Another day another DEMOS

Well it's silly season again as far as the alcohol world is concerned. We are going to have a raft of studies flying at us over the next few months all trying to hit the headlines. Today's comes from the Think Tank DEMOS

It claims that parenting influences drinking habits and that poor parenting around the ages of 5, 10 and 16 will lead to bad drinking habits between the ages of 16 to 34.

My son has a phrase for this and excuse my language but he would say "No shit Sherlock!"

Stating the obvious in a study is neither driving the argument forward nor enhancing the debate it is merely showboating.

What the study doesn't do is look at the knowledge that parents had in regard to alcohol. A parent can only parent given the influences that they have had and role models they have perceived as they were learning to be parents. It's the hardest job in the world raising children, particularly in a fast moving world that we have today,. I know I am the father to 3 natural and 2 step-children (whom I hasten to add I have always regarded as my own children and have not been treated with any difference). It has been a very tough job and at times absolutely impossible.

My role models were poor. My parents did their best, the realistic situation however was that I had a mother hooked on anti depressants and a father who was an alcoholic (see earlier parts of this blog) I was an only child and heavily influenced by my Grandfather who in many ways instilled in me my compass for life in teaching me compassion, integrity and the need to put others first. The latter sometimes compromising the former two.

When it came to alcohol therefor I grew up thinking that one went to bed at 7pm and drank copious amounts of whisky until one was blotto. At 14 I felt this experience for the first time myself when my so called mates decided it would be funny to spike my Ben Shaw's shandy with whisky. I still remember the feeling of walking along the kerb all the way home and skulking off to the bathroom to render new decor to the toilet bowl. It was an experience that I did not enjoy.

Yet with all the alcohol floating about there was no talk about it. Everything was brushed under the carpet and it was down to me to find out what was actually going on. I was never educated by my parents, in fact I don't know any of my school friends who were, nor do I know any of my children's friends who were educated either, interestingly enough.

I was accused recently in some feedback about my style of education that I am a very nice man with great integrity but sometimes I'm in Neverland. I took that as some of my ideas were too outrageous to ever be contemplated. Isn't that what they said about people who wanted to travel to the stars?

If we really seek to change the drinking pattern of our nation then we must seek to educate. Parents cannot educate their children and cannot be expected to educate their children if they have no clue themselves. If it is away with the fairies to think that is possible then section me now because I will just keep coming back at you.

Educate now, educate well, and make sure the educators are in full knowledge themselves. Stick that one in your Think Tank!

Addiction, Obsession and Paranoia

Mitch Winehouse is setting up a foundation in his daughter's name to help those with addiction. Today he is meeting James Brokenshire MP about the project. Let us hope that some good comes of this meeting.

But let me make this clear. Government in the UK have no real desire to deal with addiction, or the causes of addiction particularly in relation to addiction to alcohol because of the symbiotic relationship it enjoys with the drinks industry. This is just an outlandish attempt at showboating and soundbites on the back of tragedy and the increased popularity of Amy Winehouse since her death.

I wish Mitch Winehouse well. From all too bitter experience I know the devastation alcohol causes within a family. I am all too familiar with the cruel and murky waters created by an inability to control one's own function. From an earlier part of this blog you can read some of my relationship with alcoholism.

Yet I am not an addict and never have been an addict. God knows I pray that I never become addicted to alcohol, but like millions of normal people I enjoy a beer or a glass of wine.

Unlike the tobacco companies who can say absolutely nothing positive about smoking there is evidence that alcohol is not always bad where no such evidence exists with tobacco. I am not some abolitionist that would see prohibition brought in tomorrow. We all know that the prohibition of alcohol in the US in the 1920's just created a monster called the Mafia.

Yet I am passionate and experienced and committed to making a profound change in the habits of young and old alike so that their relationship with alcohol changes in such a way as to prevent harm to them.

This can only be achieved through long term and totally unbiased education.

Ask the 19000 plus convicted drink drivers who have worked with me personally would they have done the things that they did if they had had the education and knowledge that they now possess? The answer that consistently comes back to me is a resounding no! And on their feedback nearly every person commented at some stage why don't we teach this in schools? Why don't our children know?

Ask the thousands of other people I have worked with over the years and they will tell you the same. Why didn't we know?

It is a tragedy that another young woman's life has been curtailed so young but in reality we are only talking about this because of who she was. If Amy Winehouse had been a checkout operator at some 24 hour store then this would not get any attention at all. And I predict that once the soundbites are over the Government ministers will crawl back into their departments pat themselves on the back and say. We did what we could, now would someone pour me a scotch!

Real education by real people who understand this world now! Or do we have to wait for the bodies to start piling up

Another day, another death

Amy Winehouse is dead, that is sad. It is sad not because of who she was, but because of who she was.

She was a young female, a human being who through a combination of alcohol and drug abuse ended up living a brief life.

The question is how many more people out there are going to have the same thing happen to them?

Among the 18 to 23 age group in women one of the fastest rising diseases is cirrhosis of the liver. Ask any liver surgeon which group of people have they started seeing lots more of and they will quote the above demographic.

Why now?

Well this is something that has it's roots in the 1980's. The hedonism that the eighties brought also brought an opportunity for women to go out drinking like never before. Men have always been able to quaff but it was not ladylike for a woman to go out on a pub crawl. Once upon a time women like that were given labels, unfairly I hear you say but non the less they were given those labels. Now it is pictures of the ladette that we see on the front pages of our newspapers. A free thinking, free spirited young powerful woman entering a career and earning top dollar. And then partying like no man before.

The challenge is that women have some major disadvantages when it comes to drink in comparison to men. As a result they damage their liver's more easily and at a younger age. And no one wants to talk to them about it.

Education, right here, right now. Let us curb the flow of young wasted lives.

Heal thyself Physician!

Now a friend of mine from the USA recently posted on his twitter feed about the lack of knowledge that doctors have about alcohol. In the US this does somewhat surprise me however in the UK it would bring no revelations to me what so ever. Why?

Well in the average training period of a young doctor in the UK, that would be 5 years at medical school and two years of rotations and internships in hospital, the average amount of time dedicated to learning about alcohol is about 5 hours!

It was often said that you are only an alcoholic if you drink more than your doctor but with alcoholism rampant amongst the medical profession and gross misuse of alcohol by many other doctors and surgeons one thing is absolutely clear: This is something that can not be allowed to continue.

We need our professionals to be able to understand what they are actually dealing with and we need them to be taught as quickly as possible for if they are not what hope is there for our children?

It's all like magic

Well it would appear that Dan Radcliffe has had a bit of a love hate relationship with alcohol. This is a brave admission from someone so young and who lives in a world where the hedonistic side of our society is often played out on a very public stage. You would think that with all the money flowing around the movie business that they would take time to protect some of their more valuable assets.

We need education about alcohol and we need it now!

Dan Radcliffe is not the first to suffer in this way and I doubt that he will be the last!

Oh Dear Mr Hammond

Human rights, civil liberties and democracy are all things that any civilised country should aim to be. And from what I understand the Secretary of State for Transport was talking about them on Question Time last night.

Well here's one thought for the Right Hon. Gentleman, why if he is so interested in these principles is he about to criminalise people in the United Kingdom for no better reason than a few sound bytes.

Yes That Might Mean You!

The proposed changes in the law regarding drink and drug taking whilst driving could see thousands of people banned and criminalised through a complete lack of understanding not through a willful challenge to law and order.

I have written to the Mr Hammond questioning his thought process and as I am the UK's most experienced drink drive rehabilitation tutor you might have thought he would have had the decency if not the courtesy to reply.

Well think again because the response was from one of his faceless minions within the department who has no real idea of the nature of the problem that is facing this country because hey they never drink and drive only bad people do!

So the real question is will Mr Hammond sit down with me and discuss a way forward or will he trample over my civil liberties, my democratic rights to question a Member of Parliament and a Member of the Government of our country.

Alcohol in Schools

I was yet again asked a question this week which yet again I find very difficult to justify my answer to. Why difficult, well put simply I have an answer but it still doesn't justify why schools don't do the blindingly obvious!

Why do we not teach kids about alcohol? They teach them about drugs don't they?

Firstly we have to look at the system. Teachers train to teach a subject with a reserve subject. They do this for years and they specialise in that subject. This is a good thing for the academic subjects and a bad one when it comes to life outside the academic plastic bubble. I call it this simply because we are protected inside it from all the nastier things in our lives.

Unfortunately when children go home at night they step outside the bubble and teachers who also step outside the bubble cannot rely on their experiences there to be brought back to the children. Why? Well it would indicate teachers are human and by definition not perfect. My best teachers were without a shadow of a doubt the ones who combined the two together well.

Back to the system. Under the Blair Government there was an extension of Thatcherite ideas regarding how things should be taught. In many ways it was almost a retrograde to the Victorian Times when teaching was about propaganda. Gone were the free thinkers of the 1950's and 60's who had interestingly shaped the thoughts of the Thatchers and the Blairs, it was back to by the book by the numbers.

So let us introduce the great Tony Blair document: The National Alcohol Strategy. Hundreds of pages written by pseudo experts who had hardly ever stepped outside their own plastic bubble or should I say University Office. And the amusing thing? Well they can't even do basic mathematics which all things considered is quite worrying bearing in mind they are telling us to count and limit our units.

This document was supposed to be the basis by which alcohol teaching took place in the UK. And there lies the obvious problem.

Getting untrained teachers to teach from this text book full of basic wrongs is about as sensible as getting US Intelligence to go searching for Osama Bin Laden!

Or in other words paying lip service to the problem with a bit of good spin and the problem will disappear.

Well it hasn't and we need to do something about it now.

We need serious people, experienced people who will come into schools and teach our children the truth.

I volunteer. I'm happy to do it, for free.

Bet you though not many schools will take me up on the offer. Why not? Because I don't preach from the Bible. I don't sit in an Ivory Tower and I don't wear a Police Badge and therefor how can I be right?

Well I have studied this subject for 33 years, more than most academics, certainly more than any Police Officer, and probably more than most executives in the Drinks Industry.

And the worrying thing for one side is that I don't say drink is all bad so I can't be the right person to teach young people.

Wrong! With my own personal experiences of how crippling alcohol can be if misused, my vast experience at working with individuals and groups who have sought knowledge and my vehement desire to eradicate half truths and mis-truths I am the perfect person.

I wonder if they have the courage or like the present incumbents of Westminster they would prefer to put their head in the sands!