MATTHEW CARNEY: It's Saturday night in Surfer's Paradise and Andrew Smith is about to turn 19. Most of his friends have turned up to party and the aim is to get very drunk, fast.
ANDREW SMITH: There could be a few people spewing up at the end of the night.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Despite the media and Government hype the overall level of binge drinking in Australia hasn't really changed. It's been a problem for decades. More than half-a-million teenagers drink to excess.
But in the last decade some things have changed. The girls are drinking just as hard and fast as the boys.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to girl at party): What are you drinking?
FEMALE: Johnny Walker, straight out of the bottle baby!
MATTHEW CARNEY: There are now more girls drinking at risky levels than boys.
Emma Parnham is 19 and says she'll drink about 2 bottles of wine tonight - about 15 standard drinks.
EMMA PARNHAM: Well you start off doing it once every couple of months and then it's just a lot of fun to be honest. It's just, it's just great fun, so you end up doing it more often and then it becomes a every weekend thing.
FEMALE (at party): Is this going on You Tube?
MATTHEW CARNEY: Teenagers are bingeing more and starting younger.
EMMA PARNHAM: We started drinking quite like regularly at 15. My little brother started when he was probably 14, so I think they are.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Getting pissed is an Australian rite of passage. Tonight we confront this country's grog culture and ask: can it ever change?
(On screen text: "On The Piss"; "Reporter: Matthew Carney")
MATTHEW CARNEY: Jade English is 18. She says all the girls they know learned to drink with alco-pops - sweet pre-mixed drinks packaged in cans or bottles.
JADE ENGLISH: When you're younger, that's the first drink you're introduced to and then as you get older, you know, wine is more socially accepted and you drink more beer and you get on to spirits in clubs because that's, you know, that's what most people drink in clubs, is spirits.
MATTHEW CARNEY: So why did you start with ready-to-drinks, or alco-pops?
JADE ENGLISH: Basically because they're not as strong and that's what our parents allow us to have, and they're sweet and they taste nice, and that's what your palate is used to.
MATTHEW CARNEY: To celebrate his birthday Andrew Smith is going to drink this bottle of rum.
ANDREW SMITH (at party): Getting there, getting there. It will be gone by the time we go out.
MATTHEW CARNEY: He believes the booze gives his generation confidence and courage.
ANDREW SMITH: in situations like parties, I guess you've got some people that you don't know so well, so it's sort of like, you know, when you get a little tiny bit inebriated it's, conversation sort of flows a little bit better. It may not be as coherent at times but it's a lot easier for a lot of people definitely. I mean, I know a lot of people who are very quiet but when they have a few drinks then they'll be the centre of attention and talking a lot more.
EMMA PARNHAM: You do what you want and you're exactly who you want to be when you're drunk. It's a couple of drinks and suddenly you don't feel like that awkward person anymore. You're suddenly this really confident, really happy person.
MALE (at party): Binge drinking is the best!
MALE 2 (at party): So soothing.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The Federal Government has said it is going to attack the epidemic of youth binge drinking. One of the first steps is to increase the tax on alco-pops, but that's had no effect here. People are just turning to cheap wine.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to party goers): How much was that?
MALE 1: Goon - $8.90.
FEMALE 1: This one was just $8 - only $8! ... Yeah, exactly, why are you going to spend $24 dollars on a six pack...
FEMALE 2: Twenty-dollars for a six-pack. I mean ...
FEMALE 1: When you get four litres of goon for $8. So what's the point when you get four litres of goon for $8?
FEMALE 2: So when you say that, they're going to put the price up now.
(Party crowd sings "happy birthday" to Andrew and then ask for speech.)
ANDREW SMITH (at party): Everybody, everybody here, I just want you all to know that you've all embarrassed our whole generation!
(Crowd cheers and applauds.)
MATTHEW CARNEY: At about midnight Andrew Smith and his friends head into the nightclub district of Surfers Paradise.
ANDREW SMITH (to party goers): Grab your booze! Grab your booze! Let's go!
(In taxi): We're going to go to a bunch of clubs and pubs and what-not, and drink there, and then come out and make a fool of ourselves in front of "Four Corners"...
(Cheering from others in taxi.)
MATTHEW CARNEY: Alcohol has played a large part in shaping and bonding this group of friends, but the drug does open them up to risk and harm.
EMMA PARNHAM: I have been known to black out. I have a black out persona.
JADE ENGLISH: She's Blackout Emma.
EMMA PARNHAM: I've got Emma and then Blackout Emma and when I do...
JADE ENGLISH: Two different people.
EMMA PARNHAM: We are definitely two different people. I make decisions that I wouldn't usually make.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Like what?
EMMA PARNHAM: Nothing too bad but it is like, climbing trees or, you know, walking off and doing things that I wouldn't otherwise do.
MATTHEW CARNEY: But doesn't that worry you? I mean you could...
EMMA PARNHAM: It does worry me a lot.
JADE ENGLISH: But you've always got your friends around you for the most part.
EMMA PARNHAM: Yeah, I have a lot of people who watch out for me if I do get to black out stage and everyone recognises Blackout Emma.
MATTHEW CARNEY: One of the biggest changes in the alcohol landscape is where we drink. Before it was mostly the local pub but now it's in big venues with hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.
MALE (doing backflip on the street): That's the Gold Coast for you!
MATTHEW CARNEY: The Surfers Paradise nightclub precinct is typical of this new drinking environment. Twenty-six venues are crammed into just four blocks. They're open until 5am so drunk people can shout, stumble and roam all night long.
MALE (on the street): Don't binge drink because you'll end up like me! (Laughs)
MATTHEW CARNEY: On a good night they can pack in 20,000 and few have any understanding of the effects and risks of drinking huge amounts of alcohol.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to young woman outside club): How many drinks have you had tonight?
FEMALE: I don't know, but it's my birthday so it's okay.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Can you take a guess? You must have some idea.
FEMALE: I don't know.
MATTHEW CARNEY: What, five, or 10, 15?
FEMALE: More than that.
MATTHEW CARNEY: What, 20?
FEMALE: No about 15 or 16, because they've given me free drinks so it's a bit okay. But I'm not a binge drinker, I only go out for my birthday or friends' birthdays. And I think binge drinking is completely not normal.
(To friend): Binge drinking is not normal is it?
FRIEND: Not at all.
MATTHEW CARNEY: When people come here they change. Booze lets them do things they wouldn't normally do.
MALE (on the street): Australia has no problem with binge drinking even though this is a report on binge drinking, it's not a problem. I haven't had a drink all night "Four Corners"!
MALE 2 (on the street): Yeah you c**t. Cherry Ripes are awesome!
MATTHEW CARNEY: Most don't come here to find unsafe sex, car accidents, brawls or assaults but when masses of intoxicated people come together that's what happens, as we witnessed.
After an argument with this girl, this 26-year old man king hits these two men. He just walks on and tells his victims they should behave. The police pursue him into a nightclub and detain him. Later he is charged with two assaults.
(Crowd cheers as police take man into custody.)
His first victim is seriously injured. Paramedics suspect a broken nose and jaw and possible neck injuries.
Just hours later we see another brutal and senseless assault just like this one.
These new drinking environments are hot spots for crime. Research has proven that areas with high density of liquor outlets cause violence.
PROFESSOR WAYNE HALL, SCHOOL OF POPULATION HEALTH, QUEENSLAND UNIVERISTY: When you get large numbers of people in crowded spaces that's when you tend to get fights and violence. So they're a drinking environment that I think the evidence has shown very clearly is one that is likely to maximise drinking to the point of drunkenness and it's also likely to increase the likelihood that people get involved in fights.
MATTHEW CARNEY: To deal with the violence, Surfers Paradise introduced lock-outs back in 2003. The same restrictions are now being trialled in New South Wales and Victoria.
DOORMAN: Coming in mate? We're closing the doors.
MATTHEW CARNEY: After 3 am venues can't admit any new patrons. People stay inside or go home.
Police say it's had an impact.
SUPERINTENDENT KIM KEOGH, QUEENSLAND POLICE: In relation to offences against the person, which we consider very serious, they're your robberies et cetera, we've got nearly a 20 per cent reduction in relation to those offences here in Surfers Paradise.
MATTHEW CARNEY: But Angela Driscoll who's been working on these streets for nine years hasn't noticed a difference. The youth service she runs helps intoxicated people and has been collecting its own data.
ANGELA DRISCOLL, GOLD COAST YOUTH SERVICE: The percentage of assaults as a percentage of our clients stays the same, so we're seeing more clients, so we're seeing more assault related injuries as well.
MATTHEW CARNEY: She claims the lock-outs haven't worked because most assaults happen between 1am and 3am, and says people have changed their behaviour - drinking earlier and hanging around after lock-out.
ANGELA DRISCOLL, GOLD COAST YOUTH SERVICE: One of the things that alcohol does is makes it very difficult for you to read the cues of other people, the social cues, to read their facial expressions. So people are more likely to fight strangers because they think they looked at them funny. And there seems to be that there is more aggro around, I would say.
MATTHEW CARNEY: At the end of the night Andrew Smith and his girlfriend Jade English emerge unscathed and, like most, they'll be back next week.
ANDREW SMITH: I'm as drunk as I'm ever going to be right now and look I'm, I think it's made out to be a bigger issue than it really is. I'm here in Surfer's, I'm not causing any trouble, not trying to start any fights.
JADE ENGLISH: We're just having a good time on our first date.
MATTHEW CARNEY: It's often the emergency departments of Australia's hospitals that are left to deal with the carnage alcohol creates.
St Vincent's Hospital in the centre of Sydney is one of the busiest emergency departments in the country. It's about 10 o'clock on a Saturday night and the typical patients are starting to show.
FEMALE 1: We were out front of Fringe Bar on Oxford Street and this boy was sitting out the front in his car, and this other boy came walking over and he went and hopped in the car. And I was being a little bit immature and silly, with alcohol, and I went (gestures) like this, to pretend that they were gay.
And they went to go drive off. And they tried to run us over the first time and, we were like, jerks, tried to run us over. And so me and my friends Bubes with the cut head we went chasing after the car. And so they stopped and they put the car in reverse.
And I jumped out of the way and he stayed in the way (laughing).
FEMALE 2: He wasn't fast enough.
FEMALE 1: And he stayed in the way, and his foot got run over by the car. And he went over the boot, onto the back windscreen and then fell off the back of the car onto the ground (laughs).
MALE : It's good. I've got a nice, screwed up foot. It's absolutely ridiculous. Now I'm here in hospital (inaudible).
NURSE: You get sort of this kind of mentality that they continue to party inside here.
NURSE 2: Oh, absolutely and they all become friends and they all...
NURSE 3: There has been some interesting waiting room pick ups (laughs). Some very interesting ones. You worry about the gene pool.
They're just all very heightened and they think they're having, you know, it's all very funny. But if that kid had been he's been hit by a car. But honestly, if he'd been hit in any different, it could have been so entirely different.
(Doctor and people in waiting room greet each other.)
MATTHEW CARNEY: Professor Gordian Fulde, the head of emergency, handles the next patient.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to people in waiting room): Who's the patient here? What happened dear?
FEMALE (to doctor): Me.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to female): What's happened here darling?
FEMALE (to doctor): I was riding a skateboard...
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to female): As you do...
MALE (to doctor): And fell off.
FEMALE (to doctor): And absolutely stuffed my foot and it hurts so much. I was drunk. I'm not sure but the pain is just too much.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to female): So, no, no, where does the...
I've been the boss here for over a quarter of a century, so I've seen a fair change and the change has been monumental in one, is what people now are drinking. In other words they're drinking spirits, right, the shot glasses are coming in, the hard liquor with mixes have come in. In other words beer is still there but that isn't what gives us grief, right. The beer drinkers because obviously to get drunk on beer you've got to drink a fair volume, if you drink a fair volume you often vomit, and that's good, right.
The other thing we've noticed is massive over-representation by females.
MATTHEW CARNEY: And it goes on. This 19-year-old girl came in drunk and inconsolable about being called fat by a friend. She says she's overdosed on pills.
SANDY GRACEY, NURSE (to doctor): So look, no-one saw any evidence of any of the medications. They saw her drinking just a bottle plus of...
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to nurse): You've got to play it down the line.
SANDY GRACEY, NURSE: So I'll just pop her into a bed and keep an eye on her ...
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to nurse): Yes please, yes please.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Near the end of the night 23 people had presented, 18 of them were young and drunk.
Nurse Sandy Gracey has been doing night shift here for five years.
SANDY GRACEY, NURSE: And for us you can start to look at all of our years of experience and training and we are looking after intoxicated people. It can be quite frustrating when you go home at 7.30 in the morning and you've run around holding sick bags and looking after intoxicated young people. Driving home you think, you know, what am I doing?
MATTHEW CARNEY: Earlier this year there was disbelief when the New South Wales Government released figures showing that 1670 children and teenagers were treated in hospital for alcohol abuse in 2007. In Queensland the figure was similar at 1,536 and Victoria has seen a doubling in the number of young women admitted to hospital because of alcohol abuse in the last decade.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (in ambulance bay, vehicle approaching): It's very unusual to keep the sirens on while they're coming. That's really bad.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Towards the end of the night a major trauma case arrives - one more gruesome reminder that three quarters of assaults involve alcohol.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to ambulance staff): What are the obs?
AMBULANCE ATTENDANT (to doctor): We don't have any professor.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT: How about just bring him in mate. Let's just roll and rock.
AMBULANCE ATTENDANT 2 (to patient): It's all right, we're getting straight in there now, okay?
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to ambulance staff): Do we have any blood pressure or we don't know? It's unrecordable or we haven't done it?
AMBULANCE ATTENDANT (to doctor): We can palpate a pulse but that's it professor.
MATTHEW CARNEY: This 20 year old man is bleeding to death. His pulse is so weak that they can't even get a blood pressure reading.
AMBULANCE ATTENDANT 2 (to patient): It's all right, we're here at the hospital buddy. We're here.
AMBULANCE ATTENDANT: We've got three stab wounds to the back, left of the upper chest and what looks like an arterial bleed from a stabbing also on the right arm... 13... haven't got any obs for you. He's got a 14 gauge in the left arm there with fluids running. He's had no analgesia at this stage, complaining of shortness of breath, that's all I can tell you.
MATTHEW CARNEY: At this stage they don't know whether his lung has collapsed or his heart has been pierced - both fatal.
It's not till they turn him over that the full extent of his wounds are revealed.
MEDICAL STAFF: He's got four down there ...
MATTHEW CARNEY: After five minutes the medical team of 15 stabilises him.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT (to staff): Okay, we've got blood pressure, we have good, reasonable stats. It's okay for the moment.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The man was stabbed in a drunken brawl in the Sydney nightclub precinct of Darling Harbour.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT: I mean how bad is that? The ambulance officers had trouble retrieving a stabbed patient, the bystanders were so busy fighting and things they really weren't letting the ambulance come and get the patient and take him, drive him out. And fights like that never happen without alcohol.
MATTHEW CARNEY: It took the medical team eight hours to reconnect the man's severed nerves and arteries. He's lucky to be alive.
Professor Fulde believes alcohol is Australia's most deadly drug. It does kill about 60 people a week and five of them are under 25.
PROFESSOR GORDIAN FULDE, ST VINCENT'S HOSPITAL EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT: We Australians, right, really have now for many generations been medallists in the amount of alcohol per person as the statistics. What we have been is a role model to our children, right. And as I say, usually when we ring up parents or something at this time of night, now it's well after midnight, ring up parents and say look come and pick up your kid, they say they can't because they're pissed, they can't drive or whatever, can we put them in a cab or whatever? It's just nearly ubiquitous.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The following Saturday night we join the New South Wales Police at the scene of the crime in Darling Harbour. They've put more police on the beat to control the violence.
MALE (to police officer): No cops are near him, cops are near me.
POLICE OFFICER (to male): He's already been spoken to.
MALE (to police officer): So why am I getting a ticket written up?
MATTHEW CARNEY: Here too, alcohol is also clogging the system - it's 75 per cent of police work and costing the force $50-million a year.
INSPECTOR JENNY HAYNES, NSW POLICE: In terms of resources it means really that we need to have police on this street all the time. It takes away from our normal job requirements so that a normal victim out there on the street or whoever is in trouble that needs the police will generally have to wait longer because we're usually dealing with this type of drunken situation.
MALE (to police officers): What have I done wrong? I've done nothing wrong! I'm going home!
POLICE OFFICER (to male): Calm down!
MATTHEW CARNEY: In the last decade alcohol related assaults have doubled to more than 20,000 in New South Wales. And again it's a similar situation across Australia. In the same period in Victoria, drug and alcohol related assaults tripled to nearly 6,000.
But it's not just the violence that's on the rise, it's also the massive harm people are inflicting on their bodies and minds.
Dale was a binge drinker and a bad one. He drank 'til he dropped.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to Dale): How much you think the alcohol has affected your life?
DALE: It's affected my life considerably, a lot. It's pretty much ruined my life for 20 odd years.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to Dale): Can you tell me how? In what sense?
DALE: Lost jobs, lost two marriages.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Dale hasn't been drinking for three months. It's only now that he's noticing he's having trouble remembering things and getting his day organised.
Dale is determined to make a new start so he's done a series of tests to see if his drinking has damaged his brain. Today he's getting the results.
LUKE DELANEY, SENIOR NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST, ARBIAS (to Dale): I do think that you have a brain injury that has been caused by your pattern of drinking and the sustained pattern of heavy drinking at dangerous levels over this period of the last 10 to 15 years...
MATTHEW CARNEY: Luke Delaney is the senior neuropsychologist at Arbias. It's the only centre in Australia dedicated to brain injury caused by alcohol and other drugs.
LUKE DELANEY, SENIOR NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST, ARBIAS (to Dale): Where you did have some difficulties was in your reasoning and problem solving abilities, so your ability to come up with new solutions to problems and your ability to reason through and to think in an abstract fashion, to think a little bit outside the square when you're trying to solve problems...
MATTHEW CARNEY (to Dale): What did you think about what was said in there?
DALE: A lot of is true. I do tend to forget and, yeah, muddle me words up when I when I'm doing something.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to Dale): Like what for example? What kind of things would you forget or muddle yourself a bit?
DALE: Just forget, someone might say something to me a couple of days, and then a couple of days on I'll forget about it.
MATTHEW CARNEY: If Dale stays off the booze he'll improve but he'll always have some permanent damage. His next goal is to get a job.
But Dale is not the exception. Hundreds of thousands of Australians could suffer from the mild alcohol brain injury Dale has just been diagnosed with.
LUKE DELANEY, SENIOR NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST, ARBIAS: If you're a male, if you're drinking more than six standard drinks a day, so six stubbies of light beer, six pots of beer, every day, over a period of 10 or more years, you're getting into the absolute at risk range for an acquired brain injury.
For women it's more like three standard drinks a day.
Of course if you drink more than that and for a longer period of time your risk of a brain injury increases.
MATTHEW CARNEY: At Arbias they say many people are living with undiagnosed alcohol brain damage. They call it Australia's silent epidemic.
LUKE DELANEY, SENIOR NEUROPSYCHOLOGIST, ARBIAS: So they can hold a conversation quite well and present really well. It's when you actually spend a bit more time and you start to notice the failures in their memory and the lapses in their reasoning and problem solving that you actually start to recognise it.
So yes it's a silent epidemic because it's something that goes unrecognised and the person walking down the street you wouldn't see it.
(On screen text: "10 March, 2008")
KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: Families, parents, local communities know that binge drinking is a problem right across the country. Therefore we're announcing today a $53-million program which has three parts to it...
MATTHEW CARNEY: Three months ago the Prime Minister announced a strategy to deal with teenage binge drinking. It sparked a national debate about taxes, advertising and drinking patterns. Most of the $53-million will be spent on education and a hard hitting ad campaign.
KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: I do think frankly scaring the living daylights out of young people about the health impact of binge drinking in terms of brain damage, I don't think it's going to do any harm, and it might just do some good.
PROFESSOR WAYNE HALL, SCHOOL OF POPULATION HEALTH, QUEENSLAND UNIVERISTY: Well the problem with most mass media campaigns is they're time limited, they're not sustained. They're very rarely sustained for any period and if you're not really addressing the other drivers of risky drinking they're not likely to have a big effect.
PROFESSOR ROBIN ROOM, ALCOHOL POLICY CENTRE, TURNING POINT: Telling people not to drink or telling people to drink less, the evidence at this point is it's very difficult to show effects from that with television or public information campaigns.
You're actually trying to persuade people, you're not simply trying to educate them. And so it's a very difficult task, particularly when the teenagers can look out the window and see that in the larger society, you know, basically drinking is accepted.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Public health experts here and overseas say what works in reducing bingeing is increasing the price on alcohol and reducing its availability.
PROFESSOR ROBIN ROOM, ALCOHOL POLICY CENTRE, TURNING POINT: We're economic animals, we take price into account in everything we do and we make choices in our life. We have at some point only so much money, most of us, and we make choices about what we spend our money on.
PROFESSOR WAYNE HALL, SCHOOL OF POPULATION HEALTH, QUEENSLAND UNIVERISTY: Well the more readily available alcohol is, the easier it is to purchase, the more people tend to consume of it. And we've gone through, in most developed countries over the last 20 odd years, a progressive deregulation of alcohol. The number of alcohol outlets has gone up. It can be purchased in corner stores and groceries, shops and a variety of other places. And, you know when it's readily available like that and particularly when it's cheap people will purchase it and drink more of it.
MATTHEW CARNEY: State Governments have yet to make the tough decisions to reverse the trend towards longer opening hours and high density of outlets. Despite the Prime Minister's decision to raise the tax on alco-pops, the tax on beer and especially cask wine remains comparatively low. The industry is sceptical of the move.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The ready-to-drinks, the alco-pops - what's your response to that, that they are an enabler, they are a gateway drink?
STEPHEN RIDEN, DISTILLED SPIRITS INDUSTRY COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: We think it's a bit of a beat-up because if you look at the growth in the RTD volumes from about 2000, they went from three per cent of the market and they're now currently around 12 per cent of the alcohol consumed. So they're still a relatively small share of all alcohol consumed.
And if there was a link between the pre-mixed drinks, the ready-to-drinks, you know alco-pops as people call them, you would have expected to have seen a sharp rise in the number of overall teen drinking, in particular young female drinking. And the stats just don't show that.
MATTHEW CARNEY: So what's all this about then, this heat in this issue that's particularly taken off since you know the Rudd Government's announced its $53-million plan to deal with binge drinking?
STEPHEN RIDEN, DISTILLED SPIRITS INDUSTRY COUNCIL OF AUSTRALIA: What's happened is I think that there are a lot of parents who are deeply concerned about what their children are drinking. I think the Government is tapping into that concern. And while the absolute numbers might say that we don't have a crisis or an epidemic, we certainly have a problem. I think what it is that our society has changed and we have certainly become far more tolerant of public intoxication and I think the public is reacting to that.
TODD HARPER, CEO VICHEALTH: Clearly we have this binge culture that is prevalent in Australia. That's the cause of the harms that we're seeing at the moment, not the overall patterns of alcohol consumption.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Todd Harper, head of VicHealth, says it's time to act. Alcohol abuse is costing our society $15-billion a year. Last month he argued before a Senate inquiry for more restrictions on alcohol advertising and health warnings on alcohol products.
TODD HARPER, CEO VICHEALTH (at inquiry): It's important to recognise that we need to be in this issue, given the significant harms that we're seeing from alcohol in our community, in this issue for the longer term. We need to be setting some long term strategies. We need to be looking at some of the cultural aspects of alcohol use in our community.
MATTHEW CARNEY: But Harper is going further. He's now pushing for some alco-pops to be outlawed in Victoria.
TODD HARPER, CEO VICHEALTH: Well someone who's drinking these products that have got high levels of caffeine or guarana, their perception for many of these people is that they actually feel okay.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The products in question are high energy alco-pops which contain stimulants like caffeine and high levels of alcohol. The argument is, since these products speed you up at the same time as they make you drunk, they are inherently misleading.
TODD HARPER, CEO VICHEALTH: Consumer Affairs have indicated to us that this is a cause of significant concern to them. They will be investigating the matter further to determine whether it's a breach of fair trading legislation in Victoria.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The concern is what, that it is potentially misleading to someone who's going to buy one of these energy drinks?
TODD HARPER, CEO VICHEALTH: It's certainly our concern that it is misleading to market these products as energy drinks when there's still a high level of alcohol in them. That high level of alcohol will reduce your motor skills; it will have the impact of normal alcohol products. The difference of course is that by adding these stimulants people may in fact feel better than what they are.
MATTHEW CARNEY: If the Government is going to have any success in dealing with binge drinking, all the experts agree the strategy will have to be long term and comprehensive. But first the Government has to address the fundamental question of why we drink to get drunk.
MALCOLM FPROFESSOR ANN ROCHE, NCETA, FLINDERS UNIVERSITY (to Kevin Rudd at press conference): What do you think is the root cause of young people going out and getting themselves goat-faced like that? I mean, it's quite an extreme thing to do. You can prevent it I guess, you could scare them, but what's the root cause?
KEVIN RUDD, PRIME MINISTER: You know Malcolm I don't know, is the honest answer. It's um, ah, it's a really complex one...
MATTHEW CARNEY: Researchers in Adelaide led by Ann Roche have been investigating exactly this question - why people drink. They published their results earlier this year in a study co-funded by Government and industry.
PROFESSOR ANN ROCHE, NCETA, FLINDERS UNIVERSITY: Our work suggests that alcohol is extremely important and that it's become an inseparable part of the development of a young person's individual identity and the transiting from youthfulness into early adulthood periods. It's integrally linked with that. It seems increasingly difficult to separate those two things out.
MATTHEW CARNEY: On the eastern beaches of Sydney people are celebrating what it is to be Australian. It's Anzac day - two up is the game and the booze is flowing. Alcohol is deeply rooted in Australian culture and identity. it lubricates all the passages of life.
FEMALE: What's a wedding without booze? What's a funeral without booze? I mean it plays a key part but...
FEMALE 2: As long as we're drinking, we're still appreciating what everyone has done for us and we still remember where today has come from ...
FEMALE 1: There is a reason behind the booze. The booze just adds to it, accentuates ...
FEMALE 2: They drunk rum, we've both had a sip of rum today and that accentuates what they did for us, and we appreciate you Grand-dad because it made us feel sick! (laughs) So cheers!
MALE: The booze is something where, and just from what we've been talking about today within our group, something that we're doing now and what the diggers were doing then, and so it's a constant that hasn't changed over, you know, however many years.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The crowd is mostly in their 20s and it's this age group, not teenagers, that the experts say are Australia's real problem drinkers.
PROFESSOR WAYNE HALL, SCHOOL OF POPULATION HEALTH, QUEENSLAND UNIVERISTY: Well I think the media and policy focus recently has been on underage drinkers and certainly we do have to pay attention to underage drinkers, but the group that they're wanting to copy are their slightly older brothers and sisters and the people they look up to.
And if you look at where the heavy drinking is done it's not underage drinkers on the whole, it's people in the, above the legal drinking age, particularly those in the 20 to 29 year age group who are unmarried and very actively involved in social life and would probably be going out most Friday and Saturday nights and drinking.
ANASTASIA PHILACTIDES: I'm going to cook something amazing tonight
MATTHEW CARNEY: The Anzac celebrations continues well into the night but this group of friends take a break to cook dinner. They are all in their mid to late 20's and have come from Melbourne to see their friend Andrew Stevens who now works in Sydney.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The Anzac celebrations continue well into the night, but this group of friends takes a break to cook dinner. They're all in their mid-20s and have come from Melbourne to see their friend Andrew Stevens who now works in Sydney.
ANDREW STEVENS (to friends): That chick that was just here has just sent me a message on Facebook!
MATTHEW CARNEY: They've all established successful careers in areas like management and business consultancy. Alcohol is a defining part in their lives.
ANDREW STEVENS: There's no avoiding it. It's as simple as that. It's just what you do. It's the only reason you would leave the house on a Friday or Saturday night or even a Wednesday night. Is it a subculture? It's just, I don't know, it's what everyone does. There's absolutely no avoiding it, nothing you can do. If you want to be friends with people and meet people and go out and socialise, you have to, it's, nothing you can do.
MALISSA PUYOL: I think it has a big effect on binding us together. We all end up being on the same wavelength, same page when we've had a few and I suppose that's why we're friends.
MATTHEW CARNEY: They see binge drinkers as losers who can't handle their alcohol, but against the national medical standards they all qualify.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The kind of accepted medical definition of binge drinking for a girl is seven drinks and for a man is 11.
MALISSA PUYOL: Then we'd all be definitely binge drinkers, probably by two. Easily.
MATTHEW CARNEY: By two, what do you mean, sorry?
MALISSA PUYOL: Times two. Like I reckon most of us girls would have 14 at least drinks a night, if we had a big night, and the guys would have definitely more than 22.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: I guess a binge drinker, someone who drinks to the excess where they can't remember parts of the night and they do act in a way that they wouldn't normally act.
MATTHEW CARNEY: And how often would you do that in a week do you think?
MATTHEW VESCOVI: On average once a week, occasionally twice a week.
MATTHEW CARNEY: When they're working they don't indulge but the weekend is reserved for excess.
ANASTASIA PHILACTIDES: It's just that whole sort of thing, let's live for today, let's get out there and enjoy ourselves and um yeah, I think that's basically what it's coming down to. And if you're not doing that, it's usually because you've got some sort of, whether it's a financial commitment or, you know, a social commitment to a partner or something like that so you're restricted in, you know, your normal social habits.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The booze is a big factor in this group's identity, providing a shared history and new stories to tell.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: Tell me an extreme circumstance, how much have you spent in a night?
ANDREW STEVENS: In a night?
MATTHEW VESCOVI: Yeah.
ANDREW STEVENS: Oh easily $1500 bucks.
ANASTASIA PHILACTIDES: Is that with including a hotel room?
ANDREW STEVENS: No.
BIANCA CHARNES: Just on drinks?
ANDREW STEVENS: Yeah absolutely.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: So what was that on? What was that on generally?
ANDREW STEVENS: Oh who f*****g knows? Like ...
MALISSA PUYOL: But Andrew goes out and shouts like 10 different people drinks in like one round.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: That's fine.
ANDREW STEVENS: Yeah, still it's tough to get to that point.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: So are we talking is it all alcohol? Is it food?
ANDREW STEVENS: No, there's no food. Food? Waste of time.
FEMALE: Fifteen-hundred is ridiculous. That is absolutely ridiculous.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: I agree it's ridiculous.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Their drinking can be frenzied and intense, fuelling deeper friendships.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: In all honesty, though, we weigh up all the negatives of getting drunk, feeling rotten the day after, then why do we get drunk?
ANDREW STEVENS: I can tell you why I get drunk.
MALISSA PUYOL: Because we build memories and we've got friends, and you have a fun night, and you know build stories. Exactly.
MATTHEW CARNEY: The group's drinking is planned and calculated. Generally it has limits - but not for Andrew Stevens
ANDREW STEVENS: The reason I drink is to get drunk, that's the only reason I drink.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: Why do why do you want to get drunk?
ANDREW STEVENS: So I don't have to f*****g think about anything else.
MATTHEW VESCOVI: Like what?
ANDREW STEVENS: Like anything! I'm saying, I think it's the worst thing on earth but I'm an addict. I'm saying I think it's the worst thing that has ever happened to society, alcohol, but I'm an addict. I love it. Guaranteed love it.
I think it's fucking terrible but I can't help but do it. Can't help it.
MATTHEW CARNEY: It's 9.30 the next morning - race day - and it starts with a champagne breakfast.
The culture says alcohol is normal and this group has the time and money to indulge. They control when and where they binge - what academics call calculated hedonism.
PROFESSOR ANN ROCHE, NCETA, FLINDERS UNIVERSITY: The search for pleasure and the pursuit of sort of playful enjoyment and hedonism generally I think plays a much greater role in young people's lives today than it did previously. And this is partly the phenomenon of the period of extended adolescence, that they're simply in an environment with the facilities and the resources to party hard and play longer than they have been able to do previously. And so alcohol then becomes a crucial and central part of that sort of hedonistic lifestyle.
MATTHEW CARNEY: These friends are not about to change their drinking philosophy over a price hike or a scary ad campaign as the Government is proposing.
ANDREW STEVENS: Well until you actually change the way people have to actually live their lives, no-one will make a change for themselves. He's not going to put TV ads on that are going to convince people to stop drinking - it's just madness.
You get down there, the word of mouth is you should drink. Every one of your mates says you should drink. Oh but I saw this ad by Kevin Rudd. Well, no, actually he was wrong so we all think you should drink, the 45 of us, you're the one guy who saw the ad. Do we think you should not drink? No we think you should drink.
Will it have an effect? I would absolutely doubt it.
MATTHEW CARNEY: At the end of the races we catch up with them.
MATTHEW CARNEY (to group of friends): Okay so how was the day?
ANDREW STEVENS: It was pretty good, it was a success for me!
FRIEND: How was it Andrew? We didn't see you for much of the day?
ANDREW STEVENS: I got a number from a gorgeous girl and she was fantastic so, I'll let you know how it goes in the morning.
(Laughter)
MATTHEW CARNEY: What was the drink of choice?
MALE: Tooheys Extra Dry for me.
MALE 2: It was beer with a little bit of Red Bull in the top.
ANDREW STEVENS: Yeah a little bit of Heineken then onto the cc drives...
MALE 2: Just to just to get the dust off from the night before, that's right.
MATTHEW CARNEY: And girls? What were you drinking?
MALISSA PUYOL: Us ladies were drinking Chandon Vintage, it was very nice, I bet on a few races, won no money, it happens, but it's still a fabulous day.
MATTHEW CARNEY: We left them to Saturday night as they moved from pub to pub and club to club.
On Monday I caught up with Andrew Stevens after work. He says he consumed 30 standard drinks and spent $300 during the night and is not sure when he got home.
ANDREW STEVENS: It's hazy. I remember, I remember distinctly hanging my suit in the cupboard and that's about it. I don't remember walking in the door.
MATTHEW CARNEY: Last year Stevens quit the booze for several months. He found the personal toll it was taking wasn't worth the good memories and the dollars. He knows he will have to rein it in again but not just yet.
ANDREW STEVENS: Your life starts to get effected and you start coming up with other reasons why it is. And after making a lot of those excuses and feeling pretty hard done by by all these other factors, eventually it starts to sink in that there's nothing else really that wrong, and that maybe, just maybe, that's the one common denominator.
MATTHEW CARNEY: To change our grog culture will be a massive task. It will require all the players in the alcohol equation to agree on a strategy to stop the piss up.
The first real test of that will happen next month when State and Federal Governments meet to tackle the problem.
If the core issues of culture, pleasure and identity are not seriously addressed then binge drinking is here to stay.
(End of transcript)