OK so it's a play on words but what do you expect from this commentator, Shakespeare?
I was travelling back from Liverpool tonight listening to a feisty debate on BBC Radio5 Live about the rights and wrongs of the decriminalisation of cannabis and other drugs and I kept thinking to myself where have I heard this all before. And of course it struck me. I've said it before only about alcohol.
You know how I go on about alcohol and how there is this argument that always beats around the bush with the same players on the same sides arguing the same thing. Well guess what we're at that point with drugs now too.
Look people how many times do I have to say it. Prohibition doesn't work.
The funniest thing came from the ex Police Officer who started on the my truncheon is bigger than yours with the drugs campaigner all because he had spent 40 years fighting the criminality of drugs compared to the mere 30 years knowledge of the guy supporting decriminalisation. How pathetic can you get.
That said though he highlighted the problem. Children are unteachable because of cannabis. No children do not want to be brainwashed by Victorian ideas right out of the little red book of Chairman Mao. Children want to be inspired. Children want to feel there is a future.
If you really want to stop children wasting their future on drugs and alcohol then you have to inspire them into thinking in a different way.
There is a third way when it comes to alcohol and drugs and it comes through inspiration not castigation.
Teach our parents the truth, teach our teachers to inspire and teach our politicians to stop playing for votes.
After all the mark of any civilised society is it's ability to overcome adversity in a way that treats everyone with dignity and equality, It is about how we treat people that matters and it is about how we develop for the betterment of humanity.
Remember all that glitters is not gold and the quality of mercy is not strained.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Sunday, 15 January 2012
Doctor, Doctor
Ah so you tell the truth when you go to the doctor don't you!
When you're asked that awkward question about how much you drink you always answer with true and open honesty keeping your integrity in tact. Well maybe just a little white lie then.
The unfortunate thing is even if you tell the truth the doctor will assume that you are lying and write down a highly inflated figure. Now this figure gets sent off to epidemiologists who have the task of correlating this with the amount of disease, mortality and morbidity within the population, Thus they can report their ultra scientific findings to various Royal Colleges. In turn these Royal Colleges can advise those ultra scientific MPs who can ultimately tell the man in the street what is and isn't safe.
This is bad education based on bad medicine based on bad science based on bad information. There is no such thing as a safe limit and everyone who knows anything about alcohol can tell you that!
Trying to make alcohol a precise science is like trying to make gold from lead. It isn't going to happen. No scientist can accurately tell me how much alcohol is broken down by my liver in any given time period. No scientist can tell me how much alcohol will cause exactly how much damage to my body. I have been working in and around alcohol for over 30 years and even with the most up to date physiological tests I can only really guess at the damage that is done to an individual, It is an educated guess but all the same an educated guess is still a guess with some education thrown in.
Let us stop the smoke and mirrors, let us stop the funding of those who give us smoke and mirrors and let us have a Royal Commission to look at it all. Let us move forward together so that real information is disseminated to the public and so our children, who deserve our total care, get the best knowledge now.
What is simple is that the message is being fogged by those who would seek to benefit from the misery that alcohol can inflict. But remember guns don't kill people, people do. Alcohol can only cause this problem if we chose to put it down our necks, Let us go about showing people that they have a choice!
When you're asked that awkward question about how much you drink you always answer with true and open honesty keeping your integrity in tact. Well maybe just a little white lie then.
The unfortunate thing is even if you tell the truth the doctor will assume that you are lying and write down a highly inflated figure. Now this figure gets sent off to epidemiologists who have the task of correlating this with the amount of disease, mortality and morbidity within the population, Thus they can report their ultra scientific findings to various Royal Colleges. In turn these Royal Colleges can advise those ultra scientific MPs who can ultimately tell the man in the street what is and isn't safe.
This is bad education based on bad medicine based on bad science based on bad information. There is no such thing as a safe limit and everyone who knows anything about alcohol can tell you that!
Trying to make alcohol a precise science is like trying to make gold from lead. It isn't going to happen. No scientist can accurately tell me how much alcohol is broken down by my liver in any given time period. No scientist can tell me how much alcohol will cause exactly how much damage to my body. I have been working in and around alcohol for over 30 years and even with the most up to date physiological tests I can only really guess at the damage that is done to an individual, It is an educated guess but all the same an educated guess is still a guess with some education thrown in.
Let us stop the smoke and mirrors, let us stop the funding of those who give us smoke and mirrors and let us have a Royal Commission to look at it all. Let us move forward together so that real information is disseminated to the public and so our children, who deserve our total care, get the best knowledge now.
What is simple is that the message is being fogged by those who would seek to benefit from the misery that alcohol can inflict. But remember guns don't kill people, people do. Alcohol can only cause this problem if we chose to put it down our necks, Let us go about showing people that they have a choice!
Monday, 9 January 2012
A bright new future? Hardly
And so the Government committee on science on technology makes another statement on alcohol. And what have they said that's new? Well nothing really. It's the same old people banging on about the same old things all over again. And there lies the problem.
We are still living in a world where the alcohol industry say's one thing and the people wanting controls are saying another thing. They are not getting to the heart of the problem and I doubt if they will ever get to the heart of the problem. Why? because it's all about the money.
The Alcohol Industry effectively brings in billions of pounds of taxation revenue in one form and another for the Government. And that is not just the direct tax on alcohol but all the bits and pieces of tax that add up in the tax chain that make up the final price that you pay. And then there are the detractors who are funded generally directly or indirectly by the same Government. You can rock the boat therefor but not too much hence all he mixed messages about booze.
Is alcohol bad for you, well yes it is. After all the reason why we believe alcohol came about was a defence mechanism by yeast to other competitive or predatory organisms.
How bad is it for you? We don't know and the only way we will find out is if we conduct a series of experiments that will ultimately kill or injure human beings. Thank goodness for medical ethics.
Plato said it best when he said "Man should not drink until he is 18 then only moderately until he is 40 when he should immediately stop" Now Plato lived in a world where observation came first not physiology yet he seemed to know a thing or two about booze.
What is a safe limit? We don't know this either as this requires alcohol to be a precise science and that is clearly not true.
The whole subject of alcohol is so scientifically complex that at the end of the day we know not that much more for certain than we did when ancient Mesopotamians first brought it to our society.
However we can change patterns and we know that psychology plays a vitally important part in that particular challenge. Not further studies by academics in ivory towers but by clear concise and simple education about what alcohol is and what it does and why we rely so heavily on it in our society.
Teach people to break the emotional connection that they have with alcohol. Show them how to stop playing the alcohol blame game and give them the ability to make honest decisions about their future relationship with the so called demon drink.
Carol Vorderman recently called for financial education in our schools. Well I call and have been calling for years for proper alcohol education in schools.
I today challenged David Cameron on live radio to knock on my door and talk to me about alcohol, me an ordinary bloke with a mere 30 years experience in dealing with alcohol issues. I did it because of something I have learned.
All it takes for evil to succeed is for one good man not to stand up
I have spent most of my time working quietly helping people to change their lives if they want to. I am fed up of people with vested interests setting out guidelines or giving out messages because it makes a good sound byte. We can change our habits and we can enjoy alcohol but we need to have total impartial and independent education so that people understand why and how.
And we need it now
We are still living in a world where the alcohol industry say's one thing and the people wanting controls are saying another thing. They are not getting to the heart of the problem and I doubt if they will ever get to the heart of the problem. Why? because it's all about the money.
The Alcohol Industry effectively brings in billions of pounds of taxation revenue in one form and another for the Government. And that is not just the direct tax on alcohol but all the bits and pieces of tax that add up in the tax chain that make up the final price that you pay. And then there are the detractors who are funded generally directly or indirectly by the same Government. You can rock the boat therefor but not too much hence all he mixed messages about booze.
Is alcohol bad for you, well yes it is. After all the reason why we believe alcohol came about was a defence mechanism by yeast to other competitive or predatory organisms.
How bad is it for you? We don't know and the only way we will find out is if we conduct a series of experiments that will ultimately kill or injure human beings. Thank goodness for medical ethics.
Plato said it best when he said "Man should not drink until he is 18 then only moderately until he is 40 when he should immediately stop" Now Plato lived in a world where observation came first not physiology yet he seemed to know a thing or two about booze.
What is a safe limit? We don't know this either as this requires alcohol to be a precise science and that is clearly not true.
The whole subject of alcohol is so scientifically complex that at the end of the day we know not that much more for certain than we did when ancient Mesopotamians first brought it to our society.
However we can change patterns and we know that psychology plays a vitally important part in that particular challenge. Not further studies by academics in ivory towers but by clear concise and simple education about what alcohol is and what it does and why we rely so heavily on it in our society.
Teach people to break the emotional connection that they have with alcohol. Show them how to stop playing the alcohol blame game and give them the ability to make honest decisions about their future relationship with the so called demon drink.
Carol Vorderman recently called for financial education in our schools. Well I call and have been calling for years for proper alcohol education in schools.
I today challenged David Cameron on live radio to knock on my door and talk to me about alcohol, me an ordinary bloke with a mere 30 years experience in dealing with alcohol issues. I did it because of something I have learned.
All it takes for evil to succeed is for one good man not to stand up
I have spent most of my time working quietly helping people to change their lives if they want to. I am fed up of people with vested interests setting out guidelines or giving out messages because it makes a good sound byte. We can change our habits and we can enjoy alcohol but we need to have total impartial and independent education so that people understand why and how.
And we need it now
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Seeing Double
Today I have been talking about the physiology of alcohol and I in doing so I have come across a group of people who have clearly redesigned the human body.
What?
Well according to one person I have been working with has been told by an accredited drug and alcohol service that humans have two stomachs. One is for food and one is for drugs and alcohol!!!!!
Yesterday I had someone come to me to tell me that his daughter told her science teacher about synapses and the chemical 'switch' system called neurotransmitters. The answer she received back was that they don't exist and you don't need to know that rubbish!
Well I ask you how on earth can anyone fight that kind of utter incompetence? If accredited services don't understand anatomy and physiology and a science teacher who doesn't even understand basic nerve structure what chance do our children have?
Next week I have been invited to talk on another radio show. I am so happy to do this because this sort of thing needs to be highlighted.
That said it comes back to this:
The symbiotic relationship between the alcohol industry and the alcohol abolitionists and therapists continues. This is a game more large and more deep than Berne could ever have envisaged. It is almost as if the ordinary person with alcohol challenges or the man in the street seeking true knowledge are stuck between the scotch and the rocks. And they are certainly left seeing double!
What?
Well according to one person I have been working with has been told by an accredited drug and alcohol service that humans have two stomachs. One is for food and one is for drugs and alcohol!!!!!
Yesterday I had someone come to me to tell me that his daughter told her science teacher about synapses and the chemical 'switch' system called neurotransmitters. The answer she received back was that they don't exist and you don't need to know that rubbish!
Well I ask you how on earth can anyone fight that kind of utter incompetence? If accredited services don't understand anatomy and physiology and a science teacher who doesn't even understand basic nerve structure what chance do our children have?
Next week I have been invited to talk on another radio show. I am so happy to do this because this sort of thing needs to be highlighted.
That said it comes back to this:
The symbiotic relationship between the alcohol industry and the alcohol abolitionists and therapists continues. This is a game more large and more deep than Berne could ever have envisaged. It is almost as if the ordinary person with alcohol challenges or the man in the street seeking true knowledge are stuck between the scotch and the rocks. And they are certainly left seeing double!
Monday, 21 November 2011
Video killed the radio star....Not
For those of you of a certain age you will remember the tag line from one of the 1980s most prolific songs. Ah the 1980s an era of yuppies and pre-defined hedonism. They say of the 1960s if you can remember them you weren't there well of the 80s not only was I most definitely there but I remember them with a clarity that cannot be described on this gentle blog.
However on the subject of alcohol it was the decade when everything really changed.
I was working last week on a lecture tour taking in the South East of England, primarily Kent, when on arriving back in my hotel room overlooking the wonderful and soulful River Medway I received an e-mail with an invite. It was an invite to a radio debate on the BBC during alcohol awareness week.
What week? I ask you say.
Alcohol awareness week I answer.
Never heard of it, comes your woeful reply.
Well you've probably never heard of it because when the massed ranks of the PR industry get to work with the millions supplied by the alcohol industry you're kind of going to be diverted. And those of us seek to educate are once again left drowning in the dregs of the barman's slops.
Anyway this radio star agreed to the debate and hauled his none too slim frame back up the M4 to Swindon to be involved in a lively mid morning debate on the virtues or not of alcohol. Mark O'Donnell and the team at BBC Wiltshire were brilliant as they always are when I work with the station and the enthusiasm shown tells me that the licence fee is worth every penny however the great shame was that we could not go on for longer because as it was Children in Need day someone needed to be interviewed naked in a bath of baked beans or the like.
And that is the point I wish to make here. Many of the Children in Need in the United Kingdom are in need because of the damage that alcohol is doing to their family. They have no idea what is going on but learn from the twisted environment in which they live. This means that when they are adults they will ultimately make the same mistakes that their parents made a generation before them. How I ask is that useful?
Those of you who know me know that I do not seek the abolition of alcohol. Anyone doing so is quite frankly living in cloud cuckoo land. Alcohol has been around since man first civilised so stopping it now is a non starter. What we can do is seek to influence the way in which people consume so that they do less damage to themselves and ultimately less damage to subsequent generations.
And we can only seek to influence through carefully targeted educational programmes that work on the psyche of both young and old. We need to seek out new frontiers and go boldly where... oh sorry I'll take off the Captain Kirk mask for a minute but you get my drift , don't you?
We need real education now on the subject of alcohol.We need it in our schools, in our workplace and in our homes. Otherwise we are in danger of losing yet another generation of children to the wastelands of the future. They are confused and there is no clear message so in the words of the great Ali G
Keep it Real!
If you're interested here's the link to the radio programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lh7jw#synopsis
However on the subject of alcohol it was the decade when everything really changed.
I was working last week on a lecture tour taking in the South East of England, primarily Kent, when on arriving back in my hotel room overlooking the wonderful and soulful River Medway I received an e-mail with an invite. It was an invite to a radio debate on the BBC during alcohol awareness week.
What week? I ask you say.
Alcohol awareness week I answer.
Never heard of it, comes your woeful reply.
Well you've probably never heard of it because when the massed ranks of the PR industry get to work with the millions supplied by the alcohol industry you're kind of going to be diverted. And those of us seek to educate are once again left drowning in the dregs of the barman's slops.
Anyway this radio star agreed to the debate and hauled his none too slim frame back up the M4 to Swindon to be involved in a lively mid morning debate on the virtues or not of alcohol. Mark O'Donnell and the team at BBC Wiltshire were brilliant as they always are when I work with the station and the enthusiasm shown tells me that the licence fee is worth every penny however the great shame was that we could not go on for longer because as it was Children in Need day someone needed to be interviewed naked in a bath of baked beans or the like.
And that is the point I wish to make here. Many of the Children in Need in the United Kingdom are in need because of the damage that alcohol is doing to their family. They have no idea what is going on but learn from the twisted environment in which they live. This means that when they are adults they will ultimately make the same mistakes that their parents made a generation before them. How I ask is that useful?
Those of you who know me know that I do not seek the abolition of alcohol. Anyone doing so is quite frankly living in cloud cuckoo land. Alcohol has been around since man first civilised so stopping it now is a non starter. What we can do is seek to influence the way in which people consume so that they do less damage to themselves and ultimately less damage to subsequent generations.
And we can only seek to influence through carefully targeted educational programmes that work on the psyche of both young and old. We need to seek out new frontiers and go boldly where... oh sorry I'll take off the Captain Kirk mask for a minute but you get my drift , don't you?
We need real education now on the subject of alcohol.We need it in our schools, in our workplace and in our homes. Otherwise we are in danger of losing yet another generation of children to the wastelands of the future. They are confused and there is no clear message so in the words of the great Ali G
Keep it Real!
If you're interested here's the link to the radio programme http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00lh7jw#synopsis
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Voodoo Juice for all?
Another report on children and drinking, more horror stories for Halloween. Lock up your children now or they will succumb to the Voodoo Man's lethal juice.
Is underage drinking a result of availability? Not really, alcohol has always been available to children in some form or another. It was far worse of course in Victorian times which is one of the reasons that the abolitionist movement started to grow in the min 1800's. However simplification of the argument only leads us away from the real source of our problems, consumerism.
For those of you who remember go back to a teenagers bedroom in the early 1980s or late 1970s. What would you find there. Here's a list of possibles.
Posters
Old style mono record player with collection of 45s and 33s
Mono tape recorder
Games and Toys
Books and magazines
Clothes including possible hand me downs
Now forward to today
Posters
Flat screen TV
Blue ray player
iPod
Laptop computer
Mobile telephone
Top quality designer clothing
Many of the items that were designed for business efficacy have somehow found their way onto a teenagers wish list.
So if the most advanced adult tools are available for every average teenager then it becomes blindingly obvious that children are becoming more adult sooner. This is a challenge because it means that children start to want adult things, particularly the big four taboos, drugs,sex, gambling and booze much earlier. Because children wish to prove they are grown up.
So it is not the availability of booze that has made the difference but the media's constant squashing of childhood.
Now add this to the fact that parents, who are responsible for the education of children have no real understanding of alcohol in their own right and it is all too obvious that we are in the scenario of monkey see. monkey do. So if a child sees their parents throwing caution to the wind they start to believe that this is part of being an adult.
And whilst I long for simpler days of long gone summers I am realistic to know that the only way we will see a change to drinking habits in children is if we educate the adults around them on how to be responsible with alcohol.
The fightback starts here.
Is underage drinking a result of availability? Not really, alcohol has always been available to children in some form or another. It was far worse of course in Victorian times which is one of the reasons that the abolitionist movement started to grow in the min 1800's. However simplification of the argument only leads us away from the real source of our problems, consumerism.
For those of you who remember go back to a teenagers bedroom in the early 1980s or late 1970s. What would you find there. Here's a list of possibles.
Posters
Old style mono record player with collection of 45s and 33s
Mono tape recorder
Games and Toys
Books and magazines
Clothes including possible hand me downs
Now forward to today
Posters
Flat screen TV
Blue ray player
iPod
Laptop computer
Mobile telephone
Top quality designer clothing
Many of the items that were designed for business efficacy have somehow found their way onto a teenagers wish list.
So if the most advanced adult tools are available for every average teenager then it becomes blindingly obvious that children are becoming more adult sooner. This is a challenge because it means that children start to want adult things, particularly the big four taboos, drugs,sex, gambling and booze much earlier. Because children wish to prove they are grown up.
So it is not the availability of booze that has made the difference but the media's constant squashing of childhood.
Now add this to the fact that parents, who are responsible for the education of children have no real understanding of alcohol in their own right and it is all too obvious that we are in the scenario of monkey see. monkey do. So if a child sees their parents throwing caution to the wind they start to believe that this is part of being an adult.
And whilst I long for simpler days of long gone summers I am realistic to know that the only way we will see a change to drinking habits in children is if we educate the adults around them on how to be responsible with alcohol.
The fightback starts here.
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Now that the dust has settled
The inquest about Amy Winehouse has been held. The verdict misadventure.
My question is why misadventure?
Put simply consuming the amount of alcohol that she did would not as the papers would have you believe automatically led to death. There are far greater complexities than that, The record for someone caught for drinking and driving on one of my courses is a reading over double of that of Amy Winehouse and according to the police report on that person they were driving normally down the road! So the mad press headlines that we have seen are exactly that - mad!
Now that doesn't mean I advise people that it's OK to drink a couple of litres of vodka but it does lead me back to my favourite old adage
Educate people now, not when it's too late
I've listened to addiction expert after addiction expert pop their heads out of their ivory towers and glittering spires and talk about cross addiction this and human frailty that, quoting some fantastic theorists and academic studies to sound grand for their Andy Warhol moment, and I am fed up.
I am fed up because none of this public fetish with celebrity and it's ups and downs will actually help young and old alike understand and deal with alcohol from an informed position.
There are solutions there is a better way, but the politicians are too scared, the alcohol industry has an obvious vested interest and the so called abolitionists would have no reason to exist if they didn't have the fight.
Let's get real let's do it now
My question is why misadventure?
Put simply consuming the amount of alcohol that she did would not as the papers would have you believe automatically led to death. There are far greater complexities than that, The record for someone caught for drinking and driving on one of my courses is a reading over double of that of Amy Winehouse and according to the police report on that person they were driving normally down the road! So the mad press headlines that we have seen are exactly that - mad!
Now that doesn't mean I advise people that it's OK to drink a couple of litres of vodka but it does lead me back to my favourite old adage
Educate people now, not when it's too late
I've listened to addiction expert after addiction expert pop their heads out of their ivory towers and glittering spires and talk about cross addiction this and human frailty that, quoting some fantastic theorists and academic studies to sound grand for their Andy Warhol moment, and I am fed up.
I am fed up because none of this public fetish with celebrity and it's ups and downs will actually help young and old alike understand and deal with alcohol from an informed position.
There are solutions there is a better way, but the politicians are too scared, the alcohol industry has an obvious vested interest and the so called abolitionists would have no reason to exist if they didn't have the fight.
Let's get real let's do it now
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