Cape Town – With up to a quarter of the male population and a tenth of the females showing symptoms of alcohol problems, South Africans have some of the most serious drinking problems in the world.

People drink up to 20 litres of pure alcohol per annum. The South African Demographic Health Survey conducted amongst all population groups indicated that up to a third of the population consumes a perilous amount of liquor over weekends.

Professor Charles Parry has published these figures, a synopsis of an extensive study conducted over the past ten years on South Africans’ drinking habits, in the American journal Addiction.

Parry is a professor in psychology at Stellenbosch University and director of the Medical Research Council’s Alcohol and Drug Research Unit.

Over the past month, about a quarter of high school learners went on a binging session where they over-indulged in liquor.

More than half the people who die as a result of unnatural causes have more alcohol in their bloodstream than the law allows, and more than a third arriving at trauma units are over the legal limit.

In the Western Cape, this drinking trend is also evident in the number of children born with foetal alcohol syndrome.

In 1997, 41 to 46 out of 100 000 children in grade 1 had this syndrome, and in 1999 this figure amounted to 65 and 76 in every 100 000.

Parry’s research also indicated a link between alcohol use and high-risk sexual behaviour. Those who drank more also had more sexual partners.

People do not just drink with meals; they drink in public places from communal containers that are passed from one person to the next and at community gatherings such as weddings and funerals.

A considerable increase in the consumption of alcoholic fruit drinks (spirit coolers), brandy, vodka and wine with a decrease in the consumption of sorghum bear has also been reported.

Source: News24.Com
URL: http://www.news24.com/News24/South_Africa/New…/p>