Heavy drinkers leave others to pay true cost

AS A nation the glass is always half full when it comes to assessing our unique relationship with alcohol. Brendan Behan would not tolerate any notion that he was spending too much time in the pub. He dismissed critics with the immortal remark: “I only drink on two occasions – when I’m thirsty and when I’m not.”

Perhaps Matt Groening’s toast: “To alcohol! The cause of... and solution to... all of life’s problems,” is closer to the mark. The pub is central to Irish culture, and is much valued.

But be that as it may, excessive drinking is still a major problem, although to date the focus has been on the harm done to the drinker.

The Health Research Board has long been listing the true costs of alcohol in Ireland. Drink-related discharges accounted for 160,211 bed days in 2013 in public hospitals. In money terms the bill amounted to €1.5bn for the taxpayer.

There has been far less focus or indeed understanding of the toll taken on those associated with drinkers.

A new study, ‘The untold story: harms experienced in the Irish population due to others drinking’, suggests that three-in-five people in Ireland have a heavy drinker in their life.

All too predictably it is women and children on low incomes, single parents, or separated families that are likely to suffer most.

A national audit of neglect cases in this country in the past indicated that parental alcohol misuse was a factor in 62pc of neglect cases. The cost of the harm done by other people’s drinking is more than €860m per year.

The figures only tell one part of the story. The hardship and secret misery caused by the abuse of alcohol, the real human cost to others, is unquantifiable.

Given that three-out-of-five of us have a heavy drinker in our life, it is time that the other side of this story was brought into the light.