DRINK STILL THE BANE OF YOUTH

More than 10 per cent of younger Australians have a drinking problem,
according to the most detailed survey yet conducted on the nation's
common mental disorders.

The extent of alcohol abuse disorders among 18 to 34-year-olds is
twice that of other drugs. This age group is said to be the worst
affected of all by alcohol and other drugs.

The first national survey of mental health and wellbeing found
substance abuse disorders were relatively common among the Australian
population as a whole. But the findings also challenged perceptions
alcohol abuse among the young could be dismissed as a phase.

``The young are not only drinking, they are experiencing serious
problems as a result,'' said Dr Maree Teesson from the National Drug
and Alcohol Research Centre at the University of New South Wales.

Details of the substance abuse data collected in the survey of 10,600
adults carried out in mid-1997 by the Australian Bureau of Statistics
were released yesterday at a national mental health services
conference in Hobart.

Dr Teesson said a disorder was assessed under World Health
Organisation guidelines as occurring when a person had three or more
indicators of problems, such as impaired physical control, withdrawal
symptoms like hangovers, a need for larger doses, or the taking of a
substance despite physical problems.

Disordered people may be seriously drug-dependent or just making
harmful use of a substance, but often this abuse was present in people
who had other mental disorders such as depression.

In the year before the survey, 6.5 per cent of all Australians aged 18
or over had an alcohol use disorder, and 2.2per cent abused other
drugs, including cannabis, stimulants, sedatives and opiates. Men were
more likely to suffer than women: nearly three times as often with
alcohol, and twice as much with other drugs.

But the extent of the problem was highlighted by comparing age groups.
Among people aged 55 or older, 4.4 per cent met criteria for an
alcohol use disorder, and just 0.8 per cent for drug use. By contrast,
10.6per cent of people aged 18 to 34 met the criteria for alcohol and
4.9per cent for other drugs.

The survey also discovered sharp differences in social groups likely
to suffer from alcohol and other drug disorders. Unemployed people
were roughly half as likely again to be victims, those who had never
married were three times more likely. Among the least to suffer were
non-English-speaking migrants.

The centre's Professor Wayne Hall said that even adjusting for a
greater prevalence of young people among them, the unemployed and
never-married groups still were more susceptible.

As for non-English-speaking migrants, he said they often came from
cultures that had less of a tradition of heavy drinking and typically
were more hard-working and keen to get ahead. ``Their problems emerge
in the next generation,''Professor Hall said.

The findings are said to be reasonably comparable with surveys done in
the United States, but show that people are still unprepared to seek
professional help for their problems, mainly because of stigmas
attached to them.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry