YOUNG PEOPLE who begin to drink alcohol in their mid-teens are four times more likely to become alcoholics as adults, Dr Joe Barry of the Health Service Executive’s (HSE) population health directorate has warned.
“Many adults simply do not realise the impact their alcohol intake has on their children,” Dr Barry said as the HSE launched an alcohol awareness campaign aiming to reduce the age at which young people start to drink.
“Young people’s drinking behaviour is very often modelled on those observed in adults so it is particularly important that children and young people are equipped with the skills and knowledge to cope when faced with choices about alcohol,” Dr Barry said.
However, just 15 per cent of adults surveyed by the HSE ahead of this campaign believe their own drinking influences young people’s drinking habits, while fewer than half of adults surveyed said they would drink less if they thought it would discourage young people around them to drink.
“There are many benefits to delaying the age at which young people start to drink,” Dr Barry said. “We now have a problem which impacts negatively on so many areas of society, from increases in sexually transmitted infections, public order offences and young adult suicide.”
The vast majority of adults surveyed agreed that underage drinking is a problem (91 per cent) and access to alcohol for under-18s is easy (81 per cent), while half said there was nothing they could do to stop young people drinking.
Mary Wallace, Minister of State responsible for Health Promotion and Food Safety, said she would prioritise alcohol policy in her new role. “In order to tackle the problems associated with alcohol misuse we need to take responsibility both collectively and individually on the need to protect children and young people from the harms caused by alcohol misuse.”
The HSE television advertisement, which aired for the first time last night, is aimed at making adults more aware of the extent of underage drinking and access to alcohol. The advertisement warns adults that “with 30 per cent of 16-year-olds regularly getting drunk, there is a good chance a child you know is one of them”.
The advertisement features a variety of teenagers, such as one boy outside his home who says, “It’s handy when your parents drink, they never miss the booze”, and another boy outside an off-licence saying, “You can always find someone to buy it for you”.
The television advertisement features one girl who says her parents would get suspicious if she tried to talk to them about alcohol. The last line of the advertisement is “The time to do something about teenage drinking is before it becomes a problem”.
“We hope this campaign will encourage adults to support young people in delaying the age at which they start to drink alcohol,” HSE assistant national director for population health, Catherine Murphy, said.
