“Heavy Drinking” By Boys Of 15

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30453, 29 May 1964, Page 1

“Heavy Drinking” By Boys Of 15

Heavy drinking among boys aged 15 and 16 was causing a great deal of concern among headmasters, at any rate in Wellington. Dr. T. E. Halt medical superintendent of Sunnyside Hospital, told a National Society on Alcoholism meeting last evening. Dr. Hall lived until recently in Wellington.

Causes of excessive drinking, he said, among all age groups, but among teenagers especially, included the general belief that people who did not drink were “rather peculiar,” the repetition of advertisements linking athleticism with drinking, the popularity of strongmen characters in books who drank heavily without illeffect, and the tendency in many homes for drunkenness to be regarded as funny.

Dr. Hall said he did not, however, advocate prohibition, nor did he forbid his children to drink. “A fair idea of the effect of prohibition can be gained from what happened in the gang world of the United States when they tried it,” he said. In his own house, drink was freely available, but he did not let his children think he thought drink or drunkenness amusing. The attitudes among young people to heavy drinking were really quite surprising, said Dr. Hall. In Wellington some time ago, for example, at the school where his son was a pupil, a boy was expelled because a staff member had seen him drunken and incapable in the main street of the city. “My son thought this most unfair, because the boy had been seen out of school hours, when, presumably, he could do as he liked,” said Dr. Hall, “and this was evidently the general opinion among the boys. “I had to go to some pains

to discuss the matter with my boy, and I hope I convinced him the headmaster wasn’t so unreasonable after all. But I heard that at a headmasters’ meeting many expressed themselves very concerned over the amount of heavy drinking among their boys.” The tendency for youngsters to start drinking heavily at 15 or 16 might often mean that their personalities never became fully mature. Parents had a big responsibility, Dr. Hall said. A father who came home from a party in an over-jolly mood, telling his family what a wonderful time he had, should not be surprised to find his 16-year-old son doing the same thing a night or two later. Nearly everybody, if not everyone, was a potential alcoholic, because most if not all were in some degree neurotic, and alcohol could provide temporary relief for neuroticism, said Dr. Hall. Young people who did not drink would be likely to find some other means than alcohol of vercoming their neuroticisms, and so would avoid the danger of becoming alcoholics. “Alcoholism is a very large problem indeed—how large, it is almost impossible to measure,” he said. “The mental hospitals see only a relatively small proportion of the cases. But there is plenty of evidence for the size of the problem in the case histories of patients who are not themselves alcoholics.” Dr. Hall called for a basic change in the public attitude to alcohol. It was an extraordinary anomaly, he said, that all were expected to drink yet no-one was expected to drink to excess. “People who don’t drink are looked on as rather peculiar; so does anyone who drinks too much if he does so as a habit,” he added. “There is a great deal of

propaganda to encourage drinking,” he said. “Advertising for alcohol—and for cigarettes, too, curiously enough—all too frequently depict an athletic individual having a glass of beer. Repetition of advertisements of this sort, I do believe, has a marked effect on young men. “With proper advertising, an advertising expert told me recently, the amount of smoking could be decreased very quickly; and it would probably be the same with drinking. All the advertising connected with alcohol is in favour of it.” All too often, the heroes of best-selling books were tough men who consumed frequent double whiskies without being affected, said Dr. Hall. The Peter Cheyney books were a good example. “This is an insidious and bad form of propaganda for the young,” he said.