On Sunday, Minister of Health Dr. Sabin Nsanzimana tweeted a few health statistics and findings worrisome enough to make it to President Paul Kagame’s keynote address at the Liberation Day party at the Kigali Convention Centre. The statistics Dr. Sabin tweeted were taken from the Second Rwanda NCDs Risk Factors Survey, a study that surveyed 5,676 people, majority between the ages of 30 and 44. While the study included questions about tobacco smoking, physical activity, and food choices, the findings that seemed to have worried the President most concerned alcohol consumption. So, what are these findings? Overall national alcohol consumption is up 7% since 2013, with 61.9% of all male respondents having consumed alcohol within 30 days of the survey, up from 52.2% in 2013 (women drink far less than men, with 34.3% of women admitting to drinking; slightly higher than the 31.5% who did in 2013). Interestingly enough, heavy drinking (or binge drinking) has reduced nationally. Only 15.2% of all drinkers admit to binge drinking (defined by the World Health Organization as consuming 60 grams of pure alcohol or 6 standard alcoholic drinks at one occasion). In our local context, if you drink four and a half bottles of petit Skol or Mutzig lager (the alcohol content of the former is 5%, and the latter is 5.5%) at one sitting, you are binge drinking. Thankfully, while the overall alcohol consumption has increased by quite a bit, binge drinking is down 8.3% (with only 15.2% of the respondents admitting to at least one binge drinking session over the 30 days preceding the questionnaire). To make sense of these drinking statistics (and help figure out how to reduce them), I’d like to go down memory lane. My own ‘alcohol’ journey started at 16 years of age. I was in senior two, studying in a Ugandan boarding school, and all I wanted to do was show my peers that I was ‘cool’ enough to be taken seriously. So, when the day came and one of the other students in the dorm showed up with some local crude waragi (kanyanga) from one of the bars at the trading center, I took a swig from the bottle without hesitation. I hated it, but the admiration that I received for not making a face as the alcohol burnt its way down my throat made it all worth it for me. Because I didn’t love it that much, I never felt the need to seek it out that much (being an always hungry teenager, I preferred to use whatever little pocket money I had to buy tea and bananas at break time). And it certainly helped that the vast majority of boys at the school were in my shoes as well; given a choice to drink or eat, we always chose to eat. That changed as soon as I left secondary school. I had enough to eat, I had time on my hands, and I wanted to socialize as much as possible. Where did we socialize? In small neighborhood bars, drinking cheap alcohol. That continued throughout university. When I graduated and got employed, the bars got nicer, and the alcohol got more expensive. You’ll ask me, why didn’t I do anything other than hang out drinking? My answer is this; there was nothing else to do that, as a young person, I found fun. Yes, there was Cercle Sportif in Kiyovu, but I couldn’t afford it. There was a small public library at the American embassy (it used to be opposite Radio Rwanda), but it wasn’t a great place to talk and laugh with friends. And there were a few basketball courts strewn around the city, but they were very hard to access. But guess what? There was a container bar right in front of the Post Office (Iposita); it was accessible, cheap, and its proprietor allowed us to laugh as raucously as we wanted. So, we drank. I cannot speak for others, but I drank for two main reasons: as a way to connect with my friends and as a way to assert my masculinity. The more I drank, the more I felt that I had accomplished my goals. So, before we tackle the drinking culture, we need to understand exactly why we drink in the first place. Figuring out ways to channel the youthful desire to socialize away from bars is a great start. But even before that, we need to figure out how to redefine Rwandan masculinity (and its link to alcohol consumption). Once we’ve done these two, we shall talk about winning the war on drinking. In next week's column, I will share with you a few personal ideas on some practical steps we can take to lower alcohol consumption while increasing overall health outcomes. The writer is a socio-political commentator
