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!