The Cultural Associations Of Alcohol

A new United Kingdom Government report has warned that parents perpetuate myths to convince themselves that their children’s’ drinking is safe. This includes beliefs that children need to learn about alcohol for themselves and that drinking is a “right of passage.” Other beliefs which seem to me to encourage the drinking problems of our nation include a deep-seated cultural association of drinking alcohol with having fun, if not the very act of socialising itself. Perhaps we need to change our culture.

How does one change a culture? One can begin with the right message. In the words of Bahá’u'lláh

‘It is inadmissible that man, who hath been endowed with reason, should consume that which stealeth it away…’

The Kitáb-i-Aqdas, Bahá’í World Centre, 1992 edition