Why the Alcohol craze...

[rodalembs]

Well in addition to the pepper, I am flabergasted by the amount of alcohol , that is consumed by my TT friends. I know guys in jamaica how love to drink. But the level of alcohol consumption i seem in TT is unbelievable. I as if they dont like water or even juices. Why so?

[Brownsugar]

We do!

Yuh did research on Trinidad & Tobago oh wah?? Yuh know rell things ent?

[Manu]

I think Roda is in T&T

[rodalembs]

No, right now! But lawks....the many times i have been...i have been shocked.

[Izemi-Clem]

Hail

Drinking alcohol is seen as a rite of passage into manhood or even adulthood, especially in our Caribbean culture.
A "real" man is supposed to be able to do a lot of things and the degree to which he can do these things determines to what esteem he his viewed by his peers. The amount of alcohol he is able to consume is one of them.

Years ago when our societies were more rural and our economies were more related to farming, consuming alcohol was one of the few ways/outlets a man had to socialize with his peers.
Young boys would look inside these watering holes and view their fathers until one day they too would be inside having a drink with their friends and maybe their father's friends.

This attitude is still passed on today, the difference being the difference in attitude and importance to adulthood that each society placed on it.

I remember my father telling me that when he was 18 y.o. he and his friends would hang out drinking milk and eating bulla cake until all hours of the night. Now it wasn't that they didn't have an interest and drinking alcohol but in those days they wasn't any shopkeeper or bar owner who was going to sell them alcohol, it was unheard of.
So reaching the age and the status to be able to step inside a bar and order alcohol was seen a a very big step.

Izemi-Clem