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Easter is looming as the next social flashpoint for Australia as the nation sobers up after the alcohol-fuelled violence of the Christmas-New Year break.
New research has shown that more than 2.2 million Australians were verbally and/or physically abused over the period, and 700,000 admitted abusing others after drinking.
The Quantum study for the Alcohol Education and Rehabilitation Foundation also found that almost one-third of teenagers surveyed said they feared for family and friends because of the national binge.
Foundation chief executive Daryl Smeaton said Australia needed to brace itself for repeats during other holiday breaks and major events, as drunkenness spiked.
"We've got Easter coming up in another five weeks so we'll have another problem then," he said.
"We drink to get drunk, and when we get drunk a lot of us tend to become violent - mainly verbally violent, but quite often, unfortunately, physically violent."
Smeaton said the foundation's research showed alarming patterns and illustrated the widespread climate of fear and abuse created by excessive drinking.
"I can't imagine any reasonable Australian would find the scale of abuse revealed by this study acceptable.
"The fact is that our streets aren't really safe at night because of the way Australians drink."
The study found that more than 2.6 million people - including 45 per cent of 14-17-year-olds - knew someone who was injured or harmed through excessive alcohol during the Christmas-New Year break.
Its findings come despite a steady decline in the apparent consumption of alcohol in Australia since the very heavy drinking days of the 1960s to the 1980s, and fewer than one in 10 drinking daily.
But the National Drug Strategy has reported that nine out of 10 Australians aged 14 and over have tried alcohol, while the Bureau of Statistics says the proportion of people drinking at risky or dangerous levels rose from 8.2 per cent in 1995 to 13.4 per cent in 2004-05.
