Sincerely speaking, when I picked up Toby Orde book “The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity” I figured it’d be another literature that highlights all the ways the world will be coming to an end. And like I imagined, there was a lot of such statements in the book. But the book is much more than that. The Precipe is deep. It’s a thoughtful argument about moral responsibility, long term thinking and what we actually owe to the future.
While reading The Precipe, I quickly identified an existential risk in my immediate community and nation. Drug abuse. A vice rapidly on the rise.
Yesterday, I had a conversation with a man in my community who owns a liquor store.
It had been a while since we last met, so I asked how he had been. He told me he had spent much of the past few weeks in the hospital, looking after his brother.
Then he shared something that has refused to leave my mind.
A patient who shared the ward with his brother had been diagnosed with a severe liver disease caused by excessive consumption of locally distilled gin.
The barman told me how painful it was to watch the man cough up blood as his condition worsened. Before he and his brother were discharged, the patient died.
Shortly afterwards, another young man was admitted into the same ward with the same alcohol-related illness.
Then came the confession I wasn't expecting.
He said he often feels guilty because, every day, he sells the very drinks that are destroying people like the men he had just watched die. Yet, for now, it is the only means he has of feeding his family. He told me he is saving towards starting another business so he can leave the trade behind.
His words reminded me of another conversation I overheard on my way to work last week.
Two elderly women were discussing the growing abuse of alcohol and drugs among young people.
One of them told the story of a man who had worked in a bank for ten years before losing his job. In search of a way to provide for his family, he opened a liquor store.
Ironically, he became addicted to the very alcohol he sold. His health deteriorated until he eventually died.
After his death, his younger brother came from the village to take over the same business.
That business also claimed his life.
This morning, on my way to a burial service, I heard it again.
An elderly woman looked at a young man staggering along the road, visibly intoxicated, and quietly said,
"Our young men are swelling up because of ogogoro."
Three conversations.
Three different people.
One painful reality.
I keep asking myself:
Are we doing enough?
Are we talking enough about alcohol abuse?
Are we creating enough opportunities for young people trapped by addiction?
Are we helping those who want to leave businesses that profit from destroying lives?
This is bigger than the person selling the bottle.
It is bigger than the person buying it.
It is about fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and an entire generation slowly disappearing before our eyes.
If these stories move you, don't just scroll past them.
Start a conversation.
Check on someone struggling with addiction.
Encourage a friend to seek help.
Support those trying to rebuild their lives.
Some battles are not won by governments alone.
They are won when ordinary people decide that enough is enough.
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