This week's Prime Time programme on alcohol, "Saturday Night, Sunday Morning", made for grim viewing. There is an out-of-control quality to much of our drinking that is deeply disturbing, writes Breda O'Brien.
Not unsurprisingly, the programme concentrated on the flagrant public order offences, on the under-age drinking, on our overflowing Accident and Emergency departments, on the damage done to health, on the comatose young women. Many practical steps to deal with the problem were suggested by contributors to the programme, including a curb on the availability of alcohol, making it more expensive through tax, curtailing advertising, and real enforcement of under-age drinking laws.
All of this is important.
It is perhaps inevitable that public disquiet should be focused on the rise in alcohol-fuelled crime, and on alcohol-related accidents and illness. Yet surely we need to look at the underlying reasons for alcohol abuse before we can begin to deal with them. There are many, many people who have problems with alcohol who will never get drunk and fight in the street, or who will never present at an Accident and Emergency at three o'clock in the morning.
As Stephen Rowan of the Rutland Centre has pointed out, there is a chronic low-level crisis in the form of loneliness and helplessness, which results in a lot of almost secret drinking which never presents in the form of problem public behaviour.
Both the obvious problems which we see in public and the more private manifestations of malaise have a common root. People resort to alcohol to help them cope when they feel unable to find the inner resources or the external support to deal with difficulties.
It is extraordinary, and yet almost unquestioned, how many Irish people would find it impossible to imagine a worthwhile social occasion without alcohol. It at least raises questions about our much-vaunted friendliness, if alcohol has to lubricate every social event.
Foreigners who come to live in Ireland often say that Irish people are great listeners and talkers, and very charming, but that it rarely moves beyond that level. On a recent radio programme, one Asian woman speculated that our very charm and friendliness function as a shield against real intimacy. She pointed out that Irish people rarely socialise in their homes, that everything happens in the more superficial atmosphere of the pub.
It is tempting to blame our pub culture, given that it would seem impossible to have a social life in Ireland without consuming a significant amount of alcohol. Yet the location of our drinking may not be as significant as the reasons for our drinking. It is true that three-quarters of our alcohol consumption takes place in pubs, clubs and to a lesser extent in restaurants. However, three-quarters of alcohol consumption in the US takes place at home. An Irish town might have 30 pubs and an American town might have only one tavern, but the levels of alcoholism could be similar.
The important question is how people deal with problems of loneliness and feelings of inadequacy, and why they use alcohol in a misguided attempt to medicate feelings of emptiness. Real friendship, the kind that provides shelter and sustenance, is a much harder to find than the easy booze-fuelled bonhomie which the pub provides. Even harder to develop, it seems, are the kind of spiritual values which raise your ambitions beyond beating your personal record for consumption of shots.
Some years ago, Albert McDonnell published the results of research he had conducted into marital breakdown. One of his most important findings is summarised in the title of his book, When Strangers Marry. He found a pattern of superficial courtship which was often conducted in groups. There was a high level of physical intimacy in the relationships which was not accompanied by an equivalent depth of emotional intimacy. Socialising in groups in pubs contributed to that lack of depth.
As a result, he concludes, when such couples were confronted with marital problems they did not have a "reserve of trust and unity to call on". He goes on to say that "efforts to avoid separation consisted of attempts to create, rather than restore, a close inter-personal bond" which proved to be "a fruitless undertaking". Although he does look at the effects of alcohol abuse on marital breakdown, it was outside the scope of McDonnell's study to establish what role alcohol played in courtship to create an impression of intimacy where none really existed.
This same "false intimacy" affects the youngest drinkers. They are the richest, best-educated generation with the most promising job prospects which Ireland has ever produced. So why are they so dependent on alcohol?
Perhaps it is because they are also more competitive, and more likely to judge a person rigidly by accent, dress and by the brands they wear. They have more disposable income to spend, but they are no more and perhaps are even less secure about being accepted by their peers than were any previous generation. They have even bigger problems with establishing safe havens where they will be accepted, particularly if they do not conform to the hard-drinking stereotype expected of young people.
Nor will this problem be solved by resorting to alcohol education programmes which seek to build a superficial level of self-esteem. Self-efficacy may be a better goal, which is defined as a kind of quiet confidence that you possess the skills to negotiate difficult situations. It may be closer to that old-fashioned concept, character-building. There was a valid desire among parents not to fall into the trap of earlier generations, where children were shamed and made to feel worthless when they made mistakes.
Sadly, it has been substituted for a form of self-esteem building where some (though by no means all) young people believe that anything which makes them feel good is legitimate. They become highly indignant at the suggestion that they should exercise self-control or restraint.
It is sobering, to coin an almost painful pun, to remember that our children reflect back to us relentlessly what we practise rather than what we preach.
Dealing with the problem of alcohol abuse through legislation and taxation is only a start. But perhaps the real solution will begin to emerge when we begin to look at the hole in the soul which we vainly attempt to fill with alcohol.