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Abstract

Although the harmful effects of alcohol have long been observed, organized social measures for the prevention of excessive consumption of alcoholic beverages were taken relatively late. In the beginning they were purely repressive measures through both religious and secular laws of through moral lessons and educational recommendations. There are not many experts who have publicly advertised against this scourge of the family, society and every individual who became a victim of alcoholism. Teetotaler societies in Bosnia-Herzegovina began with the establishment and work at the late 19th and early twentieth century. The authors provide a historical overview of societal and professional institutions that fight against alcoholism in the area of northeast Bosnia following the definition of the World Health Organization, that alcoholism is illness and alcoholic is a patient. Through the period before World War II, between the two world wars, the national liberation struggle period from 1941 to 1945, and the post-war socialist enthusiasm to the last war from 1992 to 1995.

During this period, the upward development of the organized struggle against alcoholism is documented in the former Yugoslavia and its part of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina – the region of northeast Bosnia. The last war has devastated all the assumptions of the socio-political organization and interpersonal relations and thus the basis of funds organization and human resources for the protection of public health. In this way the structures of social support to alcoholics and their families were closed, except medical facilities that have treated the issue of alcohol consumption beside all other medical issues of the population. During the war, due to high trauma of veteran and civilian population, a number of posttraumatic effects appeared which lead to people seeking release in self-medication by alcohol abuse, worsening the issues of alcoholism and its aftermaths. After this tragic war many of the socio-political relations and the issue of functional organization of health is redefined, which resulted in search for new formulas of successful dealing with very serious drinking problem in the postwar situation in the region of Tuzla Canton.

Keywords: Social; Cultural; Historical; Teetotal

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