Ah, you’re drunk, you’re drunk, you silly old fool

It seems like every couple of months a story hits the newspapers about Ireland’s drink and drug culture. If it’s the Sunday Independent, it’s every week, so we will discount that particular rag as a barometer of anything happening in the real world.

I’m taking my quotes from the paper of record (The Irish Times) and the news of a recent study revealing that almost 50% of teenagers between the ages of 15 to 19 had experimented with drugs. This compares with a figure of 22% for teenagers in a recent European study. Is this figure really accurate? I just can’t believe it myself. It seems way too high. The researcher that conducted the study, Dr. Deirdre Palmer from UCD, is confident of the accuracy as she made up a “dummy drug” name, and none of the respondents in the survey of 462 teens reported using the “dummy drug”.

I’m pretty sure that teenagers are fairly clued in to the names of various drugs and the fact that none selected the “dummy drug” doesn’t lend the results any specific credibility. Since the survey was conducted by Dr. Palmer herself, there is a high probability that a certain amount of exaggeration and bravado affected the answers given by the teenagers that took park.

If the results are totally accurate and we DO have those levels of drug use in Ireland, serious questions are raised about why drug use in Ireland should be so much higher than the rest of Europe. I would hazard a guess and say that our old friend alcohol has a lot to do with it. In a country so much in love with alcohol and leading the way in its consumption, should we really be so surprised at increased levels of cocaine and cannabis use? 

The latest HSE sponsored alcohol awareness campaign says that

30% of 16 year olds are regularly getting drunk. Some research carried out by the HSE also shows that 91% of adults agree that underage drinking is a problem in Ireland today and 50% believe there is nothing to be done to stop young people from drinking alcohol. Furthermore, only 15% believe their own drinking habits influence young people around them.

Sounds like a nation in denial to me.

When you hear the director of Crosscare Teen Counselling say that hangovers were almost “accepted as normal” by teachers, someone has to sit up and take notice, and the someone has to be the parents. Maybe it’s time for students to be breathalised on a Monday morning and if they are hungover they get sent home. If they get sent home 3 times, they get suspended for a month. Maybe the parents would sit up and take notice then.

Personally, I am sick and tired of reading the court reports in the local newspaper full of drunk and disorderly cases. What a waste of time and money. Same goes for A&E’s in hospitals. We get so worked up about how bad the health service is and turn a blind eye to the drinking that causes 28% of injury attendance at A&E’s to be alcohol related. How much money does it all actually cost? I don’t know the figure but I’m sure it is money that could better be spent elsewhere in the system to ensure we get a health service to be proud of.

I’ve heard it time and time again from visitors to Ireland who comment about the Irish drinking. It’s drinking to get drunk. It’s not pretty, it’s not clever and it’s definitely not an example to set to teenagers.

Photo owned by dklimke and used under a Creative Commons license