British teen drinking ‘spawning a violent and promiscuous generation’: The Church of England Newspaper, Aug 19, 2011 p 7.

First published in The Church of England Newspaper.

Binge drinking among teenage girls has become a serious public health problem for the UK and a source of public disorder, a report compiled by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University has concluded.  It warned that Britain’s alcohol culture was spawning a violent and promiscuous generation with 30 per cent of teenagers bingeing at least weekly.

The study of over 11,000 15 and 16-year-old teenagers in the North West found that 88 per cent of teen girls had consumed alcohol, as compared to 80 per cent of boys.  “Compared to European neighbours, 15 and 16-year-olds [British teens] are far more likely to drink alcohol and do so more frequently,” the report found.

“We estimate that 65.9 per cent of 15 and 16-year-olds drink at least monthly and that their total overall consumption is 83,943,726 units,” the report said, noting “this is equivalent to 44.2 bottles of wine (117 pints of beer) per year for every 15 and 16-year-old.”

More than half of those who drank alcohol consumed more than ten units a week, and 7 per cent had more than 40 units, and of these “39 per cent of females and 42 per cent of males had been involved in violence.’

“Such drinking can place girls in situations where they are too drunk to properly consider whether they wish to have sex or take the appropriate precautions to prevent pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections, the report said.

“The consequences of this are both immediate – such as poor school performance and violence – and long-term, such as alcohol-related health problems in later life and pregnancy,” the study concluded.

In a pastoral letter published in parish magazines in June in the Diocese of Lichfield, the Rt Rev Geoffrey Annas, the Bishop of Stafford commented that alcohol abuse had become “one of the major sins of our time.”

“I am not advocating a temperance revival,” Bishop Annas said.  “Jesus drank wine and I see alcohol as a gift to enjoy. But I am calling for a more responsible use of this gift.”

“When I hear of older people afraid to go out at night because of drunken rampages; when I have to tread carefully in the street to avoid the pools of vomit; when I am told by young people going away from home for the first time that every single event of Freshers’ Week at their university is focused on pub crawls; when I see ‘reality’ shows on the TV that glorify drunken and degrading obscenity as the ‘Brits’ (both male and female) go on holiday in Europe, and when I join the Night Church or Street Pastors and see beautiful but vulnerable young people become more depressed or aggressive as the night wears on, then I think that Church and Society together need to speak out,” he wrote.

“There has been a seismic shift in attitudes towards smoking – we need the same in our approach to alcohol,” the bishop said.