Alcohol in slums

It’s been 4 weeks since I’ve been here in Bangalore and I’ve learned and experienced more than I usually do in the span of several months. As I learn about the challenges people face in slums, the point of alcoholism keeps coming up. Everybody seems to agree that alcoholism is a huge problem in slums, mostly among the men; yesterday I saw this for myself.

Some Indian Institute of Management students were conducting a survey of households in a slum in Banashankari, and I accompanied them. In one family, we were talking to a lady just outside her house. She was simultaneously taking care of two young children while talking with us.

After a couple minutes, her husband came outside from the house. He was speaking in gibberish and kept swaying around/tripping over himself; it was very obvious that he was completely drunk. The lady seemed very embarrassed and sent him back inside, while apologizing to us that she could not invite us inside her home.

Seeing this gave me a feeling of empathy and frustration that I have not experienced before. It was 1 pm on a Thursday afternoon, and instead of working, this man was drinking the family’s money away. It was very clear that the lady was the true head of the household and had to take care of her 6 children, her husband, the bills, and work all single-handedly. It angered me that instead of fulfilling his duties toward his family, this man was just creating a larger burden on his wife.

The unfortunate part is that this is not an isolated case. Alcoholism is widespread in slums and results in problems such as poverty, lack of money to spend on education/health, and domestic violence. Many times, after working in a physically exhausting job for the whole day, men indulge in alcohol to forget about their problems. This soon turns into an addiction and they spend their entire daily income on alcohol, forgetting about children’s school fees, health, and other household expenses. This means that the entire family becomes dependent on the woman and her income.

This is a frustrating problem and it’s difficult to determine what can be done about it. Even de-addiction programs have not been very successful, as people usually return to their previous ways after returning to the slum environment. Many NGOs I’ve talked to have given up on alcoholic men and focus their activities on children and women instead. But the point is that as long as these men are eating away the family’s income, the family is doomed to a vicious cycle of perpetual poverty.