Is there a rational alternative to Alcophobia?

Is there an alternative analysis of the causes of chronic drinking and binge drinking? One that looks at root causes and that isn’t rooted in scape-goating? Yes there is. ‘Chronic drinking’ is what we used to call ‘alcoholism’. Historically alcoholism was always driven by poverty. Although the nature of poverty today isn’t what it was in the 19th century – we don’t have mass unemployment and mass, absolute poverty – we do have significant regional pockets of high, intergenerational unemployment and this is a major driver of chronic drinking. The other main driver is pensioner poverty. The UK has more people aged over 55 than under 25 and breaking the link between pensions and earnings has ensured the erosion of living standards for the elderly. This factor, coupled with the growing social isolation of the elderly poor has contributed greatly to the increase in chronic drinking in this age group.

What of ‘binge drinking’? Again, I believe that the main factors driving this social trend have little to do with cheap beer or ‘pre-loading’, but instead it is driven by the growth of the underclass and by the six-fold increase in student numbers that we’ve seen over the past 30 years. This curious social dynamic sees the sons and daughters of an underclass of seemingly permanently deprived families mixing in town centres with the sons and daughters of the middle class, and being pumped through a pre-existing partying-to-excess  youth culture that revolves around binge drinking and illegal drug use.

What all four of these drivers of maladaptive drinking patterns have in common is that they map across to government policy and political failure. But why blame government and politics when it is much more fun to engage in a bit of cheap, populist supermarket bashing? Our industry is too often used as a whipping-boy by politicians keen to avoid a rational debate about the real causes of chronic drinking and binge drinking.