ALAK

Jay Taruc discusses Alcoholism.

The number of Pinoy alcoholics is growing … with youth and women being the fastest growing percentage of heavy drinkers in the country. Jay Taruc investigates what lies behind the statistics in this Monday’s I-Witness. Taruc documents groups of fathers at their drinking sessions … who are then copied by their teenage sons … and now, also by their daughters!

Taruc meets women who have made drinking a center of their lives, among them singer Cookie Chua - who claims alcohol has helped her as an artist. He also meets Aling Vilma, whose drinking after three decades has alienated her entirely from her family -- and made her consider joining a rehab clinic for the first time. In one of the most gripping scenes from the documentary …

Taruc follows a group of inebriated youth … who go to unmentionable extremes when they are drunk. But the impact of alcohol on their actions also reflects what it is doing to their internal organs. The damage alcoholism can do to the body is fully explored through the case of William, who is dying and now able only to breathe through an oxygen tank because of Alcoholic Encepalopathy.

Jay Taruc’s I-Witness entitled “ALAK” serves as a warning to all … that what seems so harmless to many on a Saturday night … may end in a lifetime of regret and painful death. I-Witness airs every Monday on GMA-7, right after Saksi.