THE CHANGING FACE OF ALCOHOLISM
A few good friends and a few good bottles.-Liza Lin
Problems Created
In Sager's refugee camp, many villagers among the 50 labourer and fishermen families swear by alcohol to help them relax at the end of a hard day's work. Alcohol consumption is widespread and tolerated. However, this increase in consumption has also left the camp with a host of social problems.
"Some men get so drunk they can't even recognize their own wives and go around touching other women," Selvantha says.
Intoxicated, fights within refugee camps are common and families are often neglected. Housewife P. Nagavetnam, 46, points to a scar across her husband's left eye.
"When he was drunk once," she says, "he provoked others and a lady took a knife, tried to slash him and elbowed him in the eye."
Sometimes, Madam Nagavetnam says, her 48-year-old husband gets so drunk he cannot show up for work at a construction site, where he earns 400 rupees a week doing work for an NGO. The family of six can barely make ends meet. She says, "He gives me 100 rupees for a week, and the balance goes to the liquor store."
A situation like hers is not uncommon. Local psychosocial NGOs and counselors also agree the problem is insidious and dire.
Local counselor Sumathy Markandu, 38, who visits the camps around Periya regularly to offer guidance to survivors, says drunkards are the biggest problem she encounters.
Trained by a Dutch NGO after the tsunami to provide psychosocial help to those affected, Madam Markandu says it is small children who suffer the most when both husband and wife drink. "After spending their money on alcohol, the family has no money to prepare food and the mother is too drunk during lunch time to cook," she says.
V. D. Nirajith, director of local NGO, Shadow, which runs support programs for alcoholics in Ampara and Batticoloa, says he has noticed a village in Kalla where there are more than 10 bars in a place where there used to be only one.
Nirajith says the surreptitious nature of drinking is making it difficult to carry out programs to help these alcoholics recover.
He adds, "We couldn't successfully run the program for alcoholics because these people hide themselves from our support workers."
Why this sudden increase?
Dr Boris Budosan, a Croatian psychiatrist working in Ampara with the International Medical Corps says the immense loss of lives and property may have driven survivors to alcohol.
"Depression and alcohol go together. People who are depressed turn to alcohol, which makes them even more depressed. It's a vicious cycle," said Dr Budosan.
The confusion immediately after the tsunami which enabled several illegal alcohol vendors to slip into the camps to tout their home-made wares is also another reason, said Pamodinee Wijanayake, executive director of NGO Alcohol & Drug Information Centre.
"In tragic situations, if you settle the people early, movement towards substances such as alcohol will be minimal," she says, "if you delay the movement, many alcohol users are thrown together with others."
The presence of NGOs may turn out more harmful than beneficial. "For many NGO workers, partying starts at 4 in the evening when work ends. Western NGOs party with alcohol and often leave bottles of leftover liquor lying around, where the local community picks them up and copies their behavior," adds Ms Wijanayake.
Increased spending power and little incentive to save has also prompted existing alcoholics to drink more, said Reverend Selvantha. Before the tsunami, he says, wages averaged about 150 rupees a day, now, the men receive between 500-600 rupees daily under cash-for-work programs run by NGOs.
Many survivors are still housed in temporary camps. With no need to purchase household items, and the government and many NGOs supplying food rations, Reverend Selvantha say these survivors have few other avenues to spend their money and little incentive to save.
He adds, "They question me, 'Why do I want to save money? Earlier I had saved but the tsunami came and washed everything away.'"
What lies ahead
In a country where alcohol and tobacco industry lobby groups have sizable clout and alcohol policy lies stagnate, Sri Lanka's problem with alcoholism seems set to stay.
Over in Shanmuga camp, Kalmunai, where 60 Hindu families reside, N. Maronmamy, 45, says nearly all the men in the camp consume alcohol and break out in fights when they are drunk. "How can I ask them to stop taking liquor?" says Madam Maronmamy in exasperation.
She adds, "It's only when the government stops selling liquor, that all this nonsense will stop. But they won't, because they'll lose profits and income from taxes."
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