The township of 12 people
which sells four million
cans of beer a year
Scotland
in the
heat
The Cafe
…And then there was the joke about the Irishman, the Welshman and…oh…with Michael Elcock scowling in a corner in the huff.
Ian Hamilton QC correctly identifies Scottish anti-Engish feeling as ‘affectionate’, a genre rare in the seemingly boundless capacity for scathing disdain, both verbal and physical, that the English mentality has shown itself capable of meting out to children of a lesser god. Perish the thought that we Scots be deprived of the right to the occasional jibe in their direction.
Donald Bathgate
Kenneth Roy has been writing justifiably about verbal refuse. A few days ago, the Scotsman published a photograph of a model of the Forth Rail Bridge at South Queensferry taken at an angle at which, said the caption, it dwarves the bridge. If you are a bit on the pedantic side you may write of seven dwarves, but there is not and never has been a verb to dwarve.
Alistair R Brownlie
Having just renewed my long-standing service contract with British Gas, and having listened to their efforts to sell me other products during the process, I will be most interested to read the company’s follow-up to Professor Andrew Hook (22 February) once they have digested his article. I wonder what job titles such as ‘customer resolution’ and ‘customer manager’ actually mean in the strange world of British Gas?
Iain Hutchison
Unlike many publications SR doesn’t have an online comment facility – we prefer a more considered approach. The Cafe is our readers’ forum. If you would like to contribute to it, please email islay@scottishreview.net
I’ve asked that
my name be withheld
from this article
Anonymous
Once more we have another big name dying because of her demons, and as soon as this hit the press, all the usual suspects came out to pontificate on abuse of alcohol or drugs. I was recently advised that a good way of dealing with rage was to write about it, and that’s what I’m doing here. Why I’m doing so will become clear later.
No-one ever wants to become an addict; for everyone who has become dependent upon alcohol or drugs there is a reason that is unique to them. Reasons can be grouped together but ultimately there is an individual who is suffering and desperately trying to find a solution and a way out. There is no one answer to the problem of addiction, because one size does not fit all, but society can put in place a framework in which those who are suffering can be helped.
There is also the social element involved. There is no doubt that preconceptions are rife, and the hatchet-faced, gaunt, skeletal figure desperately seeking a few pence for their next hit, is treated with contempt by people who would be astonished that the guy in the Armani suit who sits beside them on the train is also watching the clock waiting for his next fix. Which of those two would you cross the street to avoid, and yet in what ways do they differ? I would suggest only in one, the ability to support their habit without any perceived cost to the taxpayer.
Another significant part of the problem lies in the current trend where for a section of society addiction has become an accessory. Recently Alastair Campbell revealed his predilection towards alcohol, and previously his ex-boss Tony Blair tried to show his man of the people image by admitting to a tendency to drink a little too much ‘occasionally’. Other establishment figures coyly admit to surreptitiously smoking cannabis ‘when they were students’.
How many articles are appearing in the OKs and Hello magazines of this world about the latest celeb admitting to having substance dependency issues? Trust me, the occasional binge drinking session doesn’t make you an alcoholic – it takes years of practice. And yet the real truth of addiction is so far removed from that as to render such revelations derisory.
The difficulty in concluding this article is that I’m very sorry but I don’t
have an answer – I’m neither clever enough nor arrogant enough to believe
I can offer a solution.
Perhaps I should admit to a personal interest in this. I’m an alcoholic.
I have asked that my name be withheld from this article because although I don’t make any attempt to hide my problem, nor do I volunteer it and I do not want to be seen to be jumping onto the publicity bandwagon. One or two of you reading this might know me, most of you won’t, but I’m a very ordinary man, running a business, married with kids and with a very middle-of-the-road lifestyle. But because of my inability to deal with alcohol, I came very close to losing everything, including my life.
So, when I read or listen to some people pontificating over the way to cure the problem of drink and drugs, but most of all being judgemental about those suffering from addiction, my blood boils. There is no one solution, and it is vital to recognise that the starting point is that there must be alternative options available.
On a personal level I hated Alcoholics Anonymous. This is not to ridicule the tremendous work that that organisation does for many people, but it did not work for me. In fact I felt like Father Jack in the ‘Father Ted’ episode who found himself in an AA meeting without his glasses; all he wanted was a drink. I have no desire to sit in a room with others who have the same problem as I do, listening to their stories, and I distrust anything that lays such emphasis on religion. It did not work for me, but it does for others, so it is invaluable, and that’s the point.
There has to be more control imposed on availability of alcohol; minimum pricing is a start, it won’t solve everything, but it will help some. The cost of alcohol is not an issue for me so it does not enter the alternatives for help in my toolkit, but it will for others. And please do not throw the snobbery issue – that this will only impact on the poor – at me. By reducing access it will help some, believe me. It will not help cure an existing problem, but it will reduce the numbers of people who might end up as alcoholics.
The big problem is I have no idea why I became an alcoholic, nobody sets out deliberately to become so. I can give you a wide range of causal factors, all of which taken individually would amount to trivia, but which when added together created some form of need that alcohol met.
Many years ago as a young upwardly mobile manager I attended a meeting of the Industrial Alcohol Unit which had been set up to help businesses deal with alcohol in the workplace. The presenter carefully outlined what the indicators of someone with an alcohol problem would show. I took exception to this, I did not believe it was possible for anyone not to control their alcohol intake, and in my brash cocky way I literally shouted the poor guy down, before walking out of the meeting. I look back on that day even now with acute embarrassment, because he was dead right.
The difficulty in concluding this article is that I’m very sorry but I don’t have an answer – I’m neither clever enough nor arrogant enough to believe I can offer a solution. I can share what worked for me once I accepted that I had a serious problem, which was an incredibly supportive wife and a counsellor who was non-judgemental, plus the words of my son ringing in my ears that ‘if you don’t fix yourself I’ll never talk to you again’. But that wouldn’t work for anyone else.
All I ask is that an open mind is kept, that no one organisation attempts to offer a panacea, and that all of those who have the ability to control and enjoy alcohol in its various forms do not make the mistake I did and believe themselves to be inviolate. I ask that you don’t do as I did and to ‘judge not lest you be judged’. And I ask that those of you who do enjoy a drink, to look at yourselves honestly and consider just how easy it is to have that one more pint, that one more glass of wine, that one more whisky; then ask when it is you just might have a problem, and where would you go for help.
