Three weeks ago, a friend and I ended up at Bar B Que for drinks. There, we met another friend who was with her on mates and we joined in. As I was talking to one of the mates, we pondered on issues of alcoholism. Which was funny because we were each cuddling a beer. We had both agreed that Malawi as a country has so many issues of alcohol addiction that are unsolved. This discussion promoted me to write this post.
Although this post was meant to be shared on October 10th, as it is the Mental Health Awareness Day. I still felt it should be shared so we can have conversations on it.
Have you ever noticed that many people lean on alcohol for everything. When they are sad, they will drink. When they are happy, they will drink. When they are unsure of how they are, they will find solace in a bottle. We could say, they depend on the drink.
And I don’t want to single myself out cause I am so much part of the group. I drink for almost everything and anything.
But if you truly look at it, you will realize that most of us show signs of alcohol addiction but are too blinded to accept it. We hide our alcoholism behind just having fun, when it is past fun. Not when you need to have 5 or 6 bottles everyday just to feel good.
This is also deeply rooted in us because we have no where to get help from. We don’t have the necessary infrastructures to help those with such problems. That married with our culture which seems to embrace alcoholism.
This explains why we hardly hear of deaths related to alcohol addiction. They make it seem like the numbers are low, but it is majorly because we can’t detect it. It is only when we start taking issues of mental health serious that we might start detecting the different addictions we have in our society.
What are your thoughts? Share them below
