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by PHIL MERCER
Australia battles rise in alcohol abuse
Sydney: Alcohol increasingly has
Australia in its poisonous grip. One in eight Australians drink at
dangerous levels. The effects on long-term health are likely to be
catastrophic.
Australia has always had a boozy reputation but excessive drinking
is on the rise. Doctors are warning of a surge in chronic diseases
such as cirrhosis of the liver and cancers as well as brain
disorders in the next 20 years.
“Unfortunately Australia has a massive alcohol drinking problem,”
Associate Prof Gordian Fulde from Sydney’s St Vincent’s Hospital
says. “It’s our culture, our society accepts it and in some ways,
society encourages it.
“Alcohol leaves all the other drugs – heroin, ecstasy, ice
(methamphetamine) – absolutely for dead. They’re minute compared
to problems caused by alcohol drinking.”
On average about 10 Australians die every day as a result of
alcohol consumption. It is a health calamity that affects the
lives of so many. The Australian National Council on Drugs has
found that 230,000 children have a parent or carer who drinks
excessively.
“I think what’s happened here (is) it’s a reflection of our
prosperity, in the sense that there’s more money that is available
for drinking alcohol,” the council’s chairman Dr John Herron says,
pointing out that the cost of beer, wine and spirits has also gone
down.
Research has shown that those families with alcohol problems are
also commonly affected by mental illness as well as physical and
sexual abuse.
Australia’s indigenous population is suffering more than any
other group. Black Australians are twice as likely to die from the
effects of drinking as their non-Aboriginal counterparts. A recent
report showed that alcohol misuse claims the life of an Aborigine
every 38 hours.
Suicide is the greatest cause of death among intoxicated men,
while many women die of liver cirrhosis or strokes. Some have
managed to conquer their demons, but those dark days of the past
are never far from the surface.
“I’m compulsive, I’m out of control when I’m drinking,” Les
Beckett, a middle-aged Aboriginal man from Queensland, says. “I’m
a nasty piece of work when I’m drinking and I’m a sorry piece of
work and dangerous.”
Les admits to beating his late wife and stealing from his children
during his alcoholic years. He has remained sober for the past two
decades but staying on the straight and narrow is a constant
battle.
There is a feeling that Aborigines turn to booze and other drugs
because they feel left behind by mainstream society more than two
centuries after European colonisation.
“To understand alcohol abuse, we need to look at the ways in which
our people have been treated over the last 200 years,” indigenous
pastor Ray Minniecon says. “Most of this stuff is just a broken
spirit of the Aboriginal people ... and alcohol abuse becomes a
substitute for the spirit that we’d like to have.”
Beer and wine have been outlawed in some ‘dry’ indigenous
communities but for many the cravings remain irresistible. Despite
the gloom – and there is plenty of that – there is hope that
things will one day improve.
“There’s a strong capacity in our people to make sure we survive,”
Minniecon says. “We don’t know how we’re going to eradicate it
(the abuse of alcohol) but we can heal ourselves through our own
culture which makes our spirit strong.”
Australians – both black and white – are increasingly hitting the
bottle.
Binge drinking has emerged as the real menace. Those who have to
pick up the pieces say the situation is out of control and getting
worse.
“The thing that is very scary is that females – especially young
females – have now adopted and may be even improving on male
drinking habits. Alcohol is a poison. It rots your brain. It is
just absolute social suicide,” Prof Fulde says grimly. – BBC
 
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