by Dr Ishma Harford
When we think of alcohol and health, a few culprits emerge: liver disease, cancer of the throat and perhaps alcohol withdrawal. But a more insidious answer lies just beyond. Mental health.
The relationship between alcohol abuse and mental health is especially fitting for discourse as we continue to celebrate Men’s Mental Health Awareness Month.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) in 2018 found that Grenadian men drink 5 times as much as Grenadian women. What are we looking for at the bottom of the bottle? And how does alcohol fit into the mental health equation?
Let us begin with what alcohol actually is — and it is indeed a great many things. It is an opportunity to bond in a social setting. It is an adult liberty we fiercely enjoy and defend. It is even an economic engine and a livelihood for many.
What one wouldn’t immediately consider is that it is a social lubricant, a scene-setter, and a little helper that strips away the pesky inhibitions that keep us from having a good time. But herein lies the danger.
Alcohol seems to play a key role in male bonding. Maybe it gives us a reason to gather and associate. Maybe it is the guise under which we drown our sorrow and trivialise our fears. Or maybe it is what we need to start a seemingly casual conversation about the things that we grapple with daily like work, relationships, and responsibility.
Alcohol lies at the intersection of all these things. It is convenient enough to supply reason and effective enough to make us return. But ultimately, whether it takes the form of brief respite or the illusion of escape, it is fleeting and only promises dependence.
By no means is it being asserted that alcohol can never be used within healthy limits. On the contrary, many do understand and enjoy it responsibly. But in a sense, this dulls the attention we pay to its more sinister effects.
It hurts families. Robs young men of role models. Consumes large portions of already insufficient budgets. And though it eases our inhibitions, sometimes they are what keep us in check and safe from reckless and regrettable behaviour, such as driving under the influence.
While drinking masks the pain of everyday life, it also robs us of the opportunity to seek help facing those challenges and grow. In a society where mental health awareness is already poor, to drink away our anxiety amounts to sweeping it under the rug. To drown our sorrows translates to denial of feelings of depression, especially when we don’t know where else to turn.
And yet, the biggest danger remains unmasked. Addiction. The relief it affords is powerful, but deceptive. Instead of the relief we chase, alcohol leaves us feeling worse. It changes the chemistry of our brains and actually makes underlying mental health conditions worse in both the short and long term. Conditions we often don’t even know we face or we try to run away from.
The danger of this substance abuse is real. We do not name alcohol as it is known medically. A drug. The most socially accepted and seemingly harmless, but a drug, nonetheless.
But is alcohol truly harmless in a nation without a rehabilitation centre for over a decade? In communities already struggling with an unmeasured mental health burden?
Where do we turn in a society where the most accessible outlet is the rum shop?
Dr Ishma Harford is a medical doctor and a Commonwealth Scholar completing a master’s degree in Health Analysis, Policy and Management. The Health Imperative is an educational, politically neutral column about health, the system that delivers it, and all the implications in between.
