The Big Questions

I have been watching The Big Questions today on BBC and I am in all too familiar territory with what has been said.

Let me deal with some of the issues that came about from that and other questions that have been posed

1. Drinking hours are too long and our pubs open too late


During the The Great War David Lloyd George and the government brought in a law that restricted drinking hours in the United Kingdom. Much has been written about this and much of it is nonsense however this was a compromise act to prevent those in Lloyd George's own circle from pushing full blown prohibition upon the British society. The military were acutely aware that if soldiers were denied alcohol whilst on leave that it could lead to a rise in those deserting or mutinying, or even worse revolutions occurring as in Russia in 1917.  Many will know of his Welsh connections however Lloyd George was born in England but raised in Wales and influenced heavily by Chapel. It is this connection like the religious right in the US that were pushing for all out bans on alcohol. Now we know that prohibition didn't work but neither really did the idea of restrictions. It was common place at last orders for several pints to be lined up upon the bar and downed quite quickly in the 'supping up' time. The restriction on drinking also contributed to the speed at which we consume alcohol. The average Briton consumes around 3 pints per hour in rate of drinking and this has come about from the direct regulation of drinking time. The argument that pubs closing earlier would prevent all night drinking is unfounded because in the 'Good Old Days' drinkers would fill up before they left the pub and then head on down to the night clubs where drinking could continue to around 2am. It is interesting to note that where drinking times are most liberalised throughout the world then least trouble occurs except where the British are visiting.

2. Minimum pricing is bound to stop alcoholism


The law of supply and demand is one of the oldest economic realities in this world. The only reason why alcohol has become so relatively cheap in the UK supermarkets is because of the booze cruise. In the 1980's and 90's it was quite a common sight to see the ferry terminals at Dover and Folkestone crammed with vehicles on day trips to Calais and Boulogne hoping to buy cheap wine, beer and spirits. At the time both Tesco and Sainsbury's opened up stores at the French ports so as to hopefully catch the British trade. European law means that it is not illegal to import alcohol into the UK if it is for personal use. The loss leading spirit's promotions by the big retailers are merely a knock on effect of this. If you increase the price then someone will supply at a cheaper cost. That is the reality. The only way that minimum pricing would work in our society now is by a complete pull out of Europe preventing a move back to wholesale booze cruising. Even then this is only going to hit the moderate drinker because as I have clearly articulated on this site many times a true alcoholic will not consider money a barrier to alcohol just as a heroin addict will do anything to pay for the next injection.

3. Ban alcohol advertising

The term soap opera came about because of the great soap wars in the United States between Unilever and Proctor and Gamble. Each would sponsor a rival daytime television drama so as to push their own form of soap powder on the unsuspecting US public. Product placement as it was known was banned in Britain so generic advertising took place by setting UK ongoing dramas (I know the producers hate the word soaps) around the public house. It is noticeable that Doctors, Casualty and Holby City dramas that fit into this category of TV do not often get rewarded at the awards ceremonies yet the big guns of Coronation Street, Eastenders, Emmerdale and Hollyoaks do. Whilst I am a great lover of conspiracy theories this seems odd to me. Could it be that the former are set around hospitals but the latter around pubs? One survey about the popularity of branding in the UK asked people to name common brands of beer. Whilst John Smiths came out as the most well known brand Newton and Ridley came second. It is ironical to think that if Boddingtons' the brewery close to the Coronation Street set  were to brew an ale called Newton and Ridley they would probably outsell their own famous yellow brand. Banning advertising will have some impact upon  recognition of brand but until we demolish the Rovers Return, Queen Vic, Woolpack and Dog on the Pond then the likelyhood of preventing alcohol problems this way is limited.

4. Culture Shift

Love him or hate him but the only one who really was talking sense on The Big Questions was Lembik Opik. The way to stop alcohol problems is to bring in culture shift and this is not an overnight solution. I have talked long and hard on this blog about culture shift in relation to alcohol and that really only comes back to one thing, education.  We need to inspire our children not to take up the ways of our elders and we need to show them that there is a better solution for happiness that necking 20 alcopops or a bottle of vodka before they eve reach the pub. Culture shift will never come about through restriction all that ultimately leads to is revolution. We want to live in a grown up society but are we capable of living in a grown up society. I like to think that we are. And that doesn't come from ticking boxes and having everyone on the same page at the same time education that comes from true inspirational education. There is a hole in our society and it needs to be filled.

So I say to those who would lead us, grow up, grow a set and stop bickering and start communicating. Inspire us to be different by action rather than words. If you fight with each other then our children learn to fight. If you get hammered as a routine then our children learn this is the way.

There is a better way and I will fight as long as I live to bring it to the attention of the people in this world     



 

Measure for Measure

Of government the properties to unfold

Would seem in me t'affect speech and discourse

And so starts the play, but not on a Shakespearean stage, no not there I say. This was set on the greatest stage of all in the mother of all Parliaments.

With around 20 bars in the Houses of Parliament, none requiring a licence I may add, it is of little surprise that we will get the odd bar brawl. Churchill after all was once famously slated for being drunk in the Commons by a female member, to which his reply was allegedly 'Madame in the morning I shall be sober, you however will still be ugly!"

Well Winston and I may have been born on the same day and sometimes I have the ability to say the odd great one-liner however his drinking habits were more akin to those of my father. Unfortunately though many of our MP's have drinking habits akin to Winston's. Add this to all the journalists, who of course are known for their sobriety, and the lobbyists attempting to add undue influence and we have potentially an explosive mix greater than that of a Molotov cocktail.

And here lies the problem.

Fairly soon we are going to see the launch of the Government's new alcohol strategy yet these sad individuals cannot keep their own house in order so how can they possibly lecture us?

With power comes responsibility and I seriously doubt that the circus that surrounds the Houses of Parliament get anywhere near to understanding that. Well one politician did at least. Knowledge is Power and so speaketh Karl Marx. And yes I have a take on this too.

The knowledge of alcohol and it's properties allows us to have power over it and removes power from the booze and those who would drown us in it!

Education is fundamentally the only way that we can hope to change the society in which we live. That education has to start with those that would be King. Government cannot seriously hope to change our nations relationship with alcohol if they do not even understand their own relationship with the brewers, distillers and lobbyists who work for them. 

In this sixth national alcohol free week I ask why is one drunken MP getting more headlines than an alternate way of enjoying life.

So I say to our MP's

I shall desire you, sir, to give me leave

To have free speech with you; and it concerns me

To look into the bottom of my place,

A power I have, but of what strength and nature

I am not yet instructed,

Educate through inspiration, show the world there are alternatives and show the world that responsibility is within you and therefor us all

Baby Robert, the New Baby P

Today I sit and shed another tear for another baby's life cut short as a result of neglect and incompetence.

Baby Robert, for that is his official name was found dead next to his highly intoxicated mother on a sofa having been abandoned by the Southend Council's protection teams. You may find the word abandoned harsh but that is the reality of what has happened. A serious case review concluded that local health services had  become desensitised to the problems of alcohol and drug abuse due to high numbers of patients.

This is wrong, plain and simple.


Desensitisation comes about through two things, firstly an overexposure to the same horrific stimuli and secondly by a lack of training and education on how to overcome the signs and symptoms of desesitisation.

In the case of alcohol abuse as is what apparently happened here it is clear that that lack of education is a fundamental part of the problem. I can name one official agency who has explained to people under it's care that human beings have two stomachs, one for food and one for alcohol and drugs.

Baroness Newlove's £1 million pound scheme will not scratch this surface, especially as it would appear that 1/10th of that has already been allocated to one town. We need serious changes of attitude and we need them now.

I have been campaigning for education in the subject of alcohol for years. I am no killjoy and I enjoy a glass of wine or a pint of beer, and yes I had wild times as a youngster too, but the reality is the fundamental lack of knowledge is driven by a smoke and mirrors attitude of a society determined to be it's own worst enemy.

We need true inspiration and education to stop our decline into destitution and yesterday I yet again challenged the Prime Minister to meet with me.

Here is a message I give to our society.

I will go door to door if I have to, become more annoying than any double glazing salesman or preacher but I will fight till the day I die for proper true and unbiased information for the public with regards to alcohol. Proper education NOW! for the bodies are already starting to pile up.


http://www.echo-news.co.uk/news/9532964.Why_was_tragic_baby_Robert_left_in_the_care_of_an_alcoholic_mum_/

It was Christmas Eve in the Drunk Tank, an open letter to the Prime Minister

So the Prime Minister is on the treat them mean and make them clean bandwagon now.

How foolish thou art sir.

I challenged you on live radio to meet with me to discuss the problems that we face regarding alcohol and I still await a response.

Now I know I don't have a fancy title like Baroness Newlove or Sir Ian Gilmore but I've been working quietly in the field of alcohol for over 30 years since discovering that my father a highly respected professional in his field was drinking three bottles of scotch or vodka per night. I have, since being seriously injured in a car crash caused by a drink driver, worked with over 20000 people convicted of drink driving in the UK to help prevent re-offending and I have dedicated my life to bringing the education of alcohol to the attention of as many people as I can. 

You sir talk about a big society and about ordinary people making a difference yet you will not speak to me and that tells me one thing

You like to make sound bites about dealing with the scourge of alcohol but you are only paying lip service to it because you are fully aware that in our difficult economic times you cannot truly afford to take alcohol by the scruff of the neck for fear of damaging the treasury intake.

If you start on draconian measures such as the drunk tank where you leave people in potential danger in the hands of untrained police officers you will eventually end up with people dead in the cells. Or are you actually going to make the obvious next step and train police officers to paramedic standards and make them a real emergency service? I doubt it and I doubt the Police Federation would want that either.

Raising a minimum price on alcohol will not stop people from drinking, it will not stop binge drinking, it will not stop children drinking but it will bring in more money to the treasury.

Your government, like governments before on all sides of the political divide are so far in bed with the alcohol industry that like tobacco you have no control.

And that sir is the point. You cannot control the problem by legislation. You need to educate inspire and use the power of psychology to bring about effective change.

Once again I challenge you to meet with me but I say that with hope rather than expectation. I am serious about education to remove irresponsible behaviour  from our attitudes to alcohol. I do not want to destroy the alcohol industry I want to change our relationship with it. 

The real question is are you serious about it too? 

Newlove or old story

On Valentine's Day it is perhaps important that a Baroness carrying the title Newlove should come to the fore. Her call to arms on education in alcohol will probably go further than my 30 years of nagging at the edges but so what we need to educate and we nee to educate now. But seriously £1 million, that's like trying to crack a tank with a pea shooter. And most of that will go on silly administrative schemes that will make no difference.

If I had that million pounds not one penny would be spent on anything other than direct educational resources for young people. But I worry that most of it will be frittered away paying for anything but. And that is my point.

Big Alcohol, like Big Tobacco, is a multi-Billion pound industry that can afford to spend vast amounts on armies of PR consultants to fight the good fight. The opposition can muster nothing. It's like the Polish army riding on their horses to fight the slaughter of blitzkrieg. And what is worse than that, there is a spy in the camp giving away the family secrets, and that is the very Government that seeks to make you believe it cares about tackling the ravages of booze.

There is a way to make things happen that is cost effective and will get powerful education to the children and it doesn't involve shocking them. I have a solution but I doubt if I will get a call.

So is it a new love on Valentines Day or the same old disappointment?





 

The streets are paved with......

In the thirty plus years I have worked in the alcohol field there is one thing that I have come to understand beyond anything and that is this: Alcohol is as unpredictable as a Great White Shark. 


Now the shark experts will tell you that I'm being unfair in demonising the Great White however when it comes to alcohol we are talking about one of the greatest predators known to man. It tracks you, it creeps up on you and it finally eats you alive. And that is what happens with those who are addicted. And if you suddenly remove their final life support system in one go there can only be one end.

And why is that important? Well the idea that the Mayor of London has had in following the pattern of the US in having sobriety sentences could actually lead to the death of someone. Why? Because if you go cold turkey on booze when you are completely physically dependent upon it your system cannot physically cope with the withdrawal symptoms and shuts down.

So I'm afraid if we start using this new wonderful system then we may, albeit unwittingly, pass a death sentence on an individual for merely shouting their mouth off.

I welcome new ways of thinking about how to deal with the scourge of alcohol but I am seriously concerned that enforced sobriety may cause more harm than good. Without education and proper knowledge of how alcohol works and why it does the things it does we need tough minded individuals and organisations prepared to really take a difficult situation and use the Gandi method of change.

It is not about control it is about inspiration!

Alice through the Looking Glass

Gok Wan is someone who, when I first came across his shows, I thought was a typical fashionista with very little going on. How wrong can first impressions be. Having thought more deeply and having listened to him more often here is a man who really does care about other people. Particularly people with challenges, mainly deep rooted psychological challenges. His latest television project will without doubt have some people in real throes of emotion as they see their own lives being played out on the television in someone else's body.

I see many young people like this who often use the escape mechanism of alcohol or drugs to overcome the negative effects psychological and physical bullying has upon them. The fact that alcohol reduces inhibitions means that it allows the inner self to come out. It can manifest in chronic depression it can manifest in outlandish stunts or it can manifest in violence towards another as the Mercurial flip takes place from what the game face presents to the wider world.

Alcohol is very dangerous in this situation because the sheer nature of the neurophysiology behind the poison interacting with overload of negativity from external sources will often lead to over compensation as our inhibitions are removed.

However it is a false image when we talk about overcompensation for what actually happens is the release of the safety catches holding on the society developed game face allowing the real you to come forward. This masking of emotion that we put out to the world is now revealed and we become even more vulnerable.

So when we see young people behaving in an abnormal way because they are intoxicated it is actually young people showing their true inner self to the world. Why do we find that ugly sometimes, well it is because we as a society are not very good at investing in our young people's psychological health and we have helped create this challenge and now we don't like it. Divorce, money worries, lack of time due to work commitments, lack of extended family support often mean that we do not support our children as effectively as we think we do. Children not wanting to upset the apple cart will often blame themselves and in doing so start to build barriers and act in a way that is 'expected'. They then use alcohol as a way of coping and returning to the way of wanting to show the world how they feel.  The world just sees that as trouble or booze causing the problem and in doing so they miss the point.

What Gok Wan is doing is a good thing because in helping people to be themselves, in other words allowing them take off their game face and feel confident to reveal who they are, in a safe space,  then hopefully it will help some teenagers and young people to not seek solace in the bottom of a vodka bottle.

Bless you Gok, may you continue to shine. 

When will they ever learn?

Yet again I listen to another public health professional banging on about the only way to change the way in which we consume alcohol is to charge people more to buy it.

What does it take for them to realise that the people who are drinking to the point where they are damaging themselves have no care about money. A few pence or even pounds will not make the difference.

February is a difficult month for me for many reasons not least of all because it was the month my dad became terminally ill. He died a few weeks later on Mother's Day. Ironic really that your father should die on the day dedicated to mothers. And now every time that day comes around I cannot celebrate it because both my parents are no longer with us.

Well back to the story. As most of you will know who follow this blog my father was an alcoholic. Three bottles of vodka or whisky per night. A not for the feint hearted alcoholic he was the real deal. His body was shot by the time he died, disseminated carcinoma bringing on massive CVA, stroke for the uneducated, and ultimately death.

I sat with him in the last few days before he died. I only left him to return to my house for a few hours sleep, constantly worrying that the dreaded telephone call would come from an emotionally unattached nurse given the rotten task of breaking the news. Don't get me wrong I'm not having a go at nurses, it is vitally important that you remain unattached at the time of the bad news delivery, and I am a psychologist after all. Thankfully that never came because I was there when he died. He didn't pass on or pass away he died. His body stopped functioning plain and simple. His spirit didn't die because he is in my heart and always will be. Yet throughout those final days and hours I couldn't help but think still why he chose a bottle over his son and what would have stopped him.

One thing is for certain price wouldn't have. Nor would it have stopped any of the men and women who I have watched ending up in an early gave because of alcohol. Ask their bank managers or their creditors, or the bailiffs who came to take away their goods. Once you are trapped in alcohol dependence then you are trapped in a cycle of desperation that will only have one result. There are ways out of that but trying to artificially over price the market is not one of them.

But it will save young people won't it? Don't be silly. Young people will always find a way to get off their faces. It may drive a lot more towards party and hard drugs and then we will be begging for alcohol again. Two student's interviewed for BBC Points West suggested that half their weekly income went on booze. Well I have news for you previous generations had much higher percentages of their income going towards booze and many of these are the ones with chronic liver problems today. Students drink, it is a culture, deal with it. But don't try and deal with it by over pricing the product because if you do they will just change the product.

Teach responsibility and inspire people not to want to get out of their faces for the sake of it. Show them there is a better way.

Do it now or the bodies will start to pile up faster than a Rambo movie!

Bristol's Booze Bombshell

Well figures released today suggest the fair city of Bristol has a really big problem with booze.

And it took someone how long to realise this?

For the past 15 years I have worked on a regular basis with people in Bristol in relation to alcohol. One thing has become increasingly clear to me and that is simply there is no real desire to educate people to give them the options for change. Walk around Brunswick Square, literally the other side of the road from the multi-million pound Cabot Circus shopping centre, and any time day or night you will find people drinking. In fact one of the best known Bristol street art paintings is on a building there. It depicts two young people with their can of special brew.

The local Council doesn't appear to really care, the law enforcement and judiciary services are Victorian in their understanding of how things work and the people who are left to pick up the pieces are the medics on the front line and those of us who seek to change things.

There is no miracle cure for the challenge but if we do not start now then it will not be just this generation that has a problem but subsequent generations of young people will see their lives wasted or ended prematurely by alcohol abuse.

Have those politicos that supposedly care about Bristol really got the guts and the common sense to ask for help? Or are they just happy to keep picking up the council tax from the businesses that encourage the above scene to continue?