One too many – Drinking more than ever before

YESTERDAY’S Health Research Board report on alcohol consumption confirmed what is already obvious.

We are drinking more than ever before, and in an alarming caveat, the board warned that the figures are conservative and almost certainly underestimate the scale of the problem.

Consumption has increased by 17% since 1995, up from 11.5 litres per adult to 13.4 litres last year.

The board blame alcohol for 1,775 deaths between 1995 and 2004. In 2004, people with alcohol-related illness used 117,373 bed days in hospital — more than double the 1995 figure. These are startling figures and underline our growing and destructive enthusiasm for the potentially lethal drug.

In the most recent Eurobarometer study of 29 European countries we topped the table for heavy drinking. The European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs found that 32% of 15- to 16-year-old students in Ireland reported taking five or more drinks in a row three times or more in the previous 30 days, the highest proportion recorded in any country.

It is strange that we should have so enthusiastically embraced the smoking ban for health reasons while consuming ever greater quantities of alcohol.

It is at least likely if not probable that two recent cultural changes — the smoking ban and changed attitudes to drink and driving — will contribute to even grimmer statistics when the next set of figures are published.

Antedoctal evidence, and off-licence sales figures, suggest that we are drinking more than ever before at home.