Not a pint-sized problem

As I walked to my local train station for a trip to Manchester on Friday, I was stopped by a teenager who said: ‘Can you get ‘em in for us?’

I thought I’d misheard him.

The request repeated , I cottoned on to the fact that he wanted me to go into the off- licence and buy him ‘eight cans of Stella’. ‘I’ll give you the money,’ he added.

I refused. He looked about thirteen.

His request was timely, if nothing else.

That morning I had heard on the radio that certain radio DJs had come under fire for promoting a booze culture.

Among those in the firing line in the Government-funded research was Chris Moyles, presenter of Radio 1’s breakfast show, who can boast a huge audience, many of them impressionable youngsters.

I then came across the article in Localgov sister title the MJ on NEETs - youngsters ‘not in education, employment or training’. ‘Red’, a hyperactive 18 year-old Liverpool fan, is quoted in the piece.

Despite the buzz surrounding the city’s Capital of Culture celebrations, Red says the city has nothing for him and his friends, ‘so we hang around here during the day and get drunk at night’.

It struck me that these examples highlight the challenges posed by alcohol misuse. On the one hand, you have the affable, social face of excessive drinking, embodied by Moyles. On the other, you have the escapist recourse to alcohol fuelled by boredom and exclusion.

They are two distinct problems in many respects, but the effects can be felt heavily in local communities. Tackling them is far from simple, requiring a complex, multi-agency response allied to a wider sense of responsibility towards alcohol.

On this latter point, the wider media does have a role to play.