Considering the terror that is alcohol, the legal drug that tears at society's heart

D

eaths of Australians at the hands of terrorists have been comparatively few and rare, but some 15 others from the “lucky country” die every day and hundreds are admitted to hospital in the same 24 hours, all because of alcohol abuse.

The 'legal' drug tearing
at the heart of society.

Governmental and the essential social response has been sorely missing as the  nation has been stampeded into a near state of panic about terrorists, while frighteningly little is being done about our distorted consumption of a legal drug.

So, which is more damaging, or tears more at the fabric of Australian society – the remote possibility that someone might die at the hands of a “terrorist” or the undeniable, unequivocal reality that, as 2010 research shows, excessive and long-term consumption of alcohol kills 5554 people and results in 157 132 hospital admissions in just one year?

Alcohol is legal and is easily accessed and the damage it causes both to those who use it and all those around them, easily surpasses that of those drugs declared illicit and catastrophized by the media.

Heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamines, marijuana or even tobacco do not come close to the health and safety hazards caused by alcohol.

A recent discussion between friends about the use of methamphetamine (“ice”) produced an argument for the doubling of police numbers, as a minimum, to limit the spread of what was seen as a drug able to rip at the essence of Australian society. No one mentioned the real terror – alcohol.

Coincidently the American-based website, “Wisdom Pills” listed just five reasons why alcohol, the most dangerous of all drugs is not illegal - all five reasons were about the economy.

Alcohol is deeply implicated in most every strata of society and those who have the power to limit its use and restrict its easy availability are mostly just like everyone else, they are “users” and so are stripped of motivation to make the necessary changes.

So while our Prime Minister talks endlessly about “death cults”, engages Australia’s armed forces in pointless confrontations and spends without restraint to attend to the supposed safety of Australians, he sits idly by as thousands die every year from a drug which is both legal and commonly available throughout our communities.

Being a non-drinker, the title of wowser probably fits but such a crown is uncomfortable as the driver is an interest in the facts, devoid of emotion for any person, government or other institution genuinely concerned about societal safety would strip away the sentiment and sensation and consider objectively what it is that is killing so many Australians and what can be done about it.

True, many Australians drink responsibly, but those who oversee the sale of this drug need to act equally responsibly in limiting both its sale and promotion, starting by emulating the cigarette example.

We are losing perspective and wasting social and political capital

Some 38 Australians died in the skies over Ukraine and so Australia unhesitatingly wades into the resulting international intrigue, spending vast sums and expending, both frivolously and wastefully, social and political capital.

The tragedy over the skies of Ukraine pales
 when compared to the self-induced
 tragedy right here in Australia.

In contrast, recent research clearly shows some 15 Australians will die every day from drinking alcohol and that attracts only questions about the accuracy of the research; a few jokes; some chest beating and then, nothing of any consequence.

Alcohol will kill some 5500 people this year and nearly 160 000 will be hospitalised because of alcohol related difficulties.

Along with those startling realities is the unseen and somewhat unmeasured tragedy of alcohol in which families are torn apart; private and public property damaged and destroyed; careers disrupted and ruined; and all that is good about being human debased.

As sad as the Ukraine airliner tragedy might be, it is irrelevant in the extreme compared to the non-stop tragedy right here at home that this year will kill, we know, more than 5000 people.

Rather than stomping around the world spending our money and untold goodwill attempting to untangle the web of eastern European complexities, our politicians should be using our money and their time and effort to help their fellow Australians understand that the answers they search for are not at the bottom of a glass.

Echoes of the ANZACS reverberate around the Flight MA17 phenomenon.

Both events have had a huge, and understandable, emotive pull on Australians and have been exploited by our politicians of all stripes,

Many Australians, and New Zealanders, died nearly a century ago at what is now known as “Anzac Cove”, and now a comparatively few Australians died when Flight MA17 was shot down over Ukraine.

Those who fought and died to become “ANZACS” in the uncertainties of the First World War have been mythologized and successive governments have spent lavishly to burnish the ghastliness of death in the name of your country.

A purposely painted picture of humble clerks or council workers, or countless other ordinary men and women, simply scrambling to stay alive in fearfully desperate circumstances as “heroic warriors”, has been a major political bonus for nearly a century.

The polish used to mythologise those who fought and died in wars is now being applied to the victims of flight MA17 and so our nation’s emotions have been roused to the point where almost any solution, at any cost, is permissible.

We are losing perspective – MA17 is important, but rather than focus on one event in a relatively remote part of the world over which we had no control, our nation’s energies should be concentrated on easing a domestic problem over which we do have ultimate control and could save the lives of more than 5000 Australians.

But we won’t do anything. Why? It’s simply too hard; it’s politically divisive; alcohol and its consumption is a populist issue with our addiction crossing all boundaries, political or otherwise.

Answering MA17 questions will lionize our politicians; slowing the deaths from alcohol, along with the urgent and essential changes, will make them villains.

Decisions based on media-driven arguments rather than brutal facts

Decisions about what is and isn’t dangerous to life hinge mostly on emotional media-driven arguments and rarely the brutality of the facts.

 Advocates of alcohol
never comment about
its deadly dark side.
 

Should the latter be allowed into the conversation, alcohol would be banned tomorrow, or at least its sale and distribution severely restricted.

What are presently illicit drugs draw most attention for there is something strangely, and dangerously romantic in the mystery that surrounds them and the bizarre changes they make to human behaviour.

Alarming realities arise from the use of these methamphetamines – the most common being colloquially known as “ice” – and although they are unquestionably socially and economically damaging, they pale when compared to the equivalent harms of alcohol.

Alcohol brings with it a litany of costs and social damage, bettered only by the ferocity of nature unleashed, as is presently unfolding with the changing climate to earth become less accommodating to humanity.

The Australian National Council on Drugs (ANCD) only this month released its “Alcohol Action Plan” and beyond pointing to an alarming death rate of young people from alcohol – one in eight under 25, it listed a tsunami of problems, suggesting that if it was new to the market, alcohol would be banned and declared illicit.

Chairman of the ANCD, Dr John Herron, said, “The level of alcohol related damage occurring in our communities is simply appalling and the Council has responded by developing a plan for action; for governments and communities to address the situation.

“The health, social and economic costs associated with alcohol use simply cannot be allowed to continue at the current level.

“We all understand that the culture of drinking and intoxication has a long history in Australia and we all agree that these levels of harm are unacceptable, however whenever we speak of culture change the industries that profit most from this culture run the same old fear campaign of a nanny state takeover,” Dr Herron said.

Alcohol consumption has been normalized to become an accepted and an almost fossilized way of life, but still with the criticality of tearing through the fabric of the society it permeates.

We lack the courage and intellectual skill to discipline ourselves and admit our addictions and failings and so continue to behave in ways that give this drug oxygen, despite warnings from those such as Dr Herron.

Viewed through the prism of a lifelong non-drinker, the answer appears clear and easily arrived at, but the idea of prohibition brings complexities that make brain surgery appear comparatively simple.

Those with the legislative power to control alcohol mostly enjoy a drink, and so it is unlikely they would vote to restrict sales because of personal and professional ramifications.

And so it seems, it is only through education can we escape this self-enforced alcoholic arrest.

Holden bailout leaves me 'weeping'

by Robert McLean

Announcements last week that you and I, through our Governments, were to spend nearly $300 million supporting a dying industry left me weeping, metaphorically.

My children, my grandchildren and their children, particularly the latter generations, will have forced upon them a difficult world of scarce hope because of such populist and short-term decisions.

Decisions to support a way of life, and an industry, that has socially ravaged the world and seriously depleted finite and so irreplaceable resources; illustrate a gross misunderstanding of how, and why, our world is unfolding.

Rather than stake our future on what is little more than an aging dinosaur, we should be looking for a “Black Caviar–like” winner that will enable us to gallop into the future with confidence.

Easier said than done of course as the motor industry is an intricate part of society, both physically and psychologically and to wean ourselves off it will be even more difficult than erasing the fondness we have for alcohol.

That shift away from our partiality for the motor car is for the good of our grandchildren, society generally, the earth in a broad sense and, in particular, our atmosphere.

Advocates of the $275 million bailout for Holden, defend the decision through argument that it brings massive economic and social benefits that are not just relevant to the company, but percolate through our society to benefit all.

That is a questionable position and one if examined closely and considered with reference to contemporary history is simply false.

The promise to sustain the industry for another decade is little more than digging a deeper hole to fill with ever more taxpayer cash and so rather than spend to prop up a failing, and already irrelevant, industry we should be spending to abate the convergence of climate difficulties, resource depletion and a worsening world economy.

The motor car is a significant contributor to the world’s climate difficulties, it success depends on a resource that is in terminal decline, the individuality it promotes erodes the strength of society and the cash it consumes would be better spent on building resilience, co-operation and consensus in communities.

The natural world can no longer sustain our insistence on endless growth and its reaction to that human resolve to grow is in evidence around the globe, including right here in the Goulburn Valley.

Our responsibility to those who follow is not about guaranteeing they will have a Holden to drive, rather they will have a habitable world; a world in which the seasons are predictable, rainfall is equally predictable; a world in which all species, from the largest to smallest are valued; a world in which the welfare of people is put ahead of profit.

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.