There is increasing confusion and mixed messages from the great and the good along with the news media regarding drink and drugs. At the beginning of the news Dermot Murningham or Sophie Rayworth will postulate on the evil of drugs and binge drinking or site a success of a drugs bust that has netted the recovery of a multi-million pound haul of cocaine. With furrowed brow they will instil the amount of units of alcohol that we are permitted per week. Then in a later item they will, adopting a relaxed and jocular mode thereby conveying a level of acceptance and legitimacy, inform us of Freddie Flintoff’s excessive celebrations or mingle with the thousands of binge drinking rugby supporters each carrying a pint or can at 10.00am in the Parisienne morning. They will interview ruddy faced rotund middle aged members of CAMERA in a lighthearted manner knowing that they consume twice their weekly allowance in a day. When an item is located in pub or bar because the tax on beer has increased or similar we witness the infantile scripted mock envious banter of the studio newscasters to the lucky outside broadcaster who’s about to drink lots of yummy beer. It’s accepted in the light-hearted and universally accepted vein that drink, pubs and partying is a part of a lifestyle of a well rounded balanced person yet it’s an affliction from Beelzebub as a serious news item or government diktat. Drink is legal drugs are not. We are warned of the dangers of not consuming in moderation which is about half a pint a day. The illegal drug industry is definitely a hugely crime generating scourge on the supply side, and arguably a massive social problem on the demand side.
Who are these public government warnings and pontificating lectures on sobriety aimed at? The impression is it’s the oiks in working class areas (Scotland is mentioned a lot in surveys) who eat, smoke and drink to excess. The old fashioned idea that because of relative poverty and a dour existence instant gratification is sought to alleviate the dull grinding existence. The government ought firstly to look inwardly rather scan outwardly to the cities and provinces to seek solutions and change in our decadent lifestyles. Charles (two meals) Clarke, John Prescott, Nicolas Soames, Roy Hattersley and Charles Kennedy are obvious examples of a parliamentary lifestyle that has been exposed by many MPs, especially women, of drinking and dining excessively into the night at the Common’s bar or it’s immediate environs. This political elite criticise and demand legislation to combat the “Happy Hour” deals and Alcopop culture as they devour culinary delights washed down by the finest Chablis and whiskey chasers heavily subsidised by the tax payer. In the immediate vicinity the future king and his sibling are constantly being seen falling out of exclusive clubs at dawn completely rat-arsed. Some of their aristocratic chums are known coke-heads although I wouldn’t suggest for a moment Will’s and Harry take charlie as they don’t carry credit cards or cash as apparently plastic and a $50.00 note are essential.
Where does the tons of coke that enters the UK every year end up? The impression is that its destination is council estates or young impressionable middle class kids influenced by some Svengali. The music industry is an obvious and constant target with Pete and Kate along with Amy vilified daily. The Daily Mail is at the forefront of the anti-drug dogma and on TV we are lectured continually on the dangers of drug abuse. In each case they seem to ignore the fact that that it’s common knowledge that journalism and the TV media are inundated with coke-heads. For a lot of them it’s their chosen recreational habit. It wouldn’t surprise me that those involved with articles and programmes that take the moral high ground have residues of the white stuff up their nostrils. Recently DJ Kevin Greening and actress Natasha Collins have died through drug overdoses. Natasha’s boyfriend Mark Speight is a children’s TV presenter and I assume a role model seems complicit in this drugs binge. A decade ago Richard Bacon was sacked from co-hosting Blue Peter after being caught taking cocaine by a tabloid journalist (probably a fellow smack-head) and there are other well-known broadcasters who have similarly been exposed. The BBC is beginning to acknowledge the propensity for their employees to take cocaine but to quote the Sunday Times “Experts say the reality is that a well educated middle class drug users of the BBC simply reflect a phenomenon: cocaine has become widespread among certain professions and across all classes.” Referring to another piece this time in New Statesman where they refer to Dave Cameron as Druggy Dave they claim that his wife was known as Snowy in her art college days suggesting that in the past at least she was a snorter.
When I was teaching in Ecuador with mainly young American teachers who were highly intelligent, conscientious, all with an excellent work ethic, many did coke as a matter of course. It was the equivalent of their “tipple.” The stereotypical image of working class lack of self preservation and excess cannot be used to explain the wide use of cocaine. Educated careerists, those who have worked hard and studied and have long term aspirations are using coke in ever growing numbers as part of their lifestyle. Those members of the great and good who continue to make condescending lectures to the great unwashed should realise the problem is in their midst.
The increase in wine consumption in the UK over the last 25 years has been phenomenal resulting in a huge cultural change. There are health benefits from red wine and the image of the grape is seen as cultured and refined. However vino rosso has turned into vino collapso for many especially middle-aged middle-class women more especially unfulfilled bored housewives.
The truth is quite simple more and more of us like and can afford to get pissed regularly. Or at least we seek out a more pleasant world than day to day reality. When we’re twenty we down alcopops, cocktails, slammers and go out on the lash: then we become more refined and get slowly high with wine and coke or similar. The solace sought by having a skinful in a pub to blot out the hammering machinery of the dark satanic mills is now replaced by the solace sought to wind down after a long stressful day or week in the professions or the service industries. It said that the drug or alcohol induced world we enter provides a distorted view of the world, but I wonder how natural is our mental state when we battle to work through traffic jams, with deadlines to meet, social protocols and pecking orders to maintain and that’s without family our health problems. Life can be a bitch whoever you are. Perhaps we find our real selves when we are relieved of the inhibitions foisted upon us by convention and the multi-roles we play. The furrowed brow and the knotted shoulders unravell with each sip, snort or drag. Negative vibes are replaced by levity, the creative juices begin to flow and the imagination expands. Fanciful ideas and intentions invade our phsyche usually to be jettisoned in the harsh “reality” of conventional dawn. The fruit of Dylan Thomas’s poetic genius blossomed in his boathouse after a lunchtime session in Brown’s Hotel and Sergeant Pepper may have sounded like muzak if the fab four had signed the peldge. Throughout history creative people found inspiration and vision in mind altering substances. Jazz great Louis Armstrong famously smoked a joint in a Buck House toilet and he seemed a tidy bloke too. In fact there used to be a an old adage “Never trust a man who doesn’t drink.”
The role of drink and drugs is central to many people’s lives. The young imbibers who populate the high streets are no different to the giggling middle class professionals at their dinner parties it’s just that they combine their lack of inhibitions with youthful exuberance. Most of us manage to compartmentalise our lives. There’s a time to work and a time to play. Work and sobriety is our yin and our artificially induced leisure time is our yang. It seems a reasonable balance to me and most people get the judgement right. It may mean that because we ignore the acceptable mount of units permitted we may only reach the age of 81 instead of 83 but we’re prepared to pay that price. After a stint at the coal, chalk face or similar we need something to hit the spot and free our spirit from the shackles of daily conformity and orthodoxy.