Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Alcohol

  • AUSTRALIA

    Nanny state Australia could learn from Europe

    • Cam Hassard
    • 21 August 2015
    17 Comments

    After almost two years living abroad in Germany, I have observed a stark difference in how European societies strike a balance between legislative oversight and individual freedom. More or less anything is tolerated here, as long as you respect the rights and freedoms of others. Tolerance and 'least intervention' thrive on personal responsibility and eschew knee-jerk intervention. 

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Family's bipolar drama is a laughing matter

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 02 April 2015

    Cameron's illness is severe enough that he has been institutionalised at least once. He is on lithium but tends to neglect it, preferring to self-medicate with alcohol. His sensitive but strong-willed daughters do not make his life easy, but neither are their mother's absence and their father's illness easy on them. Still, there is a good reason why these events are viewed with nostalgia, and a good deal of humour.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    A Budget to enshrine inequality

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 May 2014
    47 Comments

    Governments have always included in their budgets a 'we're serious' clause as part of their determination to fix the economy. It has normally been directed at the vices of the underclass such as alcohol and tobacco. Now governments slash spending on the welfare of the disadvantaged.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Australia's booze culture on trial

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 06 February 2014
    10 Comments

    Alcohol has a privileged place in polite society. All mood changing substances rely on a myth of a better life and relationships, but the alcohol myth is distinctive because it is rooted in high as well as in popular culture. Attempts to regulate its consumption and limit the damage it does will therefore always be unlikely to succeed.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Obama's cannabis defence illuminates NSW booze laws

    • Ruby Hamad
    • 03 February 2014
    7 Comments

    In a nation still divided bitterly along race lines, blacks, and to a lesser extent Hispanics, bear the brunt of America's prisons-for-profit program. The perils of mandatory sentencing should serve as a warning to NSW, which has announced mandatory minimum sentences as a response to alcohol-fuelled violence. The question is not which drug is more dangerous, but how society chooses to deal with each one and why.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    The baleful life of Stalin's favourite actress

    • Brian Matthews
    • 31 January 2014
    7 Comments

    When her husband was arrested and imprisoned indefinitely as an outspoken opponent of Stalin, she became depressed and alcoholic. Film director Grigori Aleksandrov rescued her by choosing her to star in Moscow Laughs. She became his mistress, later his wife, a screen star and, perhaps most important of all, she attracted Stalin's benign attention.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    A frank chat about mental illness

    • Georgina Laidlaw
    • 06 December 2013
    13 Comments

    Mental illness begets mental illness. One glance at the reportage on the Royal Commission into child sex abuse proves that. We won't discuss loved ones' mental health because to do so feels like a betrayal. We won't talk about our own mental health because what right do we have to be unhappy? But ill heath is not a right. Suffering is not indulgence. If you're telling yourself that, shut the hell up.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Aboriginal victims of Tennant Creek's addiction

    • Mike Bowden
    • 19 November 2013
    21 Comments

    Jordan Jenkins, owner of the Tennant Creek Hotel, let the cat out of the bag: Tennant Creek is addicted. 'I mean, we are not going to go bankrupt so police can present stats to people,' he said. It seems the police are doing their job too well. Alcohol sales are declining. Profits are at risk. And so the liquor licensees of this remote town with a large Aboriginal population are pulling out of an alliance designed to reduce alcohol related harm.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Suicide silence and stigma

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 03 October 2013
    20 Comments

    In Rome and in Christian times people who took their own lives were buried outside the communal graveyards and without the prayers that farewelled the dead of the community. The symbolism was clear. They had separated themselves from society and its shared life; now society separated itself from them. And by implication it also marginalised those closely associated with suicide. Has much changed?

    READ MORE
  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    The ethics of paternalism in Aboriginal policy

    • Callum Denness
    • 25 September 2013
    3 Comments

    Following the abuse received by Adam Goodes from a teenage spectator in the AFL's Indigenous round, and the subsequent remarks made by Eddie McGuire, the country became embroiled in a debate about racism in modern Australia. Meanwhile, the Northern Territory introduced its Mandatory Alcohol Treatment Bill which, if passed, will see more Aboriginal people incarcerated. We were too busy describing the modern face of racism to notice.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Legislating to counter grog fuelled violence

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 June 2013
    7 Comments

    The Northern Territory Parliament will soon debate a proposed treatment scheme for up to 800 problem drinkers a year. It will be a case of unprincipled, unworkable lawmaking unless the NT is more attentive to medical, legal and community opinion within its own jurisdiction and 'from down south'. Just because a proposal is novel doesn't mean it's a good idea.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Dreaming of redemption

    • 2012 Blake Poetry Prize
    • 13 November 2012
    6 Comments

    It's the alcohol that makes me white. The magic of intoxication suits my dreaming fine. I want to be civilised. The harder I drink the whiter I get. O how I want to imbibe like a gentleman ... I want God to make me white and rich and fat.

    READ MORE