Community / Young folk keen for more alcohol-free events amid concerns about drinking culture
SOME YOUNG people are moving away from alcohol and want to see more alcohol-free events organised in Shetland, a meeting heard this week.
A survey of young people in the isles found many felt they would be “ostracised” by friends if they gave up drinking.
Some said they were concerned about the impact on their mental and emotional wellbeing and relationships with others as a result of alcohol or drug use.
And one said there was a “too fine a line between acceptable use and problem use” of alcohol in Shetland.
The charity OPEN, which engages with people aged between 16-25 in the isles, presented the findings of a survey into how Shetland’s drug and alcohol culture could be improved.
It was presented to the Association of Community Councils (ASCC), which brings community council representatives from across the isles together, on Tuesday night.
OPEN researchers Rhiannan Burns and Shannon Boston said the project had been carried out to ask young people what they felt about Shetland’s drug and alcohol culture, and what could be improved.
Boston said young people were also keen on “inter-generational learning”, which would see them learn skills like bannock making or how to make repairs to a car.
Young people were often choosing to forego activities involving alcohol now, Boston told the meeting.
Referring to people going to the pub to celebrate their birthday, she said: “That’s not the thing they are aspiring to do”.
One respondent said adults should be told that “their childhood of excessive drinking and doing drugs was not normal”.
Bryan Peterson, representing Sandwick Community Council, said he came from a generation that “grew up thinking excessive drinking was normal”.
He said a number of people would look back on their youth during the “golden age of country halls” with nostalgia.
But he said for many it was “quite a dangerous period” due to the amount of alcohol being consumed.
He asked if the idea that period when young people were drinking to excess regularly was special was preventing “Shetland from moving forward”.
“Probably, yes,” Boston said.
She said she did not want to take away from people’s fond memories of their youth, but said some people just needed to understand the changing attitudes to alcohol use.
The meeting heard that tackling the stigma and peer pressure around alcohol use was one of the biggest factors to changing Shetland’s culture of excessive use.
One respondent told OPEN it was “an issue when you personally don’t want to do any kind of drugs or alcohol but all your friends do, and you kind of get left out or they start ignoring you” unless you take part.
Delting Community Council representative Alastair Cooper said the “harsh reality” for young people was that there was “nothing else for them to do”.
He said hall committees needed a “degree” to be able to run an event for young folk given all the red tape.
OPEN’s Burns agreed, said there was “nowhere to go and nothing to do” for a teenager like herself, except to go to someone’s house.
She said would try go to Harrison Square, but added: “We can’t go there because people will drive by and say we’re causing a disturbance.”
Boston said they would like to start an initiative where older people offered to teach young folk new skills, such as bannock making, either at their homes or in a local hall.
However Lerwick Community Council representative Jim Anderson asked what was stopping young people from just going along an elderly relative and asking them to teach them.
And he also said young people should look to organise an alcohol free event at a hall, and transport to and from the event, themselves.
“Go and ask them, be a bit more proactive,” he said.
“Don’t be greeting about the fact that there’s no public transport, phone up and ask if you can hire a bus.”
Boston said a lot of the younger generation grew up during the Covid pandemic and found it difficult to know what to do when it came to booking halls or buses for events.
But Anderson said they should “stop blaming Covid for everything”.
“Let’s stop being keyboard warriors,” he added.
Laurence Odie, from Yell Community Council, said he helped to organise the annual Yell-oween disco, which could attract 250-300 young folk.
The majority of those were well behaved, he said, but some would get hold of alcohol and “guzzle it too fast” because they were worried about having it taken off them when they got to Yell.
He said they had to set a section of the Burravoe Hall aside for volunteer nurses to look after anyone who was ill on the night.
While that event was always a success, he said it took the commitment of between 15-18 supervisors working for free all night to run.
ASCC chairman Ian Walterson said that was a “big commitment”, which a lot of halls would not be able to manage.
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