GOSKOLO;THE PHENOMENAL ALCOHOL CONSUMPTION ON THE PLATEAU.

Recently,the government of Governor Jonah Jang of Plateau state launched a campaign against the consumption of alcohol in Plateau state.The campaign includes a set of jingles on the electronic media in the state.The jingles highlighted some very amusing pattern of behaviour in the comsumption of alcohol.It is very surprising to note that a lot of civil servants are said to first consume a lot of alcohol even before going to the office.As a consequence of this,the productivity of the work force is nothing to write home about.The jingles also highlighted the fact that many organs in the body are damaged by the large consumption of alcohol.There are also other aspects of social life that were highlighted by the jingles.This include the fact that many a father are so engrossed in the act of hanging out late in the night in bars and drinking joints to the fact that their children do not even know them well as the children would have slept before the father comes home and the children will not be up before the father goes out the following morning!

One must really commend the effort of the government in bringing to fore this social ill.The government even went further to restrict the activities of bars and beer parlours,as they must close early these days.According to some social commentators,all these efforts of the government is yielding some good results as the civil service is more vibrant and some fathers are getting more responsible and visible at home.There is however no objective way of measuring this as at yet.

Another interesting thing is that the vaste majority of people who consume large amount of alcohol are not able to consistently afford the more expensive beers or wines and as such resort to taking the locally brewed 'BURUKUTU' or GOSKOLO'.Now,goskolo is otherwise called 'OGOGORO' in other parts of the country.It is largely cheaper and more dangerious than the other forms of alcohol because it not only contains ethanol(the normally consumed alcohol),but also methanol which is not a consumable form of alcohol.This is because the brewing process is not very refined.

There is a wide range of psychiatric conditions that are associated with alcohol intake.The ICD 10 has given the categories of the clinical conditions(as it also applies to other psychoactive substances)to be;
Acute intoxication,
Harmful use
Dependence syndrome
Withdrawal state
Withdrawal state with delirium
Psychotic disorders
Amnesic syndrome
Residual and late-onset psychotic disorder
Other mental and behavioural disorders
unspecified mental and behavioural disorder.

There was a time when I held the erronious believe that alcoholism was not a problem for africans.Well,I have come to discard such uninformed believes.As a matter of fact,I have seen quite a large number of peolple who are dependent on alcohol,or with one form or the other of alcohol induced psychotic disorder both in Uselu and now in Jos.This is almost on a daily basis.It is really amazing!

Tomorrow,I wll be dealing exclusively with people who are dependent on alcohol and other psychoactive substances as I will be having a 6-weeks posting at the Vom Christian hospital.This is the drug unit in affiliate with the Psychiatric Department of Jos University Teaching Hospital.The unit imbibes all the standard methods involved in detoxification and rehabilitation.Well, I hope to learn all to be learnt and I will keep you up to date with my experiences on this blog