Personal Relationships

The social consequences of alcohol related harm, not only affect the individual drinker but can also undermine relationships with partner/spouse, members of their family friends and work colleagues. Alcohol problems in the family are prevalent through the European Union and are strongly related to frequency of intoxication.

• Children of problem drinking parents are particularly vulnerable to a range of problems and child neglect
• Problem drinking is an important contributory factor to marital difficulties in Ireland
• Marriage counselling services reported that alcohol abuse was the primary presenting problem in up to 25% of cases
• Services dealing with the legal aspect of marital breakdown reported that up to 34% of clients cited alcohol abuse as the main cause of their marital problem.
• Personal and social problems have also been experienced by young people as a result of their own alcohol use. Poor school performance, accidents, relationship problems and delinquency problems where experienced by Irish 15/16 year olds as a result of their drinking.

Sexual Activity

• A major Irish research project on crisis pregnancy identified alcohol as one of the factors that contributed to the incidents of unwanted pregnancies where drinking resulted in the non-use of condoms, thus increasing risk .
• A study among school-going Irish teenagers, reported that 35% of the sexually active respondents said that alcohol was an influencing factor for them engaging in sex.
• Alcohol use has also been identified as one of the main risk indicators in relation to teenage pregnancy. Unprotected sex gives rise to increased risk of sexually transmitted infections.
• Among a group of 32 teenage girls attending a sexually transmitted disease clinic, nearly half reported that they had unprotected intercourse on at least one occasion when drunk . During the last decade sexually transmitted infections have increased by 165% in Ireland. In 2000 there were approximately 8,900 STI's recorded .

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