Alcoholics Anonymous Reviews

Binge drinking, teen drinking. Perhaps our biggest social stigma is not drinking at all. Annie Lawson talks to those who don't imbibe.

Nick Johnson can sympathise with Marge Simpson. When the Simpson family matriarch once asked an Aussie bartender for a coffee, he replied, "beer it is". The 28-year-old Melbourne magician also struggles to convince waiters, and friends, that he doesn't drink booze.

Bart Simpson was summoned down under in a cliche-filled episode that caused much uproar when it screened in 1995. Crammed with beer jokes, Australians were portrayed as carefree, alcohol-guzzling (but likeable) louts.

There may be some cultural truth in the way we were perceived. Drinking is the glue that binds many of our social interactions and after sinking a few beers, well, it's easy to not take anything too seriously.

"Somebody at a party offered to get me a scotch or a glass of wine," says Johnson. "When I told him that I don't drink, he said 'OK, I'll just get you a beer'.

"At weddings, I'm always given a glass of champagne and when I explain I don't drink, people are always very insulted if you don't take it. I take it and pretend to drink it."

For some people, alcohol tastes like the devil's poison. Others don't drink on moral or religious grounds. People who regard it as a heavenly elixir are sometimes forced to give up later in life for health or addiction reasons.

For Johnson, the thought of a beer after school became too tempting (when combined with weekend binge sessions) so he gave up at 18.

"I think it was easier for me to give up drinking because I can get up in front of an audience and talk, and am good at meeting new people, so I don't need the courage of alcohol," Johnson says.

"When I go out I'm very gregarious, silly and over-the-top, and always keen to make people laugh. I wonder if that's me over-compensating for the fact that I don't drink."

Clinical psychologist Grant Brecht says drinking is an intrinsic part of Aussie culture, "an offshoot of larrikinism in the Australian psyche".

"It's so readily available and so readily acceptable," he says. "There is social pressure for young people to drink. It's much easier to decide not to smoke because of all the risks we know so much about but we don't talk as much about the risks of alcohol."

Around 7% of the population are ex-drinkers, down from 12% in 1991, according to a Ministerial Council on Drug Strategy survey of 30,000 Australians. The 2007 figures show the proportion of people who have never had a full serve of alcohol - that is, not classified as drinkers - has risen to 10% from 6.5% in 1991.

Abstinence, or at least drinking moderately, tends to be a sign of status, says Professor Ian Webster, chairman of the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation. Wealthy people spend more on alcohol but then again, they can afford an expensive drop.

"It impoverishes families if the breadwinner is heavily drinking," he says. "If you look at the communities where alcohol is a big problem, they tend to be lower socio-economic areas where there's not much employment."

These trends are being examined by Webster's foundation as part of a study on the social meaning of alcohol, with the findings expected next year.

Drinking is a great social lubricant but over-indulging incites anti-social behaviour. Non-drinkers often endure immense pressure to have a tipple, perhaps stemming from a belief that drinking strengthens a sense of belonging and fun, and helps people relax.

"People will come under immense pressure because it makes people who drink feel more normal," says Brecht.

"Social support is the greatest buffer that we have against depression and not feeling good. Young people, as they start to draw away from parents, are in a phase of discovering who they are so it makes them feel they are part of a group."

Margery King, 69, is a life-long teetotaller - except for a brief lapse at 22 when she travelled on a ship to Britain. "Everybody else was drinking and I didn't think it would be the end of the world if I had the odd Pimms," she says.

She met her husband on the boat but he didn't drink at all. Brought up in a moderate drinking household, he decided at 14 to abstain after seeing on his way home from school an inebriated man kick a dog.

King's flirtation with Pimms ended before the pair married 44 years ago and had three children.

"We deliberately didn't tell our children to be teetotallers because at one stage the research was showing the people most likely to be alcoholics were the ones either with alcoholic parents or teetotaller parents," she says. "Our three children drink on an occasion but not every day."

At weddings, the Kings were "lucky to get a mineral water for the toast" and felt pressured in restaurants to order wine.

"Quite a few of our friends who stayed drinking heavily are getting health effects in their late 60s and early 70s such as weight problems and diabetes," says King. "We've both been healthy."

The temperance movement, which began in the United States 135 years ago, had great success in its prohibition crusade. Forty years ago, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union of Victoria had 20,000 members who signed a pledge of abstinence. This has dwindled to 500 because of the difficulty recruiting young people, says national director Anne Bergen.

Bergen and a team of volunteers hold drug information programs for 2000 primary and secondary school children across the nation. With drinking embedded in our culture, the union was forced to dilute its stance and accept moderate drinking.

"We talk about the importance of deciding what you want to do in life and not allowing friends to push them into something they don't want to do," she says. "We see alcohol as something that has caused tremendous problems."

Bergen supports the controversial new guidelines in a National Health and Medical Research Council report that suggest it is unsafe for either sex to drink more than two standard drinks a day.

At 69, Bergen has never had alcohol. Her mother signed a pledge of abstinence when Bergen was a baby and brought up her daughter in an alcohol-free household. Bergen's husband and three of their four sons don't drink either. "I've never felt the need to have alcohol," the former secondary school teacher says. "I like to keep control of my brain and what I do and I know the health risks."

The Age