Addiction - Its Impact on Urban Poor Households

Urban poor households have limited resources (the tangible and intangible assets), which helps them make a living and fight against odds, they face. Addiction (substance abuse) is one such problem which is widely prevalent in urban poor households. In this paper three different individual cases have been presented on addiction. These present cases of addiction damaging, depleting and diminishing the return on the key assets (resources) of the urban poor households like: human capital, intra-household relations and social relations.

All the three cases have one thing in common, which is in all three the male household head is addicted to alcohol or drugs. It also shows how badly it impacts women and children of households and makes them further vulnerable to multiple crises.

These Cases have been formulated based on narration of wives of male addicts. These cases were selected and formulated of larger data of a sample of 100 respondents comprising mainly of urban poor, selected from three major slums and other poverty pockets of Varanasi city in India. Semi-structured interview schedules, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), and Key Informant Interviews were the tools used for data collection.

Further, this paper urges that the addicts and family of addicts should not be left as their situation could be such that on their own but should be supported though starting facilities like de-addiction and re-habilitation centres and family counseling centres at the urban poor settlement pockets.