Another report on drunken Britain. What really tickles me about this article is that the drunken state of Britain is blamed on “stronger drinks and larger glasses”.
“Oh deary me!” says the nice English chap down the pub. “I seem to have found myself in the gutter drunk again! Whatever could have happened? Why I believe it was simply the fact that that glass of beer was larger than before!”
Those who live in Britain today will admit that the public drunkenness has reached epidemic proportions. You daren’t go downtown on a Friday or Saturday evening for fear of the gangs of aggressive drunken louts–the most obscene of which are often the females. But the disease is just as endemic amongst the polite classes–they just do their drinking at home.
What is the cause of societal alcoholism? G.K.Chesterton famously said that every argument is a theological argument. The cause of alcoholism to the level you find it in Western Europe today is the same cause as alcoholism in the Soviet Union twenty years ago: atheism.
It works like this: atheism=nihilism=there is nada=despair=”let’s eat drink and (at least try to) be merry for tomorrow we die”. In other words Dawkins and Drunkens are drinking buddies.
Sadly I know a good many alcoholics with a very sound Catholic faith. It often runs in families & is often an illness. Matt Talbot remained an alcoholic all his life & struggled with the temptation. I do however take the point about the loutish culture of binge-drinking which is something else.
I agree and that’s why I referred to ‘societal’ drinking
In the article the shadow culture secretary suggests that the numerous references to alcohol consumption on television might be in need of regulation.Surely the simpler alternative is to significantly increase the tax on alcoholic beverages. This has been proven in the past to reduce consumption. The revenue raised can be used to support anti-alcohol ads and alcoholism-related services.Or would any such tax increase be opposed as a “tax on the poor”?
Is this also not a problem in Canada and USA maybe not binge drinking but alcoholism. I actually think it is wrong to sell alcohol in sports stadiums, because it teaches kids that it is OK to drink, get drunk, cheer loudly and behave like barbarians.
Fr. L, I guess that the punch line should be Hitchens and Drunkens are drinking buddies, if you know what I mean.BTW, according to a Russian coworker, alcohol was heavily taxed in the Soviet years. As a matter of fact, it was an important source of revenue. Yet, that was one thing that the oppressed Russian people almost revolted when Gorbachov started rationing vodka.May St. George pray for the UK.
Oh gosh, Father – I just hate having to say this to a priest, but you’re only partially correct.I’m an alcoholic (and just celebrated my 18th birthday in AA) and I have never, ever been an atheist.You have really simplified a problem that goes just a tad deeper than just one cause. Perhaps you could read the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, or the book Alcoholics Anonymous (or even my series on the Twelve Steps for Catholics).But do remember above all – you will never understand an alcoholic unless you are one. Conversely – I just don’t understand “normies” …
blog posts are short. I accept that not all individual alcoholism is linked with atheism. I’m commenting on a societal phenomenon–not necessarily all individual sufferers from alcoholism. I realize the causes are more complex.
Binge drinking is a huge problem in the UK and I would venture to suggest that it is not so much the rise of atheism but people just not knowing how to enjoy themselves any more. Society tells kids through media, advertising, TV and films that to have fun you must go out to bars and drink lots of alcohol. The more you drink the more fun you must be having -it is very sad really.
As an (ex-catholic) atheist I have to disagree.If there is one fault with many of my atheist brethren it is a tendency to take life a little too seriously – perhaps because we believe we only have one. Conversely the Catholics that I grew up with (including the priests who educated me) always seemed to have a good eye for a party. The origins of alcohol abuse are both personal and cultural. Binge drinking in Britain is spoken of as if it is a modern phenomenon when in fact it has been established for years. The Romans were staggered by the Ancient Britons’ lust for alcohol and found that they could be persuaded into all sorts of alliances on the promise of an amphora or two. Our Saxon and Viking forebears brought over the drinking culture of the mead-hall and saw the ability to drink as a vital warrior attribute.The impact of all this has been commented on and campaigned against since Hogarth and “Gin Alley’ in the 18th Century. But interestingly at the forefront of the temperance movements have been evangelical protestants and socialists. Not the Catholic Church.Now I’m off to the pub.journeymanblog
The thing is, it’s perfectly normal for a society to have bars and pubs, or to go eat and have a glass of beer or wine, or to drink and listen to music with your friends.It’s abnormal for people, as a society, to go out and get stinking drunk. It’s a sign of deep despair. ( It’s also a terrible waste of good alcohol.Folk music culture in the UK has traditionally been intimately tied to drinking in pubs and taverns. But now, having more than four performers at once can only be permitted in public places by a specially expensive performance license. (And that includes people singing along, or dancing along, or spontaneous singing of folksongs by pubgoers.)So the binge drinking problem gets worse, and the responsible people get penalized. I also know people in the UK who used to hold their club meetings in pubs, but now have trouble finding anyplace that’s not full of obnoxious hooligan drunks. The bad is driving out the good.