There is a link between high rates of suicide and high alcohol consumption, a conference has been told.
The challenge facing Ireland's worsening binge drinking culture is to understand why young adults especially feel it necessary "to get out of their minds" and get drunk, the annual conference of the Irish Association of Suicidology heard yesterday.
Binge drinking was "abnormal behaviour" and the new phenomenon in Irish society of shot drinking should be fought at all costs, said Prof Ad Kerkhof, professor in clinical psychology at the Vrije University in Amsterdam.
Prof Kerkhof, who is also co-editor of the scientific journal of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, said if Ireland wants to reduce suicide rates, the Irish must stop drinking alcohol.
"They should change the practice of singing while drunk into the habit of singing instead of drinking."
Psychologically speaking, alcohol misuse and suicidal behaviour were the same. "Both are aimed at changing consciousness of misery. Both change the consciousness of worrying, negative thoughts, negative feelings, anxiety and stress. Both can be considered to be stress management techniques."
Irish society should not allow the drinks industry to be so dominant, and should constrain it, he said.
He also appealed to parents to take a stronger line against alcohol and to set higher standards, even if it meant risking relationships with their children.
"The drinking of young people especially binge drinking in order to become unconscious is dangerous. People who do this are very unhappy.
"Young people who do so have emotional problems. We should never take this as normal. It is extremely abnormal."
The conference heard that Ireland now had the second highest suicide rate among young males in the world after New Zealand. Alcohol consumption had risen by 50 per cent in the past 10 years while it had gone down, along with suicide rates, in most EU countries.
Suicide and attempted suicide was more closely associated with the drinking of spirits, the conference heard. There was evidence too of a rising trend of suicide among young women, said Dr John F. Connolly, secretary of the Irish Association of Suicidology.
Suicide, cirrhosis of the liver, alcohol poisoning, crisis pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases had risen dramatically with the consumption of alcohol, said Dr Ann Hope, national policy adviser with the Department of Health and Children.