The Press MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1974. An alcoholic community?

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33676, 28 October 1974, Page 12

The Press MONDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1974. An alcoholic community?

The abuse of drugs is commonly associated with a particular “ life-style ” which is at variance with the generally accepted values of the community. New Zealanders are much more reluctant to concede that the abuse of alcohol is also an important ingredient in a way of living and a general attitude towards life. The very pervasiveness of alcohol in the community’s habits of work and play makes admission of its undesirable effects less easy. Any suggestion that the community’s drinking habits should be seriously modified carries with it the implication that very many other habits would also have to be changed. Lip-service is paid to the part of alcohol in road accidents and in the erosion of family life; few people — even those who are clearly “problem drinkers ”, — are ready to admit that their personal behaviour should be changed, let alone to set about changing it. For these reasons, those who could most profit from the advice given by a Christchurch magistrate recently are most likely to ignore it. Mr H. J. Evans, S.M., speaking at a meeting of the Mahu Association — which is associated with a treatment centre for alcoholics — said that alcoholism was a malady for which the whole community needed treatment. He suggested the formation of a group of “ wise, independent, and fearless brains ” to consider the problem. Their task would be daunting. The total prohibition of alcohol has proved elsewhere to be unenforceable —and prohibition is an unwarrantable constraint on the pleasures of those who take alcohol in moderation. A first step might be to discover the extent of alcoholism, the inability of an individual to control his or her intake of alcohol. Regular heavy drinking is so widespread that a distinction between those who might, if they wished, control their drinking and those who could not is hard to draw. Many alcoholics remain unrecognised as such by themselves, their families, or their friends. The harm they cause, not only to themselves, is real enough. If the proportion of the community which is unable to handle alcohol safely was known this might stimulate more general recognition that here, indeed, is a disease of epidemic proportions. Beyond the unfortunate minority of drinkers who are alcoholics are many more who still drink to excess. For these people, to define the problem would be to describe the social and family life of much of the population. Its cure might require nothing less than a fundamental change in social values and objects, in directions not yet foreseen. In the end, significant change might be impossible, if only because too many people prefer the easy solace of drinking. That should not deter Mr Evans’s “ independent and fearless ” men, if they can be found, from attempting to show the community the ugliness of its alcoholic reflection.