Jake Bailey: Why I'm over getting drunk

Shifting our treatment of alcohol from a regular routine to an occasional treat for adults would have a positive impact on our drinking culture. Photo / 123RF

Opinion

I don't really drink much these days. I think I've had three beers and two wines so far this year. I haven't been intoxicated more than twice in the past 2 years or thereabouts.

There's a few reasons behind it, but to name some: my girlfriend doesn't drink any more often than I do, I can't stand the feeling of being hungover because it reminds me a bit of what being on chemo felt like, I reckon sparkling water is quite nice, and mainly, because I just don't want to.

I haven't got the motivation. It's not really a health choice, or even a conscious decision I made; I just don't feel like it.

To be honest, I feel like I've got it out of my system.

Back in 2015, I drank exorbitant amounts of alcohol on the weekends. It wasn't regularly or often, it was always and without fail. There would be a handful of weekends in 2015 before my cancer diagnosis where I didn't 'binge drink', as it is defined by the government. In fact, there would be a handful of weekends where I didn't meet that definition twice over.

This isn't something I'm proud to admit. It's not something I'm ashamed to admit either. It is an action I took, a decision I made, which I now look back on and can recognise that it was wrong.

But it is a problem that is facing NZ, particularly teenagers, and so I'm happy to stick my neck out and admit to my own actions, so that I can have some authority in saying what I think about the binge drinking culture that is such a big part of growing up in NZ these days. Pretending I am without fault would be a lie that would catch up with me very quickly.

I don't think that peer pressure was an element of my decisions, although it certainly is for many my age. Every action I took was of my own accord, and the fact that everything I chose to do came from inside my own thoughts is ominous.

Why did I want to drink so much? Why did I think that I could? My parents had had the 'tough conversations' with me, and taught me to count my drinks.

The only involvement they had was affording me the freedom to leave the house on weekends, which is a non-negotiable for an eighteen year old guy I would think.

I'd listened at school about the risks of alcohol, particularly in vast quantities. I knew what it could do to a person. So why was I drinking enough to supply an Irish Pub?

I suppose I should quickly note some figures around how bad our drinking really is: 30% of all crime in NZ is alcohol related. 50% of violent crime is. On the weekend, 70% of hospital admissions are alcohol related. 800 people die each year from alcohol related causes.

I knew all of this. I can't plead ignorance. I suppose that looking back, I just didn't believe it, or I didn't care. I could've been shown a man on his deathbed from liver failure, and it wouldn't have shaken my conviction that what I was doing was fine.

Alcohol was such a big part of my world, and the world around me, that it would have been like questioning the safety of cell phones or tomato sauce.

I never saw alcohol as a drug, or a danger. I saw it as a friend, normality, a common place. That's where I think the key is.

Perhaps if the way I viewed or felt about alcohol was different in the first place, I wouldn't have been so comfortable abusing it. If alcohol and I weren't already so familiar, I would not have been so confident.

I don't have an issue with alcohol, or drinking. I don't think it's inherently bad or overly dangerous.

I wouldn't want anyone to feel vilified or judged for having a few wines or beers at night, and a few more on the weekend, because there's nothing wrong with that.

And most importantly, I don't think I'm some saint because I don't drink much now.

But I think we should be considering how we feel about alcohol, and the way we treat alcohol as a substance.

Australia prohibits the sale of alcohol in supermarkets, only allowing sales at bottle shops. I always thought that was a stupid concept, nothing more than using inconvenience in a futile attempt to discourage.

But now I understand that the purpose is actually something else: to put up a wall between milk, bread, fruit, meat and vegetables, which are all everyday items, and alcohol, which is a drug.

It physically changes the feeling of buying alcohol if you go somewhere solely to purchase it. Does a bottle-store have a different vibe to a supermarket? Yes, and for a reason.

I'm not calling for radical overhauls of how we treat alcohol. All it would take to make an improvement is a slight change in perception, and I think it would have an impact on our overall drinking culture.

It doesn't even need to be on a big scale- start at home, by teaching children that alcohol is a treat to be enjoyed by adults occasionally, rather than a part of a nightly routine.

I swear I'm not some new age hippie who thinks that alcohol is the devil- like I said, I've done my dash, I think alcohol is fine, and I make no guarantees I won't drink more again in the future.

After all, we make some of the best stuff in the world. I just think that we can take some easy steps to minimise harm for the next generation, and ourselves, with very little effort required. Where it goes from there- advertising laws, sponsorship in sport, licensing laws, the drinking age- is for everyone to decide.