What’s youth binge drinking all about?

Dire warnings about young people suffering from increased rates of liver disease provide the latest instalment in the ongoing British panic about teenagers binge drinking. And yes, I believe that this is largely a panic. The young generation are not all going to end up dead before their 30s because of having one crate too many of beer; and the policy pronouncements brought in by policymakers (and supermarkets) to try and stop young people from drinking are only going to make for a more illiberal climate for all of us.

But there is something about the amount, and the way, that young people drink today that makes me a little concerned - not about their health, so much as the state of their lives. An interesting comment by Melanie McDonagh in today’s Times argued that ‘fixing the price won’t fix the problem’, and concluded:

‘The truth is that there are graver reasons than price for why young people are drinking to nihilistic excess. It may be a product of social deprivation, it may be that drink is a stimulant for lives that lack much love or meaning.’

Without sharing what appears to be McDonagh’s assumption that teenage drinkers are all poor and unloved, it seems to me that she does have a point about the ‘meaning’ of life for today’s teenagers. Specifically, what it must be like to live for over a decade in the netherworld between childhood and adulthood - old enough to drink, but not yet considered responsible enough to hold down a job, start a family, live a fully adult life.

The process of infantilisation that is trapping young people in education for years on end and encouraging them to behave like kids when in their twenties must, I imagine, be quite frustrating for the young people concerned. And whereas adults pride themselves on being able to hold their drink, for young people with no responsibility or anchor in grown-up life, why not just get off your head one night and spend the next day sleeping it off?

The problem is probably nothing like so straightforward as this. But McDonagh’s right: it’s certainly not as straightforward as simply stopping kids getting their hands on lager.

By Jennie Bristow

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