How does alcoholism cause poverty?

This is a great question! Alcoholism is certainly an issue in Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir entitled Angela's Ashes. Whether alcoholism is the cause of the family's poverty or merely the perpetuation of it is an equally interesting question. But for the purpose of this question, we will focus on how Frank's father Malachy's alcoholism caused the family's poverty.
Very early on in the memoir, it is evident that Malachy has a drinking problem. He met Frank's mother Angela and they had a brief affair. As a result, she became pregnant. Angela's cousins had a talk with Malachy and pressured him to marry her. He protested, saying there was no work and that he wasn't ready for the responsibility of a family, but in the end, they were married. The first episode of his alcoholism comes two months after the first child is born. He believes he can get a free drink for celebrating his son's baptism. Angela's family holds a sort of intervention with her and tells her not to have any more children.



If I was you, said Philomena, I'd make sure there's no more children. He
don't have a job, so he don't, an' never will the way he drinks. So . . .no more children, Angela. Are you listenin' to me? I am, Philomena."





There were more children, however. Frank had six siblings. When Malachy does get a job, everything is good for the first week. He brings the wages home and Angela is able to pay the debt to the grocer and provide for the needs of the family with the money. By the third week, Malachy is drinking the wages he gets. Angela tries to appeal to him that his children are starving, but it doesn't do any good. She goes to his boss to ask if she can be given his wages, but they refuse. Shortly thereafter, Malachy loses the job and blames it on Angela, saying that her showing up at his job asking for his wages is what cost him the job. It's more likely he lost the job due to his alcoholism.

This is just one of many examples in a pattern in which more children are born, more jobs are lost, and more of the family's money is spent on whiskey. The father even went to England at one point to make money. He promised to send money back to the family but never did. Angela is left alone to deal with the family's problems, and when Frank is old enough, he must do what he can to take his father's place as the provider. The family would probably never have had a comfortable lifestyle, but they surely could have been spared from abject poverty and its ensuing problems, like disease and starvation, had the father been responsible to provide for the family. He was consumed by his alcoholism, and its grip on him was stronger than any responsibility he felt as a father.