bRitain has a problem, and that problem is alcohol. Only it is more nuanced than that. The problem is not so much the alcohol itself, but rather our attitude towards alcohol and the problematic culture we have created around it. For far too many of us, it’s all a bit laughable.
But it’s all become a lot less funny since the publication last week of a major new report from the World Health Organization showing that Britain has the worst drinking among children in the world. It makes for sobering reading. A third of our eleven-year-olds have drunk alcohol. More than half of thirteen-year-olds in England have already started drinking. Britain came out worst of the 44 countries examined in the study, the largest of its kind. It’s alarming.
The fact that Britain has so many extremely young drinkers is part of a wider problem our country has, and that is the way we consume alcohol. We are a nation of binge drinkers. I know because I was one once. Like most Brits, I had my first drink as a teenager. Throughout my 20s, I skipped dinner and gave up vodka so I could get drunk faster and cheaper. I used to sneak small bottles of spirits into pubs whose prices I couldn’t afford.
For a number of years people encouraged and applauded it: I was the life and soul of most parties. But things started to fray. I started getting torturous hangovers all day long; I would lose entire weekends. I blacked out and forgot the scandalous things I was known for. I have arrived. I had sex with men I wouldn’t have looked at sober. It put a strain on friendships. My manager even noticed my frequent hangovers during the week. In short, it just wasn’t funny anymore.
It became even less funny when a close family member died of alcohol abuse when I was in my 30s. The fact that the taboo surrounding this subject prevents me from naming them also says a lot about us as a country. When the party is over and we are saddled with the terrible consequences of this insidious culture, the stigma and resulting desire for privacy prevents us from fully sharing the story as a cautionary tale for others.
Some of my friends from that time are now completely sober. I still drink, but usually in a different way than my booze-soaked youth. Since my thirties I have lived in three countries known for their alcohol consumption: Great Britain; beer-at-the-barbecue-loving Australia; and Malbec-appreciating Argentina. These last two have inspired me to find a new way of drinking.
Although these countries are notorious for a certain type of alcohol culture, they are healthier than Britain. In Australia, the beers were usually accompanied by grilled burgers and a relaxing afternoon. In Argentina, that famous red wine is served with steak during a long evening. In Britain, the shots with hunters come from more alcohol, while food is an afterthought – a kebab, if we’re broke at all. I must have done it a thousand times in my twenties. But it’s this alcohol culture that’s killing us – and it seems to be getting worse. The alcohol-specific death rate in Britain was 14.8 per 100,000 inhabitants in 2021, a notable increase from 12.0 in 2011.
That’s not to say that other countries – especially Australia – don’t have alcohol-related problems of their own. But Britain has a distorted view of its own problem and denies its scale. I returned to Britain from Australia every year for the twelve years I lived there, and the most common comment I heard was: “Aussies: total booze hounds, aren’t they?” In 2022, alcohol-related deaths in Australia were recorded at a rate of six deaths for every 100,000 people – the highest figure in ten years. Yet that is still less than half of the UK’s alcohol-related death rate over the same period.
Recently, while purchasing a birthday card for my 15-year-old cousin, I noticed how greeting cards at the grocery store reflect our deep-seated cultural problem. They portray non-drinkers as boring bores and loners, unworthy of friendship.
“If someone tells you he doesn’t like gin,” someone shouts in all caps, “don’t talk to him. Nobody needs that kind of negativity.”
“VODKA,” shouts another. “Because no good story starts with, ‘That one time I ate salad.’”
“Drink wine!” another gives instructions. “Because grapes are one of your five a day!”
“One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, FLOOR!” another laugh. How hilarious.
We expect levity from birthday cards, but these have a mocking tone that normalizes and glorifies the dangerous binge drinking culture. And sober shaming makes them look lazily old-fashioned: sober raves, for example, are starting to take off now that things are finally clicking for people who There’s nothing funny about our country’s relationship with booze. Not to mention the inaccuracy of the maps: the best storytellers are down-to-earth. Nothing is more tiring than a pissed off person telling the same story repeatedly and forgetting the punch line (also guilty as accused there).
I’m by no means a puritanical person: I like dark humor, sexy dancing, and dirty martinis. But a third of children in our country consume alcohol for seven years before they can legally buy it. They guzzle what is essentially a dangerous poison before many have even grown pubic hair or started their period. If this If the dangerous relationship with alcohol continues into adulthood, their risk of dying prematurely is greatly increased. That’s why we need to make binge drinking as socially unacceptable as smoking. Alcoholism tears apart families, ends friendships, ruins lives and kills people. There’s something very wrong here.
I have a close family member in an early grave and several friends who will have to attend AA meetings for the rest of their lives. This stuff isn’t a joke anymore.