Eight-year-old shows up dad’s alcohol problem

When Andrew Folkes unwrapped his birthday gift from his eight-year-old daughter last year and saw five bottles of Guinness, he realised that something had to change.

An alcohol-dependent man at the time, he he was forced to do some introspection. He was consuming the alcoholic beverage with such regularity that his child thought it important to ask her mother to include them in the birthday package.

"I had to sit down and say, if I am doing something like this, to the point where my eight-year-old child would not present that gift bag to me without Guinness being a part of it, then I really had to fix my issues," Folkes said.

He was speaking at Red Stripe's virtual town hall series, 'Responsibility Now', yesterday. The forum aims to spread awareness about the need for responsible consumption of alcohol.

Local Government and Community Development Minister Desmond McKenzie told the meeting that the Government has commissioned a study to determine the drugs being consumed on the island and the factors driving the misuse.

He said research has suggested that the rate of alcohol consumption since the COVID-19 pandemic has increased at a far greater rate when compared to the previous 50 years.

"What is concerning for me is the number of young persons, not just in high schools, but in primary schools, who have become drinkers," McKenzie said.

Jamaica's alcohol consumprion rate is measured at 11.9 litres per year, below the global average of 16 litres per year.

"We will all agree that there is no cause for us to celebrate, as alcohol is among the most widely misused substances locally. Our country, like so many others, is dealing with an unintended consequence of irresponsible drinking," the minister said.

Folkes argued that it is important to determine the reasons people drink in order to try and solve the problem. He said that a way in which someone is socialised can directly impact their alcohol consumption habits.

"We are cultured to suppress emotional pain. It is not cool to express emotional hurt. There is no friends a ghetto yute can go to and say, 'Me feel dah way here', or 'Me girl do this' ... . What we do is that we suppress and we drink," Folkes said, before sharing a story of alcohol abuse.

"On night I drank 14 Guinness," he said, adding that he was going through a lot and was ready to end his life.

"I was going to drink and then kill myself. I can't call any of my friends and talk to them about what I was feeling. The aim was to drink, get drunk and commit suicide," he related.

Folkes said more needs to be done to curb the problem of alcohol abuse. He suggested that undercover psychiatrists and psychologists be deployed to bars to not only study the problem, but also help people who are in danger of becoming abusers.

Dr Parris Lyew-Ayee, vice-president of the Private Sector Organisation of Jamaica, said drunk driving is a major contributor to road crashes in Jamaica. He noted that 380 persons have died as a result of crashes as of Tuesday, and the projection is that 423 will lose their lives in crashes by year's end.

Lyew-Ayee said that the impact of crashes on the country has been tremendous, noting that there are human, social and economic costs. He pointed to the World Health Organization's 2018 global status report on alcohol, which measured the cost of crashes to Jamaica's health sector at $12.7 billion. He said that $3.2 billion is spent yearly to treat road traffic victims at hospitals. It costs an average $94,000 to care for one crash victim who was in a motor car and $263,000 to provide care to a motorcycle crash victim.