Eat Tet or drink Tet?

Recently, on the Hai Duong Newspaper Fanpage, a status line was posted "New Year's Eve without alcohol, what do you think?" along with a link to an article on the Hai Duong electronic newspaper about a residential area's policy of unifying a New Year's Eve party without alcohol, which received many comments. The views of the accounts are mainly divided into two factions: supporters and non-supporters. The supporters are clear because of the advantages of eating and drinking without alcohol, especially during the Lunar New Year, to avoid consequences.

The opposition was also quite harsh. Many comments said: Then skip the year-end party; if you don't drink beer or wine, eat at home to avoid being busy; just drink and hire a taxi to take you back to your alley; the main reason for having fun is to drink, but like this...

It is easy to understand why many people oppose a year-end party without alcohol. Vietnam is one of the countries with the highest consumption of alcohol in the world (second in Southeast Asia, 10th in Asia and 29th in the world). Most parties, holidays, New Year... in each family or organization, unit rarely lack alcohol. Many people even consider alcohol as a measure of fun, brotherhood, friendship...

I have a friend who works far away. Every year, her family only comes home during the holidays and Tet. My friend laments that she is very reluctant to go back to her hometown, unlike many other women who often have to clean and cook "to their hearts' content". The reason is that every time her husband comes back to his hometown, he always makes an excuse that he hasn't seen his brothers and friends for a long time, so he goes out drinking from morning to night. That's why she said that her husband hardly eats a meal at home during Tet. If you are sad, your parents-in-law are sad ten times. Because they haven't seen their children all year, they almost never see them on Tet. The family has given them advice many times, but with his fun-loving nature, for many years now, your husband has not changed at all.

So we can see that drinking and partying is fun, but is it fun for everyone? That is from a family perspective. As for society, it also has significant consequences. In fact, there have been too many heartbreaking incidents when drivers had alcohol in their system, leading to unfortunate accidents. Although there are regulations prohibiting people who drink alcohol from driving, the change has not been truly sustainable. On January 29, the Traffic Police Department (Ministry of Public Security) and the Department of Medical Examination and Treatment Management (Ministry of Health) held a workshop with the theme: "The harmful effects of alcohol on road traffic participants".

Information at the conference indicated that there are still a number of traffic participants with alcohol levels in their bodies. There are still individual cases of multiple accidents, resulting in many deaths and injuries, hit-and-run accidents, resisting law enforcement officers, etc., all stemming from drivers having alcohol levels in their bodies.

In 2023, the national traffic police force inspected and handled 770,679 cases of drivers of road motor vehicles with alcohol concentration in their bodies. On average, traffic police detected and handled more than 2,100 cases of alcohol concentration violations every day...

In Hai Duong, to carry out the peak of attacking, suppressing crime, ensuring security and order for the 2024 Lunar New Year, from December 15, 2023 to January 15, 2024, the traffic police force in the whole province punished 2,682 cases, of which 727 people were handled for violating alcohol concentration.

Alcohol abuse is also the root cause of many other serious social problems such as: violence, social disorder, social polarization and economic burden on individuals, families and the whole society due to the costs of health care, reduced or lost labor productivity and dealing with other social consequences.

From the above facts, surely each person has their own thoughts about "eating Tet" or "drinking Tet"! If drinking, how and when is appropriate? Whatever the choice, it should be considered so that the family can have a truly happy Tet and especially not leave behind any painful consequences.