Here’s to good times.
To blue skies and Market Square.
To new friends and football games.
To patios and scenic shorelines.
The City of Kingston is a vibrant place to live, work, study and
play. Kingston’s story is one of a
passionate and caring community.
In fact, one of the values of the Sustainable Kingston plan
is to
ensure well-being – “...(to) create a sustainable community
where all members of the community are able to meet their needs, advance their
potential, and improve well being through healthy, safe, and fulfilling work
and play”.
From Public Health’s perspective, this is a shared
value. Ensuring the well-being and
health of the community is central to the work of Public Health. Great strides have been made in the City of
Kingston in many areas, but there is an area in which we need to start having a
serious conversation. That area is
alcohol, including current attitudes surrounding its use and misuse in our
community. Alcohol is so intricately
woven into our social fabric that discussions surrounding it are often
challenging, animated and personal.
Many people drink alcohol to celebrate, to relax, to socialize,
and to savour. Some drink alcohol for
courage, to forget, and to numb. For
others drinking alcohol is seen as a recreational activity where drinking games
are the norm and drinking to get drunk is the ultimate goal. In a 2012
community alcohol survey, the most common reasons Kingston respondents gave for
drinking alcohol included “for entertainment, to be sociable, and to relax”. Ninety-eight percent of respondents believe
entertainment is a common or very common reason to drink alcohol. Still others drink alcohol because of
loneliness, to escape and to forget their worries. Eighty-four percent of respondents believe
depression / loneliness is a common or very common reason to drink alcohol.2 Most of the time alcohol is
simply a part of the good times - the fun evening out with friends, or the
quiet dinner at home. However, in far too many cases alcohol can be
blamed for a good time gone wrong. Why does this
happen? Do individuals simply need to take more responsibility and control
their drinking, or do the environmental factors that encourage alcohol to be used
in ways that are harmful, need to be addressed?
The cultural acceptance of alcohol use as recreation in our
community perpetuates the myth that alcohol is an ordinary commodity.
However, as a commodity it is far from ordinary. This report is intended to shed some light on
a public health issue that continues to be downplayed in the popular
media. It’s time to begin a
conversation, and examine the impact alcohol is having on individuals and the
community at large and how we can create the conditions for alcohol use to only
be a part of our good times. It
starts here.