Tag: Responsible Service of Alcohol

The word “addiction” brings to mind alcohol and drugs. Yet, over the past 20 years, a new type of addiction has emerged: addiction to social media. It may not cause physical harms, such as those caused by tobacco and alcohol, but it has the potential to cause long-term damage to our emotions, behaviour and relationships.

While the older generation – those born in the baby boom period shortly after World War II – had alcohol and drugs as their vice, the younger generation – the so-called millenials – have social media as theirs. The millennials, born between 1984 and 2005, have embraced the digital age, using technology to relax and interact with others. Social media is a big deal for them; it is a lifeline to the outside world.

Although people of all ages use social media, it is more harmful for younger users than it is for older people.

All consuming

Addiction may seem a bit of a strong word to use in the context of social media, but addiction refers to any behaviour that is pleasurable and is the only reason to get through the day. Everything else pales into insignificance. Millennials may not get liver damage or lung cancer from social media, but it can be damaging nonetheless.

The harm lies in their change in behaviour. Their addiction means spending increasing amount of time online to produce the same pleasurable effect, and it means social media is the main activity they engage in above all others. It also means taking away attention from other tasks, experiencing unpleasant feelings from reducing or stopping interaction with social media and restarting the activity very soon after stopping completely.

We should also be concerned about the effect of social media on sleep and doing less “offline”, such as making time for work responsibilities and direct face-to-face social interaction. It has also been linked to depression and loneliness, both of which may be the cause or the effect of social media addiction.

Millennials report compulsively checking social network profiles and updates. They can make riskier decisions and be open to online exploitation. They often mistakenly believe that, if things go wrong, they will get help from their online community, even if this community consists of relative strangers.

Lacking self-reflection

Most of us rely partly on the ability to reflect on our thinking, feeling and behaving to form our own self-image. The problem with social media is that self-image relies mainly on others and their opinions. A recent study found higher narcissism (an exaggerated self-image of intelligence, academic reputation or attractiveness) in millennial college students, compared with previous generations. This does not bode well for a society where self-reflection is key to making informed and balanced decisions.

The digital age has changed the nature of addictions in millennials, who have replaced one maladaptive behaviour with another. Social media certainly looks as if it has replaced alcohol as a way of social interaction with others. It is perhaps no surprise that, over the past ten years, there has been a 20% rise in the proportion of 16 to 24-year-olds who are teetotal. Ten years ago it was 17%. It is now 24%. Spending time online now seems more desirable than spending time in a pub with friends.

There is no recognised treatment for social media addiction. Although we are starting to become aware of the problem, there is no classification of social media addiction as a mental disorder in the same way as substance misuse. If we want this to happen, there needs to be a clearer definition of the symptoms and progression over time. We will need to answer some key questions, such as: does it run in families? Are there blood tests that can distinguish it from other mental disorders? And will it respond to drugs or psychological therapies? We still have more questions than answers.

Find out more http://theconversation.com/social-media-is-as-harmful-as-alcohol-and-drugs-for-millennials-78418

A young man died at a Darwin house party after consuming a toxic cocktail of prescription pain killers, alcohol and a drink made popular by US rappers, an inquest has heard.

During the inquest into 22-year-old Fazan Khan’s death in January 2018, the court was told he regularly drunk the concoction known as “lean” or “purple drank”.

“Lean has been linked to a number of fatalities in the United States,” counsel assisting the coroner Peggy Dwyer said.

“It’s killed a number of prominent hip hop artists.”

On the evening before he was found dead last January, Mr Khan and 14 of his friends had been celebrating triple j’s Hottest 100 countdown at a party in the Darwin suburb of Leanyer.

Mr Khan had mixed up two bottles of lean — which is a combination of soft drink and prescription drugs — and drank most of their contents at the party.

A friend said they also witnessed him taking the drug MDMA and anti-depressants, and drinking alcohol, before vomiting in the yard.

The next day Mr Khan’s friends woke to find him dead, slumped against a cupboard on the kitchen floor.

They attempted CPR but it was too late.

An autopsy found toxic levels of oxycodone and MDMA resulted in Mr Khan’s death, and that his blood contained smaller amounts of codeine and alprazolam, commonly known as Xanax.

At the time of his death, Mr Khan had also been taking a long list of prescription medication, including anti-depressants, Xanax and oxycodone, which one friend said he had been getting online.

Friends were unaware of risk

One of the friends told coroner Greg Cavanagh Mr Khan had introduced him to lean, but he had already heard of it from “hip hop, rap artists, stuff like that”.

Lean is especially dangerous when mixed with alcohol, Ms Dwyer said, along with being highly addictive.

“The codeine in lean is a breathing depressant, as is alcohol, and when mixed the results can be fatal,” she said.

“Signs of abuse include slurred speech, sedation, and drowsiness, also vomiting, headache and tremors.”

But Mr Khan’s friends told the court they had no idea he had been at risk of serious injury or death.

Mr Khan grew up in Darwin and attended local schools before starting an apprenticeship as a motor trimmer.

The court heard he had been referred to a psychologist for anxiety symptoms in 2016 but had not attended his appointment.

After injuries to his shoulder and back, he had started taking Panadine Forte, including tablets his mother noticed went missing from her prescription packet.

“He was obviously a young man who had a lot of life to live, he was full of life, he was fun, he was caring,” Ms Dwyer said.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-11/darwin-man-dies-after-drinking-lean-purple-drank/10993952

It’s time to call last drinks on ‘influencers’ using social media to sell cocktails, wine and champagne, VicHealth says.

Victoria’s health promotion foundation looked into Australia’s top 70 Instagram influencers and found almost three quarters featured alcoholic drinks in their posts, but only a quarter fully revealed they’d been paid to do so.

VicHealth Acting CEO Dr Lyn Roberts said the “underhanded” nature of the social media posts made it difficult for young people to know when they were being sold an ad.

We also know that young people who like or follow alcohol brands on social media are twice as likely to drink at risky levels than those who don’t,” Dr Roberts said.

“For every advertising dollar spent, young people drink three per cent more alcohol.”

The research found big alcohol companies were using social media as a key tool to promote their products as cool and glamorous to an impressionable audience.

And while there are no rules that stipulate influencers must disclose sponsorship deals, VicHealth says it’s time for that to change.

VicHealth on Monday launched a Top Spin, a statewide competition encouraging young people to call out sneaky tactics used by the alcohol industry to influence them to drink

Key findings of the research:

– A total of 73 per cent of top influencers featured alcoholic drinks in their Instagram accounts in the past year. But only 26 per cent featured a fully disclosed sponsored alcohol collaboration with a brand.

– Of the likely sponsored mentions (12 per cent), 61 per cent were disclosed and 39 per cent were undisclosed, meaning they did not feature a hashtag such as #sponsored #ad or #collab nor used the ‘Paid partnership’ option for brands on Instagram.

– Influencer attendance at events sponsored by alcohol brands and posts containing branded glasses/cups further blur lines of what’s considered sponsored versus non-sponsored.

– Little consistency in disclosing paid collaborations. The ‘paid partnership’ Instagram feature was rarely used for alcohol collaborations. A number of different hashtags are used, for example: #collab, #ad, #spon, #partner, #sponsored.

– Some influencers don’t disclose a paid collaboration but use the official campaign hashtags, which denote a paid partnership. Some posts had hallmarks of a collaboration with no clear disclosure.

– Alcohol brands prefer to partner with mega (100,000+ followers) and macro (10,000-100,000 followers) influencers to deliver an average of three posts for a sponsored campaign, usually in the form of the influencer posed with a bottle of the alcohol.

– Cocktails, wine and champagne are by far the most popular types of alcohol featured.

Source: https://www.9news.com.au/national/news-australia-social-media-influencers-alcohol-advertising-vichealth-calls-new-rules/b2e47b2a-ac70-4181-97d3-6caf29a951f5

In the last 12 months, Australians had more emergency medical treatment for alcohol consumption than residents of any other country.

We also got drunk an average of 47 times, or approximately once every eight days.

That’s according to data from the 2019 Global Drug Survey (GDS), which covers the drug consumption of more than 120,000 people from over 30 countries, including 7684 Australians who took part this year.

Here’s how we rank.

Australians the fourth biggest drinkers

Maybe this comes as no surprise, but we ranked pretty high for alcohol consumption.

We were the fourth biggest drinkers behind the UK, US and Canada.

Women were more likely to receive emergency medical treatment for alcohol than men, and 39.1 per cent of Australians said they wanted to drink less next year.

Alcohol, cannabis, tobacco and MDMA were the highest ranking drugs used in the last 12 months.

Source: https://www.abc.net.au/triplej/programs/hack/global-drug-survey-how-australia-ranks/11108690

Ireland’s first alcohol free bar has opened in Dublin and there’s no food or alcohol on the menu but plenty of no-alcohol spirits, beers, wines and cocktails.

Owner of the Virgin Mary Bar, Vaughan Yates said the venue is definitely a bar and not a cafe opening between 4pm and 11pm.

He explains that lower or no-ABV drinks help people have a longer night out and drive home safely afterwards. It also promotes a good conversation.

He hailed the bar as the ultimate responsible night out.

Source: https://www.9news.com.au/national/news-ireland-alcohol-free-pub-the-virgin-mary-s-opens-dublin/9a71d327-0792-414c-83f7-1b4b3539ae48

Alarmingly, despite repeated health warnings parents are still the main source of alcohol for high school students.

Health warnings about the harmful effects of drinking on children are being ignored by parents who are giving their underaged children alcohol.

A surprising 43 per cent of children between 12 and 17 years old were given their last alcoholic drink by a parent compared to 17 per cent who said an adult friend provided the alcohol.The revelation was made by the Australian Secondary School Students’ Alcohol and Other Drug Study.

According to Richard Mattick, a professor at the University of NSW’s National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, there is no rationale for giving alcohol to minors.

While most parents think they can teach their kids to drink responsibly, there is not a single study throughout the world that shows this to be the case when parents supply alcohol to their underage children but instead studies show this increases their drinking.  See more https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/parents-main-source-of-alcohol-for-children-ignoring-health-warnings-20190412-p51dq1.html