I am an industrial chaplain to a brewery. I love a guinness, or a Speights Old Dark, a variety of other interesting beers, a Stone's Original Ginger wine, or ... some other drink. I am not a tea total parson, though I don't think I have really been drunk in my life. (I have let my wife drive home a couple of times.) ... but I am growing more and more concerned about the attitude toward drink we have in NZ and the damage it does to people and in our community.
I read of a couple sleeping in their camper van getting attacked by a bunch of teens, fueled by drink. The Octagon, in the centre of town is often a place of violence because of inebriated customers spilling out of the many bars. Cruise ships coming to town are warned about drunken behaviour on our Dunedin streets. If you bother to read the court news (not a good idea) you will discover most of the cases have some relation to abuse of alcohol or sometimes drugs. These type of incidents that you read of are just the tip of the iceberg of the problems caused by abuse of alcohol. I talked to a social worker in a hospital and she told me of so many cases where families and lives were ruined by preventable problems brought on by long term alcohol abuse. Much of this abuse was relatively respectable "harmless" private, but long term abuse. Spend a Friday or Saturday night with ambulance crews and you can see the results of abuse. This afternoon I was invited to a function. It sounded attractive enough. There is to be a band playing and I know one of the main musicians. There is going to be big screen rugby, a test match to watch. But the invite came in these terms.... "Booze, a band and rugby.... come and get pissed with us!" Why do I need to get pissed to have a good time? If I go and don't get pissed but everyone else does, I probably won't have a good time. What is it with our attitude toward drink?
I read in the paper a retired cop searching for answers to this problem and it seems others are thinking things through too. Many suggestions are made. Make it more difficult to get alcohol.... Tax it through the roof. Limit the outlets. Raise the drinking age. Put time limits on when and where it should be sold. Bring back the old "Drunk in public law." And so we could go on in the search for solutions.
Let me suggest another question to ask. I over eat. I most often over eat when I am stressed. If I am stewing on my work, uncertain about whether I can cope or do a good job, I will tend to graze. I'll open the fridge, spread another bit of bread. ..Buy some morning tea. etc. Now to deal with it I could put a lock on the fridge door.... Make sure there is not spare bread around. ...Go to work with no money in my pocket so I cant buy a snack etc. All good ideas, but wouldn't it be better to do something about my stress? It is stress that causes it, not the fridge, or the bread or the money. If I was just prevented from over eating I might exhibit my distress in other ways, that are just as harmful or even more harmful. Surely the best way to deal with it is to find a way not to get stressed or to find ways to work through whatever stresses me? The same is true of alcohol abuse.
I think that as a individuals and as a society we need to be asking, "Why is it that we feel the need to 'get pissed' to have a good time?" "What is the distress or distortion in our lifestyle that makes us need to abuse alcohol?" There are deeper issues at steak, and the abuse of alcohol is just the symptom. Is there an "existential vacuum" (lack of meaning) that causes it? Is there a lack of hope? Is it related to a lack of esteem... we need the booze to feel good among others? While we may control some of the negative outcomes of abuse by legislative action, it would be better to do some thinking about these deeper issues. I have no answers, but just feel we need to be asking deeper questions. They not only relate to abuse of alcohol but other "symptoms" obvious in our society. Why the senseless vandalism? Why the over-the-top frenzy over sport? Why the increasing violence? These are trends and symptoms of deeper issues. We need to ask deeper questions if we are to address them. That's some of my questioning and stewing so far.
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