Binge drinking a ‘suicide run’
Some Potchefstroom students spend up to R3 000 per night on alcohol at clubs and bars, often using money meant for buying academic textbooks to fund a drinking binge, only to later pawn valuables like their television to afford necessities, according to bartenders in the city.
Some students even neglect to buy food in favour of alcohol and use friends’ grocery receipts to fool their parents into sending them more drinking money.
The start of April signalled the return of binge drinking to Potchefstroom, as the town’s popular bar and club area, the Bult, was once again filled with students going out, following the long hiatus of the stricter lockdowns before.
threestreamsmedia ventured to the Bult area to explore student nightlife. Outside the entrance to a club one group of first-year students said they had been drunk for the past three weeks and just drove their car there with the emergency brake engaged. A worried bystander offered to park their car so they would not hit his vehicle.
There is a “shocking” problem with binge drinking among students in Potchefstroom, according to ER24 Life Support medic, Marcel Nel. However, it is not just Potchefstroom’s students that love binge drinking. A 2019 study found that 88% of South African students drink casually and just under half admit to binge drinking while at university.
Nel said emergency services in Potchefstroom observed an increase in alcohol-related car accidents since the reopening of bars and clubs and the return of students to Potchefstroom this year. “We have had students who have overturned their cars, ran into trees, went off the road, and these accidents were all related to driving under the influence.”
A bouncer at a popular night club on the Bult, Zak Delport, said drunk driving among students is a common occurrence. “You would not believe how many times we have seen cars slam into each other right in front of the club,” he said.
Apart from the dangers of drunk driving, Nel said he has also witnessed alcohol abuse among students leading to physical fights, verbal abuse, and even more serious medical issues like epileptic episodes.
Delport said he has seen the negative impact of binge drinking on students first-hand. “We call it a suicide run. They go to a bar, order the strongest drink there, go to another place and have the strongest drink and a shot there, then to another and so on down the line. I have seen people who had to be taken away in an ambulance just from drinking too much, getting into fights, or waking up in an alley not knowing where they are.”
Nel warned students that over-consumption of alcohol can lead to alcohol poisoning, which is damaging to the liver, kidneys and stomach, and will mean a trip to the hospital for treatment. Nel said these sorts of alcohol-related incidents usually occurred over the weekends and were especially prevalent among first- and second-year students who are less experienced with drinking.
John-Moir Rabie, a bartender at a popular club on the Bult, said they have seen people get alcohol poisoning regularly. “I saw a guy last year that stood straight up on one of the tables and just fell face first onto the floor, unconscious. They had to come take him away in an ambulance,” he said.
Delport said like most bars on the Bult, they enforce strict rules to keep students safe while consuming alcohol in bars and clubs. “It can get very dangerous, that’s why we have rules. If we see people get too drunk and start falling around we cut them off and throw them out because they are a danger to themselves and the people around them.”
Rabie said besides partying, a lot of student drinking is related to social pressure and ego. “When your friend tells you to down this one and we’ll go get another one, guys tend to drink more.”
Rabie said students also drink because there is not much else to do in town and credited the binge-drinking culture to the low cost of alcohol in Potchefstroom in comparison to other university towns. “At R45 for two double brandies and coke, if a guy spends around R300 a night, he’s bought himself 12 double brandies by the end of the evening.”
Thapelo Tlhalipe, a bartender at Texas, said most students spend around R400 a night, but he regularly encounters students whose bill exceeds R1 000. He said the most popular drink by far is brandy and coke, but during happy hour another popular choice is the discounted jam jars.