What's wrong with drinking every night?
Saturday, January 24, 2009 Devil's Kitchen has drawn attention to an article in the Daily Telegraph headlined, "Millions of middle-class drinkers putting health at risk with evening tipple".
The paper reports that "A comprehensive survey claims that middle aged, professional Britons are more likely to exceed recommended daily levels of alcohol consumption than the working-classes, with twice as many drinking every night of the week."
According to Norman Lamb, Lib Dem spokesman on health:
"These statistics lift the lid on the very serious scale of middle-class alcohol consumption, and the potential health risks that this involves. While attention has rightly been on the massive problem of young people binge-drinking, a hidden epidemic among the middle classes has gone unnoticed. The Government has continued to massively under-fund alcohol treatment services, meaning this problem has been allowed to continue unabated."
I mention this because three months ago I was invited to address a seminar in Whitehall organised by the Westminster Health Forum. The subject was "Alcohol & Responsibility" and I was asked to speak about binge drinking and "everyday" drinking.
An extended version of my speech can be found HERE on The Free Society website. But here's a taster:
"I believe the problem of binge drinking has been exaggerated ... We’re told that it’s a cause of considerable national expense; hospital admissions directly linked to excess alcohol have more than doubled in the past 10 years; alcohol-related crimes and accidents have risen sharply; it causes domestic violence; traffic accidents etc etc.
"We’re told that Britain’s drinking culture is costing the country £20 billion a year; that 17 million working days are lost to hangovers and drink-related illness each year; that 40% of A&E admissions are alcohol-related, and that between midnight and 5.00am that figure rises to 70%.
"We’re also told that “5.9 million people drink more than twice the recommended daily guidelines on some occasions” as if this is a terrible, anti-social thing to do.
"I’m sorry, but statistics like this – some of which appear to have been plucked out of thin air – leave me immensely sceptical about the scale of the problem."
I then added:
"One reason why the scale of the problem is exaggerated is because the definition of binge drinking has changed: ten years ago, it was “ten or more drinks in one session”. Now, apparently, it’s ten or more units for men, seven for women, which is very different.
"I’ve even seen a definition of binge drinking to be “drinking sufficient alcohol to reach a state of intoxication”. Now if that’s a definition of a binge drinker, I’ll hold my hand up and say that I binge drink at least three times a week.
"Like many people, I often have three or four glasses of wine, or 2-3 pints of beer, in the evening – and yes, it leaves me feeling a little light-headed (some would call that intoxicated) – but I think that’s rather a nice feeling after a hard day’s work.
"Am I a threat to my family, to my neighbours, to society? I think not. Yet if I were to tell a researcher about my alcohol intake I would no doubt become a binge drinking statistic and added to the “growing number” of binge drinkers that - we are told - is becoming such a burden on society."
It wasn't a bad speech but I don't think it impressed the audience (which included MPs, peers and health professionals), most of whom looked a bit nonplussed.
Nor, clearly, did it influence the chairman - a certain Norman Lamb MP, Lib Dem spokesman on health!!
Reader Comments (23)
What's wrong with drinking every night?
Nothing, I make a point of it. I usually have one glass of wine, occasionally, two.
But there you go: just as non-smokers who are about to defend smokers usually preface their remarks with "Although I don't smoke...", I pointed out that I drink within acceptable limits. This is how the brainwashing works - subtlely so that even though I have no belief that the limits reflect real risk and I consider that it's no business of Government if I choose to get legless every night, I have, nevertheless, explained.
Yes, that is my intake too, Joyce. Sometimes more. Sometimes less. I don't really count. I don't really care.
As to what business it is of government? You've got to be joking! Having successfully consigned what they would call the lower classes to the scrap heap of poverty, poor housing, overcrowding, persecution by local councils, social services and benefit fraud police, they've only got the middle classes left to "govern".
Seriously, though, all this will lead to even more jobs for the boys - even more quango's to fund from the minute amount of taxpayers' money left. I wonder what the drinkers' ASH will be called? And how many of these organisation will suddenly and importantly establish themselves.
[If you can stop blogging for a minute - I've sent you an email on an unrelated subject].
The drinkers' ASH? What about DEATH (Directives to Ensure A Teetotal Hell)?
(Please see your inbox).
There are surveys going on at the moment organised by the NHS who will probably use the answers to restrict drinking.
http://www.eoe.nhs.uk/news.php?id=109
I warned my non-drinking friends that if we had a smoking ban, then alcohol control would follow hard on its heels; they laughed. i wonder if they are still laughing ?
Sorry, I meant "non-smoking"
Today I had an afternoon rehearsal, and have not been in long from the concert. Why should I be telling you this? well, as I poured myself the first of several glasses of red wine twenty minutes ago, I realised that it was my first alcoholic beverage today! Yes, that's right, I am a daily drinker. I am responsible, no, that does not mean I listen to the shite that is served up to me, also on a daily basis it seems. I know my limit, my body tells me my limit, not some teetotal anti alcohol no sense of humour will live longer than me and die healthy and miserable finger wagging woman - woops, sorry, there may be some effeminate men as well, woops, I am not being homophobic, woops.......see what I mean, free speech, I am shit scared of saying the wrong thing.
Back to the subject. My doctor has persuaded me to to the 'statins' again, nah, it is only 6% (my cholestoral, they keep lowering the threshold), but I am doing them. I told him I drink a bottle and a lot of red wine every day, and he just said that red wine lowers cholestoral as well! ha! well, they have given up on me, fifty seven, almost fifty eight, (14th February, Argos vouchers please, no flowers, thank you), and I am a smoking, drinking guy without a proper job, well, music and entertainment isn't a proper job is it.
Looking at this post I have just written, I think I need some more wine, I am waffling on like a drunk man.
P.S. I said in my post that they had given up on me, that is becausae I am healthy and don't go to the doctor much.
From An Englishman's Castle
The safe limits were introduced in 1987 after the Royal College of Physicians produced its first health report on alcohol misuse. In A Great and Growing Evil: The Medical Consequences of Alcohol Abuse, the college warned that a host of medical problems – including liver disease, strokes, heart disease, brain disease and infertility – were associated with excessive drinking. The report was the most significant study into alcohol-related disorders to date.
But Richard Smith, the former editor of the British Medical Journal and a member of the college’s working party on alcohol, told The Times yesterday that the figures were not based on any clear evidence. He remembers “rather vividly” what happened when the discussion came round to whether the group should recommend safe limits for men and women.
“David Barker was the epidemiologist on the committee and his line was that ‘We don’t really have any decent data whatsoever. It’s impossible to say what’s safe and what isn’t’.
“And other people said, ‘Well, that’s not much use. If somebody comes to see you and says ‘What can I safely drink?’, you can’t say ‘Well, we’ve no evidence. Come back in 20 years and we’ll let you know’. So the feeling was that we ought to come up with something. So those limits were really plucked out of the air. They weren’t really based on any firm evidence at all.
During the working week, I abstain completely during daylight hours. I drink wine with my dinner in the evening, and carry on afterwards, usually finishing off the bottle. I then end the evening, from 11.30 to 12.30 with a couple of large Brandies.
I must admit that I don't smoke very much, none during the day, and usually 2 or 3 during the evening, cigarettes that is, but if I feel in a "special" mood, I indulge in a good cigar to accompany my Brandies.
I would like to add that I am in perfect health, slim (ish), can run without getting out of breath, and I haven't been to see a doctor since I was a child, in fact (rightly or wrongly) I am not even registered with a doctor.
Let these Health Nazis try lecturing to me, and telling me how much healthier I would be if I followed their regime.
As a PS to above, I wonder what these health freaks would have said to Churchill, or perhaps more pertinent, what would Churchill have said to them?
I wonder what these health freaks would have said to Churchill,
Or, perhaps more to the point, the post-war Labour prime minister Clement Attlee?
He was a pipe smoker. Or, if you prefer, he smoked pipes.
So did Harold Wilson. Although I think it may have been something of an affectation in his case.
From chas’s link:
“Do you think more should be done to tackle underage drinking?”
Typical how they’ve sneaked the word ‘underage’ in. “It’s for the children!” Every prohibitionist measure they’re going to take will be to protect the youngsters, of course. Just like the tobacco display ban has nothing to do with denormalising smokers, but only serves to prevent kids from taking up smoking.
There is an anti-alcohol lobby in Holland as well. They, too, claim that their main concern is underage drinking. For example, they complain about fruit-flavoured beer (yuck!) because kids could be attracted to it.
Makes you wonder how they’ll react once they realise wine is actually made from grapes! Will it still be allowed to describe a wine as ‘fruity’? Or to show a bunch of grapes on the label?
Anna, the bunch of grapes is due to be replaced by a diseased liver...
Times are hard and they plan also to hijack the transferrable pics from the cigarette packets (they've got their eye on the corpse and the bent cigarette, denoting impotence, is to be replaced by a wine bottle with a bent neck).
LOL joyce...
Apparently they’re already at it: http://www.crikey.com.au/Politics/20070730-The-mouse-the-rat-and-underage-drinking.html
I’m surprised they haven’t yet called to ban the movie ‘Ratatouille’ altogether. After all, it promotes binge eating and having illegitimate kids… ;>)
Here is a great little video, which I am sure some of you have already seen, but it is so well done, and so true to what is happening today, that it is still worth another look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JCwW_1rswyo
Margot asks 'what will the new ASH be called?'
How about :-
Municipal Institute for Serious Examination of Regional Alcoholic Binge Levels in England.
Nice one, grumpybutterfly, definitely on a par with DEATH.
If you take a look at life expectancy for different countries (these are calculated using current mortality rates), You can see that most developed countries have very similar life expectancies. This suggests to me that our behaviour has little impact on how long we actually live. Mediterranean diets, Japanese fish diets, Northern European binge drinking etc. might be interesting topics of conversation round North London dinner tables, but are actually unimportant. Andorra, for some unknown reason, has the highest life expectancy. The USA has a fairly low L.E. So much for healthy living.
The stupid govt's have only themselves to blame. By banning smoking in pubs and lowering the drink limits together with the drink driving fines, have forced punters to drink more at home, including myself.
I never drank at home pre bans, now my husband and I have a bottle of wine every night with our dinner, dont go to pubs or restaurants any more except the odd time in summer when we sit outdoors. And most smokers and drinkers I know have been doing the same since the bans.
So until all those wankers in govt and the jobsworth quangos cop themselves on and get back to living in the real world with ordinary mature people, who happen to be of their own species, and realise that from time imamorial people's nature is to socialise in the very places they are making verboten, they will be running around like blue arse flies making absolute fools and gobshites of themselves and giving us all a laugh.
Because people will always have vices and can never be put into boxes or will never accept regeims.
To quote their own mantra that they so love to tell us every day of the week - they would want to 'learn lessons from this' themselves before they have a revolt on their hands.
They must be feeling the pinch with the massive loss from the tax coffers since the bans.
Maybe they'll be giving govt grants in times to come to reopen smoking pubs!!
Municipal Institute for Serious Examination of Regional Alcoholic Binge Levels in England.
Reminds me that an anagram of Deborah Arnott is Abhorrent Toad.
There is an article in the Evening Standard (online), which you can see here http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23630850-details/%27No+booze+for+children+under+15%27/article.do
The article is about Sir Liam Donaldson, (yes, THAT Sir Liam Donaldson) who latest purge, is to ban children under 15 from drinking completely. You can voice your opinions on the article, as I have done (see below)
Sir Liam Donaldson, is an idiot, and a liar.
I am not advocating that children should be encouraged to drink alcohol, but to place bans on them, will only encourage them to try the forbidden fruit.
If Sir Liam, was ever a child himself, which I am beginning to doubt, or if he had the power of reasonable thought, he would see, and know, that banning things, does not work.
He was one of the architects of the smoking ban, which has proved one of the most unpopular laws ever introduced in this country, and one which has resulted in pubs, clubs and restaurants closing at the rate of 6 a day, plus of course, thousands of people being forced out of work.
In other countries in Europe, children are encouraged to try an alcoholic drink with their meal, resulting in a much more sensible attitude to drinking than we have here in the UK.
Because of idiotic people like Sir Liam Donaldson, who are in the pay of the pharmaceutical companies, and will say anything for money, we have a broken and uneducated society, with little or no hope for the future.
The time has come to stand up to the Sir Liam Donaldsons of this world, and to say we want to live our lives as free people, with a choice of our own, not what lying governments and their lying, so called scientists, decide to thrust upon us.
I stumbled upon an interesting article in The Publican.
http://www.thepublican.com/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=62631&c=2
Quote: "Until recently temperance was a joke, conjuring up images of hymn-singing and tambourine-rattling, fervid preaching and grim piety from its Victorian heyday. But in the last few years the direct descendants of those cartoon characters have felt confident enough to use the word proudly once again."
I wonder what made them feel so confident!
I find it difficult to keep myself from gloating and telling the drinking antismokers: "We warned you!"