Last week
we discussed about social issues and we concluded that the most important
social problem in Chile is inequality, which is also related to how much money
somebody can have – because we know that in this country you need to have money
if you want to access to good quality education, health, food, etc.-. But I
think that there’s another big problem in our society and it is related to
alcohol. Chilean people are known as alcoholics, this is because we drink a lot
and we make up dates and opportunities to drink. I know this because I have
heard some comments from my foreigner classmates and they’re impressed with our
“alcoholic culture”. Yes, our identity has been created associated to alcohol
since our origins. Fiestas Patrias, for example, it’s a special date in which we
celebrate the first government meeting and people get crazy drinking and eating
as pigs.
Maybe this
could explain why alcoholism in Chile is not so important than inequality,
because we have included it to our normal life. Obviously the government has
made some politics to change this like “Ley Emilia”, for example, or the IVA
rising in alcohol, but it’s not enough I guess. And it’s a big problem, not
only for adult people but in teenagers and young people too. For example, I
know some classmates who are drunk every day and they start to drink early in
the morning. And the big thing is that they can’t drink alone, they have to do
it with more people and now some others classmates have started to drink
excessively.
I guess
that this social issue won’t change until people understand that alcohol doesn’t
mean fun, and been drunk doesn’t make you look cool. We need to take out the
alcohol from our identity.
