VERITY LUSH: Spending squillions to point out the blindingly obvious

This is the kind of announcement where you hear it and think, ‘Well, duh!’

Given the affect of alcohol on the brain and thought processes anyway, not to mention cancer risks, weight gain, liver damage, and the fact that alcohol is a toxic substance that can make you sick or even kill you, why on earth should this latest finding be a surprise?

It’s like saying we’ve spent a squillion quid on research and guess what, consuming too much chocolate can make you fat.

The cash would be better spent treating the effects as opposed to pointing out the more obvious causes of them.

TACKLING THE ROOT CAUSE OF ADDICTION IS KEY

Preventing something is always better than curing it, which no doubt is why research such as that into dementia and alcohol is carried out, but is this announcement actually going to stop anyone drinking?

All so-called vices in life come with prices to pay. Many of them are also addictive.

For some people, even things that we need in order to survive, such as food, become a form of addictive self-medicating.

Money that could be spent tackling root causes (mental health is woefully under-funded, for example), is instead being splashed on producing scientific evidence for what we often already know.

This research won’t stop people drinking or eating too much – if it would, then nobody would ever start smoking.

WHEN THE FAMILY ROLES REVERSE

I sit and write this on what would have been my father’s 70th birthday.

My dad, Pete Lush, passed away when he was 41 – the same age that I am now – and it feels incredibly odd to know that within a month or so, I shall be older than he ever was.

In our minds, our parents are always older and wiser than us, but there often comes a time when we find a role reversal of sorts, and we begin to take care of them.

This, ideally, is what family should be – looking after one another – but that can be hard to accept as a child, because although you are your parents’ child, you are actually no longer a ‘child’ at all.

When we are tiny, our parents are indomitable forces of good, there to protect and care for us, and take the brunt of worries so that we can enjoy childhood.

At least, this is how it’s supposed to work. For far too many children, this is not what happens at all. Poverty, poor mental health, or addiction, are realities of the world, and they are harsh realities.

We all realise sooner or later, that our parents are not superheroes after all. Our parents are vulnerable, and human, and full of faults like everybody else.

Hopefully they are doing the best they can for us, but their best may not always be good enough.

And then of course, many of us become parents ourselves. Suddenly, we are the ones who are seen as the providers – yet we are also hit by the stark reality that, just as our parents before us were only human, so are we. We have to carry the stress and the worry and the financial juggling, and the mortgage and the career and the bills, and make the time to nurture and love and raise our babies.

Parenting is a wake-up call to anyone who has a child. The love is indescribable, and no matter how old they are, our babies will always be our babies, even if, one day, they have to look after us.