Wine is a Mocker

An Early Acquaintance

My story with drink is long and interesting, yet these days I do not have a ready palate for alcohol.

My first taste of alcohol came with palm wine. My paternal grandfather had palm trees; though I do not think he was ever a palm wine tapper, he had the kind of demeanour that suggests he might have clambered up a tree at some point in his youth.

Traditional alcohol was offered to children, but bottled alcohol was completely forbidden.

At ten, away from my parents, I did drink Tennent's Light, a low-percentage lager in a can. None of the adults frowned on my consumption, and I always drank in moderation; there was never a second one, even when offered.

Lessons from the Brewery

My first job, at fifteen, was in a brewery, where I worked in the laboratory; I doubt I would have been allowed that opportunity outside Nigeria. My days were spent testing water quality, peering at dead yeast cells drawn from the fermentation tanks, and running quality-control checks at the end of the production line. There was enough in all of that to put me off lager, and consequently beer, ale, and cider.

Strong drink was an acquired taste that I eschewed rather than developed.

Yet in my family we have no history of the abuse of drink or drunkenness; everyone held their drink with dignity, and it would appear that more of the generations close to mine are teetotallers.

An AI-generated infographic on the blog content. (Click to enlarge.)

A Discipline of My Own

In social settings, I drink wine, preferably with meals, and never alone. It is a standard and a discipline I have set for myself, and I find the loss of self-control brought on by drink you have chosen to consume, rather than been forced to ingest, literally contemptible. Even the wine I enjoy is rarely more than a single glass, and I doubt I drink more than once in two months.

Once I had a sherry, from a bottle the barman probably had to prise out from a mooring of cobwebs spun by spiders long deceased, kept well out of sight, and then a glass of port, which does go well with Stilton cheese. I was soon sick all over the place, at home.

At any sense of feeling tipsy, I never wait for my legs to give way beneath me; one instance of apparent inebriation was a lesson for a lifetime. I also refuse to lend my tongue to the looseness that alcohol affords, as some people, who are no longer friends, once did to break the friendship.

Carried in the Blood

I do, however, appreciate that people have a drink problem for all sorts of reasons, including a congenital predisposition, for which there might be a need for intervention if a person has lost the levers of moderation.

There are those for whom the pull towards drink is not merely habit but something carried in the blood. A grandparent or great-grandparent who could not master it may leave a predisposition that surfaces generations later, and I would not dismiss that as fancy; the science of inheritance is real enough.

Yet a predisposition is a tendency, not a sentence. It explains the steepness of the hill; it does not excuse refusing to climb. Indeed, the one who knows such a weakness runs in the family has all the more reason to be watchful, for he has been warned by his own lineage.

Recognising a Problem

Even so, that warning is of little use to the person who will not hear it, and denial remains the first obstacle. I know people who will not admit they have a drink problem. You definitely have one if you soon lapse into incoherence and find that the marshalling of your faculties has deserted you.

In some cases, it is borderline; and when at the border, we cannot assume it has not already been crossed.

Whether there are excuses that stand the test of reason is debatable, but steeling yourself for any endeavour should not be achieved through Dutch courage, for it is a prop that would soon collapse under the pressure of application.

Wisdom from Proverbs

While my greater abstemiousness from alcohol is not religious, you only have to visit the Book of Proverbs to read the many admonitions regarding alcohol.

Proverbs 31:4-7

4 It is not for kings, O Lemuel, it is not for kings to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink:
5 Lest they drink, and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted.
6 Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.
7 Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more.

And yes, there are places where wine is the bringer of joy and festivity, as in the ritual use of wine in religious service; but in each case, one would expect controlled and measured use.

Elsewhere, in Proverbs 20:1

1 Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging: and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.

These verses all suggest that the abuse of alcohol leads to unfortunate consequences. The refuge of drink opens the door to foolishness, destruction, and forgetfulness of the essence of living; there is nothing productive in it.

A Final Word

Before I come across as preachy, I am not advocating a temperance movement or a form of prohibition, but moderation that can still be moderated. For those who drink to excess, you leave those close to you, who do not partake as much, all the more worried that you have already taken a few too many.

And if, on reading this, you recognise yourself in these words, do not take it as an accusation but as a hand held out. If this is you, there is no shame in the recognition; there is only the next, better step.

Most importantly, seek help, because there is a great deal of help out there. Wherever you are, a first step is often as near as your own doctor. Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon operate in most countries, and many nations run free, confidential helplines; a local search, or a word with a trusted clinician, will point you to what exists near you.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) – Wikipedia

Alcoholics Anonymous ZA/ZW

A Gemini Notebook AI Podcast on this blog

When the cult of mother becomes a curse

Speaking of the oracles

Òrìṣà bí ìyá ò sí. This is a saying in Yoruba that is not that easy to translate without losing the fundamentals of meaning and context.

Òrìṣà in Yoruba is the core of the indigenous animist culture representing the supernatural, elemental spirits that are varied depictions of polytheistic deities, powerful, revered, worshipped and honoured. In the main, they traverse the early plane in legend as human and the heavenly plane as spirits, they are the mainstay of the deepest cultural identity of the Yoruba.

Only, a decade ago, I had to reflect on who the Yoruba were when I met two Cuban professors whilst on holiday who appeared to have more insight and knowledge of Yoruba myths, mythologies and legend than I ever knew. Steeped in superstition in what Lord Lugard dismissed as a ‘vague dread of the supernatural’, you probably would never understand the Yoruba without being Yoruba.

Blog - Who are the Yoruba?

The enduring hold of our oracles

I might extend that to suggest the Yoruba influence that remains strong in the practices as varied as Santería, Candomblé, Trinidad Orisha, Umbanda, and Oyotunji suggests some fundamental underpinning of the mother culture has been lost to the influx of new religions that have in most cases branded these traditions as savage, uncivilised and inherently evil.

Yet, these beliefs have sustained people for centuries and endure in the spirituality of the peoples and their descendants of the new world who were trafficked in the malevolence of the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Òrìṣà bí ìyá ò sí. Indicates that the mother or motherhood usually as seen from the perspective of the child is the genre of elemental spirits worthy and possibly demanding of worship, adoration and adulation.

In the cult of mother

Recently, in watching a film and a television dramatization, I was exposed to an interesting dynamic between mother and child, the blood relationship persisted to serve the purposeful hold of the Òrìṣà mother on the worshipper child, but it was progressively damaged through abuse brought on by drug addiction.

A child desires of a mother love, attention, care, protection, maybe encouragement and even guidance, but some children get little of that because the mother’s capacity to mother in a somewhat ideal mothering situation is impaired by personal struggles that distract the mother from that objective.

In the one case, as in the film, Moonlight, the mother only seemed to come to, late in life whilst in rehabilitation and she profusely apologised for being less of a mother than she could have been. It was a time of tears, of hugs and of healing.

Blog - My own #Moonlight story is not a movie

Breaking the cult of mother

In the television drama, it was the 6^th episode of the 5^th Series of Law and Order: UK, called Deal where a drug-addict mother could care less about her son, first blaming her 13-year old son who for years had been told he was responsible for her problems and then when she was owing money to her drug dealer, she sold her son to the drug dealer to abuse as he saw fit.

The Òrìṣà mother bond was kept strong with threats to kill the boy’s mother if he stepped out of line. It is not until he saw that his mother had indeed sold him that the wicked Òrìṣà mother – worshipper child hold and bond was broken.

The travails of mother and child

The Yoruba culture places great burdens of responsibility and duty on the worshipper child to serve and sacrifice to the Òrìṣà mother, which in many cases is a willing and honourable function in the life of a child who has had positive influences of the mother, mothering and motherhood.

We as child strive to do as much as we can to uphold that Òrìṣà – worshipper bond, yet, that bond can be broken, broken beyond repair by agency or acts of either or both mother and child. The addiction that belies incapacity does not have to be drugs, it could be any other activity that brings on the infirmity breaks that maternal bond.

At peace, away from mother

As I wrote in my blog on Moonlight, the case of my mother is an addiction to a syncretism that combines elements of Judaism and Christianity with African-initiated interpretations of scripture along with strange animist traditions enlivened by incantations of the Psalms, rituals and holy waters, the result of which has broken the Òrìṣà mother – worshipper child bond.

Whilst it pains me that there is no relationship of any note between us, I cannot help but see my mother through the prism of those other mother addicts with no prospect of a Moonlight ending, because somewhere down the line she sold that motherhood to her devotion, hoping my fear of it would bring me into line, like the drug dealer’s threat to the boy.

Coming to terms with this has meant that I have decided not to waste precious time trying to make peace, but as I learnt in a conversation with a dear friend, I must find ways to be at peace with myself. I write about these things because I believe I am not alone in this kind of experience, it is also my own personal therapy in resolving the deep conflicts of the heart.