Alcohol and ignorance don’t mix well

Jan 10, 2016 Countryman, Features / Columnists

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Countryman
By Dennis Nichols
I’m not a New Year’s resolution kind of person; however I’ve promised myself to be more positive and less

cynical in 2016, at least in my Countryman column. Last Sunday though, I got slammed in the eye by K.N’s graphic lead caption and the accompanying composite image of four young men before they were drunkenly murdered on the first day of the new year. I read. I cringed, and moved on.
Rescanning my own tipsy yarn in that newspaper failed to lighten the sudden darkness that was enveloping my mind. Neither did those evocative images illustrating Annette Arjoon’s ‘Is we own’ piece. Cynicism had just kicked positivism’s butt and tarnished some of the gold from Guyana’s golden jubilee independence anniversary kickoff hours earlier at Square of the Revolution.
Boxing my brain, I realized I couldn’t recall another such bloody start to the new year for Guyana; maybe my grey matter has gotten a bit greyer. Well, there was the notorious Rupununi ‘uprising’ in 1969, but that debacle had mostly political intrigue. In any case, it was on January 2nd when five police officers and two civilians were killed by rebel ranchers during an attempt to secede from the rest of the country.
By Thursday, six days into 2016, there had been at least two more killings (one arson-related) and an apparent double suicide. Violence and death seem determined not only to pick up where they left off last year, but to up the body count. These partners in havoc appear to have a very efficient henchman in liquor.
In the case of the four young men, alcohol was said to be a factor in each of the murders. Someone once told me that ignorance and liquor don’t mix well. He meant our own peculiar brand of ignorance, the specialty of the ‘ignar’ that very apt Guyanese colloquialism for someone who doesn’t care what he/she says and does, and doesn’t give a damn about the consequences of his/her actions.
I don’t drink now, but there was a time when I did. On more than one occasion I escaped acute humiliation, and worse, having been deluded by a combination of alcohol, ignorance, and misplaced bravado. Once I challenged a bigger and obviously physically stronger man (a deck-hand on the Lady Northcote ferry, at Kumaka in the Northwest) who was legitimately barring my way to the back of the boat. It took three of my friends who were less-inebriated to restrain me, and thankfully prevent ‘Teacher Dennis’ from getting beat up and possibly dunked overboard. So I have some firsthand experience with that impish demon of alcohol, befriended by ignorance.
But why does alcohol so easily override people’s inhibitions and fear of repercussion in committing acts of violence? What is it that happens to our thoughts and emotions when we are ‘under the influence’ and why are some people more influenced than others? One person drinks and gets ‘sweet’, another waxes sleepy, and a third gets maudlin to the point of tears. Some experience more than one, or all, of these side effects of the ‘bottle’.

Then of course there’s the trouble maker – the aggressor who in no time at all can become the author of road carnage, domestic violence and sexual abuse. What happens to those things inside each of us called compassion and conscience when they clash with intoxication? Few people seem to truly understand how that warning voice and our brain’s unique chemistry become discombobulated by alcohol.
I don’t deny the part liquor may play in social bonding, and in the welcome, even necessary, retreat from a reality that threatens to overwhelm us at times. The problem, as every Guyanese probably knows, is when to stop drinking or when to say ‘No’ to the rum jumbie, especially by those who admit weakness to it. The same friend who told me about the ignorance-alcohol mix also opined that there are some groups, culturally, who should stay away from any kind of liquor because of their tendency to become drunk to the point of possession by its demon spirit.
(Incidentally I’ve heard that the word alcohol originally started out as the Arabic ‘al-kuhl’ which referred to the essence or spirit of a powder obtained through distillation, and also had some connotation to a ghoulish, body-eating entity. Makes sense.) And speaking of words, our notorious ‘ignar’ is ironically an actual Nordic name meaning ‘he who triumphs’. However, Ignar is headstrong, reactionary, and ‘has a tendency to be wary of women’. Sounds quite Guyanese!
There is an abundance of information about alcohol and its effects on the human body, particularly the brain, but how much is there on a bottle of rum, vodka or even beer? I’ve never seen any. There are many who feel that health warnings should be compulsory on all alcoholic beverage bottles. This idea is being strongly advocated by health professionals around the world, but some governments appear hesitant to make that move, or to attempt to control adult drinking. Remember prohibition in America?
In Guyana, like most countries I assume, there are drunken driving laws, restrictions against minors buying and/or consuming alcohol, and against inebriated behaviour. But where are the cigarette box-like messages to let drinkers know at least some of the more serious health risks of imbibing. It could be argued that our drinkers already know those risks associated with heavy drinking, but do it anyway. So what difference would health warnings on bottles make? Maybe if the warnings are shocking enough, or throw new light on the degree to which alcohol can ravage body and mind.
For example, the International Agency for research on Cancer has declared that alcohol is a carcinogen. That could be one. Some advocates are pushing to have an image of a diseased liver on the labels of certain drinks. To its credit the United States has the Surgeon General’s warning that ‘(1) Women should not drink alcoholic beverages during pregnancy because of the risks of birth defects. (2) Consumption of alcoholic beverages impairs your ability to drive a car, or operate machinery, and may cause health problems.’
This is just a light scratching of the surface in the interplay of alcohol and human behaviour. We have heard it all before, and shall hear it again. Will health warnings make any appreciable difference? Maybe; maybe not.  It’s unlikely that the use of alcohol will ever be prohibited in Guyana. Control measures are lax, and we have been conditioned to view its use as a form of recreation – a social adhesive. That’s great motivation, and a good excuse to bend the elbow.
We’ve started 2016 with a bang – an explosion of liquor-fueled lawlessness that has left several grieving families in its wake. What the rest of the year holds for us in terms of this kind of criminality is hardly speculative. It will continue. After all this is Guyana, and a 50th anniversary ‘freedom’ celebration is for many of us a one-time event. Some freedom, when so many of us are still slaves to the bottle, and to our baser instincts.

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