Why Is The Rum Gone?

More profound words were not conceived for Captain Jack Sparrow. And, indeed, for a lot of folks today... Substitute "rum" for the drink of your choice and there you have it.

Why indeed?

There was a time when you would like to have a drink or two of sherry or brandy at dinner time. But these days it's become more of a necessity for many. If an acquaintance of mine is correct there is one sure shot way to treat insomnia - get drunk!

Never mind the social obligations such as never drink and drive. Instead, cheer up your buddy and head for the nearest watering hole. Obligations be damned! The almighty self is too important than anything else in this world. No wonder the government has spent lakhs of rupees in buying breath analyzers to curb this new fad.

What most people must realize is that not everyone who meets with an accident are fortunate enough to die. Some are crippled for life and they have to live with it for years in an unforgiving society. Unforgiving for the victim not the perpetrator!

Charles P. Chiniquy who lived in the 19th Century was one man who was so against alcoholism that he spent a life time fighting it. He is credited for temperance in Canada. History has it that men and women after hearing Chiniquy vowed never to touch alcohol ever again. Saloons closed down and people realized the folly that comes with an intimate realtionship with the "bottle." In four years, over 200,000 people promised to stop drinking. What could have driven Chiniquy to take up this task? Mind you, Chiniquy himself was fond of the occasional brandy!

The answer to that question is a singular incident that happened in his life while he was a priest (First Chaplain of the Quebec Marine Hospital). The year was 1834.

One day, Chiniquy was called to the home of a parishioner. When he reached there he found the young lady of the house tearing her robes to shreds... tearing out her hair and cutting her face with her fingernails. She repeatedly asked for a knife so she could cut her throat and kept saying that she was a murderer and that her hands were stained with the blood of her only child.

The (true) story goes that she had learnt to drink socially at her father's table. The social drinking led to a dependence on alcohol. One day, as she was holding her precious daughter (Lucy) she slipped, being drunk, and her daughter's head struck a sharp corner of her stove and Lucy's brains and blood spread over the floor of her kitchen. Chiniquy and the young lady's husband did all they could to contain her but in vain. For hours she screamed and ranted and went from room to room like a wraith. It took four men to hold her. Late in the night, she overpowered the men and rushed into the room where her beloved child lay. She ripped the bandages off her head and kissed the wound. She held Lucy to her bosom and ran around the room like a phantom.

After some time, she commanded Chiniquy to go all over Canada and tell the story of an unfortunate mother who murdered her only child by being drunk. She said, "Take the blood of my child and go redden with it the top of the doors of every house in Canada. And say to all those who dwell in those houses that the blood was shed by the hand of a murderess mother when she was drunk. With that blood write on the walls of every house in Canada that 'wine is a mocker.' Tell the French Canadian how on the dead body of my child I have cursed the wine which has made me so wretchedly miserable and guilty."

In a few moments, she fell to the floor, a corpse. Torrents of blood were flowing from her mouth on her dead child which she held to her breast.

The coroner's verdict was: The child's death was accidental. The distressed mother died six hours later with a broken heart.

*Delirium tremens - hallucinations with tremors, caused by prolonged use of alcoholic liquors.

I should know. My family has a history of males who are partial to the bottle. While none have had a harrowing and sobering experience like the young woman there still exists the possibility that not knowing (unwillingly) there could be a disaster in the waiting.

Why is the rum gone, indeed? It's gone so you can have your life back...