Dangerous alcohol consumption…

…

what actually is dangerous or “irresponsible” alcohol consumption? I wonder every time when I hear the alcohol industry trying to set the agenda concerning alcohol.

The alcohol industry and linked industries are trying with all means to spread the message that the consumption of alcohol is good (in what way so ever) or healthy or positively charged – as long as it is consumed “responsibly” (which the industry ONLY adds in Europe).

But what actually is “responsible consumption”? The alcohol industry even promotes the slogan “enjoy responsibly”? I wonder where dangerous alcohol consumption starts?

Well, it is actually the case that healthy reason already makes sound of the answer in our consciousness – sober people hear it and even drinkers become aware of that noise sometimes. However it seems that healthy reason, the reflection of our own experiences in the course of life, is not sufficient to decide politically where “dangerous alcohol consumption” starts. Politics has rubbed itself of its normative dimension and power and whorships only populistic phrases, as well as short sited political gifts and cosmetic corrections. Only for that reason can a term like “dangerous alcohol consumption” flourish in debates.

However, nurses and doctors in the emergency rooms across Europe know how wrong the term of “enjoy responsibly” really is. Employers know it, too. They know the consequences of bad work performences under the influence of hangovers. And every single one of us has felt the fear, the hide-away and trying-to-be-invisible when we walk through a street at night and hae to encounter a stumbling, loudly mumbling drunkard. These three examples narrate alcohol consumption that does not necessarily make it into the accident, death case, injured and violence statistics. Dangerous it is all the same.

The heavily blooding man had “just drunk a glass” and his senses failed him when he wanted to go down the stairs. So he fell them down. He landed in the emergency room accompanied by his girlfriend and her panic attacks. Who counts her fear? Can one glass be dangerous?

Or a friend who wanted to celebrate after the football match, with alcohol; he had to work the next morning. That day became a mere transportation road till he finally could go home. Who counts his alcohol consumption?

It is wrong that alcohol only starts being loked at as dangerous when something happens.

Nobody should be forced to walk in fear through the streets of a summer night. Alcohol consumption confines the individual freedom – that is constitutionally anchored all over Europe. And everywhere in Europe there are Millions who do not dare to go out alone when the sun has gone to bed. Is this violation of fundamental freedoms kept in the statistics?

It is not. But is is written in our souls. And so are the experiences of children when they see their parents being drunk. Children can sense the subtle changes of behaviour in their parents’ language and gestures. They cannot understand it, which leads to agonizing experiences that remain saved in their souls. And although nine million children, in Europe,have to grow up in families with at least one addicted parent, most of the parents I referred to here are said to drink “responsibly”. They are just not aware that their offspring can in deed feel this “one glass”  – in their breath, their voices, their eyes. Children see with different eyes than adults, we know that. They do not need statistics to recognize dangerous alcohol consumption.

Now, don’t mistake me, this is no accusation of statistics. Just to be clear. But some things simply cannot be measured and filed as data – and yet those things are real, too.

Alcohol is dangerous – from the first drop. For the individual. It is a drug, a cell toxic.

But alcohol is never consumed in a social vaccuum. Therefor it is dangerous – from the first drop. For the world around the consumer. There is no such thing as responsible drug consumption.