By Vanessa Cort
DESPITE the tremendous physical, psychological and financial damage caused by its abuse, alcohol is still a major part of social life around the world.
And as the late Rev. Dr. Miles Munroe of The Bahamas Faith Life Ministry said many years ago in one of his televised sermons, abuse is actually two words – abnormal and use.

So, generally, moderate social ‘drinking’ is considered ‘the norm’, while excessive alcohol consumption is seen as abnormal and can lead to alcoholism.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in alcohol use, according to psychotherapist Shane Tull, and this in turn has had a negative impact on households and caused more incidents of domestic violence.

Throughout the Caribbean, alcohol use has been a cause for concern and is seen as a major health risk.  An Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report states: “ Alcohol use is a leading risk factor for disease burden, both in terms of mortality and morbidity, and has been linked to numerous negative health and social outcomes, including more than 200 diseases and injury conditions such as cancer, stroke and liver cirrhosis, among others.”

Yet statistics tell us that alcohol consumption is on the rise, particularly among adolescents and young adults. And a Guyana physical survey reports that 2.1 per cent of young people consume alcohol regularly and 74 per cent of schoolchildren have had their first taste of alcohol before the age of 14.

Alcohol is also associated with many mental health issues such as depression and anxiety disorders. Hence, increased use since the start of the pandemic is hardly surprising, given the added stress that people worldwide have been experiencing.

In Guyana, the tale is much the same as it is globally, with young people imbibing alcohol more regularly and in greater quantities, which experts say can lead to even heavier consumption as they grow older.
A World Health Organisation report states that 15.2 per cent of male drinkers in this country qualify as “heavy drinkers’, consuming more than 60 grams of alcohol at least once a month.

And many are the stories that we hear of men heading straight to the rum shop after being paid and spending their entire pay packet there, only leaving for home when the money is done.
This in turn leads to hardship in homes as female partners struggle to cope and frustrations build up on both sides, often resulting in explosive violence as quarrels erupt.

I can recall one incident, which I watched from the window of my Corentyne home years ago, when a canecutter’s wife marched him up the dam at ‘cutlass point’, having found him drinking at a rum shop shortly after collecting his pay one Friday afternoon.

Although there was some humour in the incident, because the man accepted his ‘guilt’ shamefacedly and made no attempt to retaliate against his wife, the underlying message was nevertheless grave. For had she not intercepted her husband before he ‘drank out all the money’, this woman would have been faced with the daunting task of running her household without her husband’s vital income.

Also, this scenario if far from what usually occurs when men overspend and drink heavily. The increased aggression caused by the alcohol leads to heated arguments and, where men are abusive, causes further abuse.

Along with all the strategies being used to curb alcohol abuse in this country, such as early intervention and improved data collection, I strongly endorse the call for the stringent enforcing of laws pertaining to the minimum age for alcohol purchase, driving under the influence and opening and closing times of rum shops and beer gardens.

I also join the call for laws to be put in place to prevent the advertising or selling of alcoholic beverages during school activities and where minors predominate and for the industry to be legislated, as in the tobacco industry, with warnings being prominently placed on alcoholic products about the dangers to health.