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

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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.

Australia's obsession with terrorism can be traced to our sense of mortality

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ustralia’s obsession with terrorism, or at least that of the Federal Government, can be traced to the incumbents’ sense of mortality.

Ernest Becker - he explains
how our fear of death makes
us do what we do.

Look no further than the works of Ernest Becker who explained the perverse motivations stemming from our mortality in his 1973 book, “The Denial of Death”.

The Jewish-American cultural anthropologist and writer, who won the general non-fiction 1974 Pulitzer Prize two months after his death, synthesized the thoughts of thinkers Søren Kierkegaard, Sigmund Freud, and Otto Rank to help us better understand why our denial of death drives what we do.

The basic premise of Becker’s book is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, acting in turn, as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism.

And so each lives in the shadow of certain mortality and our Coalition Government, led by Tony Abbott exploits, knowingly or otherwise, that fundamental flaw in our character to spend huge amounts building elaborate armed forces, introducing perverse limits to personal freedom in the name of safety and within that creates a society-wide fear of the other.

Any brush with mortality, be it physical or through film, literature or discussion, noticeably changes our views on many things, including our willingness to flee into the arms of a strong leader who appears to offer a protective shield against death.

That same leader has sophisticated weaponry, patriotic rhetoric and is supposedly doing God’s will to rid the world of evil, and each of us, subconsciously or otherwise, wrestling with our mortality feel some warmth in aligning ourselves with those seemingly charismatic people.

True, there is no argument, we are all going to die, we are all mortal and it is also true that for the broad betterment of us as individuals and the nation, we need to accept our death rather than deny it.



Alec McLean - his first encounter
 with death was at just four.

Death, many thinkers have explained, often futilely, is intrinsic to living and its acceptance and embrace often make living a vastly more rewarding affair.

My father had his first lesson in death at just four-years-old when his dad died after a horse kicked him in the chest.

His mother died a sad death when she drowned in the River Murray, and in his old age, dad said he spent all his spare time going to friend’s funerals.

A few years before he died, we sat on the river bank drinking tea, talking about death and dying and he said it was something for which he held no fear.  

Subsequently, that chat, along with personal efforts to shoulder open death’s door and being enlightened by Becker, death is personally stripped of its fear and makes me sharply aware that Abbott and his cohort are up to no good.