Alcohol has been part of my life since childhood. I remember fondly the Christmas parties where my family would come together and as a treat I could have some of my Uncle Harry's home brew shandy. The wonderful happy times of eating pork pies and mushy peas on New Years Eve followed by a small sherry and orange to bring in the New Year.
Forward to my life at 13 when every 3 weeks or so me and my dad would go down to the incinerator in Huddersfield with several Fyfes banana boxes with the top covered by a sealed down Huddersfield Daily Examiner, a broadsheet evening paper. They rattled and one day I peeked inside to discover that my beloved father, successful businessman, ex Rugby League Player and Paratrooper was in fact drinking 3 bottles of Scotch or Vodka per night.
Forward to my University days and coming home and rowing with my mother who would not accept that my father had a serious alcohol problem and when he fell stark naked into the bath cracking his head wide open she refused to allow me to take him to hospital. She refused at the point of a carving knife threatening to run me through if I didn't stop trying to help him. I am ashamed to say it is the one and only time I have ever struck a woman purely in self defence. She was proud with an Irish Catholic background and this sort of thing didn't happen in our family...ever. My father's background is ironically Scottish Protestant.
Forward to the moment when I flew home from London after discovering that my mother had ovarian cancer to be met at the hospital by a man clearly seven sheets to the wind and me having to deal with that alongside comforting a woman who was destined to die 6 weeks later. The sixty thousand pound insurance payout well that was pissed up against a wall in 6 months.
Forward a few weeks when he moved South to 'be with me' and my family and the start of the cycle of rehab units, the Salvation Army, AA, Clouds. Thousands spent both privately and by the NHS to the finality of him signing out of Clouds House in East Knoyle on the day of my son's first birthday and turning up at my house paralytic.
And then the walk to the bus stop me telling him how much I loved him but if he turned up drunk he was not welcome.
And then the fifteen years of wondering what had happened to him, Well I knew of the incident of the refit of the QE2 where he had the contract and he was thrown off the the contract because of drunken antics. I knew he'd been back to his old haunts in Southampton, that he'd been deported from America and my greatest worry the rumour that he'd owed money to the wrong people and was propping up the M3 extension on the Winchester by pass.
And then the reunion, He had changed he had become the father that I loved again he had become the Grandfather I had hoped for my children but we had all paid the price.
He died a year later.
No amount of cost would have stopped him drinking, no amount of minimum price would have prevented the empty whisky bottles from stacking up. Money was never the issue.
I have spent the last 33 years of my life trying to understand why a man would put a bottle over his child and his grandchildren. I have become an International Expert in Alcohol. And still I do not have the answer. What I do know is that making it more expensive was never the answer, He would beg steal or borrow to get that next glass of whisky
Wednesday 18 May 2011
Sunday 15 May 2011
Government Conspiracy?
Yesterday I spent 9 hours lecturing on alcohol physiology and the question that I am constantly posed came up yet again.
Why is alcohol legal and drugs aren't? is it because the taxman makes so much money out of booze?
So today I thought I would address this.
1. The alcohol industry has powerful a powerful lobby of that there is no doubt
2. Governments bring in billions of pounds from various forms of taxation on the alcohol industry
3. The illegal use of drugs and the supply of those drugs is comparable with prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's and 30's.
The major challenge facing the ordinary person on the street who enjoys a pint of beer or glass of wine is that they have no real information about how things work or what they do. There is a total dichotomous arguement that rages between the alcohol industry and the abolitionists and this is unlikely to go away in the near future because of the symbiotic relationship the two groups have.
Is alcohol totally bad for you? Honestly no it is not. A small amount as part of a good diet may actually be beneficial.
Is alcohol when consumed in quantity and quickly bad for you? Absolutely, binge drinking is a highly damaging way of consuming alcohol.
Is this arguement ever discussed? No. Why? Well because that would be both sides admitting their flaws. What we need is real unbiased information disseminated in an easy to understand way for the ordinary person in the street to be able to digest.
We have long talked about the use of illegal drugs in this country. And the discussion is justified on the harm that drugs cause to individuals. The irony is that many of these drugs are prescribed regualrly by medics every day in the NHS where they can cause an equal amount of damage but that is acceptable because your doctor prescribed it.
The real issue with drugs is of course addiction however that addiction instead of being dealt with openly in our society it is somehow driven underground into a seedy world that leads to crime and deprevation. The Mafia only really became the organisation it did because of prohibition in the USA, the drug cartels and gangs have got their hold because drug taking, which is as old as alcohol consumption, has been driven underground. We somehow frown upon those who have issues with narcotics but accept those that have issues with alcohol.
Is it all about money and power? Well the conspiracy theorists will have you believe this however the reality is that it is all about the oldest economic arguement in the world. The law of supply and demand.
So should Governments take a positive role in this? Absolutely they should be proactive and transparent. Unfortunately that is not the case and that is why the question that I get asked on a regular basis will continue to be asked until the elected representatives have the courage to stand up and say things can be different.
Why is alcohol legal and drugs aren't? is it because the taxman makes so much money out of booze?
So today I thought I would address this.
1. The alcohol industry has powerful a powerful lobby of that there is no doubt
2. Governments bring in billions of pounds from various forms of taxation on the alcohol industry
3. The illegal use of drugs and the supply of those drugs is comparable with prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's and 30's.
The major challenge facing the ordinary person on the street who enjoys a pint of beer or glass of wine is that they have no real information about how things work or what they do. There is a total dichotomous arguement that rages between the alcohol industry and the abolitionists and this is unlikely to go away in the near future because of the symbiotic relationship the two groups have.
Is alcohol totally bad for you? Honestly no it is not. A small amount as part of a good diet may actually be beneficial.
Is alcohol when consumed in quantity and quickly bad for you? Absolutely, binge drinking is a highly damaging way of consuming alcohol.
Is this arguement ever discussed? No. Why? Well because that would be both sides admitting their flaws. What we need is real unbiased information disseminated in an easy to understand way for the ordinary person in the street to be able to digest.
We have long talked about the use of illegal drugs in this country. And the discussion is justified on the harm that drugs cause to individuals. The irony is that many of these drugs are prescribed regualrly by medics every day in the NHS where they can cause an equal amount of damage but that is acceptable because your doctor prescribed it.
The real issue with drugs is of course addiction however that addiction instead of being dealt with openly in our society it is somehow driven underground into a seedy world that leads to crime and deprevation. The Mafia only really became the organisation it did because of prohibition in the USA, the drug cartels and gangs have got their hold because drug taking, which is as old as alcohol consumption, has been driven underground. We somehow frown upon those who have issues with narcotics but accept those that have issues with alcohol.
Is it all about money and power? Well the conspiracy theorists will have you believe this however the reality is that it is all about the oldest economic arguement in the world. The law of supply and demand.
So should Governments take a positive role in this? Absolutely they should be proactive and transparent. Unfortunately that is not the case and that is why the question that I get asked on a regular basis will continue to be asked until the elected representatives have the courage to stand up and say things can be different.
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