Glass Half Empty

How much grog is enough?

"OK, you boys have had enough. It's time to go home..." I can imagine publicans all around Australia saying something like this at some stage on any given night. Or more correctly, any given morning. It seems there is always someone who doesn't know when to stop, huh?

Yesterday I heard an interesting report of some recent alcohol-related research conducted right here in Newcastle. The results seem to show that if people drink for a shorter period of time, there will be less problems. Amazing!

"How did they discover this?" I hear you ask. Well, it's like this. Since 2008, the pubs and clubs of Newcastle have been required to close earlier than before. Now they are only allowed to stay open until 3.00am. I remember when this was introduced - they complained long and loud about the restrictions. But they had also complained before the changes about the spiralling levels of violence that required them to hire extra security.

Newcastle Uni's Associate Professor Kypros Kypri, who led the study summarised the results this way:

"They produced a one third reduction in the incidence of assault in the 18 months that followed the restrictions and when you adjust that for the fact that there was an increasing trend to that point in the central business district where the restrictions were in place, as well as an increasing trend in the nearby suburb of Hamilton, which we used as a control site, the effect of the intervention was a 37 per cent reduction." (Quoted by the ABC's "AM" program 16/9/2010)

Surprise, surprise! And now there are calls for this clever strategy to be brought in all across Australia. The complaints are starting already: "You can't have a one-size-fits-all approach...Newcastle had it own specific problems..." Yeah, right.

But I'm still shaking my head about all this. Here's why. I think it's sad that we have to come up with these solutions at all. Our governments spend a lot of their time and our money managing the destructive behaviours of our population. And not just in relation to alcohol. We have shooting galleries for drug addicts, programs for problem gamblers, ICAC to fight corruption in high places, investigations into terrible stories of pedophiles in the church and elsewhere, and advertising campaigns desperately trying to reduce everything from obesity to lung cancer to domestic violence to road deaths. The list is almost endless. Our society is groaning under the weight of problems caused by people refusing to self-regulate their behaviour. Instead, we have to regulate it for them.

Are you a self-regulator? The Bible tells me that Christians should be. Here's what Paul had to say about the kind of life that results when Jesus is allowed to be in charge:

^"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law." (Galatians 5: 22-23)

Interesting, isn't it? Paul says there's no law against these things. Why? Because people controlled by the Spirit of Jesus are self regulated, and not towards bad behaviour, but towards love, joy, peace etc. Meanwhile, for those that want to run their own lives, the best we can do is to make rules to manage their unhelpful behaviour, and bear the cost of enforcing them.

Let me ask you, though: which one are you?