Alcohol and the Irish - Control your relationship with drink

ALCOHOL, when it is grossly misused, has done more harm to Irish people, Irish families, Irish relationships and businesses, Irish talent and potential, Irish hopes and ambitions than a combination of all the other slings and arrows life can throw at us.

Other than the relatively small but deadly impact hard drugs have had in this country, alcohol abuse has a far more destructive impact than all of the cancer, dementia, depression and other diseases devastating so many families today.

Its misuse is more insidious and corrosive than nearly any other human activity other than smoking, yet we seem ever more enthusiastic about embracing its undoubted but deadly charms. Every generation has its fine lives and talents publicly turned into sullen, dribbling incoherents by alcohol abuse.

Every street, townland and parish is littered with the wreckage. Lives ruined by an insatiable addiction or traumatised people whose lives have been bruised and overshadowed by watching a loved one turn into a dependent, incapable, tragic greyness because they are not blessed with the great strength needed by alcoholics to live, to survive, without alcohol.

So many Irish people carry — every day and night for all of their sober lives — the usually unopened box of terrible emotions filled to overflowing during a childhood watching one or two parents drink themselves into an early grave.

The sense of abandonment, of neglect and disappointment felt in those formative years by the children of alcoholics can become a cross to carry for a lifetime. This betrayal, and that is what it must seem like, is at the root of the trans-generational alcoholism and depression so obvious across Ireland today.

Though a great number of us love alcohol for the fun and great sociability it facilitates, far too many of us have never learned to respect it, to be afraid of its dark side. We can and have seen friends slip from being alcohol’s playmates to being its indentured servants. But there is a middle way, a way that allows us enjoy the fun of alcohol without surrendering anything other than a few hours to an occasional hangover.

Today and tomorrow we publish special reports on alcohol in Ireland suggesting ways to drink without becoming the junior partner in the relationship. Ways of developing habits that will not destabilise lives or relationships, the kind of drinking habits followed in countries where alcohol represents a pleasure not a crisis.

Alcohol played a part in nearly 70,000 crimes in Ireland last year, 15,000 of these were assaults. It was the fuel behind half of the murders or manslaughter cases, half of sexual abuse cases and a third of domestic violence incidents. This represents stupid, catastrophic failure, especially as it does not have to be like this.

It’s Friday and if you have a relationship with alcohol that’s out of kilter then this weekend is as good a time as any to begin to try to drink in a way that is not undermining your hopes and ambitions, your family, your relationships and most of all yourself. It won’t be easy but it is achievable and would be very worthwhile.