IT'S A safe bet that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people woke up across Canberra this morning with hangovers. Australians love a drink or three, or 20. At least once a year, more than a third of Australians consume alcohol at a level that is high risk for harm in the short term.
Binge drinking, or drinking to get drunk, is almost a rite of passage for young Australians. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in March the country was experiencing ''an epidemic'' of binge drinking. But many would argue it has long been a part of our cultural fabric.
To change attitudes towards youth binge drinking, the Government launched a $20million advertising campaign last week that is literally in your face.
The ads are seen through the eyes of a drinker a beer tips towards the camera in several frames and show some of the nastier things that might happen on a big night out.
In one scene, a group of teenage boys joke around by a city road until a car smashes into one of them. In another, a fun night in a club descends into violence over a spilled drink. A drunken woman falls through a coffee table at a house party, while another woman finds herself being photographed having sex in a park.
Health Minister Nicola Roxon said, ''These are hard-hitting ads because we are dealing with a group of people who think they are bulletproof.''
The statistics underscore the seriousness of the ads:
Four people under 25 die due to alcohol-related injuries in an average week.
One in four hospitalisations of people aged 15 to 24 happens because of alcohol.
Seventy people under 25 are hospitalised due to alcohol-related assault in an average week.
And people are starting to drink earlier. Recent research from Adelaide found most teenagers have had their first alcoholic drink by their 14th birthday a drop of five years in three decades. A 60-year-old today typically started drinking between 19 and 23. The Federal Government's campaign, Don't turn a night out into a nightmare, spearheads its national binge drinking strategy. The strategy includes $14.4million in funding for community partnerships with sporting and other non-governmental organisations to tackle binge drinking among young people.
Directions ACT is one of the beneficiaries of the grants. The community-based organisation, which takes a harm-minimisation approach to alcohol and drugs, has been given $240,000 for a party-safe program. Executive director Carol Mead said the money would fund a full-time coordinator and a purple bus that visits Canberra hot spots ''such as O Week, Stonefest, and even the Canberra Show'' to engage with youth.
''It's about addressing youth binge drinking. People are drinking to get drunk and drinking at fairly unsafe levels, which leads to all kinds of problems, such as violence, abuse, assault, and unintended pregnancy,'' she said. ''We'll be giving information about making safer choices and minimising risk. So there will be resources they can use a booklet, a safe-party pack, safe-sex pack and lots of information and resources.''
Mead echoed the Health Minister's statement that youth binge drinking had been ''a problem for a long, long time in Australia'' and said there were no easy answers. However, the Government had to start somewhere, and the timing of the campaign was perfect, leading into the summer ''party period''.
''I think binge drinking is a very large problem, which needs to be tackled on lots of different levels. It's something Australians have become used to. The opportunities to do it are frequent and easy it happens at weddings and barbecues. And it's not only youth, but youth do sometimes die because of the risks associated ...''
The Salvation Army's Major Bob Garven sees the damage wrought by alcohol up close. He manages the Salvation Army's residential drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre, Canberra Recovery Services, which applies the 12-step program developed by Alcoholics Anonymous.
''If people come into our program, it means their lives have become unmanageable to some extent in their home life, their jobs, financially, and quite often with the law,'' he says.
Garven welcomed the Government's campaign as at least an attempt to try to counterbalance the ''powerful ads'' of the alcohol industry. ''I don't think there's a balance, and these ads are part of that process,'' he said. He was concerned about the prevalence of sweet alcoholic drinks ''alcopops''.
Alcopops introduced young people to alcohol in ''a more pleasant way''. School education was crucial to changing attitudes.
Binge drinking was dangerous not just for the immediate dangers it posed, but for the health risks over the long term. ''It causes changes in the brain and, over the longer term, brain damage.''
The Australian drinking culture was largely one of going out to get drunk. ''It's not about having a glass of wine over a meal, or a social drink, as some cultures might see it. Binge drinking is about getting drunk.'' This made it doubly difficult for alcoholics leaving the program, whose friends, while not alcoholics themselves, might drink heavily once or twice a week. The service offers strategies for coping with temptation back in the community, including encouraging individuals to change their social networks. While acknowledging the difficulty of changing Australia's drinking culture, Garven was optimistic.
''If you look at drink driving, it wasn't so many years ago when it was an acceptable thing to do. Over a long period of time, cultural mores can change ...''
Drink driving may not be the best example of attitude change right now. Last week ACT Policing expressed alarm at the growing number of drink-driving offences in the ACT. Since July 2004, there has been more than a one-third increase in drunk drivers, from 1093 detected in 2004/05 to 1584 in the 2007/08 financial year. From July to November this year the number is up by 120 from the same period last year. And those are the ones caught.
Some drink drivers make it home others aren't so lucky. Of the 63 fatal accidents in the ACT from 2004 to 2007, 27, or 43 per cent, involved alcohol and/or drugs.
ACT Policing Superintendent Kate Buggy said police dealt with intoxicated people in a number of situations. People should alternate alcoholic drinks with water at social events and plan ahead before a night out to ensure there was a designated driver.
What the police would probably like to say is: don't drink too much, because it's stupid and dangerous. But given the prevalence of binge drinking by men and woman of all ages, from all professions including police it would almost be un-Australian.