To any normally observant person, it should be clear that The Bahamas has an issue with alcohol dependence.
We are far from alone in this in the western world, but this is the only country we have and we should not let shared dysfunction that spans borders stop us from addressing what is occurring in our home.
Anecdotally, the proliferation of liquor stores on New Providence is evident.
A drive along some well-known roads will reveal liquor stores almost next to each other for considerable distances, in addition to bars and restaurants that also sell alcohol.
Near and around schools, churches and just a hop away from most street corners, alcohol is available on New Providence 24 hours a day and often freely sold to minors, who are either buying on behalf of irresponsible adults or themselves.
There is no longer even a pretense at making alcohol less accessible as the liquor business appears to be flourishing at every level.
That vagrancy and loitering have grown along with more access to alcohol cannot be a coincidence.
Addicts are able to feed their habits at will, and there is no serious push to address those who are debilitated by alcohol on a daily basis.
It is illegal to drive with open alcoholic beverage containers, yet drivers and passengers routinely do it.
It is also illegal to drive under the influence of alcohol, but police warn against it at the scene of gruesome late-night traffic fatalities.
Beyond what can be seen anecdotally is what we know.
The recently released 2019 STEPS survey involved 2,365 participants between the ages of 18 and 69.
“Those who have ever consumed alcohol (65.6 percent) are more than double those who are life abstainers (29.3 percent),” the survey revealed.
It also showed that 49.5 percent of those who drank considered themselves “current drinkers”, or those who had consumed alcohol in the last 30 days.
This number was almost 10 percent higher than the 2012 STEPS survey, and the likelihood is that Hurricane Dorian and the COIVD-19 pandemic have since exacerbated the problem.
Current drinkers report consuming a maximum of 40 grams of pure alcohol, or the equivalent of 1,000 ml of beer, nearly 1,000 ml of alcoholic cider or 400 ml of wine on one occasion.
Self-reporting Category II – or intermediate – drinkers, and Category III – high-level – drinkers combined almost equaled those who characterized themselves as low-level – Category I – drinkers.
“Categories II and III are associated with harmful use of alcohol,” the report read.
“This means that 44.1 percent of current drinkers consume alcohol to a point it is considered harmful. Although a male is 1.4 times more likely to be a current drinker than a female, a female is two times more likely to consume alcohol to the point it is considered harmful,” the report noted.
The report showed that 18 percent of people – nearly one in five – meet the definition of a heavy episodic drinker, consuming at least five drinks per occasion at least monthly.
Heavy episodic male drinkers were nearly double the numbers of females in that category.
“Of all drinkers, 85.7 percent reported being able to self-regulate and control the amount of alcohol consumed; and with the vast majority (94.7 percent) never needing a first drink during the morning hours to get their day started,” the report read.
“Only six percent indicated that on a weekly or monthly basis, they were unable to do expected tasks/responsibilities because of their alcohol intake, compared to 92.4 percent who were able to perform and do what was expected despite their intake.”
We should note that functional alcohol dependence is still alcohol dependence, and, as the report noted, “alcohol consumption has the potential to impact more than just the user”.
“One-fifth (21.6 percent) of respondents drove a vehicle under the influence of alcohol,” the report revealed.
“Between 2017 and 2018, fatal road traffic accidents in The Bahamas rose by 29 percent. In this period, more than three times more males were killed than females. Local studies to describe the role of alcohol in fatal road traffic accidents were constrained by the lack of breath and/or blood alcohol level testing at the time of the accident.”
It should be noted that during the last published study conducted on our prison population, many inmates labeled the use of alcohol and drugs as a determining factor in them committing crime.
As a society, we have not done enough to find solutions to deal with our alcohol problem.