Sorry seems to be the hardest word when it comes to our alcohol deaths
If I may offer some advice to the Scottish Government, don’t put a Minister out on the press rounds if they aren’t ready to own horrific statistics within their remit. I’m sure Jenni Minto works hard as minister for health but her appearance on STV news was contemptuous - and I don’t use the word lightly.
The latest figures for alcohol-related deaths in Scotland make predictably very grim reading – a 15-year high. Minto was invited to apologise to the families who have lost loved ones and this was the bit that really bothered me, although not for the reasons you might think.
I don’t blame the government for my brother Laurence’s death, just as I don’t blame the Uber Eats drivers who – as we later discovered via his mobile phone – were dropping off Hogmanay level carry-outs at his door every day before he passed away.
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I know that I’m lucky I feel this way because it would be perfectly natural to look for a target for the anger that comes with the grieving process. I was, however, absolutely furious at how hard this lady tried to avoid saying sorry.
I suspect she is sorry and yet she allowed the fear of some sort of corporate culpability to come first. To come before compassion for families like mine. Her interview with Colin MacKay was an excruciating watch. I sat there shouting “Jesus, just be honest. Please be a person. We’re hardly going to send you the funeral director’s bill”.
I so wish politicians knew the power of calling things straight and how far it goes with people like me who know how hopeless this situation can be. Watching this minister, you could see her thinking, ‘I can’t say I’ve failed. I’ll be hammered by my party seniors for not toeing the line’.
It’s a great shame she couldn’t trust us with some honesty. We’d all have more patience and less anger if we had somebody admitting their mistakes but addressing the issue – a lack of beds in residential facilities for those addicted to alcohol and drugs.
Here’s what she could have said: “We know these beds are needed so much more than another raft of quangos so please bear with us and accept my apologies for these awful numbers in the meantime.”
I’ve never claimed to have all of the answers but I know what else doesn’t work – minimum unit pricing on alcohol. Sadly, Public Health Scotland disagrees with me and has applauded this policy but on the basis they are funded by the same government who came up with it, I think we can safely say that mine is the opinion that comes with less fear or favour.
Rather than putting the millions into these agencies telling them they are doing well, the government should perhaps consider pumping that into frontline services.
Another thing the government might want to take heed of is those stories, one of which was in the Sunday Mail, about fake vodka with deadly ingredients seized last month. It’s rife and it’s the result of a short-sighted policy that will only drive things underground which is great news for criminal organisations.
But here’s a story which might be the start of a solution. One of my best friends is a recovering addict and helped me enormously in the aftermath of my brother’s death.
He was taking steps to re-enter the working world with a job in a supermarket but at the same time spotted a role in a charity which supports people who suffer mental illness as a result of trauma and addiction. “I’m not qualified but hey, they’re interviewing me,” were his exact words.
I can’t tell you how badly I wanted him to get this job. Not just for his recovery but because he is exactly the sort of person we need out there at the coal face. I could only imagine the fascination of the interview panel in seeing this incredible CV come to life in front of them.
Such a clever guy (more Higher As than anyone else in our whole year at school) and he has experienced addiction, mental illness, the lot. He’s also got stacks of charisma and I honestly couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have in my brother’s living room when things got really bad for him.
It will be years from now, when my kids tell me they’ve been offered the perfect job, that I’ll be anywhere near as happy as I was when Andrew told me he got that role. He’s out there now as a community link officer and – in the hope they see this – I’d like to say something to the people in that amazing organisation who interviewed him.
Thank you for breaking with convention and going with your gut when it came to this last-minute applicant. You might even have had the role earmarked for somebody else before this one-off man popped up. The fact he was offered this role says as much about you as it does about him. I can only imagine you wanted him on your team within seconds.
Your open-mindedness will give people reading my words so much optimism and I can only hope that MSPs and government ministers in this area start listening and talking to people like you and your colleagues. You are the people who really understand what is needed.
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