Simon Carr: I drink a bottle of wine a day, but don't call me an alcoholic
Binge-drinking, I can remember, was once praised as being safer than steady soaking
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A phrase in a reader's letter last week caught my bloodshot eye. It said: "An alcoholic drinking 30 units of alcohol a week."
It took a moment to sink in. At first it seemed that some iron-willed alcoholics were limiting their intake to three bottles of wine a week. Ah, but no, the correspondent was a drug-prevention professional relaying a new official line: anyone who drinks more than three bottles of wine a week is an alcoholic.
And that's probably true if we're talking about eight-year-olds. Yes, an eight-year-old drinking three bottles of wine a week is cause for concern. They certainly shouldn't drink as much as I do. Their little livers have less processing power. On the other hand, the Beast from the East is considerably bigger than I am and he might cope bravely with a cubic foot of chardonnay because he's fighting fit, seven foot two and weighs 300 lbs. He'll have a liver the size of a Dunlopillo.
Things can move quickly in the public discourse on these things and across a range of issues of health, attitudes and social policy. The official version gets accepted by sheer repetition and suddenly a whole bunch of us get reclassified as racists or paedophiles or hate criminals.
In this case we who drink more than usual are reclassified as alcoholics. I deny it and will fight anyone who says different. Yes, as soon as my friends come round, we'll tough you up! A sign of "having a problem", is it, getting angry when idiots criticise my drinking, is it? Get 'em up!
There was a period of my life covering some months – obviously I can't remember exactly how many – where I was drinking more than 30 units a week. In fact, I was drinking 30 bottles a week. Five bottles a day except at weekends when I'd cut down for social reasons.
It was a lot, I agree. You may think I am boasting foolishly, and to be honest, there may be something in that. However, the fact remains that for some consecutive months in the mid-Eighties, I was drinking 30 bottles of wine a week. I won't go through the daily timetable but it was easier than you might think for a young man with a fast metabolism, an excitable nature and energetic pursuits. One pointer: you have to make full use of lunch. It gets early runs on the board that are difficult to make up later in the day.
Whatever you may think now, it never occurred to me I was an alcoholic. I was dependent on coffee, that was obvious, because giving that up abruptly caused a week of headaches no aspirin could move.
But reverting to my long-term trend of a bottle of wine a day? That came about without "cravings, feeling sick, sweating, or convulsions", the suite of symptoms associated with alcoholism. On the contrary, my system breathed a gentle thank you.
Today, my current intake of a bottle a day is three times the official advice. No one is supposed to be having more than couple of small glasses of wine a day. As a result, millions of Britons can be classified as alcoholics.
This is unwise. Millions of Britons (the ones who drink two or three times the official limit without being alcoholics) will add it to the official inflation of everything, and take less notice than they otherwise would. Not only of this advice but of all sorts of other official instruction. Because advice changes over the years, according to the passing fashions. Research has told us very different things about eggs, aspirin, water, and even alcohol. Binge-drinking, I can remember, was once praised as being safer than steady soaking.
And every decade, the safe limit goes lower and lower."Don't take any notice of it," one chief medical officer told my pal at one dinner. "We just keep lowering the recommended intake because we know everyone lies about how much they drink." And the more people lie, the lower the limit is driven.
My complacency has some sort of pay-off for the NHS. You will say that we cost the public purse, but the sums haven't really been done. If I'm right, this level of drinking suits me for various particular and peculiar qualities in my somatic individualism.
So, I don't go to the doctor all the time complaining about pains in my liver because I assume the best. If I'm wrong, I'll die prematurely and save the state very significant costs in care, bed space, winter-fuel allowances, and free bus travel.
Meanwhile, the "worried well" who believe all this official terrorism go to their doctors for their constant check-ups and neurotic need for reassurance. They'll live forever, add significantly to the national debt, demand constant immigration of young carers and annoy their children for an extra 30 years....
There's much more to be said on this, but you'll have to excuse me. It's nearly 6pm.
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Comments
but later in the day ..bad light ,,some movement ...dicey!!
I agree that calling someone who drinks a bottle a day is an alcoholic, but I'll bet that at a bottle a day you'd find it difficult to give up, so I guess you'd be dependent. I also suspect that you are taking damage as a result and probably not live as long (or as well) as you would otherwise. I do drink but we buy those small bottles from the supermarket, anything over a glass at night and I get disturbed sleep. I have used alcohol to sleep in the past, very unwise long term, even worse I've used paracetamol also (dangerous in combination). Having just lost a brother at 46 to real alchohol abuse i do know the difference, but I am also aware how sentimental drinkers are about their booze and what a slippery slope dependency leading to addiction is .
This piece would have been a lot more convincing if Simon had done some basic research into why the limit is set at that level. Often scientific research throws up truths we find unreasonable. Like the 30mph limit which is based on actual pedestrian impact studies, the drink limit probably has a real basis for that limit based on liver damage and dependency issues rather than social factors.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a
I'm, I guess an average 67 yr old. BMI of about 26, eyesight getting a bid dodgy and on statins for angina. I drink, in a good week, about 30 units. Some weeks, over 40, but have not been 'drunk' for over thirty years. Speaking to my doctor about these levels, his response was, 'So what?' I take comfort from the other thing he said. 'Remember, an alcoholic is someone who drinks more than his doctor'. Cheers, mine's a Summer Lightning.
You have to live with one to know what's like.
We were given a half days 'training' per year on the perils of our trade: the first time I went, the lecturer defined an alcoholic as 'someone whose consumption of alcohol is costing them more than just the money'. In the interviening 35 years I have heard no better definition.
I subsequently discovered much about the history of AA. I have come to the conclusion that it does more harm than good. I was made to feel guilty about something I had no reason to. The entire way the system is set up is very cult-like. There is no way out. For example; "I don't think I'm an alcoholic" response: "You are in denial". Alcohol was always seen as evil evil evil. I think someone has a problem if they are drinking continously throughout the day but finishing off a bottle of wine with your dinner after a long days work is certainly not alcoholic behaviour.
On holiday in the south of France last year, I noticed it was perfectly normal for people to drink three or four (large) glasses of wine a day. Many of these people were into their 70's and 80's and seemed very healthy indeed. How dare we think of them as alcoholics.
Perhaps all the Puritans didn't leave Britain after all.
Yes, and it begins with the way the Brits use the word "alcohol" as though the most important thing about wine were its alcoholic content.
Any serious wine-lover never thinks about that because they would never drink enough for it ever to be even remotely an issue.
YOu need to stop thinking about alcohol, and start thinking about wine.
It was Churchill, I believe, who once, when chided about the amount he drank, retorted "I've taken far more out of alcohol than alcohol has ever taken out of me". The great man set many precepts for life, I think. That is one of my favourites and one I continue to adhere to.
Sadly we now live in a society full of experts. Most of them are knowledgeable and reasonable, however the idea that the average man or woman is a clueless dipstick with no more knowledge of how to run their lives than a small child has become so deeply engrained that pretty much every aspect of our behaviour comes under scrutiny and criticism.
It matters not whether we're talking about alcohol, smoking, how to bring your kids up, what you eat, what you should wear... For each and every bit of your life there's an expert there, with a clipboard, telling you you're doing it wrong.
It's on TV, with those endless programmes where a hapless and hopeless 'average man or woman' is heroically saved from their own incompetence by an expert in wearing clothes, DIY, dieting, driving, raising children, housework, going on holiday or whatever.
Soon, everythign will be either banned or made compulsory. Any aberrant behaviour subject to corrective procedures and re-education.
Report to your local detox clinic, Citizen. Don't forget your ID card.
Coffee drinkers?
Chocolate lovers?
People who engage in recreational sex?
I don't drink much at all. I last had a glass of wine a week ago, and I last drank any alcohol roughly three weeks before that.
What I am HEARTILY SICK OF is the way everyone in this country seems to take it upon themselves to judge everyone else, and tell them how to run their lives.
There seems to be no scope any more for people to take individual responsibility for their lives.
Your position is one of an alarmist: yes, problems with alcohol can be serious and cause untold misery. Mercifully this is the exception rather than the rule. Out of all my friends, all of who drink socially and recreationally, not one of them has committed an act of violence against anyone else, be it a member of the public or a partner. One of my friends had a bit of a hangover a couple of weeks back, but that's about it. You never hear of the tens of thousands of times people drink and simply have a good time, because that doesn't make an interesting story.
Sure, Simon's drinking an absolute shedload, but it's his wallet and his insides. Let him get on with it, instead of tacitly accusing him, by association, of being complicit in drunk-driving, wife-beating activities.
I hear what you say but we don't walk about at night or go into town late because of drink related unpleasantness. I don't feel oppressed by government or people telling me what not to do, but by adverts pestering me to drink more. I hate "supersizing" double portions on everything, third of a bottle wine glasses in resturants. I used to see good looking girls everywhere, but now it's all big bums and louder mouths. I hate meals out being dominated by noisy aggressive male and female braying and screaming in resturants. It's come to something when all the local pubs are shutting, the most expensive place to drink is with a meal and the cheapest is your local bus shelter courtesy of your youth-friendly local supermarket.
I'm not against your freedom to do anything but I'm against my life being spoilt by a combination of greedy big business and mad ignorant violent rowdys. I believe that there is a conspircy, that of big business in getting as many addicted as soon as possible and destroying the traditional licenced trade in order to up drink sales. However it's backfiring and the horrible results could see us return to a neo-victorian age of oppression.
You make excellent points, which I do identify with, about the loud, boorish behaviour of the young and drunk. I also completely agree that the marketing of 'drunk = GOOD TIME!YAYYY!' needs addressing in no uncertain terms.
I fear though that we've gone a long way down the route of 'Dumb Culture', where so many have been 'infantilised' to a state of irresponsibility by depictions of other youth in trash mags like Loaded, Heat et al. and other parts of our media.
Pubs, or worse 'SuperPubs' are places with nowhere to sit, deafening music and chaep, nasty Lager. This renders conversation and debate almost impossible (I come here for that, not the pub any more). Worse still, a vital element in the development of social skills (generally getting on with people socially) is being eroded by this trend.
Moreover, the lack of decent wine, beer and spirits and their replacement by cheap, sugary 'industrial' alternatives means that there's little need for young people to actually 'appreciate' their drink of choice let alone tell the difference between a Merlot and a Syrah.
I also agree that drunken, sqwawking hen nights and rowdy stag dos are a blight. There's nothing more unattractive than a drunken dribbler falling over and laughing hysterically, followed by a quick puke in the corner.
Your last two sentences definitely gave me pause for thought as well: the growing power of booze companies and their hold on the traditional pub definitely need to be held to account.
Thanks again for your response, you made me consider another side of the whole issue. I hope you'll permit me to maintain my initial position to an extent though, insofar as we both agree that an oppressive neo-Victorian style temperance movement is not the answer!
I've just posted a response to juliandbsmith's comment above, in which it occurred to me that whereas I can't stand neo-puritanism, I also cannot stand people who can't take their alcohol either.
I'm sorry, maybe I just hate everyone! P1$$heads, pukers and Nanny Statists.
On reflection the slightly hysterical nature of my post at 11.11am might have been influenced by the three shots of espresso I'd made to wake myself up prior to starting some study.
I don't know if you saw the article about a guy who electrified his door front to stop people peeing in it?
http://www.independent.ie/national-n
Drinking too much on regular basis probably means you are dammaging your health, but if there is no dependency there is no adiction and you are not an Alcoholic. And event if you are drinking too much, the risk has to be kept in perspective. Drinking a bit more than the recommended ammount probably does you no more dammage than eating too much junk food, or not exercising enough or beaking any of the numerous how to be healthy rules that are thrown about these days. In fact drinking a bit too much is probably better for your health than not drinking enough. After all a total abstainer has about a 30% increased risk of a heart attack over a moderate drinker, more if they smoke.
Drinking a lot too much over a long time is real problem. It can have serious health effects and even if a heavy habitual drinker is not an alcoholic they are probably at risk of becoming one. Luming everyone who drinks a bit too much together with those who do have a genuine problem, does not help anyone.
"I've always suspected this," said Dr. Serge Renaud, whose findings appeared in the journal Epidemiology . "Wine protects not only against heart disease but also most cancers."
Renaud's study of 34,000 middle-aged men living in eastern France supports what has become known as "the French paradox": Frenchmen who eat lots of saturated fat but still live a long time.
Results were the same for smokers, nonsmokers and former smokers, he said, and there were no differences between white collar and blue collar drinkers.
just kidding, a happy balanced adult should know what is good for them and what is bad for them, we should forget guidelines and concentrate on trying to help people be happy balanced results,
also, as expressed eloquently above:
"Being an alcoholic is all about why you drink, not how much"
I gave up drinking alcohol over a year ago now, and have never looked back. Sobriety may not be for everyone but if you've ever been the only sober person in the pub you'll understand why I don't miss the oblivious embarassment that being drunk is.
Don't be silly. You can't drink alcohol. It would kill you.
Conditions related to alcohol are, in fact, an enourmous drain on public funding, social welfare and individual health.
Whether you can "hold your drink" or not is no reliable test of health/management. The less you drink, the more easily you get drunk: this is because you body creates a chemical that breaks down alcohol and naturally responds more slowly to it's presence. In the case of frequent drinkers and, more extremely, alcoholics the feedback loop mechanism for regulating alcohol becomes broken, so that you body is constantly chucking out this chemical. The consequence is that the drinker does not get "drunk" so easily, but the toll of alcohol on the liver, immune system, brain, etc. are still the same and the added stress from higher quantities and constantly producing this chemical adds to their burden.
It's one thing to be able to say that you make a choice and are able to manage it in a way that does not negatively impact your life, and that of those around you and a completely different thing to presume that you are not addicted, when you still consume large quantities, or attempt to rubbish scientific evidence on the matter.
Guidelines will always be guidelines; body mass, genetic factors, environmental factors and all sorts of other things play into the individual effects of alcohol consumption: Poverty in concert with it will have a far greater impact than almost anything else. But that does not mean they are based on idle interfering speculation either. And, to be perfectly honest, if you are drinking a bottle of wine a day then yes, you are well, well past them. 30 bottles a week, for any length of time, is almost incredible and very worrying: for your own sake, for your families sake, I would actually go see your doctor and have some liver tests because there is no question it will have caused damage. Being young and energetic has nothing to do with it.
By all means say "this is my life and I choose to manage it this way" but do not pretend there is not a wider social problem for the less fortunate, less able to manage their lives, whom guidelines and advice need to target as well.
it's so refreshing to see all you serious drinkers getting your underwear in a twist over the kind of misleading press reports that we cannabis users have had to put up with since the 1930s.
go on - get offended by it. write to the papers, tell your mp. nothing will happen unless it's already part of the government masterplan.
we are the sheep.
"In this case we who drink more than usual are reclassified as alcoholics. I deny it and will fight anyone who says different."
Tsk! Tsk! Seems like typical violent drunken yobbo behaviour to me! ;-)
However lets not forget that the 'guidelines' and 'rules' set out by the all powerful ones are directed to all of us, including those among us that are not too bright.
We've all read the Darwin awards, or heard the one about the lady who put her coffee between her legs whilst driving and (successfully) sued McDonalds when scalded. These are the folks that need to be ahem 'guided'. If you are happy with your own wine/beer/cigarette/food intakes, don't take these warnings personally...just tell yourself that someone, somewhere, wasn't able to work it out for themselves and that is who the message is for.
Laughingly, reality TV still shows us that however often/strong the messages are, there are folks out there who still just don't get it.
The FAKE charities need garbage statistics like these to keep their miserable little piles of cash coming in.
Trouble is this dumb government buy every sensationalist garbage the tabloids are paid ,yes paid to print.
These health scares ,alchohol ,tobbaco, burgers, are these bureus way of advertising their wares.
Just follow the money.
Smokers first.
Drinkers, now it is your turn to be demonised.
Watch your backs.
Also I find his attitude towards the damage caused by heavy drinking dangerously glib. He seems to imagines this 'premature death' crassly as something trivial. I have had a father in intensive care for 6 weeks as a result of alchoholism. On the hepatology ward to which he was eventually moved, I also witnessed a patient who had just had a liver transplant due to alcoholism screaming in agony. I think Carr will find alcoholism is a tremendous burden on the NHS, and an extremely traumatic burden on the families of alcoholics.