Searching for a fix...
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Join Date: Dec 2019
Posts: 307
Searching for a fix...
I see them when I walk to the supermarket for bread almost every day. Men and women in cars, driving slow and aimlessly, obviously looking for something. And I know what. They’re searching for places they can buy booze and/or cigarettes illegally. Friends and family phone my dad daily to ask if he doesn’t perhaps have a bottle or two to spare/sell? All or most are addicts looking for a “fix”. I know, because if I hadn’t stopped drinking on the 12th of December last year, I would be one of them. Driving and searching, or phoning and asking with a little laugh while I felt like climbing the walls…
Typical of the ANC government, they had to show the rest of the world that in Africa, we always go one better; (or worse – as it turns out the majority of times). So they banned the sale of alcohol and cigarettes for the duration of the lock-down (three weeks to start with), with the justification that smoking can “make it easier for someone to catch the virus”; and that alcohol will cause more violence in people’s homes…
What they did not reckon with, is that their so-called gender-based violence has more than doubled; an addict in forced withdrawal is a lot more violent than a drunk, apparently. And that those who can afford it, still drink; they simply buy their booze on the black-market – which is thriving…
117 Days free of alcohol and thankful…
Typical of the ANC government, they had to show the rest of the world that in Africa, we always go one better; (or worse – as it turns out the majority of times). So they banned the sale of alcohol and cigarettes for the duration of the lock-down (three weeks to start with), with the justification that smoking can “make it easier for someone to catch the virus”; and that alcohol will cause more violence in people’s homes…
What they did not reckon with, is that their so-called gender-based violence has more than doubled; an addict in forced withdrawal is a lot more violent than a drunk, apparently. And that those who can afford it, still drink; they simply buy their booze on the black-market – which is thriving…
117 Days free of alcohol and thankful…
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Join Date: Jan 2018
Posts: 675
This quarantine would've been very difficult for me 3-4 months in. You're doing it though. You don't have to be "those people" anymore. I know it may seem pointless at times but try to focus on the positive things (however small) this might be doing to your community and humanity as a whole.
Truthfully I still willingly surround myself with addicts in the environment I work in, and understand all too well it can bring out a drive for survival in its most anamilstic form. This break has been a much needed breath of healing air from that. I have to think people are being forced to confront their issues (of all kinds) now.. some will make it and others won't but either way this can be a starting point for lasting change if used constructively.
Truthfully I still willingly surround myself with addicts in the environment I work in, and understand all too well it can bring out a drive for survival in its most anamilstic form. This break has been a much needed breath of healing air from that. I have to think people are being forced to confront their issues (of all kinds) now.. some will make it and others won't but either way this can be a starting point for lasting change if used constructively.
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