Stop out of control drinking campaign

hubba

'Doctor's orders: Forget the controversy and concentrate on the problem

The Stop Out-of- Control Drinking campaign has generated more debate since its launch in February than they could've ever envisaged. Much of the publicity has been negative however, focusing on its funding by drinks industry giant Diageo and the presence on its board of Diageo country director David Smith.

From the outset, this undermined public confidence, meaning its message was not heard. David Smith resigned from the board last month - so will that save the campaign?'

http://bit.ly/1IbxIu5

Source: Ciara Kelly, Sunday Indo Living

Food for thought. Is Ireland ready for this. Will she ever be?

Sunnyisland

Alcohol has many consequences the drinks companies prefer us not to think about: death, disease, violence, grief, pain, mental incapacitation. Our culture is dishonest about the misery inflicted in our alcoholic culture on innocent third parties - for example, the spouses and children of people who drink too much.
It is ignorant about the long-term damage to be traced in the emotional, psychological and social undevelopment of people whose interior lives become frozen because of their use of alcohol as a crutch to get them through life.
Sentimental celebrations of alcoholic beverages are in Ireland about as appropriate as Colombia deciding to hold a National Cocaine Day.

It doesn't really matter how much you drink. Nor is it a matter of frequency, regularity or even drunkenness. The real problem is when you allow this companionable drug to worm its way into where your irreducible 'I' ought to be.

A pint may have a certain iconic appearance, but really it amounts to a container of fluid exhibiting pharmacological properties calculated to relax, sedate, disinhibit or stimulate. Why should a culture choose to celebrate these objectives? Why do we take for granted that it is a good thing that so many of us use alcohol to loosen ourselves up and become more convivial, that drink liberates our vocal cords and enables us to talk more? Why should it be necessary to employ a drug for these purposes? Should our culture not be interested in enabling people to seek relaxation and inter-action in a natural way?

Our culture has also developed various strategems to dispose of uncomfortable voices seeking to alert us to the abnormality of Irish drinking patterns. We have to hand a barrelful of labels for such unwelcome interlocutors: "prohibitionist", "killjoy", "puritan", "holy joe". It's obvious - isn't it? - that nobody would question the way we use alcohol other than with a view to spoiling everyone's fun.

Invariably, when the subject is raised, we default to the "rights"
of the ordinary decent drinker, the guy who just "enjoys a drink". Why must we always be reminded of the minority who abuse drink?

Answer: Because this minority is what defines the enormous Irish problem with drink, and because the problem embraces also the denials of those who mount strident pleas on behalf of the "ordinary drinker"as a means of drowning out the truth about these deadly liquids.

The real issue, which urgently needs to be placed before our younger generations, is that Irish drink-culture is neither normative nor incapable of renovation, that drug-induced pleasure comes at a huge cost, and that sobriety is a door to a different and healthier way of seeing reality.

If we have any responsibilities to the next generation, we have surely a duty to tell them what we discovered when we tried to be free.

That's extracts from a presentation from John waters, you can read it all here, intresting and very valid points made. http://www.publichealth.ie/sites/default/files/Conference%20presentation%20waters.doc









What would this country look like if our vast acceptance and promotion of functioning alcoholism was no longer considered normal ?

mikom

realies wrote: »

That's extracts from a presentation from John waters, you can read it all here, intresting and very valid points made. http://www.publichealth.ie/sites/default/files/Conference%20presentation%20waters.doc

Nice of him to take time out of knocking the gays to knock alcohol for a while.

souls

I work in the off trade and can honestly say we've never been busier our targets this easter were the biggest I've ever seen! and we knocked them out of the park! There is no let up to the binge drinking culture in this country from young to old. Im on there front line and see it everyday. My colleagues dont seem to or at least ignore the fact that our 40 something "successful" (whatever that means,maybe someone who drives a SUV or some ****) mom or dad who is in most nights buying cases of wine is as much as a binger as our 10.30a.m naggin of glens vodka person..i see the lie day in day out.

Its my hope in my lifetime that this culture of abuse will change, the way smoking has gone!
Campaigns like this are a start i suppose but I've heard sweet to feck all publicly about them! Its not beyond the realms of possibility that drink super giants like diageo,richmonds,idl etc will use all in there power to stop any anti-drink culture message getting out there!

hubba

realies wrote: »

That's extracts from a presentation from John waters, you can read it all here, intresting and very valid points made. http://www.publichealth.ie/sites/default/files/Conference%20presentation%20waters.doc

The paragraph below is very powerful. In my situation I was practically raised in the pub as that is where the parent hung out most of the time. And either entertaining other bar flies or manipulating them to get what you could out of them were the essential 'life skills' I was taught, encouraged and rewarded with parental pride.

'The issue, then, is educational in the deepest sense. The societal abuse of alcohol indicates a serious cultural deficiency, converging on a cultural inability to comprehend how the natural mechanism that is humanity should properly function. To put it as starkly as possible: we have lost the capacity to teach our children how to live.'

valoren

I like his description of the euphoric feeling that alcohol produces, it's what triggers the addiction for many where we are trying and failing to maintain it.

"...that feeling you get half way down the third pint".