Between 1989 and 2000 our alcohol consumption increased by forty nine percent. According to another recent survey, sixty percent of young women and fifty percent of young men drink dangerous amounts of alcohol. The increasing media coverage is helping to bring the problem of alcohol abuse into focus. Brian McLoughlin, the Munster Fianna Fáil MEP recently gave a speech in which he asserted that Ireland "has the worst teen binge drinking record-. He contented that through education, increased media coverage of this issue and tighter controls on the distribution of alcohol, this problem could be combated.
In many cases, the over indulgence of alcohol is a measure of deflection; a tool one uses to escape the suffering in ones life. Intoxication is a measure one uses in order to deflect ones conscious from the pain and misery in ones reality. In Civilization and its Discontents', Freud reveals three measures one may indulge in to evade the unhappiness and disappointments in ones life. He cites one such measure as the indulgence in intoxicating substances. When one is intoxicated, he is less sensitive to the distress he experiences. As Wilhelm Busch said in Die Fuomme Helene', " He who cares has brandy to'. Intoxicating substances like alcohol manipulate our body and change its chemistry. It is mans pursuit of happiness that drives him to use a mechanism such as alcohol to enable him to feel pleasurable impulses. This altered state of consciousness invokes a feeling of well being and contentment. If one did not constantly desire happiness, the desire to be intoxicated would be eradicated surely. Where does this constant desire for happiness originate? Freud contends that it is the pleasure principle that dictates the function of the psychological apparatus. Man strives to be happy and to remain so. Man endeavours to avoid pain and displeasure and to be in a constant state of happiness.