My appeal to Ireland after devastation of losing my twin brother

Our drinking habits need to change. And fast.

First of all let me start by telling you about myself. I am a regular 20 year old who has often gone out for days in a row, don’t remember getting home, the usual story with most young people in our generation. Now don’t get me wrong, this did not happen all of the time, but every now and then. I live in the countryside of county Clare and the drinking habits here are a serious problem. It’s totally fine to go for a few pints on a Saturday night with friends or family or whatever, we just need to control how much we are consuming. Everyone thinks a full day on the beer is great craic, but let me tell you, unfortunately, you don’t realise the potential dangers of alcohol until it comes knocking on your door!

I lost my twin brother last October. He died after a day of drinking, falling from a cliff near our home in Quilty, later that night. Life without my twin brother Stephen is just so hard. To be honest, it still feels like he is gone away on holidays and that he will be coming back, but unfortunately that’s not going to happen. I still take out my phone to ring him or send him a snapchat but then it hits me that he is not with us anymore. I try very very hard to put on a brave face when I’m having a bad day. The bad days are the worst. Stephen had a heart of gold and was probably one of the most affectionate and caring men I’ve ever known. I cry mostly when I am alone. My mind just goes crazy and I just can’t stop thinking about the things that I can’t bare anymore.

We have to start collectively addressing and dealing with the effects that abuse of alcohol has on families. We know there is a problem but what is being done to change this on all levels? How has it come to the stage that we see getting out of our minds drunk as a normal pastime? Thousands upon thousands of young people in Ireland do it every weekend for fun (I did myself!) but the pain and devastation this behaviour is causing is ripping people’s lives apart. Be it from feeling like total crap in the days after, getting into dangerous situations or doing something you wished you hadn’t done, severely damaging your health, or worst case scenario – the nightmare of losing someone you love.

Alcohol is one of the most dangerous drugs that we have and many don’t realise this. The fact is that alcohol advertisements are being driven down our necks by companies particularly targeting young people. Look around you, it is everywhere. There are advertisements on most streets in Ireland with a billboard, ‘sexy and cool’ TV advertisements, advertisements featuring sports heroes, all normalising and encouraging young people to consume a drug that is killing people every day. The alcohol industry may advise us to ‘drink sensibly’, but they want to increase profits, meaning the more drinking taking place the better. It is up to our government, our leaders, us, to do everything in our power to stop this normalisation of alcohol abuse.

Drinking too much can also cause relationship troubles and so many other difficulties. It is responsible for 88 deaths every month in Ireland. That’s over 1,000 deaths per year. I imagine alcohol related deaths undocumented are actually much higher. Liver disease rates are also increasing rapidly in Ireland and the greatest level of increase is among 15-34 year olds, who historically had the lowest rates of liver disease. The HSE estimates that alcohol abuse costs Ireland over 3.7 billion per year. That is money needed for our youth, health and education services. A huge percentage of admissions to accident and emergency wards are also alcohol related, thereby slowing or preventing treatment for others.

We live in a country where drinking to a stage that we don’t know where we are has become the normal thing to do and it’s out of hand. I have seen various photos and statuses praising the Irish for their drinking. I think that should shame us as a country to believe it’s funny and true.

Then on the flip side the Health Research Board found that there is a strong belief (85%) among Irish people that the current level of alcohol consumption in Ireland is too high.

We all know there is a problem with our drinking culture, but still it feels like nothing is being meaningfully done about it. Yes, personal responsibility of how much we consume is of course a key factor, and many people drink to self-medicate and numb some pain they might be experiencing but many others are binge drinking because it’s what everyone else around them is doing, and it’s seen as normal.

It affects all family members, in particular, the parents or partners of the people out drinking until all hours of the morning. Mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, trying to contact their loved ones all night, with no sign of them returning home at a reasonable time. The bars too need to have a look at their laws and see that there is such a thing as legal opening hours and staying open until 5am or 6am in the morning is wrong!

When many of us go out drinking for a night, we end up drinking too much, so much to the point that we do not know what we are doing. This is dangerous for so many reasons. It’s the younger ones, the teens, who need to be advised and taught about it before they get into the real world and see what it’s like, adapting to what is projected around them as normal. They need to hear stories and see the lasting damage that alcohol causes people. Secondary school students need to learn about it in a new radical and non-preachy way. We also need social alternatives to alcohol.

I think another very important thing is that if you ever see a person drunk, and especially on their own, please help them. Alcohol can affect you so much that you do not know where you are going or what you are doing. Any small problem becomes a thousand times worse when alcohol is involved. If you do happen to see someone, bring them home or to a friend’s house and make sure they are not left alone on the street or wherever it may be.

On the night that my brother Stephen died, he had bought two naggin’s of vodka at around half eleven at night. He was dead an hour later. When I heard the news that my brother Stephen was gone missing, my heart just shattered into a million pieces. I didn’t want to believe it and I don’t remember much that happened for the rest of that day. Myself and my family had the agonising pain of searching for Stephen for 3 days and watching the divers search the sea for his body. No other family should ever have to go through that. We should all be able to go out for a night, have a couple of drinks and get home safe and sound.

I just hope that some of the younger age group around my own age (20) will read this message and hopefully it will help someone out there realise the dangers that alcohol can cause. People don’t realise the dangers until something happens to their family. This needs to be a message that people will read and take some notice of. Please share it out and remember it when going out for a night on the town.

Something needs to change culturally before it’s too late and many more lives are lost. It’s in all of our hands and we urgently need to do something collectively to change this old societal narrative. Thanks for reading.