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The debater: children of adults with alcohol problems are more vulnerable this Christmas
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This is a discussion article. The author is responsible for the opinions expressed in the text, not Aftonbladet.
Photo: GETTY, TT
If you suspect that a friend or relative has a risk habit; call, chat or why not connect to Zoom and watch Kalle Anka together, writes Mona Örjes.
DEBATE. Christmas 2020 will be different. When the big family parties are absent and more people spend the Christmas weekend only with those closest to them, we must especially remember children who live in a family where an adult has problems with alcohol. Children’s vulnerability runs the risk of getting even worse when there are no safe adults to turn to.
If you suspect that a friend or relative has a risk habit; call, chat or why not connect Focus and watch Kalle Anka together.
This year we have to take care of each other. The corona pandemic has changed life for most of us and nothing is business as usual. Christmas is the time of year when alcohol consumption in Sweden is highest, except in the summer months.
Since 2007, the IOGT-NTO movement has run the White Christmas campaign to inspire non-alcoholic Christmas celebrations, so that Christmas can be a holiday for children.
Big family holidays, of course, will be fewer due to the pandemic and more people will celebrate Christmas with just the immediate family.
In families where adults already have high alcohol use, isolation and boredom run the risk of increasing alcohol use, which in turn leads to increased exposure for children.
Christmas is the holiday of children, bright eyes and expectant, as described in the wonderful world of advertising. To make this a reality for as many children as possible, we need adults who are safer than ever. Here we all have a great responsibility to follow up and intervene. It’s rarely about meddling, but about having a call.
If you suspect that a friend or family member has a risk habit, get in touch and make sure the children are not left alone.
A white Christmas is an act of solidarity with the children and this year also with the staff of the blue light. In some regions, for several years we have been distributing “Peppis” from the IOGT-NTO movement, a gingerbread cake that can comfort a child at Christmas after a blue light intervention.
We wish these stuffed animals are not necessary, that all children have safe adults around them every Christmas, but we know that this year, as in years before, some children will be visited by blue light staff at home.
Blue light personnel know very well that alcohol affects healthcare in many ways; through a greater number of traffic accidents, injuries, violence and assaults. If we reduce alcohol consumption in society, we automatically alleviate our needy healthcare, this in a situation where margins are basically non-existent.
You and I face an important mission for Christmas. As Santa, we should be able to appear and make a child happy, with the security and warmth that we can convey, it is for many the best Christmas gift.
Together we can make Christmas 2020 a safe Christmas worth remembering. A Christmas in which we take great care of each other, relieve medical care and focus on children by avoiding alcohol. A Christmas where Kalle and her friends sit at Zoom, what could be more appropriate for a year like this?
Mona Örjes, president of the IOGT-NTO movement
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