If we're so happy, why do we drink so much?

But, are you happy? It appears the answer depends how the question is asked. Labour people aren't eejits, you know, even if their punctuation is a bit iffy.

Labour would not have risked the derision of the sniggering classes if they had not been hearing on the doorsteps that people are not just not happy, but downright fed-up. Put a pollster on the same doorstep, though, and it appears that we are not just happy, but delirious.

Survey after survey, conducted by everyone from the Eurobarometer to the OECD, confirms that we are content, delighted and charmed with our existences. This newspaper managed to confirm last year that 93 per cent of over-50s are very happy, only 5 per cent were unhappy, and 2 per cent did not know. Yet 50-60 per cent of the very same people are somewhat or very concerned about the direction Irish society is taking, the prevalence of crime, how expensive everything is, and the threat of international terrorism.

We appear to have highly developed skills that enable us to be simultaneously happy as sandboys and worried sick. More accurately, we appear to have taken compartmentalisation to such an advanced level that we can comfortably accommodate contradictory stances with no sense of strain. Mr Rabbitte - or one of his minions - calls to our door, and asks us what we think of the Government. We happily tell him it is doing a desperate job and we are all miserable.

A pollster from The Irish Times calls and asks us slightly different questions, and we stoutly declare ourselves to be very happy with our lot, yes, and very worried, yes, about all the nasty, threatening things going on in the world. Not a trace of disingenuousness, you understand, it is just that we do not seem to be very good at joining the dots.

The ability to hold competing viewpoints simultaneously is even better illustrated by the latest piece of research conducted by Meas. The member companies of Meas represent every major player in the drinks industry in Ireland, although as their website reminds us in carefully worded phrases, Meas has no economic purpose and is operationally independent from drinks industry companies.

Anyway, their latest survey carried out by Lansdowne Market Research shows that 91 per cent of those surveyed agreed that getting drunk is both embarrassing and unattractive to the opposite sex. Some 86 per cent agreed that you should not drink to get drunk, and if you do it spoils other people's nights out. Finally, 77 per cent of people agreed that Meas's "Drink aware" campaign would make people think twice about excessive drinking.

This survey was conducted in the same culture where the last OECD survey informs us that those of us aged over 15 consume on average the equivalent of 13.6 litres of pure alcohol a year, up from just under 5 litres per head in 1960. It would have been delightful if the Meas pollsters politely inquired what mechanism enabled people to believe that excessive drinking is embarrassing, unsociable and generally unacceptable while at the same time continuing to consume enough alcohol on every conceivable occasion to pickle ourselves without recourse to embalming.

Here in Ireland, we have this quaint notion that admitting to, or giving out about something, is the same as actually doing something about it. Why did Bertie's popularity soar after all that unpleasantness emerged some months ago? It was at least in part because having shaken our heads and generally tut-tutted, we think we have made ourselves clear and now can move on to more pleasant terrain. Terrible as it may be for the Opposition to discover, Fianna Fáil has benefited from this phenomenon for years.

Something similar goes on with regard to alcohol. We think we have made some progress on alcohol in Ireland because we now admit we have a problem, and we all agree it is terrible. Somehow, this gives us permission to go on drinking just as we always did, because haven't we just admitted we are making a show of ourselves?

Two of Ireland's best-respected Catholic bishops, Bishop Eamonn Walsh and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, recently stood under the statue of Fr Mathew on O'Connell Street to launch a pastoral letter on alcohol. Dr Walsh referred to our pattern of alcohol consumption as a national tragedy.

The hard-hitting pastoral letter urged us not to leave action to someone else, but to take action ourselves. Yet the bishops may have been standing under the wrong statue for the message that they want to promote, which is about moderation and the responsible use of alcohol. Theobald Mathew, always a dramatic character, decided against moderation as a tactic, because he believed it was too difficult a goal for the Irish. He decided, instead, to concentrate on a pledge of total abstinence.

Was Fr Mathew right that the Irish "don't do moderation", because it allows us too much wiggle room as to what moderation actually is? The bishops make a very simple suggestion, which is to reduce alcohol intake by a third. So the guy downing 15 pints can still, in theory, down 10. The stressed working woman can still have two-thirds of that indispensable glass of wine every evening. Nothing too threatening there, is there?

Yet as the canny Fr Mathew knew, it is easier to give up the drink entirely than to moderate our drinking. In fact, most of us give up drinking five days out of seven. Swearing off the jar completely for weeks or months, for the sake of our waistlines or budget or even Lent is socially acceptable. The alternative, just cutting down, makes everyone uncomfortable, like being with a dieter at a birthday party, because it questions the blithe assumption that getting drunk is just what Irish people do to relax.

The bishops ask that the media facilitate a national discussion on what happens when people attempt to cut down their drinking by a third. That's a great idea, and deserving of support, but here's an even simpler one. Let's start a national discussion as to why we have developed such sterling skills in comfortably holding contradictory notions at the same time. For starters, if we are so happy, why do we have to get drunk regularly just so we can stand our oh-so-happy lives?

bobrien@irish-times.ie