Sir, - There has been much recent press comment about levels of alcohol consumption among young adults, particularly second- and third-level students.
Many commentators seem to think the phenomenon of over-indulgence among some young people appears "out of the blue", so to speak. There are two points I wish to make.
1. As a psychotherapist working in a Dublin third-level institution, I note that most students do not engage in problematic drinking. Only about 10 per cent are actually destroying their lives through alcohol. Observe any popular third-level bar over a six-month period and you will find that these bars on an ordinary night are supported by a small core of regulars.
2. One only need note the huge numbers of pubs filled every night of the week by the older "parent" generation to find the cause of excessive drinking among young people.
In my field of work students often display anxiety and self-doubt, concerned that they are somehow socially inept because they are not interested in drinking heavily. The myth abounds, not only in the media but also in the universities and other third-level colleges, that you are an exception to the rule if you don't drink excessively, smoke dope and "shag-shift" regularly. It still puzzles me, after years of observation, how the attitudes and world view of 10 per cent of students can hold a significantly greater percentage of non-excessive students "to ransom" in this way.
The fact is that our second- and third-level students are in the main reasonably well adjusted, "normal," bright and inspirational young people with the appropriate highs and lows of their stage in life.
One of the major concerns is the 10 per cent who are too busy feeding their alcohol cravings to approach the college services that could help them to make more constructive and creative choices in their lives.
Give me a student with an alcohol problem and I'll show you a generational alcohol problem in his or her family. - Is mise,
Una Fitzsimons, Dublin 18.