Binge Drinking - a social danger?
Over the last twenty years, binge drinking has become much more of a problem in the UK.
During the recent New Year celebrations the mayhem caused by binge drinkers and reported both in the press and on TV seems to indicate that the problem is now getting out of control.
It has been reported that one in four adults in Britain are binge drinkers and the UK has topped a recent poll as Europe's heaviest consumer of alcohol.
Twenty four hour licensing laws were meant to alleviate the problem, but may, in fact, have made it worse. The Methodist Church has asked the government to revisit these licensing laws in view of the escalating problem of binge drinking. (The reviews of the licensing laws announced by Gordon Brown five months ago are not due to conclude until February.)
There seems to be an increasing likelihood that children are also now being sucked into the binge drinking culture, with many schoolchildren showing evidence of alcohol abuse at an early age - children as young as eight have been treated in hospital for alcoholic poisoning. Young women are also more likely to be binge drinkers now than ten years ago.
Binge drinking is often "glamourised" by celebrities and health risks are often ignored. It has been linked to a number of serious conditions including brain damage, liver disease and strokes. Alcoholic poisoning can lead to death in a surprisingly short time.
What can be done to stop this problem damaging our health, behaviour and society further?
So far the British public seem largely unconvinced of the dangers of binge drinking. Studies show that those who engage in this type of drinking are rarely motivated to change their habits and binge drinking is often seen as a cultural norm. People seem prepared to accept the negative aspects of binge drinking as the price they have to pay for enjoying their drinking in the first place.
What can be done to stop this problem from damaging our society further?
I think we are going too far
I think we are going too far considering binge drinking a social danger, it's not a social danger, it's more like a social problem that can be defeated with the right measures. I've always thought that if you follow the example of the countries that solved their problems with binge drinking chances are that we may reach the same positive patterns. We have suboxone alcohol treatment networks all over the nation but we should also work on other fronts too if we want to reach lower binge drinking rates.
Re: Paying the price for their right
I agree, in fact it is no different to the imposition of policing charges on football clubs. Late night drinking and night clubs put a great strain on police resources in bigger cities and the cost should be born by those establishments. But that will not solve the problem. Until there is a groundswell of public opinion against excessive drinking, as has been the case with smoking, no real progress will be made. So the government needs to adopt an equal stance with alcohol as it has done with tobacco addiction.
Binge Drinking - Paying the price for their right.
Successive Governments have given lots of freedoms and rights, but where is the matching call to responsibility. In the case of drink, this has seems to have led to a anti-social behaviour.
Why should people who do not binge drink have to contribute to the cost of the extra policing and emergency hospital care ?
Maybe a social solution would be for all outlets (supermarkets, off licenses, pubs, and clubs) selling alcohol after 8.00pm to have to contribute to policing and hospital costs pro rata for the number of hours they are sell alcohol after that time. They would have to charge more, and people who wanted to binge drink could be made to pay for their pleasure and the support they need in aftermath.
Attitudes to Alcohol
The experience of Rev Tony Buglass is that most Local Preachers are traditional and reasonably elderly. My experience is rather different in that a significant number of our LPs and Church Leaders come from backgrounds other than Methodist. Some have joined Methodism through marriage and increasingly we have others who join the Church because it is the nearest Christian place of worship. These people bring with them a background and upbringing very different to that of a traditional Methodist. Their perception is that most Methodists are no-longer teetotal and therefore to maintain the position of prohibiting alcohol on Methodist premises is something of an anacronism.
I do agree that the present policy is the right one and I am reasured by Tony when he says, with his greater experience than mine, that the vast majority of Methodists do not want a change.
Providing a safe place
"Indeed the very idea of alcohol being prohibited on Methodist premises is constantly being mocked from the Pulpit."
Sorry, Kenneth, but I have to disagree, at least as far as my experience is concerned. Most of the LPs I know are traditional and reasonably elderly Methodists who hold a traditional position on abstinence. I can't imagine them mocking our prohibition form the pulpit. Personally, although I am not a teetotaller, I have consistently supported prohibition on Methodist premises, and done it in committees and from the pulpit, on the grounds that we provide a safe place, an alcohol-free environment, where anyone who has had a drink problem will be safe.
When we last discussed the Methodist policy, and considered whether or not we should relax our prohibitions, all of my church councils said the same thing: they should maintain an alcohol-free stance. Without exception, the only criticism I have heard of Methodist policy is the permission for Westminster Central Hall to be licensed. Yes, they make a case for it being important to their work as a conference centre, and yes, they say it is strictly supervised. Rubbish. I could make exactly the same case for any one of my church halls, which have to turn down requests for wedding receptions on the grounds that we can't permit them to drink. Double standards!
But the negative response to those double standards exist precisely because the vast majority of Methodists do not want alcohol permitted on Methodist premises.
Alcohol - a harmful drug
Having seem two of my work collegues die of alcohol poisoning I wonder why we continue to treat drunkenness as socially acceptable. It seems to be the norm to set out of an evening with the deliberate intention of becoming drunk and the harm done to society as a result of this mindset is surely as great as that from smoking. One of the arguments for banning smoking was the harm done to others from passive smoking. The effect upon others of alcohol related crime and hospital admissions is a matter for serious concern and perhaps the Church is well placed to begin making a stand. The Methodist policy on alcohol is that all Methodists consider seriously the claims of total abstinence. I have never heard, from the pulpit or withing Church committees an invitation to consider the claims of total abstinence. Indeed the very idea of alcohol being prohibited on Methodist premises is constantly being mocked from the Pulpit.
Alcohol availability
In my home town the cinema has been converted to bars, cosmopolitan and trendy clubs abound, All have one major objective - alcohol sales, many bars have sprung up through the encouragement of local government planning.
It seems that the police now have a mammoth task to deal with alcoholism induced violence many weekends, some extending into the small hours.
This culture has been encouraged along with irresponsible licensing hours to tempt the young into spending. Who benefits? We are storing problems like scirrosis of the liver for the future just like lung cancer did with cigarettes.
We as Christians should make our voices heard as governors to encourage schools in teaching understanding of the dangers of alcohol as well as drugs.
We should also be writing to our government to encourage them to put up the age limit as well as the cost of alcohol in order to limit consumption.
but hang on a minute...someone will lose the revenue!!
Children and alcohol
It is no surprise that children are being sucked into the problem, when this generation of parents are amongst those statistics that that are being highlighted. When kids see their mothers and fathers getting drunk every weekend (don't tell me they don't know!) they accept that as a role model. I agree, too, that the image portrayed by celebrities is a factor, too. The church has a responsibility to speak up and not just to offer platitudes like "many people enjoyed Christmas and New Year with a celebratory drink or two".
A Harmful Drug
One issue is that people do not acknowledge that alcohol is a drug.
"Alcohol causes much more harm than illegal drugs like heroin and cannabis" (Royal College of Psychiatrists).
Alcohol can affect your memory and cause brain damage. Even a couple of days of binge drinking may start to kill off brain cells. (Previously it was thought that this only happened to people who drank continuously for long periods.) Because alcohol affects your judgment, you may say and do things out of character. This can lead to fights, arguments, money troubles, family upsets or spur-of-the-moment casual sex and cause accidents at home or on the roads.
Alcohol misuse by parents was identified as a factor in over 50% of child protection cases. Five times as many children could be affected by parental alcohol problems as by parental drug misuse. 39% of all domestic violence incidents are linked to alcohol misuse. Approximately 3.8m people in England and Wales are dependent on alcohol. Alcohol causes up to 22,000 deaths each year including 1,000 suicides.
In nearly half (46%) of all violent incidents, victims believed offenders to be under the influence of alcohol, rising to 58% in cases of attacks by people they did not know. In more than a million violent attacks the aggressors were believed to be drunk. (Source: British Crime Survey 2006/07)
So the first step is to recognize that alcohol is a major part of the drug problem in this country.