The Complexity of Alcohol Consumption

The complexity of society is something to be appreciated; too often we attempt to simplify the things around us to mere cause and effect relationships. We see something seemingly troubling and try to find an exact cause so as to reduce its difficulty when, in actual fact, life is inherently more complicated. We are guilty of this on numerous societal levels: this is certainly true at the political level, a powerful example of which can be seen in David Cameron’s endeavour to raise the tax on alcohol.

Cameron’s ‘idea’ is to lower access to alcohol by upping the prices, in doing so he wants to increase the general health of society. Former GP – and current Tory MP, of course – Sarah Wollaston does us the favour of simplifying things further, claiming that “…when alcohol is too cheap, more people die”. That isn’t even cause and effect, just another tactically used correlation. Just so you know, there is also a correlation between certain nationalities and the propensity to be eaten by lions. Think about it.

Anyway, back to Cameron’s logic. The cause here is alcohol intake and the effect is ill-health. Perhaps this is an over-simplification… or perhaps not – it does seem to be the premise at the heart of his argument (though the usual party-political strategies have to be accounted for). Having it written down in front of us like this (cause: alcohol, effect: ill-health), I feel, does a lot to highlight the obvious oversights. The whole simplification thesis appears to be a throwback to a certain type of mechanically-underpinned science that excludes as many variables as possible to reach a ‘definitive’ outcome, and thus fails, in many cases, to sympathise with the actual diversity of a given situation. Cameron’s argument is a case in point. It seems ignorant of the multitude of complicating factors, most of which can be exposed by posing some broad questions – the most powerful of which is simply: why?

Why is alcohol such a big seller? Can we really attribute the success of the alcohol market to its low price? Why might individuals ‘resort’ to heavy drinking? Why is it considered ‘resorting’ in the first place? Is heavy drinking really a problem exclusive to the poorer parts of society (where a tax increase would remedy the problem)? These are just some of the questions we could put forth – some of which are evident in others’ critiques of the proposed tax. In essence we could – if not should – look to the answers of these questions as the underlying basis of potential preventative measures and as a way of understanding excessive alcohol consumption.

There is not the scope here to unpack the mountain of issues making up this contentious debate. In fact, in highlighting the blatant complexity of this topic, we could argue there are few places where the scope can even be realised, let alone discussed. However, the first step of attempting to deal with such an issue is surely to ask such questions and recognise its complexity, instead of simply thinking mono-causally and charging more for the increasingly demonised alcohol consumption. Acting on simplified ideas will only serve to marginalise and divide. As an aside, the simplistic idea that raising tax on alcohol will reduce consumption is yet another absurdity: will those wanting alcohol – and, what is more likely, those ‘driven’ to it – not just skimp on other commodities to afford it (food, bills, child support)? Or maybe even decide against paying full-stop? These are just a few of a substantial number of outcomes.

The idea of raising tax on alcohol is but one of many examples of this simplified – cause and effect – thinking. Keep an eye out for it. Furthermore, consider how it demonstrates the need to be critical of all governmental policy – not in an anti-establishment way, but from a vantage point that allows constructive commentary based on a situation’s inherent complexity.