This is an opinion piece (Persuasive/Argumentative) and not a Expository Article.
Well, I have never been a huge fan of drinking and honestly have never seen the point on wasting hundreds if not thousands of Rand’s in a single night on alcohol whilst I could be spending that money so much better on more exciting and better things, there are those who think drinking yourself till you “sober” again or passed out as the best feeling in the world! Ok, I might sound a little judgmental here, but why in the world would you wanna torture yourself so badly, with the headaches and humiliating yourself, not to mention the insane hangover the next day if you’re lucky not to end up in the ER whilst intoxicated or worse dead.
I have never been drunk before, don’t get me wrong I tried but stopped the moment the headaches got too much, I quickly learned that my body has a very small tolerance for alcohol, but then again I am definitely not someone that likes to torture themselves to fit into a crowd… I told a friend once I couldn’t get drunk coz of the headaches and she told me she also got headaches, so I asked her how did she get over it? Her plain and simple answer was I drank the headaches away. Wow, what a sad and desperate answer that is. I am not sure what her reason for drinking herself into a stupor was – was it maybe tryna fit in with the crowd, drink away the pain and suffering that she has experienced in her young life, losing the love of her life? Who knows?
Most older people can’t possibly fathom why young people would wanna drink their sorrows away, but there are still rare cases where young people have much bigger losses then you can imagine – the loss of a close family member such as a mother or father, the loss of a very close best friend (yes, young people are capable of loving someone deeply), I for one am someone who has lost more than a young person should ever have to experience in life. It’s hard and sometimes I still wanna stick my head in the sand like an ostrich and hope all my bad experiences and pain in life would just disappear. Alcohol and drugs to most people sounds like a great choice to turn to especially if you’re in bad company! But at the end of the day, you wake up with a severe hangover, have no clue what happened the previous day, your problems and pain are still with you and you end up just reaching for another bottle of alcohol to try get the pain to stop! Alcohol and drugs is not the answer or solution to life’s problems, in fact it is the opposite causing more problems and havoc in your life even if you don’t remember it!
Drinking to impress friends is insane! Have you ever thought that the friends encouraging you to drink with them have such a low self-esteem that they need someone to drink with them so they don’t have to feel lonely! Everybody is running away from something! Financial problems, work issues, personal problems, family drama etc. There is really nobody in this world that doesn’t have at least one skeleton in their closet haunting them! The problem is some can handle these skeletons better than others! So, your so called “friends” feed on your insecurity and convince you to have just one drink, well that’s where it starts… Once that drink is done they convince you to have a second and a third and before you know it you have drunk well over your own limitation.
The problem is not that you are drunk but that you have no clue of how to get home, because anybody you would trust getting you home is either drunk, asleep or your way to intoxicated and embarrassed to try talk to them! So, your only 2 options are sleep it off in your car (if you can) or take the stupid risk of driving home. If you’re lucky you might manage to get home safely, your first time is always the hardest and scariest! As you do it more often your confidence/arrogance grows and you become cockier the more you DRINK AND DRIVE, it becomes sort of like a funny and daring game. Trust me one day is one day, you’ll take it just a little bit too far… one day you might just slightly be off your a-game, you let your mind wonder, your more tired then you thought, you pass out behind the wheel – you lose control of your vehicle, your gauge is a little off and you ever so slightly steer to the wrong side or your foot becomes a little too heavy and you start accelerating… BANG!!!
Hopefully you crashed into a wall, a fence or even a tree only injuring or killing yourself. If you’re not so lucky… You have just taken someone’s only means of transport and ways of providing for their family, you killed, paralyzed or severely mauled a law abiding citizen – leaving them with months of recovery time or deep mourning. Drinking and driving has become somewhat of an unspoken SPORT in South Africans culture today! The exhilaration of not been caught whilst committing a CRIME has become too tempting for a lot of people young and old these days.
Next time you are tempted to go party at a club, bar or friends house think twice about how your gonna get home… Make sure you have a sober driver to get you home even if you only plan on having 1 or 2 drinks – 90% of the time it is not only 1 or 2 drinks but 6 -10 or more drinks, keep money aside and call an Uber or give your keys to the bartender and give him/her instructions to call you a cab or emergency contact when you have had a unlimited amount of drinks. For PETE sakes – put your PRIDE in your pocket – CALL YOUR MOM!
Be a REPSONSIBLE drinker – NO ONE SHOULD PAY FOR YOUR DRINKING PROBLEM!
Awesome… preach it sister! Yes, its not that being a drunk is acceptable but the fact that we have accepted it morally and culturally. Where is the old day where we stood on GODS word and promises?