For the past decade, Charles Kennedy was treated by too many people as little more than a joke. This is, and was, in no way a reflection on the reportedly delightful man himself or his excellent abilities as a politician. It might not be so comfortable for some to remember now, seeing as the coverage of his very sad and all too early death has been focusing on Kennedy’s many strengths, with much emphasis being placed on his stand against the Iraq war.

Yet until yesterday, I hadn’t heard much mention of this for 10 years. Instead, whenever Kennedy’s name has been invoked on topical news shows – by half-assed comedians, by too many members of the public – it has been followed by a joking reference to his drinking problem.

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As recently as last month, when I stayed up late to watch the results of the election, a comedian snarked on TV about how Kennedy “would need a drink” after losing his seat. In 2008, after – note – he had stepped down as leader of the Liberal Democrats owing to a self-acknowledged problem with alcohol (the common phrase here, I believe is “admitted to a drink problem” – but the insinuation that Kennedy should have guilt about this sticks in my craw), he was a guest on Have I Got News For You. One of the opening jokes was, with a predictability that was almost as deadening as the joke itself, about Kennedy being an alcoholic.

“On Paul Merton’s team tonight is a man who, after confessing to a drinking problem, reported that four party officials cornered him in his private office – although later it transpired that there were only two of them: Charles Kennedy!” chirped Jeremy Clarkson.

Cue laughs and applause from the audience. Ha ha! Alcoholics – they get drunk and see double!

Perhaps the most telling comment about Kennedy’s alcoholism came not from a comedian but a newsman. When Jeremy Paxman interviewed Kennedy in 2002, he asked the then Liberal Democrat leader: “You don’t drink privately? By yourself, a bottle of whisky late at night?” Paxman was widely criticised for this interview, and he even took the decidedly un-Paxmanlike step of apologising, saying he might have asked “one question too many” about alcohol, as though the problem were his broaching the subject rather than alcoholism itself. But what was most significant about Paxman’s questioning was the suggestion that it’s only a problem if you drink on your own, late at night, presumably in a darkened room, sobbing over a photo in a shattered picture frame while Phil Collins plays on the turntable. Because the idea that a person can be an alcoholic and never drink alone but rather drink in the pub with mates, at parties with loved ones or on holidays for relaxation is something that hits too close to home for too many Britons.

Alcoholism, like all addictions, is a mental illness. It’s also the only mental illness that is treated with a strange sort of jocularity by too many people in this country. And that’s not surprising, considering the attitude towards alcohol in Britain.

We all know that Britain has a problem: the binge-drinking, the brawling, the town centres filled with vomit on Saturday nights, the courtrooms packed with alcohol-related crimes. These are the extreme – but by no means rare – examples, the ones the tabloids love to photograph for a slow weekend’s front page, ideally showing a miniskirted young woman slumped across the pavement, legs askew.

Less comfortable to acknowledge is the national attitude that alcohol is an essential social lubricant: the way to energise, to relax, to loosen up and to bond with others. If you don’t really drink, for whatever reason, I can speak from experience that dating in this country is next to impossible: how can a prospective British suitor possibly make a move on you unless you are reassuringly stupefied by alcohol? That way any regretted fumbles can easily be forgiven later under the British favourite we-were-drunk-it-doesn’t count excuse.

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Tales of extreme drunkenness are related between friends with “Good one, mate” cheer and pride. Because only cool and fun people are allowed to drink, you know.

Foreigners, famously, find the British attitude to alcohol bemusing at best and, if you’re a bar owner in Magaluf, a complete nightmare. But as the New York Times’s former London correspondent Sarah Lyall writes in her book about Britons, The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British, binge drinking in, say, America tends to be limited to teenagers on spring break. In Britain, by contrast, it’s a pastime for thirtysomethings down the pub or on holiday. One can make great play of national stereotypes here – about how it’s only with such help that a Brit can loosen that stiff upper lip, and what have you. But, as is generally the way with national cliches, there is a tiny piece of accuracy here, in that alcohol pierces the national cloud of awkwardness that defines so many British social interactions.

This, then, leads to the instinctive association between alcohol and good times. Going back to 2002, Kennedy’s then wife, Sarah Gurling, was asked on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour about the rumours of a drinking problem. She dismissed them as “unfair”. “Actually, it is just a normal, fun life, really,” she said. And that was not untrue: the idea of having a partner who likes a drink presumably seemed, and seems, exactly that to many people in this country.

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It would be nice to think that attitudes have wised up in recent years. There was a certain amount of tutting on social media when Kennedy was on Question Time in March, clearly confused and not his usual, sharp self. But this was far outweighed by the snarking. Ha ha! Alcoholics – they seem drunk! Kennedy’s friends have since said his behaviour that night was because of personal issues, not drink, but the reality is almost irrelevant here. The point is, Kennedy’s alcoholism was the first go-to target, and was viewed as fair game. The truth, as has been illustrated by the coverage of Kennedy throughout, up to his very sad death, is that attitudes towards alcoholism in this country waver uncomfortably between thinking it’s a bit of a larky joke and seeing it as something that only happens to other people, not us – never. Not part of our normal, fun life.