Women 'vulnerable' to alcohol problems

WOMEN ARE “more vulnerable” to the biological problems caused by alcohol, Rolande Anderson of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) told a debate in Waterford last night.

Mr Anderson, who is an alcohol and addiction counsellor and national alcohol project director for the ICGP, said women were “unequal” to men when it came to the ingestion of alcohol, and “only unequal to men in that area”.

He was speaking at the fourth Pfizer/ Irish TimesHealth Forum for 2010, held at the Waterford Institute of Technology.

Mr Anderson said: “In relation to biological difficulties, there’s no question about it but women are more vulnerable and it’s because of body weight and because of proportionate body fat and so on.

“So if a girl or woman drinks drink for drink, then they’re by definition more vulnerable and more at risk from alcohol-related problems.

“And sadly, people who become dependent on alcohol who are women get all the alcohol-related problems more acutely and in a much deadlier form.”

The chairman of population health medicine at the department of public health and primary care in Trinity College Dublin, Joe Barry, advised parents to talk to their children about alcohol. Discussion between parents and their children regarding alcohol is better than not raising the issue at all, he said.

“Most people really aren’t sure. The thing is, that young people are drinking before they get introduced (to alcohol) at home anyway.”

Delaying the onset of drinking could be achieved by engaging children, added Mr Barry. “I think it’s something worth investing in (for the) parent of pre-teen children.”

Journalist Brian O'Connell, author of Wasted: A Sober Journey Through Drunken Ireland, said alcohol is available at family functions such as weddings and funerals yet we blame children when they finish their Junior Cert and they drink.

Pádraig Cribben, chief executive of the Vintners’ Federation of Ireland, said: “The argument gets clouded when people go over-the-top with being anti-alcohol.”

The problem was fuelled sometimes by Government action and sometimes by Government inaction, added Mr Cribben. “What we need in terms of alcohol is targeted interventions.”

About half of those attending the discussion said that they would prefer to see a total ban on the advertising of alcohol throughout the country.