Republican News · Thursday 8 August 2002

The problem wth drink

BY JOANNE CORCORAN

Fights, people yelling abuse, vomiting and urinating on the street. If this sounds horribly familiar, you have probably been unfortunate enough to find yourself in Dublin city centre or any Irish urban centre after 9pm at the weekend.

I believe we have crossed the line from being 'merry drunks' to 'can't handle their drink' drunks. Not only has our increased consumption of drink caused problems on our streets, but it is also wreaking havoc with our health.

Nobody can deny that we have had a long history of loving drink. The image of Brendan Behan carousing towards the grave has personified the country for years. We used to give babies Guinness to promote health and wellbeing, before we discovered it was more useful as a liver dissolver. Our most recognisable export is Guinness, followed by Jameson, and Baileys.

Unfortunately, more and more people are exercising less control as far as the demon drink goes and too regularly push the boat out on getting 'locked'.

Over the last six years, our intake of alcohol has risen so much that we are now outstripping our European counterparts. In 1970, our average consumption of pure alcohol per capita was 5.9 litres. By 1998, this had risen to 9.2 litres. Consumption of spirits has increased by 50% and cider by 100% since 1989. The latter's increase is probably tied to the fact that more than 50% of Irish 9-11 year olds have tried alcohol, and also that our 15-year-olds have the highest rate of binge drinking in Europe (World Health Organisation), and cider is their choice of drink.

In 1970, our average consumption of pure alcohol per capita was 5.9 litres. By 1998, this had risen to 9.2 litres. Our 15-year-olds have the highest rate of binge drinking in Europe

Drink and crime

Aside from helping you get 'off your face', drink seems to encourage violence in many Irish people. This can be seen in a survey carried out by the Garda research unit in 2000. This showed that drink was responsible for 88% of public order cases, 54% of criminal damage cases and 48% of offences against the person. Theoretically speaking, if we banned drink, public order cases would almost disappear, and the latter two categories of offences would be halved.

In addition to this, one third of all road deaths occur between the hours of 9pm and 4am, and the majority of these accidents are caused by drink. Domestic violence has risen in the last four years also, and much of this can be attributed to alcohol.

Drink and health

In 1999, the economic cost of alcohol in the 26 Counties in terms of crime and health was £2.4billion.

d if anything should encourage us to curtail our drink intake, it's the effect it has on our health. Classic alcohol illnesses such as cirrhosis and heart disease have risen dramatically here. In addition, 20% of male admissions to psychiatric hospitals and 11% of female admissions are drink related. In 1997, almost 12,000 people were admitted to hospitals as a result of drunken falls, and the average stay in hospital for these people was 5.76 days.

All in all, approximately one quarter of patients in 26-County hospitals are there partly or wholly because of alcohol. The cost to the state of providing healthcare for these people is huge, but doesn't come near to the emotional price we're paying.

Alcohol is heavily implicated in depression and around one third of suicides, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO). It also plays a significant factor in unplanned pregnancy and sexual assault.

Alcohol is the cause of roughly 55,000 young people's deaths across Europe every year, according to the WHO. By young, they mean under 29. Most of these deaths are health related but many are due to house fires, road deaths and other accidents caused by drink. Our proportion of these deaths is extremely large for one of the smallest populated countries surveyed. And surprisingly the death rate of women from alcohol in the Six Counties (3.4%) outstrips the 26-County rate (1.7%).

There are less obvious problems caused by drink, such as absenteeism from work, marital disharmony and break-ups, not to mention the effect on the children of our growing number of alcoholics.

Proud of our pint

Ireland is surely unique in the degree of national pride that we take in our proclivity for liquor. The President of the United States comes to visit the country and where is he taken? Down to Bertie's local for a pint. Alcohol is deeply ingrained in how we see ourselves and also in how others see us. Too many people are on the road to making reality the racist myth of the perpetually drunken Irish person.

Drink adverts ban?

So what can we do about it? Many agencies are calling for the banning of advertising for drink. Dr John Sheehan, head consultant psychiatrist at Dublin's Mater Hospital, has spearheaded one such campaign, after finding that one in every five patients in the hospital has a serious problem with alcohol misuse.

He has been quoted as saying that the problem with many advertisements is that they glamourise alcohol. Many ads show men 'scoring' with women because they drink the right drink, (a man offers a semi-naked girl a Budweiser in a laundry and then the camera pans to her bra being thrown into his washing machine).

Others target young women, promising the girl that she'll be independent and cool if she drinks this brand - such as the ad for Archers peach schnapps. What the ads don't show is the young woman in a heap at the end of the night. Instead we are treated to a sophisticated sassy lady still in perfect array, make-up and clothing intact.

Maybe we need a full ban on alcohol? After all, the government sees fit to maintain the ban on cannabis, when alcohol is clearly a more dangerous drug.

It seems that all longer pub opening hours seem to do is cause more drinking, not nurture a more mature attitude to drink, which seems to have been achieved on the continent. Clearly there are a large number of drinkers in this country who cannot control themselves. The pubs aren't going to stop serving these people if they are starting to look under the weather. Sure you expect drunks in a pub, don't you? Well no actually

It would be nice to see some people able to go out for a social drink and not end up inebriated come eleven o'clock. The Commision on Liquor Licensing last week decided that they are going to force pubs to make parents leave if they have been there a long time with children. This is hardly enough on the government's part, especially as the report goes on to recommend alcohol be allowed to be sold in museums and interpretative centres to improve facilities for tourists.

Perhaps we need to take a number of actions. Banning advertising and instructing barmen to start looking out for their customers' welfare woud be a start. Maybe we can create more of a coffee culture, or any sort of culture not centred around drink.

Drunkenness and its associated problems are a growing social ill. It is time for a serious national debate. Is our drink culture worth it all?