Patrick Dangerfield is one of Adelaide’s most valuable players and a proud ambassador of the Be the Influence – Tackling Binge Drinking initiative.

I have a personal interest in helping to tackle Australia’s binge drinking culture and am keen to play my part in bringing about a cultural shift in attitudes about drinking to excess.

I was 6 when my uncle was tragically killed in a car accident caused by excessive alcohol consumption. He was only twenty at the time and loved socialising and catching up with friends. It was an incredibly sad time for my family and you cannot help but feel how incredibly unlucky he was. But later I came to realise that sadly, he was not an anomaly.

According to the Road Traffic Authority, one third of all drink drivers involved in fatal accidents are aged 17-24.

The impact of losing him and never getting to know him as well as I would have liked, will always stay with me and my family and is manifested in my attitude to drinking. I believe in the importance of being able to make the right decisions and once alcohol infringes on someone’s ability to do so, it puts us all in danger.

This belief is crystallised in the Be the Influence – Tackling Binge Drinking initiative, which promotes drinking responsibly and knowing when enough is enough. Putting your life at risk in exchange for having a ‘fun night out’ with your friends is reckless, but also putting others at risk can come at a massive cost.

The binge drinking culture in Australia cannot be ignored. According to a study by the National Drug Household Survey, on average, 1 in 4 hospitalisations of 15-25 year olds happen as a result of alcohol consumption and each week, 70 of those hospitalisations are due to an alcohol caused assault, with four out of those 70 having fatal consequences.

Be The Influence – Tackling Binge Drinking advocates staying in control and making the right decisions, an ethos passionately advocated by myself and many AFL players.  At the AFL Players’ Association we are committed to highlighting one of Be the Influences’ key messages, ‘being strong enough to say enough’, both internally and to peers. Peer pressure is a common theme both in the world of sports and in youth culture, so as someone who straddles both worlds I feel it is my duty to help Australia combat it.

Unfortunately having a ‘fun night out’ is often associated with heaps of alcohol but in reality the two are not mutually exclusive.  I only drink three or four times a year but that doesn’t stop me from having plenty of nights out with the boys and enjoying myself at the same time.

“The more people you get on board the easier it is for you and your mates to drink responsibly.”

When you’ve got good mates who are up for some fun but have something to train for the next day, drinking just gets in the way. The most difficult part of the night is not resisting alcohol, but not giving in to peer pressure. The notion of being ‘strong enough to say enough’ is particularly important when it comes to saying no to friends, as peer pressure is often a key factor in binge drinking.

For me the best way to resist peer pressure is to be a leader and encourage friends not to overdo it. The more people you get on board the easier it is for you and your mates to drink responsibly. Taking the plunge and being the one to tell your mates to treat alcohol with more respect isn’t easy, but making a difference and helping people avoid accidents is incredibly rewarding.

I’m a proud supporter and ambassador of Be the Influence – Tackling Binge Drinking. I hope to offer an alternative example to young Australians, as do many of my mates in the AFL and the other Be the Influence national sports, including the Football Federation, Swimming Australia and Netball Australia.