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Student Drinkers Potential Addicts

NZSPA Reporter

Wellington.-Many New Zealand students are becoming drug addicts ... "addicts of the drug alcohol" . . . warns Mr. W. L. S. Britton, executive officer of the National Society of Alcoholism, in a statement to NZSPA. Noting that 70 per cent of people who drink alcohol, take it in moderation and find it one of the "little pleasures in life," Mr. Britton warns that for about 5 per cent of all drinkers this does not hold . . . these are potential alcoholics.

"There are too many students in New Zealand who have already lost control of their drinking and who have become alcoholics for you not to be warned that it can happen here. At the same time it is correct to say that this is more often a disease of middle life and that it usually takes a number of years of drinking for the disease to become full blown.

"The effect of this addiction on examination results and on the student's later career can be readily imagined. Most university colleges can record cases of careers of promise and brilliance cut short at the onset of alcoholism." says Mr. Britton.

Although only 5 per cent of student drinkers will become alcoholics, he observes:

"The odds of 1 to 20 seem pretty good but in any sort of gambling you have to keep an eye on what you stand to lose as well as on your chances of losing it. I might be willing to risk £100 on a wildcat gold-mine where I have one chance in six of losing it all.

"But no one could persuade me for any price to play Russian roulette with a revolver loaded in one of its six cham-bers. The odds would be the same but I would be risking not money but my life.

"And that is very often what the alcoholic loses. This is not necessarily in the biological sense of the word, though that can happen: but in the social sense ... Job. friends, marriage, family as well as self-respect and stand-ing in the community. All these can be lost." says Mr. Britton.

"University life, you have no doubt already found, can be pretty strenuous and not without its times of worry and tension. When these worries become pressing some people have discovered a very good medicine that will bring temporary relief.

"This medicine is ethyl alcohol, and it can be quite effective in the short run. Using alcohol to relieve these tensions is dangerous because it is not long before more frequent and larger doses are needed to bring this relief.

"The use of alcohol for such reasons is particularly danger-ous for young people because it not only masks the causation difficulties where tensions are involved but also hinders healthy social and physical development.

"Those who drink for this kind of relief, whether it is explicitly acknowledged or; not. find before long that they are riding a tiger and find it a very uncomfortable seat. They become drug addicts ... addicts to the drug alcohol. and are more and more dependent on regular doses.

"You will be Interested, perhaps, to know some of the signs of incipient alcoholism.: These signs or symptoms are well authenticated from the-life stories of those who have recovered from the disease.

"A few of the recognised symptoms of a problem with alcohol are:

You frequently drink to relieve tensions and fatigue or to get over disappointments and frustration.

You have an ability to handle more alcohol than others in your group and feel the need to have a few extras when drinking with others. You have the occasional "blackout" when you have no memory of a few hours or even days in your recent past.

You are secretly irritated and resentful when your family or friends discuss your drinking.

You want to have alcohol available at all times and feel uncomfortable when it is not.

You make unsuccessful attempts to cut down on your drinking as a result of increasing difficulty with your studies or in your job.

You begin now to get drunk on less alcohol and the length of. drinking bouts increases.

You frequently feel depressed, guilty or sick. You relieve these feelings with alcohol.

You neglect proper eating: you are obsessed with nameless fears; you have anxieties and resentments.

Unless you seek treatment you will in due time reach the stage of "drinking to live and living only to drink."

Should you And yourself developing a problem with drinking and find It affecting your life and work, seek help early. Alcoholism is a progressive incurable disease and, if not treated, could lead to an early death or incarceration in a mental hospital."

Mr. Britton warns: "Do not try and go it alone . . . it won't work, and alcoholism is too serious a disease for home treatment or self-medication."

He recommends students to see their academic counsellors or doctors or a National Society on Alcoholism counsellor.