Do We as a Latino Community Downplay Alcoholism?
Look familiar? This is the much celebrated Mexican Loteria card known as “El Borracho”. In Hispanic culture, drunks are usually not seen “as dangerous” and as a result, are not taken as seriously as other drug users.
Is the Concept of Alcoholism Taken Seriously?
Whether you’re Mexican-American, Puerto Rican, Salvadorian, or a part of any other Latino/Hispanic community that resides in Southern California, take a look at your family and the community around you. Now ask yourself- is alcoholism taken seriously? Or is it perhaps….encouraged?
Growing up as half-Mexican, half-Puerto Rican, cervecas were a staple of all family parties. It was a given that if we were going to celebrate, even a kid’s birthday, alcohol would be involved. It was seen as a much-deserved treat after a week of hard work or simply as an excuse to celebrate life.
The issue was that it made it difficult to discern which family members just drank alcohol for fun and which of them actually had a problem with it. If close friends or family members were suspected of having an alcohol problem, we probably fondly referred to them as “borrachos” and didn’t think much about it.
Furthermore, when we deconstruct what we can do to minimize crime in our community, we need to take alcoholism into account.
Alcohol and Crime: The Connection
Here are some associations between being intoxicated and crime.
Although Alcohol is Legal, Your Actions Under the Influence May Not Be
Sure, alcohol is considered by many Hispanic/Latino communities to be much safer than cannabis, cocaine, meth, and heroin. Therefore, it is used in front of children at family parties, subconsciously communicating to our children “alcohol is safe and does no harm.” But this could not be furthest from the truth. Aside from the terrible health effects long-term alcohol abuse has on the body, it impairs your judgment, sometimes to significantly that a well-intentioned person could commit a violent crime.
Personal Ancedote
Let me relate to you with a personal story based on one of my former peers who began a dark journey through alcoholism in his teens. I will use the name “Alberto” to protect his identity:
Alberto was a great buddy of mine growing up in high school. He was always a bit depressed and would turn to the bottle in attempts to drown his demons. My friends and I were split on how to deal with him- his guy friends would encourage him to drink (not uncommon among high school boys) while his female friends like me would express our concern.
However, as we graduated high school and the challenges of life became more difficult, Alberto started drinking more to deal with his angst. Although I offered to go to AA meetings with him, his machismo (pride) got in the way. Then THIS incident happened:
One day, Alberto got so trashed that he decided it would be hilarious to take his clothes off at a local park. Unfortunately, because there were kids in his proximity, he was arrested and was then listed as a sex offender! You could imagine the horror and shame he and his family felt once they got his charges. You would have thought this would have discouraged Alberto to drink, but it made him so depressed that he began drinking more.
By the time he was 21, he had done so much damage to his brain by getting intoxicated every day that we could no longer distinguish if he was sober or drunk when we hung out with him, because either way he was disoriented and slurred his words. The only kinds of people that could tolerate his presence were other drunks, who only encouraged his binge drinking. So by age 23, he had two DUI’s.
Now luckily, Alberto hasn’t killed anyone (yet) by drunk driving, but it remains a real possibility. And fortunately for him and those around him, he is more prone to depression than anger, so he doesn’t behave in violent ways that many drunks do once they’re fully disinhibited by alcohol.
Learn more about crime prevention and substance abuse issues at www.expedienterojo.org
Taking a Stand
According to the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, about 9.5 percent of Hispanics will have alcohol dependence at some point in their lives. It’s time to start thinking about what we can do to bring this number down in order to lower our overall crime rate.