The Tyrone area Board of Alcoholics Anonymous will hold their Annual Convention in the Mellon Country Hotel, Omagh next weekend, from Friday, 18th to Sunday, 20th January.

While the Convention is primarily for members of AA with closed meetings running continuously, there will also be facilities for Al-Anon. Its members comprise mostly the spouses and families of alcoholics.

A spokesman explained that, at least five people are affected to some degree by the practising alcoholic: "It is for this reason that members of the Al-Anon Family Groups will be present to explain just how their programme is able to help those in daily contact with an alcoholic spouse or parent".

However, the Convention is not all about meetings - in fact rather the opposite. The whole weekend is geared towards socialising, where people can meet and have a chat over a cuppa with live music and dancing both nights.

"The idea of the Convention is to carry the message of Alcoholics Anonymous and, to this end it is open to the general public who might wish to come along to the special open meeting on Friday night at 8.30 pm. or to the closed meeting on Sunday at 1.00 pm", the spokesman added.

All meetings of AA are restricted to members only but, on occasions such as this, members of the public are invited along to open and closed meetings where they can hear alcoholics talking openly and honestly about their disease and the havoc it can cause within families.

"Alcoholism is not just confined to those unfortunates to be seen with increasing frequency in every town in the country", the spokesman concluded. " It is no respecter of creed or class but is to be found in every strata of society and, according to recent statistics, alcohol-related deaths are rising at an alarming rate - several thousand per year is considered a conservative estimate".