NEWS: The Age - 25/08/2006 'Alcohol abuse increasing: study'

Alcohol abuse increasing: study
August 25, 2006 - 3:38PM

High risk drinking is on the rise and women are picking up the habit at the fastest rate, new figures show.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says about one in eight adults - about two million Australians - drink at a risky or high risk level in a typical week.

And the proportion putting their health at risk has increased over the past decade from 8.2 per cent in 1995 to 10.8 per cent in 2001 and 13.4 per cent in the most recent 2004-2005 survey.

Men are still more likely to be hitting the bottle hard, but the ABS found the number of women overindulging doubled in the past decade.

Taxpayers are picking up the tab for the boozy behaviour, with the number of hospital admissions for alcohol-related mental and behavioural disorders increasing from 23,000 a year in 1999 to 35,000 today.

About 1.5 per cent of men and 2.4 per cent of women injure themselves each year while under the influence of alcohol.

A Queensland study earlier this year confirmed people who drink alcohol are up to four times more likely than non-drinkers to be hurt from physical injuries.

More than 30,000 Australians died from alcohol-caused disease and injury between 1992 and 2001.

Middle aged men were most likely to habitually drink too much - with almost one in five men aged 45 to 54 considered long term risky drinkers - while young men aged 18 to 24 were the most common binge drinkers.

According to National Health and Medical Research Council guidelines, men who drink 11 or more drinks in one sitting are considered to be binge drinking, while seven drinks puts women in the danger zone.

Long term risky drinking means five or more drinks a day for men and three or more for women, while high risk drinking means more than seven or five respectively.

Almost half of Australian men, and three in ten women, reported binge drinking at least once a year and 12 per cent of men reported doing so at least once a week.

One quarter of teenagers aged 14 to 19 reported drinking alcohol daily or weekly.

The figures found alcohol abuse was worse in regional Australia compared to major cities, and was worse among Australian-born citizens than migrants.

Australians born in North Africa and the Middle East had the lowest proportion of alcohol abusers, at just 2.2 per cent, compared to 15 per cent of those born locally.

High risk drinkers were more likely to smoke, eat less than the recommended daily fruit intake and report high or very high levels of psychological distress.

Distress was most common among women aged 18 to 24 years than other groups.

(ABS) Alcohol Consumption in Australia: A Snapshot, 2004-05

AAP

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Booze, boys and other headaches
August 27, 2006

Even the best-prepared parent will be tested - and found wanting - by party-going teenagers, writes Liz Porter.

About 72 hours before the party's scheduled starting time, I had stopped fretting about gatecrashers. The gathering was to be in Richmond, in an untenanted house, away from Bayside's badly behaved private school boys.

The invitees for my daughter's party comprised 57 year 9 students - most 15, some still 14.

Instead, I started worrying about alcohol.

Nine months ago, I had a simple answer for the teen-drinking dilemma. It was: "They are too young to drink. Just ban it."

But driving teenage girls home from parties, I had taken in some uncomfortable new information. When alcohol was banned, some kids just smuggled it in - in girls' bags, inside boys' jackets. They threw it over fences, stashed it in bushes down the street, and then collected it. Or drank before they arrived.

Yes, you could still search them and have adults prowl the room, snatching drinks from kids' hands, as happened at one recent party. But neither the kids nor the parents really enjoyed that.

Anyway, some kids still managed to smuggle in booze, and one boy (there's always one) got so drunk he threw up.

The other option, I was told, was to take control. Serve a small amount of alcohol, so you can see what they are having, and then watch them like hawks.

But who wants to actually serve alcohol to minors - even with their parents' permission? (I always think of the teen who died of hypothermia after collapsing in a paddock, drunk on potent vodka essence bought by one of his friends' mothers)

After much debate, we decided to accept realities and extend some trust. Each teen guest would be allowed to bring in two or three drinks. More would be confiscated at the door and no "pass-outs" would be allowed - to stop top-ups from booze stashes. We hoped, somewhat naively, that permission to drink in moderation might prevent that.

A responsible 21-year-old was delegated to roam the party and watch for anyone looking the worse for wear.

We were providing soft drink and food, had registered the party with the police's PartySafe program, and had a list of names at the door.

We had done, we thought, everything we could.

I explained this to the eight parents out of a potential 57 who actually rang me to ask about adult supervision and alcohol. Several felt our approach was a sensible alternative to a ban that would inevitably fail.

By 9.30pm, we had many names ticked off (and had confiscated one six-pack, for collection afterwards).

Then things began unravelling. First, I realised, as one group of boys arrived and gave their names, that they had already been ticked off the list. Up to eight "imposters" had already come in, using names from the list. Who was who? Did we really want to turn the lights on, get those on the list to clarify identities, and chuck the crashers out?

Then one boy hit another. Neither lad had been drinking, but the victim had unwittingly kissed another boy's girlfriend. In the fray, one body had apparently crashed into a (previously) cracked wall, dislodging plaster. Suddenly the agitation levels skyrocketed as each boy's mates rushed back and forth, attempting to broker peace.

I felt ill. The "victim" wasn't harmed. But what would I have said to his mother, if he had been?

Two hours before the party, I had dropped in to the local police, who had offered a 10pm drive-by to check all was well. We decided that their offer might be calming at this point.

It was. A gentle cop the size of an AFL ruckman soon had the boys shaking hands and then left, urging us to call again if necessary. An hour later, the divvy van was back after a boy (one of the crashers) was spotted rifling through a bag.

The six phones originally reported missing were found under chairs, but not the MP3 player or the cash taken from various bags. This had happened on our watch. But we couldn't guard the bags (as we had planned ) because we were too busy sorting the general mayhem.

Later, a window pane was smashed when something was thrown.

My partner was quietly working the back room, sweeping up ice spilt when a soft drink bin was knocked over, ticking off the more boisterous boys throwing sweets and ice or breaking bamboo sticks from the garden. But he didn't see the little bugger who graffitied the inside of the back gate.

The kids, including my daughter, had a wonderful time, dancing and leaping around, smooching in corners. But a few of the boys were stumbling. One threw up, and two fell over.

The kids on the list were fine. Some didn't drink - and all of them looked after each other and jumped into line when ticked off. Most said "thank you for having me" as they left and expressed regret about the trouble.

But it left me wondering about the parents who didn't call. Were they unable to get their kids to text my daughter and extract either of her parents' numbers? Didn't they know what kids get up to at parties? Or were they cowed by their teen's insistence that only ridiculous embarrassing control freaks ever ring to check?

Order was (mostly) restored to the house the next morning after my daughter and three girlfriends spent three hours cleaning it and retrieving empties from gardens all the way down the street.

I can't stop thinking about what might have happened if one of the boys had hurt himself when he fell.

I still think 14 and 15 year olds are too young to be drinking alcohol. But banning alcohol at the front door wouldn't have stopped the boys who stashed the bags of beers the police found in bushes down the street.

Of course, it is possible to enforce an alcohol ban on younger teens. But it involves exerting so much control (un-photocopiable invitations, ID checks, body searches) that fun disappears from the equation.

For me, there is only one answer to this dilemma. I will never hold another teenage party again.

Liz Porter is a staff writer.

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