Mine's a Pint

Ever since I qualified as a Probation Officer, I've been interested in trying to understand and help clients who have difficulties with alcohol. It hasn't just been that when I started out alcohol was the number one issue, it's also that I love a pint myself and the contrast between something which I regard as pleasureable and safe with people being slowly killed by the same stuff is quite unsettling to say the least. I've always been fascinated in particular by peoples differing attitudes towards alcohol and their drinking habits. In short it's led to some absolutely fascinating conversations when trying to suggest there just might be alternative drinking patterns out there, in addition to trying total abstinence, which in my experience almost invariably fails. 

As with other aspects of our behaviour, we learn much during childhood and early adulthood. As seemed to be the custom in those days, my mates and I at school were indulging in under-age drinking at several local hostelries from about age 16, and sometimes in sixth form uniform I seem to recall. At least one teacher used to join us on our regular Friday nights at the Green Dragon and would duly 'get his round in'. Of course in those days there were no 'alcopops'. Hailing from the south, it was Courage Directors Bitter and I suspect at least some of us pretended to like it as we learnt, what I would now describe, as a responsible attitude towards alcohol. We over-indulged sometimes, but worked out for ourselves if the after effects were worthwhile or not.

I now realise that I've been lucky to have come through relatively unscathed the work place culture of the 70's and university culture of the 80's where heavy drinking was routine and very enjoyable it has to be said. I say unscathed because, unlike many clients, I feel that alcohol has not proved a problem to me. I have always seemed able to control it, rather than the other way round. But then I've always regarded the consumption of alcohol as invariably an adjunct to social interaction, not something to be indulged in alone, or indeed for its own sake routinely. Nor indeed before 11am, when possibly only a small sherry might be appropriate. Or nowadays often beyond two pints, or two glasses of wine when eating. I also find that I can't drink happily in unpleasant surroundings.

What has become apparent to me over the years is that many clients have very different attitudes towards alcohol and its consumption. On many occasions I've been asked incredulously "what on earth is the point of only two pints?" Many nowadays indulge in the practice of 'pre-loading' whereby you 'neck' a good quantity of alcohol before you set out for a drinking session. Others are bewildered at the thought of returning home with any money left in their pocket at all. Yet others see no point in stopping drinking until they are incapable of standing and see no great problem in not being able to remember anything about their binge session. What sort of society have we created where this is now regarded as the norm for our young people?

During my time as a Court Duty Officer I've had to explain this sort of current cultural attitude towards drinking to an often incredulous Bench and how it may not be a 'problem' in the accepted sense of the term. Well obviously a problem in that their behaviour has landed them in court, but not an alcohol problem 'per se.' I always tend to ask routine questions such as if they have any 'shakes' in the morning? Do they wake up sweating a great deal? Do they feel better after drinking a couple of litres of cheap, strong cider first thing in the morning? Are they eating properly? Do they get indegestion a lot? Coughing up blood? Losing weight? By the time the answers are affirmative, they do indeed have a serious problem. 

Hopefully, most of our young people will never reach this stage where the body has become utterly alcohol dependent and uncontrolled cessation would be extremely dangerous. In order to reach this point there has been a growing psychological dependency. Sadly experience has confirmed that for significant numbers of our clients, life has proved so difficult or traumatic that a retreat into alcohol has afforded some, albeit temporary relief from the pain and bad memories. Such situations have provided me with some of the saddest and intractable cases over the years and can have a literally sobering effect. As a society, we're simply not geared up to provide the necessary skilled counselling to tackle the underlying issues that can often lead to alcohol addiction. And to make matters worse, some people move onto alcohol as a replacement for heroin. 

There is of course a current lively debate about how to deal with the alcohol problem in this country and much speculation that it is mostly to do with cost. I don't agree. I think it's to do with education and as with matters to do with drugs, sex and relationships, should be a topic for discussion as early as possible in schools. It's interesting to reflect now that our history teacher wasn't being stupid in supposedly not noticing her pupils smuggling a few bottles of brown ale on to the coach when we went out for the day - she was helping us to learn a responsible attitude towards alcohol. Fat chance of that nowadays I guess.