Message of hope for 2013

How do we say farewell to one year and welcome another yet to start? To many the answer is simple, with a merriment bordering on hedonism, the week or so between Christmas and New Year often turns into one long party. For those who can handle such a prolonged bout of boozing and still function in January, we wish you good luck; to pull off such a feat is rare indeed, for there are many others who will be defeated by the festive season and the drinking it offers. The often superficial promise of good times, intimacy, good will and joy give way under the pressure of the party season to less comfortable truths. Disappointment, loneliness and long simmering resentments can also punctuate the 'happiest time of the year' and alcohol is on hand in vast quantities to medicate these hurts and in many cases to exacerbate them. So what is the best way to explore how we feel about the season and the New Year? Possibly with a sense of reflection on the times in which we live, while others are trying to negate who and what they are in alcohol, only to wind up being defeated and harmed by it, we can see the 'good times' for what they really are. Once every so often a truth comes to light that punctures the propaganda that surrounds us like a bullet, and one was supplied just before Christmas by the World Health Organisation. In December the WHO's 193 member states agreed unanimously that: "The harmful use of alcohol is a serious health burden, and it affects virtually all individuals on an international scale." They announced this whilst also revealing that the drug kills some 2.5 million people worldwide every year, of which 300,000 are children and young people. Read that again: 2.5 Million. It is a hidden, invisible holocaust, a crime against humanity that is normalised and naturalised and treated as business as usual; like land mines. A point surely has been reached globally with mankind's relationship with intoxicants that cannot sustain itself, when most of the world's governments speak out about the dangers of alcohol it must be time for the wealthiest of those governments to start to take on the monster they have created? Whilst the most diluted of minimum pricing policies have been gingerly introduced by our government, one can scarcely have any real faith that they will take serious action to restore some sanity to Britain's licensing laws. That our elected masters serve those who donate the most to their parties’ funds is hardly a controversial idea; it is well known and barely secret. That means that meaningful change, as it always had done, must come from the public. The majority of Britain has been skillfully seduced, addicted or compromised by the drinks trade, but there is one demographic where we must place our hope, young people. Alcohol consumption is falling amongst young people, Alcohol Concern published statistics recently showing that amongst 16-24 year olds consumption of alcohol is going down and abstinence is on the increase, a trend that is not related to the current economic tough times, but one that began nearly a decade ago. Whilst alcoholism might cause much misery over the holiday period, and might cut a bloody swathe across the globe, it is clear that something quietly, gradually and inexplicably appears to have changed. Where will this lead in the next year or the next decade? What might this make of our society? Who may come to the fore to show us their greatness and majesty, who otherwise would have been lost to addiction? We shall have to wait and see. There is much to reflect on this Christmas and New Year, and much to hope for in the months to come, we must remember alcohol and addiction's victims and make our own small, piecemeal, gradual but always essential contributions to a kinder, saner more human world in 2013.