IS DRINKING=CHILLING?

For me it started when I was in s.s.s.1. I was a student at a government high school that offered boarding house arrangements for interested students. Being a state government school, the student body comprised kids from diverse background and upbringing, from different works of life. The first time I had to knuckle up in self defense, was whilst I was a student at that school. So also was my first ever school year without finishing in the top 3 tier in class. By the end of junior year I had settled in and made so many friends, some of whom I’ve being able to retain to this present day, others I’ve lost contact with. One of the persons I was friends with is Emmanuel, nick named ‘notorious’ or ‘noto’. He was a year ahead in class but he was years ahead of me in experience. Noto was a habitual offender, always breaking one school rule or the other. Despite this, he was a very sweet person, arguably one of the nicest persons I’ve ever known.

There was this mid-term break we had in my first year in senior high, the break was for a period of 4 days. I decided to stay back in school for some reason. Anyway, to fill the long hours of each day with activities, we sometimes resort to hiking and exploring the surrounding settlements that were primitive. On one of such trips during this break, I left school in the company of Noto who was also staying back in school for the break. Whilst outside, he took charge of navigating us around and he showed a good knowledge of the routes. After hiking for a while, we arrived at a compound where everyone exchanged pleasantries with Noto and addressed him by his moniker. We were offered sits and without prior enquiry, offered cups of palm wine. I was familiar with this substance so I had no qualm with accepting the offering and helping myself to its content. When our supposed host noticed we were done with that, he poured us both a healthy measure of something else that was transparent. I followed Noto’s lead by taking a mouth full but alas! It didn’t taste at all like how I anticipated. In fact, it hurt my mouth and I didn’t want to swallow, Noto noticed my reaction and started laughing. In order to save face, I forced the substance down my throat knowing well from the smell, that what I just had was hard liquor and this was unfamiliar territory for me. In no time the liquor took effect and I started seeing things. I requested that we leave for school immediately and he obliged. That was the longest walk of my life despite the close proximity of where we were to our school premises. On getting to school, I went straight to bed. That was my first time consuming alcohol.

My second experience was during the summer break of that school year. My girl friend at the time, came to my house and requested that I accompany her to her friend’s house at festac. On getting there, our host offered to take us out for refreshments. Whilst the girls ordered food, I ordered for a bottle of ‘small stout’. I guess I was trying to impress the girls by posturing like a grown up. I had to go through the ordeal of swallowing most of the bitter content of the bottle. On our way home, I slept for most of the ride back. By the time I was through with high school, I had become a seasoned casual drinker.

The other day I was on twitter, mr badt guy tweeted a question, ‘Is drinking=chilling?’ He actually drinks too but then, I understood the reason why he must have tweeted that. These days, getting high one way or the other is the most common recreation amongst youths these days. Be it at the beach, in the club, at a local bar, or even at home. You hear boys bragging about how much alcohol they can consume at a sitting. Please don’t get me wrong, I have no qualm with drinking at all, but when drinking becomes the high point of your recreational routine, there is a problem then. Ladies can testify to this. As a lady, have you ever visited a male friend and then he takes you to a bar to entertain you? Especially ladies that don’t drink. The best guys like this can do is, take her to a posh bar and make her sit idly whilst he along with is friends, guzzle bottle after bottle of alcohol and gist noisily. If she’s lucky, she’ll own a BB and use that in whiling away the boring time.

These days, you see boys using pictures with outrageous numbers of bottles of alcohol, as their d.p. on BBm to brag (in their minds, they are chilling). Whatever happened to other forms of recreation like visiting the zoo (Oops! There are none operational), the museum, concerts, entertainment events, the beach (for other fun activities)? etc. For those of us artistically inclined, there are private galleries in operation these days as well as private libraries with multimedia functions to explore. Alcohol shouldn’t be the first thing that comes to mind when we think relaxation. Let’s try to be creative when drawing up plans for recreation or a date. Trying out other fun stuffs will aid in stimulating our minds, which in turn will enable our creative juices to flow freely. How you relax speak volumes of your level of exposure and style.

Personally, I’ve missed a lot of beautiful Saturday and Sunday mornings because of alcohol laden prior nights. Whilst in search of the ideal relaxation routine, you can like to stop at G12 in Oniru or Eldorado at Elegushi, where you can catch me with my skunk and bottle of absolute vodka, Lol! I’m just kidding o!