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Johnstone's View 2nd June 2008
What is it with young people and alcohol?
Staggering home in the middle of the night, damaging
property as they go, leaving the evidence of their
indulgence for others to find the morning after. It wasn’t
like that when we were young.
Yes things have changed over the last
generation or two and the way we treat alcohol is becoming a
social problem worthy of more political attention that it
has for many a long year.
My brief potted history, correct me if I am
wrong, of licensing law is that it was introduced about the
time of the first world war because alcohol consumption was
undermining the war effort. At that same time the
temperance movement was on the rise and the Salvation Army,
along with other religiously motivated groups were also
spreading the word about the evils of drink.
From about that time right through to my own
youth, I seem to remember, attitudes to drinking were to
change little. Largely confined to licensed premises, it
was for most of us, restricted to the odd evening out and
the special occasion. Anything more than that would be seen
as a ‘problem’. Underage drinking, and I know it happened
because I was there, was something to be hidden away,
particularly from parents, with the fear of detection on all
sides.
We are of course, now more familiar with the
‘café culture’ of the Mediterranean where alcohol is taken
in a more relaxed manner which is, reputedly, more conducive
to responsible drinking. I don’t believe it for a minute,
especially if you look at what some Northern European
drinkers get up when they are exposed to that more relaxed
atmosphere. Neither are their problems restricted to
visitors, the Mediterranean countries have their own hard
drinking culture if you know where to look.
Watch out too for the strength of the drink
that is available today. While the potency of whisky has
been limited in recent decades, everything else is much
stronger than it used to be. Beers can contain 1 or 2 %
more alcohol by volume than they did in the 1960’s,
representing a 20% increase in their strength. When wine
first started to increase in popularity it was often as low
as 8% alcohol, now some wines can be almost double that, and
have you noticed the size of wine glasses recently? As a
result, many of us could be drinking more than we realise.
The biggest change however, is in how we now
buy and use alcohol. Look at the number of licensed bars in
Stonehaven for example; well down on what it was only a few
years ago and set to fall still further. Meanwhile, alcohol
consumption is at record levels as we choose to buy our
supplies at off licenses, licensed grocers and supermarkets,
taking it home to make it part of our everyday lives.
There is a public information film being
shown on television at the moment where a mother lights up a
cigarette in the kitchen while her young daughter uses a
pencil to pretend that she is smoking too. The message is
that if you smoke in front of your children they are more
likely to smoke themselves. Is it any surprise then that as
we have moved the drinking habit from the public bar into
the private home, the problem of underage drinking has grown
proportionately?
My experience as a parent was probably no
different from most and my own family, now thankfully past
their 21st birthdays, turned out remarkable unscathed. I
cannot say that I always knew where they were in the
evenings but if I did not know, I tried to find out. It’s
all too easy to say, “I blame the parents”; it’s certainly
not the whole story, but we could all be doing more.
Our growing appetite for alcohol is not the
fault of any one group; we have all been working hard at it
for years now. The relaxation of licensing laws and its
increased availability means that most of our consumption is
hidden well out of sight but as we have moved the habit into
the home, we have taught our children by example. As they
grow up and go out into the world, as with so many other
things, they betray us by their actions. Their problem is
our problem and sometimes the only answer is to turn back
the clock. We learn from our mistakes – don’t we?
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