Content warning: This story contains references to death, alcohol use and other sensitive issues.
This article was first published in Croakey Health Media.
In the six months before her death in 2023, Victorian woman Kathleen Arnold had 319 alcohol products delivered to her home.
Her mother had tried to raise the alarm, knowing that rapid access to alcohol at all times of the day and night was accelerating Kathleen’s decline, making it harder for her to maintain sobriety.
Tragically, Kathleen died at just 30 years of age. She had a blood-alcohol level more than ten times the legal driving limit.
It was a senseless loss that put a name to a hidden crisis of deaths due to alcohol in Australia – which recently peaked at their highest rate in 20 years.
Compounding the grief for Kathleen Arnold’s family is the knowledge that this tragedy was not only preventable; it was far from an isolated incident.
After Victorian Coroner Ingrid Giles found in February that Kathleen’s death was linked to swift, easily accessible, late-night delivery of alcohol, she released four more inquest findings – this time of men who died from alcohol toxicity.
Giles found all four had diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, patterns of alcohol use, mental health histories, and they died in varying ways, “reflecting the diverse ways in which alcohol can cause harms across the Victorian community”.
These inquest findings also illustrate how alcohol impacts our communities more broadly, with men more likely than women to drink at high levels and die from alcohol-related causes.
Prevention matters
Each of Giles’ reports concluded with a consistent call to action – an appeal to the Victorian Government to do more to prevent alcohol harms.
In a 20-year review of the state’s attempts to reduce alcohol harms, Giles found little progress has been made, despite multiple inquiries reaching similar conclusions on how to tackle the problem.
While technology has turned every phone into a bottle shop, Australia’s alcohol laws have failed to keep up.
We can’t wait for more families to face the heartbreak of losing a loved one to alcohol. Governments must seize this opportunity to act. We know what works. And the community wants to see change.
Giles has called for a ban on home delivery of alcohol between 10pm and 10am, a two-hour safety pause between order and dispatch of alcohol, and a statewide Alcohol Action Plan to address alcohol harms.
“This is an area where relatively straightforward reform has the potential to significantly reduce the burden of harms associated with alcohol accessed via delivery provider platforms,” she wrote in February.
The need for these reforms is urgent, and not just for Victoria. Last year the First Ministers of every state and territory committed to reviewing their liquor laws to prioritise the prevention of violence against women and children.
Since then, South Australia has made notable progress towards this, but we are yet to see meaningful actions from other jurisdictions.
Political will needed
Reform starts with tackling the predatory tactics many alcohol companies use to target people at risk of harm.
A study from the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University, funded by the Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education (FARE), found that alcohol companies target people who drink the most alcohol, selling 36 percent of alcohol to five percent of people, placing people at greater risk of harm.
Alcohol retailers tailor their marketing strategies to target people who are already drinking at high levels, with cut-price alcohol delivered directly to their door around the clock.
We saw these practices ramp up during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were aggressively targeted with ads for home-delivered alcohol.
Alcohol companies capitalised on the opportunities presented by lockdown measures, encouraging people to use alcohol to ‘survive’ being stuck at home and ‘get easy access to alcohol without ever having to leave your home’.
Kathleen Arnold had been sober for four days before she ordered the home-delivered alcohol that led to her untimely death.
Her mother had raised with her local MP the issue of food delivery companies flouting liquor licensing rules. She was disturbed that her daughter was able to order alcohol as late as 4am, without proper ID screening, and even at times when she was connected to medical equipment.
While we now know Kathleen’s story, countless more will never be told.
Each year more than 150 deaths involving acute alcohol toxicity are reported to the Coroner’s Court of Victoria, and at least another 100 are caused by chronic effects of alcohol use.
Many more go unreported, often being classified as death by natural causes.
Behind every one of these preventable deaths is a person whose potential has never been realised, leaving behind grieving loved ones.
The solutions are simple, and to implement them we need political will.
Decision makers have a responsibility to put public safety ahead of corporate profits and give people who are trying to stop drinking a fighting chance.
If you or someone you know needs support, please call Lifeline 13 11 14 or National 24/7 Alcohol and Other Drugs Hotline 1800 250 015
