Over many years I have asked many distressed young people: ‘what would make you happy?’ The common answer is ‘a happy family.’ Many of those troubled and often troubling young people dull the pain of unhappiness with alcohol.

Many adults do the same thing – they use alcohol to dilute their feelings of loneliness, low self-esteem, fears and insecurities. The alcohol gives them a high – a relief from the void of love within themselves and between themselves and others. It is in this sense that alcohol becomes a substitute for what is direly missing in their lives – love, a sense of belonging, a sense of mattering. It is then no wonder that a high percentage of adults (55 per cent) feel they can do nothing to stop young people from drinking and that even a higher percentage are unwilling to modify their drinking patterns even when it might be of assistance to young people. Rather than being outraged by these seemingly responsible responses, it is crucial that we understand what lies beneath. Parents and other adults never have the intention of blocking children’s and young people’s progress in life, but the reality is that unless adults examine their interior lives, they may just do that.

Adults need to develop a vision for themselves in regard to authentic sexual self-expression, not only for their own sakes, but also for the sake of young people. It is important that adults, particularly parents and teachers, model such a vision and provide a mature holding of sexuality for young people.

Threats to mature sexuality can arise in any of the environments in which young people participate: home, school - school-mates, teachers - peer group, church, community, wider society, sports clubs, including media, internet. Threats may be communicated in different ways: verbally, behaviourally, through attitude, through non-verbal messages, through silence, through dress, through images, through being kept in ignorance. All adults and young people themselves have a responsibility not to cause threat, but, when a mature sexuality is not present, then this is precisely what is created.

While sexuality is not synonymous with physicality, clearly our bodies are the means by which we express sexuality in our behaviour. Our bodies are the means through which we experience pleasure. In particular, a person’s body houses his or her sexual organs that are associated with sexual functioning. As a result, how individuals see and treat their bodies has a powerful impact on how they hold and respond to their sexuality and their sexual needs. It is important then that in exploring sexuality and sexual activity that we first of all examine our relationship with our bodies.

Last week I wrote about the relationship between a person’s sense of Self and sexuality and sexual activity. I mentioned that in adults reclaiming their sexuality from the dark history of Irish Catholicism, that attention to Self-esteem needs to precede the work on sexuality; this is true for the adults themselves as well as for the young people they would wish to possess a mature sexuality and responsible sexual behaviour.

How we feel about Self has an enormous determining effect on how we view our sexuality and how we go about sexual exploration. The Self refers to your unique, sacred presence; it is your essence, it is the source of your ‘I-ness’, your difference from everybody else; it is your unique Being, it is the being part of your existence and it always remains the same. The Self is vibrant, alive, real, authentic. Your sense of Self will largely determine your physical and emotional readiness for sexual activity. The person who protectively hates Self is not even remotely ready for sexual intimacy. Neither is the person who feel superior to others ready for sexual closeness. Over the years, many individuals have come to me for help possessing no sense of Self – they feel invisible and their expectation is that nobody could ever find them attractive. They have no sense of a belonging to Self and unless this absence of belonging is resolved these individuals are likely to remain isolated from others for their lifetimes.