"Doesn't look that fun," we sniffed, quite fairly viewed by our peers with eye rolls.

Drinking was uncool. Then we tried it.

I waited until I was (almost) 18 before I took alcohol on, and from there started a tumultuous affair with what is rightly dubbed the devil's drink.

It's curiosity that makes us try things and a lack of consequences that keeps us going.

You try it. Nothing goes wrong. You keep doing it.

Nothing bad has happened while I've been inebriated, apart from a couple of questionable choices, godawful dancing and bruises here and there.

I am more than partial to a vodka orange.

So what on earth will it take for the anti-alcohol message to sink in?

Alcohol is by far our nation's biggest substance problem.

On average, Australians older than 15 drink about 12.2 litres of pure alcohol each a year.

Fairfax lifestyle reporter Sarah Berry put it into simpler terms - it's the equivalent to about 480 beers, 135 bottles of wine or 40 bottles of vodka each.

Even Wikipedia knows we have a problem. "Heavy drinking in Australia was a cultural norm since colonisation," the well-trusted source notes.

The aforementioned study, conducted by the University of New South Wales on behalf of the Australian National Council on Drugs, found that the young participants had positive views of alcohol and its effects.

The majority of respondents said drinking made them feel more friendly and outgoing, relaxed and happy.

More worrying was that almost half said drinking made them forget their problems.

Less than 40 per cent said alcohol was likely to harm their health.

The article by Berry - in which she reports that Australia ranks 14th in countries who most enjoy a drink - states that alcohol kills more people than HIV, road injuries and violence combined.

Alcohol abuse costs Australia billions of dollars every year.

And still we drink.

There have been many, many concerted efforts to address our nation's love of binge-drinking.

The discussion around age limits continues to surface.

People have campaigned to remove alcohol ads in sport matches.

There are campaigns against drink-driving and underage drinking.

Taxes have been raised, but in a giant middle finger to the rise in the price of premixed drinks, young people now buy whole bottles of spirits.

What we really need is cultural change.

Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs chief executive Jann Smith says tackling these problems is about role modelling.

We look at the habits of our friends, family and community and model our own accordingly.

We celebrate with alcohol, commiserate with alcohol, watch sporting matches with alcohol - we do everything with a beer in hand and 20 more in an esky.

Instead of relying on quick-fix solutions, addressing our troubled relationship with liquor requires a whole-of-community approach.