In this era of being bombarded with news 24/7, followers like me find the agenda interesting. At the end of last week, I noticed many bulletins were dominated by such things as the Trump travel ban, his visit to Britain, as well as soaring prices of electricity in Britain. Then there’s our own election with its increasingly depressing soundtrack.

Also getting prominence was the fact that weather conditions in Spain mean food items such as lettuce and broccoli were going to cost us a lot more.

To be honest, my attention was more drawn to a story on Sky. A huge whale off the coast of Norway was in such distress that it was taken ashore and put down. Wondering what was wrong, vets did a post mortem which found that its stomach was completely blocked by 30 plastic bags, some of them over two metres long and some with English labels for frozen chicken. Seeing the emaciated whale hanging on a hook, starved because it couldn’t eat, was a sad sight.

And Sky’s campaign which highlighted the vast number of small plastic pieces contaminating the world’s oceans is a credit to an oft-maligned broadcaster. It was, of course, a Sky story and I saw little of the story of the whale elsewhere; that’s the way the media works, I know that, but I wondered what, oh what, are we doing to our wonderful planet which is causing such distress to creatures like the whale.
Then, I thought about the distress we are causing to young people, closer to home.

In this newspaper last week, I was privileged to be asked to write about an interview I did with Pete Keogh, whose son Lewis took his own life at the age of 34 after becoming addicted to gambling. Pete and his wife, Sadie have been extremely courageous in telling their story in order to warn families about the danger of people taking the first step. 

With the story firmly in my mind, I watched a lot of sport at the week-end and felt bombarded by advertising from the betting companies; bet before, during and after matches if you want. Even the Liverpool manager, Jurgen Klopp encourages you; clubs have betting companies on their shirts, on signs round the stadium and even the English FA has a deal with Ladbrokes, their partner who can offer betting services inside Wembley.

None of this is major news, it would seem. I don’t know if you watched American Football’s Super Bowl, but you won’t have seen any betting adverts during breaks. That’s not a coincidence. The NFL is very strict and won’t allow gambling companies near their game, even on commercial breaks when their game is shown abroad.

Possibly the most shocking thing I learned from Pete Keogh is that Lewis’s long journey into addiction began when he was a teenager, playing machines in town as he waited for his bus after school.

In Saturday’s Daily Mirror, journalist Amanda Ferguson wrote a story under the headline “Fears over rising gambling addiction in GAA players” which revealed that the Gaelic Players Asociation assisted 103 players with counselling last year for a range of issues, including depression, anxiety, family issues, relationship breakdown,eating disorder, suicidal thoughts, and other issues including gambling addiction.

These are young athletes at the peak of their performance, with apparently everything going for them. Fair play to the journalist for highlighting this.

On Saturday morning, by coincidence, I was reminded about another addiction. My friend and former colleague, Raymond Humphreys invited me to join him at the Presbyterian Church’s men’s breakfast. On a beautiful morning at the Killyhevlin Hotel, in relaxed company, I heard of another side of life which isn’t so sunny, when Brendan Jones spoke of the work of an organisation called Stauros. 

I knew from before that Stauros is a Christian organisation which helps people in Northern Ireland who are addicted to alcohol or other drugs. About a year ago when up in Portstewart, I went to hear a young man whose life had been ruined by alcoholism. He, too, had begun his journey into addiction in his teens, and later his marriage and family were torn apart.

Heartwarmingly, as he spoke about his life being turned around by Stauros, his wife and children with whom he’d been reconciled sat in the audience.

Without being patronising to people from underprivileged sections, these young men came from good backgrounds, and were of good character themselves, but addiction, whether gambling or alcohol had taken a hold.

Then I saw a third story about a young person at the week-end. Not addiction this time, but the pressure that society puts on people; apparently a young hurler in the Republic took his own life simply because he couldn’t cope with being gay. I saw it on Twitter and tried to find out more, suggesting I hadn’t seen it on the news.
Someone tweeted back: “If we had to put a list of those who took their lives on the news, it would be a different person every day.” Which is absolutely true, and therefore all the more frightening. 

By the way, you may not have noticed it in the plethora of other headlines, but this is Children’s Mental Health Week. We’re told, incredibly, that figures show more than 50,000 young people turned to Childline last year for help with serious mental health issues. Data from the NSPCC shows youngsters aged 12 to 15 made up a third of all the counselling sessions, with girls almost seven times more likely to seek help than boys.

I say incredibly, but of course maybe it’s not all that incredible when we look at the pressures on young people today. And while many of them use the likes of FACEBOOK to communicate with friends, it’s also been shown that young people see others having a great life on social media and can feel inadequate or isolated. How many parents can identify with the worry of kids heading to their room to go on their smartphones or laptops?

Childline also saw a 36% rise over four years in young people needing help for depression and other disorders, while there was also a rise in the number of children and young people feeling suicidal.

It’s a tough, tough world for all generations; but the things I’ve mentioned apply particularly to young people, and it seems not only is society piling on the pressure one could argue that in many ways, we are ignoring the problems. 

Surely, many of the issues need to be highlighted more in the media, and if they were maybe we would devote more resources to helping people with addictions, or mental health problems. 

It comes to something when the price of vegetables gets more prominence on the news than the serious and ongoing problems hitting thousands and thousands of our younger people, wrecking families and individual lives and even, tragically, ending lives.  And before the politicians nod in agreement and point the finger at the media, I’d ask what are those in power doing about making a real difference to the many blighted lives in society here.