Years ago, the small township where I live was known to be one of two towns in all of Spain with the most bars per inhabitant. Since back then there were probably less than eleven thousand people living here, that's a lot of bars. In the middle of town you really can't go five steps without seeing another bar, tavern, tea shop, or café. And they all have licenses to sell liquor. Liquor isn't as regulated as in America. Almost every establishment where you can sit down and drink sells liquor. There are no special liquor stores, either. Here you buy your wine, beer, and hard liquor in every grocery store and supermarket. That was one of the things that shocked me a little when I moved here. Alcohol is not seen as such a demon as in the States. Kids can buy and consume wine and beer when they're sixteen and other alcohols when they turn eighteen. Wine actually forms part of Spanish gastronomic culture and some meals are unthinkable without a bottle of wine on the table.

At least, it wasn't such a demon until a few years ago. That's when the phenomenon called the botellón appeared. It refers to teenagers who generally get an older person to buy bottles of alcohol for them, whiskey, vodka, gin and rum. Then the kids buy sodas to mix with the alcohol and on Friday and Saturday nights take their bags to a quiet part of town and go on a drinking binge. It has gotten to the point where the neighbors, fed up to Thursday of next week with the noise and the filth, have petitioned local police to clear out any group of youngsters on weekend nights. Police have tried to enforce laws against disturbing the peace, but with little effect. Some towns have even outlawed these gatherings, whereas others have set aside spaces on the outskirts so the kids don't bother the neighbors. The worst part, though, is the parade of drunken comas that march through the emergency rooms on weekend nights. 

One night about five years ago, my father was spending the night in the ER, waiting for a hospital bed to have a pacemaker installed. It was the month of December, but fortunately, the flu rush hadn't begun yet and the hospital was pretty quiet for a Saturday night. Until a couple of teenagers were brought in on stretchers. One was quickly dispatched home, the other moaned most of the night in the hall. The nurse and a doctor checked on her from time to time, trying to get her to respond. She did, and then they had to call housekeeping to clean up. From what I could hear, they already knew her from previous weekend visits. She most likely wasn't the only regular visitor. Doctors have appeared on the news many times, warning about the toll regular weekend drinking binges will take in later years on kid's healths. Especially because these gatherings are not made only by older kids. When my daughter was twelve, thirteen, fourteen, she went to birthday celebrations held by her friends down at the beach where they had plenty of bottles of liquor. She always drank only soda - she doesn't like alcohol. But most of her friends would end up drunk at the end of the evening. At those tender ages.

It's difficult to avoid alcohol here. As I said, at most meals there will be a bottle of wine on the table. A lot of households here have their own vineyards. Almost every family makes its own wine. Those households from which the doctor has banished wine will either sell it or sell the grapes. Children are accustomed to wine mixed with soda from a young age. They always have been. However, up till now that didn't mean there were more alcoholics than where wine is not a habit. It has only been in the past twenty or thirty years that alcohol consumption has left the meals and become a recreational habit. That was when it began to be a problem. 

But it's an international problem. Now alcohol is used to assuage boredom and other modern-day demons of mankind. I'm not villifying alcohol. I like a glass of wine at supper. But I think we should go back to drinking as a part of the culture, and leave the wine and spirits on the table, next to the meat and seafood, as complements.


 

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