The rear side of our cottage is beside a road and an irrigation canal. Everything about the setting around our cottage is inviting and truly compatible with what is ideal in a rural scene.
The other day I found four bottles kept on the wall, all left with half of the soft drink. I was rather puzzled by this. I enquired from a neighbour who was on his morning walk about it. He mentioned that there are regular visitors from the village to this site for having a social time with alcohol. It so happened that they left in a hurry when they heard that a police patrol might be coming that way. These bottles were left by them.
This gentle men went on to talk about the growing habit among young people about substance abuse from alcohol to hard drugs. The income that the government liquor shops earned on the recent Christmas eve was 570 million rupees and on the New Year's eve went ups to 970 million, highest in the last ten years.
It is more common than ever before that all social occasions would have a 'fellowship time' with alcohol. When I went for an academic meeting I found that this fellowship time was organised before the meeting.
One gastroenterologist mentioned to me recently that the liver diseases associated with alcohol has gone by 100 percent in the last fifteen years. Families with children having developmental needs mention to me that the evening time at home is often unbearable due to the drunken state men at home. I have heard a story of father and grandfather in the home creating havoc at home in the evenings and women stay frightened.
The tourism and excise departments of the governments promote alcohol use to get an extra income. The anti-alcohol activists are not so active now as according to one estimate about 80 percent of adult men accept alcohol use as normal.
I feel awful that this habit has penetrated deep into the society that we have to learn to live with it now. So if men come to the rear side of our cottage and use the premises to have their social time with alcohol, there is very little we can do to stop it.
Anna and I became suspicious of movements of people behind our cottage on some days as both Daffney and Dulcie would bark in distress. We lighted the place with street lights to restrain people from hanging around in the evening, but that too had no effect!
We live in a changing society. The value system is being questioned. The self restraint is on the decline. The moral authority of the elders at home to guard men from drifting to be alcohol users is no more strong enough. The Church which used to be a voice against alcohol use is no more in the forefront to continue her mission.
If I see one evil that shall cause a social decay in our affluent society is substance abuse. From school children to people in all walks of life holding important responsibilities in civil life are habituated to substance abuse.
The pandemic season did reduce the availability of alcohol due to lock down, but the situation is back to the earlier days.
I have been reflecting on this situation as many parents raise this issue of concern. I wondered whether there is a way forward to respond to this situation. One woman told me that she knowing that her husband carried the burden of work place and had an emotionally demanding time decided to read biographies of people to her husband. That helped her husband to stay occupied and refreshed in the evening so that he did not have to depend on alcohol as a pacifier. She told me that her husband was able to give up using alcohol. He felt supported and cared for by his wife's creative response to help him to cope with his work place pressure.
Every family has to find its own way of responding to this social evil.
The way young people from school days are getting used to substance abuse is an alarm signal.
During my younger days, about sixty percent of men in this state was used to tobacco use, smoking or chewing. Now it is only about ten percent because of the strong and sustained campaign against tobacco use by highlighting the health hazards associated with tobacco use. It took about 25 years to have an impact.
The label on each alcohol bottle that 'drinking is a hazard to health' makes no sense to people as they seek for instant gratification rather than think of its harmful effects later.
I stay pondering over this as I feel that healthy family life is denied to children. To have fathers at home who spend the evenings privately to indulge in addictive practices is a burden that children carry! They grow up under this influence and walk the same way when they are adults!
It is a distressing thought to say the least.
And yet, the mother who got into the habit of reading to her husband to save him from his instinct to pacify himself with alcohol, comes back to me as a sign of hope!
There would be hundreds of such women who are committed to rescue their home to be a healthy place for joyful family life! Three cheers to all women who make their home a better place for children and feel for wellness for all at home!
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
