Last week's headlines indicating that, against the European trend, the per capita consumption of alcohol in Ireland had increased by 41 per cent in the past decade will have been news only to those without eyes in their heads.
Our myths seem to become more truthful the more we become convinced of their obsolescence. Allegedly in tandem with the increasing affluence of recent years, the previous "myth" of the drunken Irish has been acquiring an alarming degree of substance. Formerly, the notion of the inebriated Irishman had much to do with the image of the lonesome emigrant crying into his beer in Kilburn or Boston. Nowadays, according to the figures of the World Health Organisation, Luxembourg is alone among our European neighbours in consuming more alcohol per head of population, and we are catching up fast.
A 1996 Department of Health document on alcohol policy noted "evidence that the description of the Irish as a particularly alcohol-prone race is a myth. Indeed it is doubtful whether Ireland ever occupied a prominent role with regard to alcohol use or misuse". I wrote at the time that the Department's own figures contradicted this assertion, revealing that per capita consumption had trebled since 1960. The main increases occurred during the 1960s and 1970s, peaking in 1979 and declining in the 1980s before rising sharply again from 1987 onwards. It was notable that this graph followed the same track as rises and falls in crime rates.
That connection was emphasised at last week's conference, Alcohol Policy - A Public Health Perspective, in Dublin. Dr Ann Hope, an alcohol policy adviser at the Department Of Health, made connections between alcohol consumption and both assaults and road fatalities. Chief Supt Catherine Clancy, of the Garda Community Relations section, suggested a strong correlation between alcohol and public order offences. Ingeborg Rossow, of the Norwegian Social Research Institute, suggested that heavy drinkers represent a five to 10-fold higher risk of suicide than others.
At another conference last week, that of the mental health and self-help organisation, GROW, Dr John Connolly, chief psychiatrist at St Mary's Hospital, Castlebar, and secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology, also made reference to the links which had been noted between alcohol and suicide. He suggested that because alcohol impairs judgment and increases impulsiveness, drinking had caused a number of people of his acquaintance to commit suicide who would not otherwise have done so.
I believe there are limits to this logic which may cause us to misunderstand both the nature of what the present Minister for Health has called "the national alcohol problem", and the even more urgent issue of suicide. While alcohol is undoubtedly a feature in some suicides, focusing on that connection amounts to studying the crutch instead of the limp. Suicide, as is now belatedly being acknowledged, is an issue mainly affecting men. Since there is abundant evidence that young women are drinking at least as much as young men, the suggestion of a simple cause-and-effect relationship hits an obvious flaw.
The direct connections between alcohol and both crime and road accidents cannot be denied. Alcohol, being a mood-altering drug, causes reduced answerability to personal and social control. But in making connections between alcohol and behavioural patterns of a more existential nature, we should be conscious of the proverbial conundrum posed by the chicken and the egg.
Alcohol is a depressant, and this may provide a direct connection between drinking and some episodes of suicide. But alcohol is also an analgesic, taken - consciously or otherwise - to quell a pain or pains that precede the consumption of the palliative of choice. In other words, in looking at our national alcohol problem, we need to avoid the assumption that the excessive taking of alcohol is in all cases simply a misguided lifestyle choice with negative consequences, and instead concentrate on the possibility that our increasing intake of this lethal drug hints at a deeper story about our national psychic unease. Since the increase in alcohol consumption seems largely to be accounted for by the massive increase in intake by young people, it is in that direction we must look if we are correctly to identify the core issues. By the same token, when it comes to suicide we need to look closely at men.
I believe there are two possible analyses of the connections between alcohol and suicide which do not involve a direct cause-and-effect relationship. One, heavy alcohol intake may be a preliminary symptom of a condition or perspective which culminates, for some, in the act of self-destruction. (Heavy drinking is itself a form of self-destruction.) Two, some people may take alcohol as a preliminary to suicide to make death less forbidding.
The national increase in alcohol consumption may indicate a fundamental unease much more disturbing than the obvious dangers of excessive drinking. Alcoholism is a spiritual disease. The last time I wrote that, a very dense individual responded that he was an alcoholic and there was nothing spiritual about his disease. As any alcohol counsellor will confirm, alcoholism is a disease of the spirit. Alcohol has become the drug of choice to fill the yawning chasm in the soul of the Irish. If we have a national alcohol problem, then, we could do worse than begin our investigation in the spiritual domain. If this enabled us to stumble also on an answer to the suicide problem, I wouldn't be in the least surprised.
jwaters@irish-times.ie