By Alexia Saoulli
FORTY thousand Cypriots abuse alcohol, experts said yesterday, with alcoholism among young adults on the rise in the past decade and 85 per cent of the population consuming alcohol under the age of 20.
One in three Cypriots had tried alcohol before their 15th birthdays and 10 per cent admitted they had got drunk at least once before 15. More men are in treatment for alcoholism than women, on a ratio of 8:2.
These were the results of an epidemiological study carried out by the Centre For Education About Drugs And Treatment Of Drug Addicted Persons (KENTHEA), its Scientific Director, Dr. Kyriakos Veresies, said yesterday.
The study was carried out in 1999-2000 in collaboration with the Health Ministry, and sampled 1,500 people between the ages of 16 and 60.
The good news is that Cyprus only ranks 27th out of 30 European countries as far as alcoholism is concerned, said Veresies. As far as alcohol consumption is concerned, however, it ranks 13th. These comparisons were obtained by comparing local statistics with a Paneuropean survey on the same topic, he said.
“Students in Cyprus do not get as drunk as their peers in other countries do,” said Veresies. “These statistics are encouraging and we have no reason to believe they were lying, since the questionnaire was designed in such a way to pinpoint answers that contradicted each other.”
Although there are no known teenage alcoholics at the moment, Veresies said that did not mean there was not an increasing alcohol problem on the island.
“At the moment, youngsters are being given the message that beer is as innocent as drinking a soft drink. Even worse, they are able to buy vodka- based drinks at kiosks that taste like lemonade. The problem is that no one is willing to admit that what they are actually consuming is hard liquor and one of the worst drugs around.”
Veresies added that 10 to 15 years ago, adults became alcohol dependent around the age of 45 because they picked up the habit later on in life. Now, children started drinking as early as 13 or 14 and so were turning into alcoholics in their mid-twenties, he said.
“In the past, you drank over a meal, now kids drink before they go out.” The difference lay in attitudes towards alcohol and the age at which they were consuming it, thus making dependency much easier, he added.
But, he admitted, all under-age drinkers did not necessarily become alcoholics.
“The ones that are most vulnerable are the ones that try to suppress feelings of insecurity with alcohol. A lot of people drink liquor as if it were medicine. They use it to help them get to sleep at night, to relax them after a tiring day at the office, to boost their confidence on a night out or to help them hold a conversation during a social gathering.” In other words, they taught themselves to rely on an addictive substance as a means of coping mechanism. This, unfortunately, was a social phenomenon and one most people living in industrial countries faced due to lifestyle pressures, he said.
“This is very dangerous. Instead of drinking, they should be getting to the root of the problem and learning to build their confidence in other ways, or dealing with why they are depressed and finding it difficult to sleep in the first place,” he said.
Although the survey did not examine binge alcoholism in teenagers, Veresies said it was a possible phenomenon since a great number of them would get drunk on spirits at the weekend, but abstain during the rest of the week.
“We must get the message across that this is a social problem. The public should be educated and have their eyes opened so that we can help prevent this from getting out of hand,” he said.
“The social, family and physical consequences of alcohol abuse are fatal as it is the hardest drug of all. It destroys relationships, ruins your health much more rapidly than other drugs do and changes your personality,” he added. “And worst of all, it is socially acceptable.”
