Reducing alcohol consumption will cut suicide rates, says expert

IRISH people will have to exercise much more control over alcohol, especially binge drinking, if they want to reduce worrying suicide rates, an international expert told a conference on suicide, yesterday.

The challenge facing our worsening binge drinking culture is to understand why young adults, in particular, feel it necessary to get “out of their minds” and drunk, according to Professor Ad Kerkhof from Amsterdam.

Describing binge drinking as abnormal behaviour, he said the new phenomenon in Irish society of shot drinking, which was drinking to get drunk quickly, should be fought at all costs.