By IVOINE INGRAHAM

It has been recently announced, but no news, that alcohol use among teens has reached “crisis levels”, according to a senior official at the Ministry of Health and Wellness. Well, blow me down with a feather. It has also been said that from the sampling of interviews, more than one in every five of our young are suicidal, which is devastating.

We are not as concerned about our children, their behaviour, friends, and activities as we were in the past. If the past has produced some dark periods and many fatalities, what can be expected these days when the children are giving directives to the parents and when slackness is the order of the day?

The law is too relaxed, because bars and wholesalers sell to minors every day, and there are no serious repercussions for their actions.

Alcohol has been legalised, even though it is dangerous. People get pissy drunk, kill or do something dumb, then blame it on the rum, and we should give them some consideration. But the cheap rationalisation is that all would be well if you drank in moderation. Moderation is relative; what is okay for one person may be too much for another. The same rum that people were chased in the bushes for making moonshine before is now legal. No one can police whether anyone has had enough to drink. Bars sell rum to customers even if they are on the floor or passed out. It is all about the bottom line, not the patron’s well-being.

There is a bar almost in the church. The authorities couldn’t care less; otherwise, they would not have granted the licence in the first place.

The Bahamas, often seen as the alcohol consuming capital of the world, is in the grip of an alcohol addiction that we too usually dismiss as social drinking. But the truth is, many of us drink every day, go to work drunk, drink on the job, go home drunk, and are unable to fulfil our roles as mothers or fathers in our various responsibilities and capacities, which is not just a personal struggle, but a societal crisis that we must confront.

At the Lignum Vitae Unit of the Sandilands Rehabilitation Centre, we determined that anything that alters the mind is a drug, ie cigarettes, cigars, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and even over-the-counter medications. Dr Nelson Clarke’s Fourteen Basic Steps to Recovery rehab program laid the framework. Step One was admitting the problem, Step Two was Seeking Help, Step Three was Avoiding People, Places and Things that were drug-related. The first few steps started me on the journey to recovery. There is no other way out; there was no compromise that if you did drugs in moderation, it would be more manageable. You were only fooling yourself that it was okay if you only did it on weekends and in the confines of your home. I am proud to say that I have not had a drink since my discharge in 1985. It is a decision, discipline, raising your self-esteem, and not doing things to be accepted in social groups or as a habit.

Bahamians have a high tolerance for rum. We drink to celebrate the baptism of an innocent child, introducing the poor child to an atmosphere of rum consumption. We marry off our precious daughter, some inebriated at the ceremony. At funerals, the largest crowd is outside drinking rum while the good man is eulogised, not to mention the repass, where people who did not even attend the funeral are present. We use the funeral to finish disrespecting the man who, many times, did not fraternise with most of the people present.

We don’t need an excuse; we only need the rum. After a hard day’s work, on the way home, we stop at our favourite “watering hole” and have a few with the boys, which turns out to be many. We abandon our fatherly responsibilities and drink until our families are asleep. Then we drag ourselves home, unable to do anything. The strength of the family is a father having time to interact with an impressionable son, the security of a daughter feeling safe with her father’s presence, and the mother feeling secure with her husband at home.

Our children are watching all of this. They notice and see the chaos developing, and there is no father figure at home to provide the steel to solidify the family.

The son wanders away, and the daughter finds solace in an older man. Thus, the broken family’s chaos originates in the consumption of rum.

Our children watch while we dress up for our so-called social events, but return talking with a slur and staggering. The frustrated children have no one to talk to. They are confused because outsiders exploit them, knowing the dilemma, so they suffer in silence. They want the pain to stop, but we don’t call a spade a spade; the family deteriorated because of our culture and traditions, and we see nothing wrong with it because it is accepted.

We have abandoned our children, hustling to be socialites. We have ignored our children when they need us most while trying to fit in with the Joneses. We avoid staying home to pay attention to our kids, who are clamouring for our attention.

Because our self-esteem is so low, we are busy striving to be accepted in specific organisations that take us away from our families, and we are perfecting pretending. Our children are left to raise themselves; they gravitate to whoever pretends to care. The confusion is why they want to take the shortcut home.

We ask, why are there so many suicide attempts? The answer is that the parents have no time for the children and are too busy trying to be who they are not.

We all have sinned, and we are not judging, but the reality is that the family is in trouble, and the country deteriorates because we close our eyes and ignore it, but we think it is funny.

The solution is not in the bottle, but in strengthening our families and faith. When we spend quality time with our families, listen to each other, and communicate openly and honestly, we can identify and address concerns before they lead to destructive behaviours. Trusting in God’s guidance and the strength of our family bonds can help us prevent our loved ones from seeking solace in harmful substances.

Face reality, wise men do not look for happiness in a bottle; please don’t fool yourself, it is the figment of your imagination when you say you can handle the rum. Time has shown that rum consumption has destroyed lives more than any other drug known to man, and many have been killed while driving under the influence. So, how could it be a good thing?

When we focus on the family, we will save our precious children. Make it your priority, and communication is paramount.