The Bad Side Of Drunkenness

The Bad Side Of Drunkenness

Photo by Vitaly Gariev

Even though I grew up in an environment where drinking and smoking were like a normal thing, I still don't find taking alcohol appealing.

I am not saying it is something evil, everyone has their thing, they say "One man's food is another man's poison." For me, alcohol is a poison. I have tried it before and it doesn't just suit me, so I have to let go.

The truth is the Substance in itself is harmless, how one consumes it is where the issue lies. You can drink responsibly and not have yourself messed up.

People consume alcohol for different reasons; to prove a point, to get high, peer pressure, some just love the taste and the feeling.

The one I refuse to agree with to date is drinking to forget our troubles. How can something that intoxicates you make you forget your situation? Isn't it going to complicate things instead? Take for instance a poor man, drinking beer to forget the pressure coming from his inability to settle his bills, isn't buying the beer alone, adding to his poverty? The money could have been channeled to something more profitable.

In as much as alcohol is legal, in as much as people consume it and love doing it, we can't deny the fact that the bad side of alcohol is terrible. The disadvantages are far greater than the advantages. It's just like cancer, eating anyone it lays hold on from within to the outside. It eats both the body and the soul.

It's so sad that the deception of being relieved from our burdens when we get drunk has misled and blinded a lot of people.

On the streets, there are people suffering from the torture of this substance. Responsible people, people of destiny and hope evolved into scraps on the street of drunkenness.

I have seen many people act dramas under the influence of alcohol. The difference between them and someone who has gone insane wasn't much. Imagine using my money to buy madness for myself. Hehe, how pathetic.

I am not judging anyone, I know life happens, and circumstances can transform men into things they don't plan for but then, will making yourself a joke and looking stupid before everyone solves the problem?

If we must drink, if it's something you feel you love doing, I am not stopping anyone but it should be done with moderation.

There is a palm wine joint behind our family house, just a small distance away. If you use the back door of our house, you would be facing it directly.

Most times when I am bored and tired of being inside the room, I sit under one of the mango trees there.

One of those days, while I was seated there, an elderly man came out from the joint, then two people followed him and they seemed to be arguing, that's a normal thing in places like that.

After disagreeing with each other, the man who first came out moved away from them to the nearest bush staggering, and started struggling with his trouser.

It was a native wear, he struggled to loosen the robe but couldn't. After standing there and struggling with the trousers for a while he turned in my direction and behold his trouser was soaked.

His two friends started laughing at him. The funniest part is he was not concerned about what happened, his problem was they should allow him to go and finish his palm wine.

The guys managed to convince him and they went home. He became the topic of the day. I felt ashamed of him after discovering he was a police officer with a wife and children. Just imagine how the wife would have felt if she had been at the scene.

I wish he would repent and keep from alcohol but who am I to make such decisions for him? Some people drink and sleep outside and they still haven't changed.

---

Thank You For Reading