Alcohol and community attitudes damned

Alcohol and community attitudes toward it were questioned, and soundly criticized, by a recent letter writer to the Shepparton News, the Goulburn Valley's daily newspaper.

Alcoholic drinks 

Orhan Sheriff, a medical scientist with Goulburn Valley Health Pathology, told of the social damage he witnesses in Shepparton every week.
Ironically, while his Page eight letter carried a message we all need to imbibe it was dwarfed by a Page Nine message encouraging readers to imbibe the very product that prompted his concerns. A further full-page advertisement for alcohol appeared on two pages later.
To add to the complexity of the difficulty, Melbourne’s two national daily newspapers – The Age and The Herald Sun – each carried, on the same day, three full-page advertisements for alcohol.
Orhan experiences the outcome of our alcohol ignited behaviour, a behaviour that even when shown in the best possible light is questionable.
Interestingly, if alcohol was discovered today it would, without question or discussion, be added to our list of illicit substances as it can be shown to be far more damaging to our social infrastructure than any of the hard drugs now included.
Obviously a market exists for alcohol; however it is presented, as outlets in Shepparton are as common as the hangovers alcohol is responsible for.
That in itself is not the real issue for in our free-market world if people feel something will be successful, then they should be allowed to pursue it.
The real issue is the socialization of alcohol, the sweeping momentum from the highest echelons of our communities to you and I that makes alcohol the first resort when people are tired, stressed, troubled or simply looking for a good time.
The costs so eloquently articulated by Orhan are repeated with alarming frequency in every community destroying lives, whole families, eroding communities and dismantling our wider society.
Most claim a few drinks don’t hurt, and that is probably true, but the complexity arises when those same people appear to endorse a paradigm which sees alcohol as a medium for celebration or commiseration.

Alcohol is a depressant, removes social inhibitions, leaves society with alarming debts and fuels the abattoirs of hope.