I am a public health midwife (PHM) at the Madirigiriya MOH office in Polonnaruwa. There was a successful change in society once discussions regarding drug prevention began at maternal clinics and parenting sessions. I will describe one family whom I was directly involved with. One pregnant mother often tells me that her husband takes alcohol. Although she did not find this a problem, she disliked it. She requested my help to stop it. When I inquired about the husband, she told me that he drinks alcohol the whole day. Although I tried hard, the mother did not feel comfortable talking to the husband directly about it.

Then, I thought of an alternative approach that could make the husband feel guilty rather than directly approaching him.  I told the mother to correctly mark the days where he was not under the influence of alcohol on the side of their bedroom wall. During my next visit, I saw that the mother had marked two days where the husband had not had alcohol. I encouraged the mother to tell the husband that I saw these dates as well. A couple of days into this intervention, the husband himself had inquired about what these dates are. The mother had explained to the husband about this intervention that I had proposed and from that point onwards the husband has tried to reduce the number of days he consumed alcohol and increase the frequency of entries on the bedroom wall. After a few weeks, the mother was overly happy at the number of days in which the husband avoided alcohol. The mother had begun to appreciate his husband and the couple was happier than before. My involvement in solving this issue was minimal. However, the results were beyond successful. I am very happy too.