South Africa is a nation of binge drinkers

The plot of the juvenile (yet hilarious) 2010 Hollywood flick 'The Hangover' goes something like this: a bunch of friends travel to Las Vegas, get inadvertently high on "roofies" and wake up with 'moerse' headaches the following morning.

Because I suffer from a hint of pseudo-exceptionalism, I have often expressed the opinion that there's nothing special about the endings and beginnings of calendar years.

I may or may not have called a calendar year a "totally random cycle of 365 free rides around the sun" to cultivate an aura of intellectualism.

But even I have to admit that I'm suffering from a figurative hangover from that whacky 365-day cycle called 2016.

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By the time Carrie Fisher and her mom, Debbie Reynolds, had passed away within 24 hours of each other, I was so dazed I couldn't even remember that a shebeen had appeared in Saxonwold and disappeared even before I'd had an opportunity to wet my thirsty beak there.

There is also the actual, physical cloud of a hangover that thousands, possibly millions, of South Africans are still trying to get over.

Being the self-respecting, committed, almost-functional alcoholic that I am, I have many friends who slave for companies that peddle tipple. This is because there is only one thing better than booze - free booze.

One of these friends dazzled me with some astounding statistics a few years ago. Apparently, South Africans guzzle somewhere in the region of 50 to 60% of their annual intake of alcohol over the Christmas and New Year period.

If you include the Easter weekend and public-holiday long weekends, it's about three quarters of the entire year's consumption.

This means that, as a nation, we consume more alcohol over a 12-week period than we do in the other 40 weeks. We're a nation of binge drinkers.

I've also read that South Africans are only 41st in terms of annual per capita beer consumption at about 58l per guzzler. That's about six crates of Zamalek ngudus (750ml quarts) a year.

If you're as competitive as I am, note that folks from the Seychelles consume roughly twice that much. I don't know why it annoys me so much that we rank almost rock bottom in all literacy/numeracy ratings and we're not even competent drinkers.

But of course, that's not the full picture, is it? In the Czech Republic, the highest per capita beer imbibers in the world, they consume around 140l per annum. But I'll bet that each drinker consumes a steady 3l-4l every single week.

In this country we do things a tad differently. We hardly ever touch the stuff from Monday to Wednesday. And then we Phuza Thursday our way through the weekend. But, even then, not as much as we do through the Easter, Human Rights Day, Youth Day and Heritage Day weekends.

block_quotes_start We hardly ever touch [alcohol] from Monday to Wednesday. And then we Phuza Thursday our way through the weekend block_quotes_end

By the time December comes, we seem to awaken from some kind of slumber and realise we're only 20lin to our 58l per annum quota and wade 38l deep into the amber-coloured waters of immortality.

By the time January 3 comes, our livers are ticking louder than a bomb clock in a B-grade Hollywood movie Dolph Lundgren.

Look, I'm no more an expert on people's drinking habits than a cow is an expert on photosynthesis because it consumes grass.

My opinions are based on vast experience with intoxication, drunken observations of other drinkers while I'm also busy quaffing and a healthy dose of cognitive dissonance that blinds me to my own moronic habits with liquor. For instance, I pride myself on being a "consistent drunk".

The first time I spent some time in Italy, Spain and France, I learnt it was acceptable to have a bit of vino at 9am. When I returned home, I went to the Origins Centre at Wits to inquire whether I could participate in the Human Genome Project to ascertain whether I had any Mediterranean blood.

I stopped feeling guilty about opening a beer at 10.30am. And if anyone judged me, I'd be quick to point out that I'm not a drunk.

Drunks get sloshed, slur their speech, start pub brawls and lose control of their bowel movements. I do none of that. I simply start pointless debates on social media and call everyone "obtuse".

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Speaking of obtuseness, I hope no one thinks I'm trivialising our disgraceful drinking habits. I'm merely pointing out that we need to do better.

If you ever wake up in the morning and think, "Where am I? Whose warm body is that next to me?", you need to do better. If you ever wake up and your first thought is, "How did I get home and is my car okay?" you need to do better.

And if you're a member of the "Akulalwa lingakagingqiki lelibhodlela" club ("No one goes to bed while this bottle is standing"), you need to do better.

All the social problems that come with our moronic ways was aptly captured in an e-mail that was doing the rounds about a decade ago.

It's about a homeless man who was observed bawling his eyes out in front of a crate of empty beer bottles.

He was apparently taking them out of the crate, one by one, and smashing them to the ground.

"Because of you, my wife left me". [Smash!]. "You lost me my job". [Smash!]. "You cost me my house, cars and kids". [Smash!]. And then he picks one up and realises that it's sealed.

"Stand aside my ma se kind. I know you were not involved."

Follow the author of this article, Ndumiso Ngcobo, on Twitter: @NdumisoNgcobo