Decriminalise drugs? We haven’t even learned how to handle our drink

When thinking about the decriminalisation of drugs, we might benefit from thinking about our legal drug of choice: alcohol. UCD historian of medicine, Dr Alice Mauger, with tongue only slightly in cheek, says that the reputation of the Irish as “drunken and combative” dates from Plato’s description of Celts.

Whether Plato meant the Irish or the denizens of Gaul and Iberia does not really matter. The drunken Irish stereotype has prevailed because we Irish embrace it. Alcohol lubricates every social occasion from christenings to funerals. Having the craic is synonymous with having a jar.

Along with our love of alcohol comes stigma for those who realise they have a problem with drink. The beautifully written, painfully honest and often moving Irish Times series I Am Not an Alcoholic, shows how the Irish love affair with alcohol complicates the possibility of giving it up.

Irish adults were significantly more likely than adults in the US to have experienced an adverse childhood experience from adults’ drinking

Our denial extends to how much we drink and the harm caused to ourselves and others. Our preferred way to drink is heavy episodic drinking, better known in Ireland as a great night out. A 2020 Health Research Board study found that two out of three of us who engage in heavy episodic drinking were unaware of the harm to our health. One in three people who were alcohol dependent considered themselves as either “light” or “moderate” drinkers.

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We are also truly, madly, deeply in denial about the harm to children. When we talk about children and young people in relation to drink, it is often focused either on delaying children’s drinking or problematic drinking among teenagers and young adults. Most of us don’t want to look at the harm inflicted on children by adults’ drinking or, if we do, we picture areas of poverty and deprivation. Yet there are as many tears in leafy suburbs about problem drinking as there are anywhere else.

Alcohol Action Ireland (AAI), a charity that is a national independent advocate for reducing alcohol harm, held seminars this week about ending the silence around harm to children in particular.

[ ‘I drink alcohol regularly. Are there any healthy activities I can do to counteract its harms?’ ]

Christa McCutchen of the Department of Psychology at Maynooth University presented a paper on adverse childhood experiences, or Aces, which are events or ongoing toxic stresses in a child’s life.

Aces include abuse of all kinds, as well as neglect or the presence in the household of someone abusing alcohol or other substances and may lead to lifelong mental health and physical challenges. McCutchen’s research shows that 25 per cent of adults in Ireland – almost one million people – experienced living with a problem drinker as a child. This is mind-boggling. Irish adults were significantly more likely than adults in the US to have experienced an Ace and had a higher mean number of Aces.

That’s an awful lot of pain and sorrow washing around. No wonder we try to drown it in alcohol and, increasingly, with other substances. It’s a long way from the notion that we are just always up for a laugh and a good night out. It also shows how counterproductive shame and blame are. If people are self-medicating childhood trauma, they need adequately resourced support services and their children need them perhaps even more to break the cycle.

[ How alcohol really affects your body, from the first sip to the long haul ]

AAI has pointed out that despite the HRB 2019-2020 Irish Drug and Alcohol Survey showing that almost 15 per cent of the Irish population over the age of 15 has an alcohol use disorder – that’s about 578,000 people, with 90,000 at a severe level – the numbers in treatment for alcohol dependency are pitifully small.

Several themes emerged from the AAI seminars, including the importance of one trusted adult in the lives of children undergoing trauma. Dr Judith E Butler of the Munster Technological University gave an excellent presentation on trauma-sensitive approaches, particularly in education.

Few teachers are adequately trained to deal with children’s suffering but most teachers want that training. It enables people to see that challenging behaviour is often signalling distress. However, teachers cannot shoulder yet another societal burden without receiving support, not to mention renewed funding for our overburdened Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services. And teachers have family members with alcohol use disorders, too, or may struggle themselves.

In Northern Ireland, if the police are called to an incident of domestic abuse in the child’s home, a trained key adult in a school will be informed by the start of the next school day

The Citizens’ Assembly suggested a health-led approach to drug use, including decriminalisation of possession of drugs for personal use. But decriminalisation will not work without significant structural investment. In Portugal, for example, decriminalisation has not been accompanied by adequately resourced diversion and dissuasion programmes, and the impact has been to normalise drug use.

Here’s a suggestion. Let’s not even talk about the decriminalisation of personal possession of drugs until we demonstrate that we are serious about tackling some of the harms already coming from alcohol. Since 2020, AAI has been proposing that we implement Operation Encompass, which came into force recently in Northern Ireland. If the police are called to an incident of domestic abuse in the child’s home, a trained key adult in a school will be informed by the start of the next school day.

At the very least, it ensures that a child will not be chided for being distracted or without homework. At best, it can lead to an acknowledgment, and pathway out of a particular type of childhood hell – often caused by alcohol.