GROG STANCE PROVES HARD TO SWALLOW
Australia’s National Alcohol Strategy needs to make a real difference to a problem costing $14 billion annually
THE day I joined a wine club was the day I became a true Aussie.
Sure, I’d lived here for 25 years, had dual citizenship, birthed both my children here, voted here, worked here, occasionally even sounded Australian (it’s all about the vowel movements), but I never quite passed the pub test.
I never didn’t drink, I just didn’t drink as much as my true blue counterparts.
I was mostly happy to be the designated driver – and despite the popularity of that choice, I always felt conspicuous as the odd one out.
It wasn’t until a few years ago that I discovered the joy of a weekday glass of red. I blame the children.
But it is the children I worry about. My moderate attitude towards drinking came about because I grew up in a culture where alcohol was not ubiquitous. It was occasional and never extreme.
As an outsider coming to this country, the drinking culture was shocking.
I felt such pressure to “learn” to like alcohol – and that you didn’t have a good time unless you almost couldn’t remember it.
I’m used to alcohol being invited to every social occasion now – indeed, my wine club membership would indicate I’ve fully assimilated – but the truth is Australia does have a drinking problem.
The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that one in four Australians consume alcohol at harmful rates, and approximately one in five people aged 14 and over have reported being a victim of an alcohol-related crime in the past year.
Alcohol is estimated to kill about 6000 people in Australia every year and accounts for up to 15 per cent of hospital emergency admissions.
Although illegal drugs like ice steal the headlines, it’s estimated that illicit drug use costs the Australian economy $8.2 billion annually through crime, productivity losses and health care costs – versus the massive $14 billion cost of alcohol.
Yet while we have a robust National Drug Strategy, the counterpart National Alcohol Strategy is mired in controversy and stalled in its draft formation. Many states refuse to sign on due to “meddling” from the alcohol industry.
Alcohol and addiction experts have said the current draft version sitting with ministers, and leaked to the ABC, is significantly weaker than the earlier versions they worked on due to the inclusion of industry members with a vested interest.
“The alcohol industry consistently has been able to be involved in the policymaking and that’s why we don’t have effective alcohol policies in Australia,” said Peter Miller, an addiction expert from Deakin University.
Professor Miller says the draft ignores the harm caused by regular alcohol consumption and focuses instead on measures to prevent “excessive drinking”.
Indeed, it actually states alcohol is “an intrinsic part of Australian culture and it plays a central role in most people’s social lives”.
Well … that’s just a bit sad, isn’t it?
That statement may well be true, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to change it.
For the sake of our kids, we need a cultural shift.
Already I hear stories of parties thrown by kids in the early years of high school where the parents supply alcohol for all participants – some as young as 13. These are good kids at a good school – yet somehow the adults think that it’s OK to supply alcohol to the underaged? Maybe their reasoning is, well, it’s an
intrinsic part of our culture – teach them young.
Unfortunately and alarmingly, drinking before the age of 25 can irreparably damage the still-developing brain.
Even our efforts to moderate drinking with movements like Dry July, OcSober and FebFast are troublesome as they present 30 days of sobriety as a magnificent feat, a true physical challenge.
I’m not advocating for Australia to become a nation of teetotallers (and I’m not quitting my wine club either) but just be aware that you don’t need to be a problem drinker to develop an alcoholrelated problem.
We need to have a full and frank discussion about alcohol in Australia, its pervasiveness and its repercussions.
And those with a vested interest in promoting the alcohol industry should not be part of the discussion when it comes to recognising or fixing the problem.
We need to take a lesson from our party precincts and impose a lockout.