Reclaiming Life

Gowreeswari was born in the middle-class family with two brothers and one sister in Madurai. Her father is an electrician and mother is a housewife. She was born and brought up with good values and culture. She had studied till 12th standard and she knows tailoring. She got married at the age of 21 to Venkatesh around 20 years back who is a goldsmith by profession. Her husband is a drunkard from the age of 14, he had studied till 7th standard. He has the practice of consuming Supari, Pan parak, Tobacco (all verities of chewable tobaccos) at his early age itself.

He has undergone an operation with 24 stitches in Government hospital, hiding all this Venkatesh got married to her. She felt she was cheated by her husband’s family. Her husband has many bad friends’ who always drag him into the bad habits and discontinued his education in his early age. As there were more earnings at the early age itself, he got addicted to all types of bad habits.

Post marriage there was no family support for her to bear her hardships in life. She doesn’t express about her husband’s behaviour to her parents, as two more sisters were there for marriage. In this situation, she was continuously beaten up by drunken husband and sometimes even children were harassed due to which they lack concentration in studies which created more disturbing situations.

She states that “He turns into a horrifically verbally abusive person once drunk, uttering deeply painful words. I should add that when he's not drunk my life is wonderful.”His anger gets increasedwhen he is in alcohol influence. At that time, I can't understand what should I do about all this when he became furious and he starts shouting at me that, what I do with the money which I got from work. I told him that this is the end of the month and it is finished. But then he starts abusing me and when I reply him he slaps me. I was helpless, and I don’t know what to do?

So she approached Sigaram Foundation in Trichy and hospitalized him and gave treatment. For 15 days he cooperated well and he was normal. Again he started to drink more and mostly at night he tortured a lot by running away from home, he started to behave like a mentally affected person.

In this situation, through Kalanjiam Mr Sivasomasundaram came to know about her suffering. He gave a helping hand in getting him admitted to hospital for de-addiction, where he underwent 42 days treatment. Based on the health screening he is conveyed that 60% of his liver is affected due to his drug habits. Post de-addiction he realised his life lost. Now continuously he is taking tablets and he is working as a daily labour. Though his contribution in economic terms is minimal the family is happy that he is there to take care of them.

In Gowreeswari’s view alcoholism affects the entire family, each member of the family is affected differently. The affected family gets fewer chances to experience the family cohesion, active-recreational orientation, and independence. They also usually experience higher levels of conflict within the family. Thus, this ends up with complete mental agony.