Dear Cate
I would like to thank you for being so frank and having the courage to share your experience of how alcohol can have such a devastating affect, not only on those for who it becomes a problem, but also for the damage it can do to families. I am sure you will know that you are not the only one to have gone through such heartbreak.
I don't know what the answer is and as others have said the results of too much alcohol and dependence on it are not new problems. - Possibly we should raise the age limit to 21 and people should be billed for treatment if they end up in A & E through being the worse for wear after drinking. Maybe society as a whole is too tolerant.
We all know people who have or have had problems with alcohol. At the moment we have a relative who is going through a personal hell. - Job, marriage and family have been lost through drinking and she has had problems so severe that they have resulted in her being taken into psychiatric care. Her problems are complex, but thankfully, she is now receiving the help she needs, although I think it will be a long hard road to recovery and happiness.
What I think is difficult for the individual and others is to recognise when drinking crosses over from being a controllable and pleasurable thing and changes into a nightmare which can ruin lives. Personally, I think there must be personality traits and/or events in life which pre-dispose people and act as triggers making them vulnerable to addiction - I think other types of addiction are similar.