Wasted

by Brian O'Connell

  The natural thing to do was to go out on payday and get smashed and that was it.

  You might get the weekend out of it, but once you did that and paid your digs you would be broke. It was always pints back then, or you might have the odd half one. Because I was the youngest they would give it to me and have a laugh with it. But the thing was, there was nothing strange about starting to drink almost after you had left school. I had gone straight from school to the Civil Service. So, I became very used to it and it drinking became second nature very early on. I would think nothing of going in and having a pint in a pub on my own at eighteen years of age, if I had the price of it.

  Come to think of it, I didn’t drink pints that much—I drank bottles of stout. It was only a bit later when I started drinking with Dublin fellas that I started on pints. But then, once I started, I just drank and drank and drank, until I was about forty-three years of age, and then I stopped.

  I think on my game, acting, or in any of the arts or in literature, it is a bit of myth that you have this license to drink. There were some very famous examples, such as Brendan Behan, who would be absolutely smashed and was a genuine sort of alcoholic case. I would say with others like Richard Harris it was more of an attention thing. He did drink heavily, okay, but perhaps he exploited that reputation quite deliberately, whereas Brendan had no control over it. If he got pissed he got pissed and the resulting publicity happened accidentally rather than he set out to get attention. Because Brendan was a clever man in his own way, and if he wanted publicity he was sure to be able to control what type of publicity he would get.

  I think even still the whole Irish attitude to drink is very stupid. Drink, to my mind, is a fucking curse. It needn’t be, but in many cases in Ireland, those who drink have a problem of some description with it. They tend to deny it or cover it up or control it. The whole attitude here is wrong, from the government approach to the GAA sponsorship by Guinness. So you have thirteen-year-olds going out onto a sporting field and sponsored by the biggest drinks company in the country—that to me is . . . outrageous. I think that has been stopped now, but it should have never happened at the very beginning.

  The association with drinking in Ireland seems to me to be a Celtic thing. All the Celtic races seem to do it. I suppose an Irishman without a pint is like an Italian without a glass of wine. I regarded it as natural until I began to have big problems with it.

  I had big domestic problems with it. Also when I was young and lashing back pints, there was no great problem about it because I wasn’t responsible to anybody. Then I got married, and later, when the kids were growing up, my drinking began to be a problem. I wouldn’t really drink at home, but having said that, if I came home drunk and if there was stuff there in the house I’d lash into that too.

  When I was in New York and the Borstal Boy was on and I was a public figure playing Brendan Behan and I would lash into it. And they used it for publicity and so on. At that time I had great health and it wouldn’t affect me. I was in my thirties then. In fact, my fortieth birthday in New York, I remember getting very depressed and getting pissed because I was going to be an old man!

  Eventually, I had to stop. I did so in the end because I had a very sane doctor, who said, ‘You can drink the way you drink and you can work the way you work, but you can’t do both. It’s none of my business, it’s up to you.’

  That, to me, was putting it right on the line and I just had to face the facts. I stopped drinking and I went to AA for a while. I used to go to meetings, and funnily enough I stopped going to meetings but I never went back drinking. When I made my mind up that was it.

  The anonymity part of AA didn’t bother me—I know some people with public profiles find that hard. Most people who go there go to help themselves; it’s one of the great things about the fellowship. They are concerned about their own problem and the open confession and so forth. I think people trying to stop drinking are not really going to start peering into the secrets of others. They are there to help themselves. You can rely on an AA meeting to help you and guard your secret.

  Once I stopped drinking, I lost ninety per cent of my friends. It would be just ‘Hello’ and they would walk on. Mind you, a lot of that would be helpful, as they would be thinking, ‘We can’t put him in the way of drink.’ Whereas with others it would be, ‘Yerrah fuck him, he’s only a bore.’

  I couldn’t not go into bars after I stopped drinking; it was part of my life still. I noticed, though, when I went to England and America, people went into pubs and some didn’t have a drink at all. They went in there to have food and they went in there to have coffee and they talked. The only people who deliberately went in there to get hammered were all alcoholics anyway.

  I noticed, too, that I got more work when I stopped drinking, once people realised I was sober, then I used to get plenty work. For instance, I got an awful lot of work in England on television and stage and so on because people in the business knew I was reliable now and not a drunken Paddy. If you had an Irishman who didn’t drink, not only would he be talented, but sober as well.

  And to be honest once I stopped and once I began to be very happy being sober, I never gave it thought again, simply because I was happier. Now, if I had been more miserable I probably would have gone back to it.

  The only thing, and I had to realise this quickly, is that you have to cut out your mates. Fuck them. Because if they want to drink, they want you to drink. You have to cultivate a whole new circle . . . of people who are not going to be dragging you in for a pint. You develop a different range of social experiences or meet people who like you because you don’t drink or have stopped drinking.

  It very easy to say pub friendships are useless but in many cases I found that they were, really. When the time comes and you want to go back to one of your old drinking mates for a hand in something, he doesn’t want to fucking know you. I’m only talking about people who themselves have a basic problem even though they may not know it.

  The majority of ordinary drinkers, people who go in for a pint, two or three nights a week, well, they are a different story, then. I’m talking about people who I used to drink with and who expected me to drink and then when I didn’t I was a lost cause.

  If I look at Ireland today the patterns of drinking is a sort of bravado. If you ask me what do I think of Irish society at the moment, I think it’s a fucking awful country. I think there [is] no respect whatsoever for people or sensitivities or rights. If you have the money you can do whatever you like and ride roughshod over everybody, until you fall off the horse and then fuck you, then they’ll kick you around. I mean, this is strong talk but I react very strongly to the way anybody with money seems to have the right to do whatever they like.

  The old pub scene, too, is gone completely. When you went on holidays down to Lahinch or Crosshaven or towns like that, at certain times of the night, maybe three or four pints in, someone would be called on to sing. People had their party piece which they did and it was all very low-key and humorous and civilised. You’d hear the same jokes every night about the same people and it was relaxed and very rarely was there pugnacious behaviour. That is not the case now, I don’t think.

  I’ll leave you with one of my favourite drinking stories:

  I used to serve at twelve o’clock Mass, and I was supposed to serve Mass for the Bishop one Sunday. I got a call that one of the lads in AA . . . was after breaking out and he wanted to see me. My problem was that if I got to see him I wouldn’t be able to go and serve Mass for the Bishop. I thought about it and said, ‘The Bishop can always find someone else to serve the Mass.’

  Not only did I not serve the Mass, I didn’t even go to Mass, which at that time was a heavy thing to do. I thought that I had helped the guy and said to myself the man above would understand and would forgive me . . . that is, if there is anyone up there. And there fucking well better be, because otherwise it’s an awful fucking waste of drink . . .

  Chapter 8

 
The State of Us

  A 2008 HSE report into alcohol-related harm in Ireland found that between 1995 and 2002, alcohol-related hospital discharges increased by 92 per cent, while liver disease increased by 148 per cent during a similar 10-year period. The report also found an 85 per cent increase in alcohol-related injuries between 1995 and 2003, with a staggering 133,962 alcohol-related discharges between 1995 and 2004, or just over four per day. These are telling statistics, putting huge pressure on Ireland’s already stretched health service and underlining the social costs associated with the drunken Irish.

  We know also that between 1986 and 2006, the sale of alcohol in Ireland increased across all beverage categories (Hope, A. (2007) ‘Alcohol consumption in Ireland 1986–2006’. Health Service Executive—Alcohol Implementation Group). Beer sales increased by 32 per cent while spirits increased over the same period by 46 per cent, although, in a new trend, the report states that the ‘most dramatic increase by volume was in wine sales with an increase of 8,121,225 litres of pure alcohol representing a 523 per cent increase, although this was from a relatively low base. The sale of cider increased by 3,195,013 litres of pure alcohol, which represents a 647 per cent increase.’

  It’s worth noting, though, that during the 20-year period this report takes account of, Ireland’s population increased by almost 20 per cent. Bearing this in mind, alcohol consumption per capita increased over the 20 years by 48 per cent, and this increased per adult (persons aged 15 years and over) from 9.8 litres of pure alcohol in 1987 to a high of 14.3 litres in 2001. Figures for 2007 indicated that this level stood at 13.37 litres. The average level of consumption per adult in the EU is 10.2 litres of pure alcohol, meaning that Ireland consistently ranks in the top five of European countries in drinking leagues. The latest figures available for 2008 come from within the industry, and point to a decline in alcohol consumption of 5.9 per cent in 2008. The report, issued in March 2009, stated that ‘Per adult consumption decreased by 7.3 per cent in 2008, while per capita consumption went down by 7.7 per cent. These rates are equal to the decline in consumption that was recorded in the entire seven year period between 2001–2007. As a result average consumption levels are back to 1997/98 levels.’

  Yet it is unclear whether or not these figures take into account the large amount of alcohol bought in Northern Ireland (taking advantage of lower VAT rates) during the same period, with suggestions that up to 10 per cent of sales had migrated across the border. Emigration out of and migration into Ireland was also higher during that period. With the economic recession, income over the last year has fallen more sharply than it has done for a decade or so previous. In 2009 the value of the alcohol market in Ireland, despite a 2.9 per cent drop, was still a staggering €6.9 billion, with the government taking in somewhere in the region of €1 billion in taxes annually. In financial terms, the booze is one of Ireland’s most reliable cash cows.

  One of those at the forefront of trying to get a handle on Ireland’s alcohol epidemic is Prof. Joe Barry, who divides his time between work with the Health Service Executive (HSE) and Trinity College Dublin. Prof. Barry was initially lending his expertise as part of the HSE drug services, starting in 1991, when the focus was on heroin and methadone treatment. As time progressed, alcohol was seen more and more as a substance frequently abused, and Prof. Barry’s attention was re-directed. Alcohol consumption in Ireland peaked in 2001, before coming down in 2002 and 2003, coinciding with an increase in government tax on spirits and cider. Trends show that consumption remained steady up until 2007, when there was another drop. Prof. Barry points out that while alcohol consumption is lower now than it was at the turn of the noughties, in European comparisons, Ireland still ranks quite high and is not shifting all that much. The second report of the Alcohol Strategic Taskforce noted that 58 per cent of male drinking in Ireland was binge-drinking. While the bingeing definition is modest by Irish standards, there is now widespread European consensus that people in Ireland, the UK and to a certain extent Northern Europe tend to practise fairly heavy episodic drinking as opposed to drinking with meals or on occasion. ‘There are a lot of cultural issues in Northern Europe as opposed to Southern Europe,’ says Prof. Barry. ‘In Ireland, we have to look at what patterns we have here. Europe is so culturally diverse, not just for drinking policy but for many things. You can have some macro-EU policies, but with something that is so culturally specific as alcohol, you have to have locally based national policies as well.’

  But the big question is, what are those national policies in Ireland? And is there consensus between the public health lobby, the government and the drinks industries on the extent of the problem firstly, and the manner in which it should be dealt with? Prof. Barry thinks there is huge disparity between all three sectors on how to tackle Ireland’s drink crisis. The longer that divided approach remains, the less likely it will be to get a handle on our drinking patterns. ‘There isn’t consensus among what might be called the stakeholders,’ says Prof. Barry. ‘The drinks industry doesn’t accept the view that there is a relationship between per capita consumption and drink-related harm. The public health and World Health Organisation view is that a rise in per capita consumption will lead to a rise in drink-related health [problems] and social harm. The industry does not accept that. So therefore they will lobby the government not to have any change in our drinking levels. The government isn’t unified on this either. The Strategic Taskforce in 2004 recommended that we reduce our overall per capita consumption to the European average, which at the time would have been an eighteen per cent reduction. So that is the premise on which public health practitioners are working. Minister Harney in the Dáil last year agreed that we need to reduce our overall consumption.’

  I was keen to get the drinks industry view on per capita consumption, so put this point to Kieran Tobin, chair of the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland. On paper, at least, there seems to be a clear parallel over the last two decades between the rise in per capita consumption and the rise in alcohol-related harm statistics, from liver failure to A&E admittances. I asked Mr Tobin whether or not he believes a rise in per capita consumption and a rise in alcohol related harm were related.

  ‘Not necessarily. I don’t believe there is an absolute and direct link between the two. You can have misuse of alcohol at low and medium per capita consumption. If you are saying that by driving down consumption you are going to do away or reduce alcohol-related harm, we don’t believe that will work. What might happen is as people get more informed and more educated about alcohol-related issues, then we might see people more careful. That might result in a slight decline. But I don’t think driving down the average consumption will do anything to inform and educate people. We always work on the basis that the vast majority of people enjoy alcohol in a sensible manner and that alcohol-related harm is not an issue for the vast majority.’

  But if studies show that 58 per cent of the adult male population takes part in binge-drinking, then how true is it that the ‘vast majority of people enjoy alcohol in a sensible manner’?

  And in a country of our size, does 133,962 alcohol-related discharges between 1995 and 2004 not signify a widespread problem relationship with alcohol?

  If we side-step the drinks industry views for a moment, and assume that reducing per capita consumption is government policy, then it’s worth asking, how does the state currently try to achieve this policy? With the economy in freefall since 2008, the government is looking to gather all revenue it can to balance the books; therefore, reducing the drinking levels may not be in the best interests of the Department of Finance, for example. For any government policy to work, there needs to be a clear idea within government on where the responsibility falls to tackle the issue—be it the Department of Health or Justice. Perhaps the most successful State intervention in the area of alcohol misuse has come in the form of drink-driving campaigns, specifically with the introduction of random breath testing. This has seen a reduction in deaths on the road. Yet the majorit
y of government legislation on alcohol emanates from the Department of Justice, as opposed, say, to the Department of Health, meaning that alcohol misuse is still seen primarily as a law-and-order issue as opposed to a health one. ‘The problem is there isn’t really a national strategy in relation to alcohol as there is, for instance, in illicit drugs,’ says Prof. Barry. ‘So if you are asking me what’s the policy, well, that depends on who you ask.’

  ——

  I wanted to put some of these issues to the Irish government and hear firsthand what exactly is being done to tackle the issue of alcohol abuse in Ireland. Having heard already from public health campaigners like Prof. Joe Barry and Dr Chris Luke, from frontline staff in places like the Aislinn Centre, where treatment beds for youngsters are at a huge premium, it was clear that government in Ireland has a huge role to play. And it’s not as if they can plead ignorance on the issues, with so many government-funded surveys pointing in the same direction. Having put an interview request to the Department of Health to speak with Health Minister Mary Harney, I was instead directed to the Minister of State at the Department of Health and Children with special responsibility for health promotion and food safety, namely Minister Mary Wallace. This was the person tasked by the government to comprehensively draw together existing strands of government thinking and policy and bring about a positive legislative impact on alcohol misuse. I met with Minister Wallace in her office in Leinster House, while her Department advisor Robbie Breen sat in on the interview. The following is a transcript of our conversation and an indication of government efforts, thinking and insight.