On... Drinking.

As I sit down to write this, there are various thoughts running through my mind. Specifically where to begin and where to stop.  Let us begin with an incident. I had gone to a get together with some friends. Being the first to arrive, the hostess and I along with her husband went shopping. She kept telling her husband to buy ‘that’ so that another friend’s husband and he could enjoy among themselves. I felt this a bit unusual. I told her outright that it’s wrong to actually encourage drinking.  Her reply had three points. One, if she stopped, he would drink secretly. Two, it is not manners not to drink at a social gathering. And three, this happens everywhere.

So I asked another friend of mine, who is reeling under the feeling that he has become what we call a ‘functional alcoholic’ or in plain terms a drunkard, how this works. He told me that the first drink you take gives you a high you haven’t experienced. You space out the drinks. One drink after another doing no great harm but five years down the lane, you search for that initial high with more alcohol because you just can’t have it with the same quantity. His observation is actually a medical fact, though he expressed it more psychologically. The body grows more resistant to the effects of the intoxicant that in time, it takes you more of the intoxicant to reach the same level of ‘high’.

Let us discuss some of my friend’s points. One, that he would drink secretly. Well, I found this amusing. It had a lot of patriarchy in it. Allow your man to have what he wants in ration. Give him permission and endorse it. If you do so, you have him in your control. Isn’t that what perfect women are supposed to do? What if he wants a drink, I shouldn’t stop him. He would find the atmosphere unpleasant and slowly slip out of my control. This is a lesson most middle class women learn from the society. To be tactful enough to ‘keep your man’.  Two, that it is impolite not to drink at a social gathering. Well, I have grown around men who drink and who don’t drink.  I have seen car accidents to being the only sober one in the party. And I would definitely say that the people who smirk when you say you don’t drink are usually the most ignorant ones. They might consider anyone who doesn’t drink not ‘man enough’. But, it is more ‘man enough’ to say no to something wrongly popular rather than succumb to the requirements of the society. And three, that it happens everywhere. That is precisely why everywhere, irrespective of class, creed or anything, there are anti liquor movements and rehabilitation.

Now, this is where I sadly notice the Kerala Govt’s triumph. Kerala State Beverage Corporation’s turnover for 2009-10 was Rs 5,539 crore, its highest-ever, and a 20% increase over the Rs 4,631 crore that the corporation grossed in 2008-09. This piece of news and the implication was just too great to not ponder on. Kerala has become the drunkard’s haven. Since for the state government, excise and sales tax earnings from liquor form a large portion of its revenue earnings, they are doing everything in their power to make sure that the masses are lined up in front of the shops across the state even before they open. I do suggest they also consider giving mandatory medical, life and children’s insurance coverage to regular customers. Why not also run hospitals, counseling centers for families and funeral services? Hey, let us make it a one stop shop. We can out do Russia in some years if we try. With all those ‘benefits’, people will start pouring in.  

Since we talked about the middle class, let us climb down to the lower classes, where drinking is explicitly, a very large problem. Since a third of Indians exist on a daily hand to mouth basis, it becomes a problem when the ‘head of the family’ spends his income on alcohol. In addition to incapacitating him physically, there is this power need to dominate his wife and his children. Hence, no one should question his authority. A less educated or illiterate drunk doesn’t understand that all this money wasted could go for better nutrition or education of his children and in taking care of his family. In the case of middle to upper class drunks, you could say that there is a denial of reality. But, a farmer or a daily labourer hardly knows the reality apart from the fact that he needs to vent and that he is entitled to do so. If you have noticed, all major anti liquor movements in India have been spear headed by women. Women bear the brunt of it. Middle and upper class women can deny or ‘afford’ to be tranquil about the livers of their husbands getting drowned. But, the poor can’t. They need the money. They can’t be calm about losing a single rupee. This is an angle that even our system doesn’t see at times when it comes to rehabilitation of people in the name of development. You give them some money, and instead of investing, they binge on pleasures. No land no money. Who are stranded?

Prior to concluding, let me just say that the women who encourage or silently endorse their husbands’ drinking are making their children sole losers. They are moulding the next generation in a scenario where such taboos become nonexistent whereas they uphold a lot of rigid societal paranoia which ought to be set free. The men, who drink, in my opinion, are selfish. How selfish you get is another question. If you think that one day, when the time comes, when it begins to threaten everything you have, your life, your health, your family, capacity to love, that you can stop it then, you are wrong. You would have fallen too deep into an abyss that you can’t reach the air from it. There is no ‘limit’ to drinking in our social setting. It will keep pulling you under. Try and reach out for help if you can. Someone might be able to help you.

As someone said ‘Responsible Drinking? Now that's an Oxymoron.’.