HOW FITNESS HELPS BEAT THE BOTTLE

Exercises like volleyball and cross-country skiing are helping alcohoolics' physical wellbeing.

MONTREAL.

Every morning a group of men and women puff and strain their way through an hour of fitness exercises. Later they play a game of softball or volleyball, or go cross-country skkiing in winter, then do some gardening or wood chopping depending on the season.

This is no holiday camp for fitness fanatics, the participants are alcoholics taking part in a recreation program that has achieved encouraging results.

The program is offered at Pavillon Foster, an English-language, live-in treatment centre in the tiny village of St. Phillippe-de-LaPrairie, about 30 kilometers south of Montreal.

"Alcoholics are generally in terrible physical condition," says recreation director Tom Brown. They are often emaciated, or both malnourished and overweight, and have little body co-ordination since their muscles and nervous systems have deteriorated from lack of exercise.

Many suffer from liver and heart problems, brain damage or abnormal imbalances caused by chronic drinking.

Brown tests new patients on a bicycle machine, crammed in the corner of his tiny office and checks their heart rate. He usually finds them well below the average population in fitness.

FEELING BETTER:

After six weeks of good food and regular activity in the centre, "on a tangible meat and potatoes level, they walk out of here feeling better," and their fitness levels are up to normal.

But apart from this, a study conducted by Concordia University pschologist Peter Seraganian found indications the program helps keep alcoholics off the bottle.

Before the recreation activities were introduced, 38% of Foster residents continued to abstain from drinking three months after rehabilitation. After the program began, 72% remained abstinent after three months. The average rate of abstinence for four other centres in the province was 37%.

Alnother study showed abstinence rates were consistently higher at Pavillon Foster than at other centres up to 18 months after treatment.

The researchers have not yet pinpointed why exercise helps, or even if this is the factor that gives Pavillon Foster better-than-average results, but graduate student David Sinyor suggests that exercise does lower anxiety levels, making residents more receptive to treatment.

MORE TESTS NEEDED

In the coming months the psychologists will look at whether exercise has any effect on the sugar metabolism of alcoholics. Alcoholics often have an impaired blood sugar regulating mechanism, Sinyor notes and fitness training has been found to alter blood sugar metabolism in non-alcoholics.

Brown, trim, dark and curly haired, has his own theories about the usefulness of exercise.

First, it gives staff an additional tool for assessing the newly-arrived patient. "Often a person at play is at his most uninhibited. If he has jerky or violent movements, for example, this gives us an insight into the way he relates to other people, or thinks about himself."

Brown also hopes the program provides residents with a means of self-expression. "They get a lot of one-to-one therapy and group discussion here to help them express their feelings, and recreation gives them another method of developing their human potential."

DON SAYS: A very interesting concept - exercise and fitness! AS WITH ANYTHING, KNOWLEDGE IS MOST IMPORTANT! The alcohol addict who sincerely wants to break the habit, dry out and face a confident future must commit themselves to listening and learning from those who have preceded them. To study, and learn! Soak everything up an forge ahead! It is an exhilarating voyage to lasting sobriety, and well worth the work entailed.