Alcoholism and the Regressive Growth!
By Sunday de John — Nairobi, Kenya
August 13, 2015 (SSB) — Business community is intelligent such that it knows how and when to strike better for their success. In the case of South Sudan, it is apparent that many factors have been in place before independence.
There was impending interest in business more than in development. In the first cabinet of the then Government of Southern Sudan was Rebecca Nyandeng Chol aka Rebecca Nyandeng de Mabior, the wife of our renowned icon Dr. John Garang de Mabior.
Nyandeng was appointed the first Minister of Roads and Bridges on a task of translating her crammed development theories into practically beneficial developmental achievements since she had been living along arguably a shrewd man of the century.
To embark on the task at hand, Rebecca failed to effectively accomplish the task she was employed for by deviating to the tangent aspect of her duty and instead, she used the budget that should have been channeled for roads and bridges construction to lure her personal investors for the establishment of what became known as White Bull lager the first ever alcohol factory in the Republic of South Sudan.
Alcohol production was the first ever-opted development route by the trusted mother of the nation as proclaimed by her diehard supporters. This action has prompted Khartoum to lament that had South Sudanese told us that they were fighting to have alcohol flooding in their territory we would have built for them satisfying number of alcohol factories to at least give them what they craved for without hindrance.
As if I have gone political, let me bring you back to the theme of the day “Alcoholism and the regressive growth”. However, the manner with which South Sudanese have decided to float on alcohol has more drawbacks than the benefits both at the individual’s and national level.
Before giving my honorable readers many justifications on dangers of alcoholism, I should first create together with them a revision session to know what alcohol and alcoholism are. Alcohol from laymen perspective is a drink such as beer or whisky containing an ethanol. Ethanol is hydroxyl derivate of hydrocarbon. From this note, note with keen interest that alcoholism is a continued excessive or compulsive use of alcoholic drinks.
In other words, it is a condition in which someone frequently drinks too much alcohol and becomes unable to live a normal and healthy life. From this aspect, alcohol consumers have to note that they are directly and indirectly affecting their vital systems and the nation unknowingly in the name of indulgence.
Binge intake of alcohol has unfavorable consequences on the pancreas as on many cases caused acute pancreatitis, a condition that is life threatening if not well attended to by a good doctor.
Of course chronic intake of alcohol can destroy liver, which is the central organ in metabolism and detoxification spheres. Should one develop alcoholic liver disease or acute pancreatitis, the end result is premature death with reduction in productive work force and indirectly regressive growth of the country.
Alcohol has a lot of dangerous effects including reduction in mental capacity of a person. Alcohol is a known depressant that can incapacitate people’s mental abilities. I concur with Maker Aguek that alcoholism is a syndrome resulting from post-independence euphoria with too much freedom to the influx of the likes of Changa, Kasa-kasa, Lira-Lira, Waregi, different beers and lethal wines.
We are a free nation, it sounds very great but we shouldn’t be free to fail in creating visible development. Many young potential South Sudanese have become serious alcoholics that are hard to convince about the dangerous consequences of alcohol and that has made it unbearably daunting because addiction has surged to the level of retarding their mental capacities.
I bet, social implications of alcoholism are by far, more immediate than then medical ones. The social implications include, joblessness, homelessness, uncleanliness, impotence and undesirable sexual gratification with consequences such as beating by the assaulted parties or infection with incurable viruses such as Hepatitis B & C and HIV/AIDS.
However, it should be noted that if somebody wants miserable death, s/he should continue intoxicating his systems with lethal varieties of alcohol.
Till then, yours truly, Mr. Teetotaler!
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