Forty-five-year-old Rakesh (name changed), an alcoholic, died of liver cirrhosis. His friends, family members, relatives and residents of the locality in a corner of Karimnagar town knew this.
They would discuss in private how Rakesh, son of a retired government schoolteacher, got addicted to liquor. “While roaming around with some of his jobless friends, he started consuming liquor. Eventually, he reached a stage where he could not live even a single day without gulping liquor,” his cousin Srikar revealed.
But, neither Srikar nor Rakesh’s family members are ready to admit that he died of liquor addiction. “How can we say this in the open? It would defame our family,” they say.
Even local police officers are aware how liquor addiction became a death trap for Rakesh since the latter’s name cropped up among liquor addicts in the locality.
“Even a couple of government employees, known to me, from the same area died of liquor addiction. But, these deaths are not on government records, as no such system exists,” a local police officer unwilling to be named said.
A social activist, Srinivas Reddy, of the Association for Promotion of Social Action (APSA) from Hyderabad observed that liquor addiction had ruined more families than drug abuse in TS.
“Unfortunately, the government looks at liquor as a source of income and ignores the havoc it is creating among thousands of families,” he said. Majority of those dying of liquor addiction are bread-winners of their families. With the family head’s death, children are forced to become daily labourers. They are deprived of education and lured into crime.
Manjula Reddy of Bala Vikas, an NGO, said that such families are pushed into debts, loneliness and insecurity. A few years ago, they interacted with 5,000 widows (less than 40 years of age) in rural areas of the two Telugu States. More than 70% of them revealed that their husbands died of alcoholism. They added that they had to pass through trauma of being subjected to physical torture and abuse by their husbands.
Everyone knows about the plight of such families. Sadly, there is no system in the government to rehabilitate liquor addicts and save their families, she said.
