Too much alchohol

Take the test here - click his

We use the wine glasses that are like fish bowls which doesn't help.

Many people will be under on units many professional people (parents with little ones !) who need a glass or two of wine to wind down at the end of the day maybe well over. There are so many health risks its just a question of balance. If you don't have the odd tipple you may die from the stress brought on by over work or eating too many deep fried mars bars.

Women seem to be heading into the higher end risk area with wine, particularly those with stressful jobs.

Have a swift pint of Karma. apparently exercise is good.

Diccus

quote:

Originally posted by Rasher:
Steady on James, this is a thread on the "units" we are supposed to be watching.*

My wife saw a programme on TV yesterday about drinking at home and how bad it's going to be for us if we are the types of people who drink a couple of beers or a couple of glasses of wine every night. I do. I'm guessing we all do. I work pretty hard and long hours and I bloody well deserve a couple of beers or some red wine in the evening - I don't get to sit down until around 9.30 most evenings!!
Is this a load of crap or should we really take notice of this?

*Yeah, I guess it didn't do Rory any good.

You bloody read my mind!!!! 'Ah good', I thought, a thread about going 'down on 31st Street to pick up a jug of alcohol' LOL

James

I did not see the programme but I'm told it made a couple of points really well.

Firstly that the idea of 1 unit=1 glass wine or 1 measure spirits or 1/2 pint of beer is increasingly misleading. Home measures are often double, people are drinking stronger beer in pubs on a more rouitne basis.

The second is that we all have very different tolerance to alcohol in terms of health harms. Women tend to have lower tolerance but the limits of 28 and 21 for men and women are just guides.

Finally I'd challenge the two phrases in posts above

quote:

I work pretty hard and long hours and I bloody well deserve a couple of beers or some red wine in the evening

quote:

many professional people (parents with little ones !) who need a glass or two of wine to wind down at the end of the day

Alcohol is a pernicious drug. It is a depressant. Drinking in the evenings may take off your 'edge' but it actually tends to reduce sleep quality and also increase anxiety the next day. It also causes tolerance suprisingly quickly. Nobody 'needs' or 'deserves' a drink. What you want is a way to relax in the evening, however there are other ways of doing it then alcohol, and indeed alcohol can become part of the problem suprisingly easily.

The greatest health effects I see from alcohol are not in the heavy drinkers with liver disease but the low-grade physical, mental health, social and domestic problems caused by so-called 'social' use. The overwhelming majority of these patients do not recognise alcohol as having any harmful effect in their life.

If alcohol is your chosen method of relaxation then enjoy it but know about it's effects and use it wisely!

Bruce

Agreed.
The physical damage is the tip of the iceberg, and appears late in the game. The damage to families and relationships from alcoholism is greatly underestimated and under reported. If you need to take a depressant drug regularly, just to feel normal, there may already be a problem. Alcoholism isn't just about rolling around on the pavement in an old coat tied up with string.

So, if my habit is having a beer (last night one 330ml bottle of Bishops Finger) every night, and I'd miss it if I didn't have it but sometimes do miss it because I'm busy doing other things, then I am an alcoholic? The word "alcoholism" has just been slipped in Doc - are you serious? Is it that black & white?
In that case, my case and probably a lot of people here, what should I be doing? Is it the routine or the quantity? Is it better to have one a day or binge at weekends with nothing during the week? I can't remember the last time I was "drunk". Am I really at risk?
There is a danger of the safe limit being so low that a lot of people will write themselves off as being beyond help and just go to hell in a handbasket. Wouldn't it be better to set a limit that everyone feels they can achieve, even if it is a little high. Shouldn't we have a set of limits that we could work to rather than a black line? Surely encouragement is the key, not scare tactics.

quote:

Originally posted by JWM:
You bloody read my mind!!!!

I can do that when I've had a beer

No need to be scared . Alcoholism isn't about quantity, it is about the impact alcohol has on your life and whether a person can truly choose to stop drinking without becoming obsessed with thoughts of alcohol. If your work,family and friends are unaffected by your drinking, and you don't find it a struggle to abstain, you are unlikely to be an alcoholic. Physical damage from alcohol abuse may or may not be present in alcoholim.

quote:

I'm guessing we all do

Not really.

quote:

Originally posted by Diccus62:
Take the test here - click his

This is the problem - tests that come at you like this. Try it. Put in ANYTHING other than one single No or Never result, and it says you may have a problem. If you fill it in as though you were teetotal, it says "You probably don't have a problem and are drinking responsibly, but watch it".
It all strikes me as scaremongering and if it wasn't loaded against you to begin with, I might take it more seriously. I can't take this seriously. This confirms that the whole thing is without foundation.

quote:

There is a danger of the safe limit being so low that a lot of people will write themselves off as being beyond help and just go to hell in a handbasket. Wouldn't it be better to set a limit that everyone feels they can achieve, even if it is a little high. Shouldn't we have a set of limits that we could work to rather than a black line? Surely encouragement is the key, not scare tactics.

One of the problems with that (which sounds so sensible) is that alcohol probably has no absolutely safe lower limit. The pschological and toxic effects are dose dependent rather than appearing at a given threshold. This is one reason that the new advice to pregnant Mums is zero; it is actually a lot simpler and clearer to advise this than select an arbitary limit with all the caveats that involves. The message of 28/21 units is a difficult one in practice, it has some evidence behind it but unfortunately it is not safe for everyone and many people also look at it and think 'good grief most of my friends drink far more and they are fine so it must be nonsense'. Unsafe drinking behaviour is also associated wth bingeing (accidents, being a victim of crime, sexual infections etc etc etc) so 28 units in one go is probably worse than spread across a week. It is almost impossible to give a universal, understandable and simple safe drinking message. 28/21 will have to do for now (and would be helped enormously if the units were labelled on bottles and beer pumps for a start).

Millions of people use alcohol safely, and genuinely enjoy it.

My point is not that low-level users are all 'alcoholics' but that everyone who drinks alcohol should be aware that it is a drug, that it has good and adverse effects and in particular that alcohol is a poor drug to self treat anxiety, stress and low mood symptoms-precisely things that tend to make people turn to alcohol.

Bruce

What a wonderful place this forum is; to have two GP's to give a proper balanced & trustworthy view.
I'm going to keep a diary and see where I am with this as a starting point.

Thanks guys.

Steady on. I AM rolling about on the pavement in an old coat tied up with string.

That's why I trust you know what you're talking about

quote:

Steady on. I AM rolling about on the pavement in an old coat tied up with string

Not on (y)our wages you are not.

quote:

Alcoholism isn't about quantity

Thank God there is hope yet

Tend to keep drinking to Friday / Saturday and thoroughly enjoy it.

Still probably exceed the stated safe limits just over the weekend.

Cheers

worm

In a recent article in The Times re alcohol and points etc it commented that the UK definition of how much alcohol was in a point was the lowest of the values that are used in various countries in the EU, however the countries did not significantly alter the number of points per week per person to take the different size of points into account.

The government is also talking about enforcing brewers to state how many units ARE in a pint/half pint/bottle/glass (25ml measure)and this has to be printed clearly on the packaging.

I deal with people every day in my working life who have problems wih alcohol and as Bruce and Rockingdoc have stated it can vary with each individual and is determinant on how it is affecting their lifes....and the importance the individual pplaces on this.

Its not just a depressant....it also suppresses our ability to inhibit our urges. Be that what we say or do. I work with a girl the other week who was haing mood problems was able to manage these thoughts and associated urges, but she went and got drunk and self harmed really badly, becasue she couldn't control her thinking and rationalise it under the influence of alcohol.

Now I'm not against alcohol...not at all, as drink probably more than the safe limit too, but people should be aware of the potential problems.

Just as an aside.....up till about 20 years ago the definition of an alcoholic was someone who drunk more than their doctor!! People in the medical profession, especially psychiatry tend to drink more than others for the same reasons as Rasher gave. Now its based on who it affects your life. But you don't need to be getting drunk all the time to be an alcoholic!

Who needs a drink........

Ryan

I'm in two minds about this.

Sure alcohol is a problem for many people that causes huge issues for them and others they come into contact with. But then, the same could be said for exposure to work or socially created stress, smoking, other addictive behaviour, over eating, undereating, poor diet choice, poor life choices, daily driving related issues, polution, the climate, war, disease, terrorism, bungie jumping or shagging the kids nanny. (Busy day that...)

So, perhaps, is the higher level of lobbying associated with alcohol greatly indicative of the nanny state we live in where rational, self controlled people are bombarded with or even forced into lifestyle choices based on politicians whims and personal preferences on the assumption that we're all incapable ourselves and/or aimed at keeping the prols in their place rather than being able to come to a common sense conclusion on their own? (Even if a poor choice means people make mistakes, surely it's mistakes that help teach us about ourselves and our limits to give us a point of reference [as in "I am SO not doing that again!"]).

I might have become a 'Grumpy Old Man' but when 'safe' levels of alcohol are being touted as zero (albeit reasonable for driving IMHO), Canabis (which still clearly chemically stimulates the brain) has been downgraded yet Nicotine is virtually outlawed (I don't partake of either myself btw) and an egg advert is banned because the implication could be you should live on the things, suggests that UK legislation and Goverment is frankly nuts at the moment.

I can see the point of prevention rather than cure but it seems to me that more and more we are living in a highly monitored, nanny state where personal choice and freedoms are becoming seriously restricted in the name of the perceived common good. Or the good of our masters, depending on your level of sceptisism. The vast majority of people who can take responsibility for their lives are being trodden upon in the name of the few that can't. And just because they can, it doesn't make it right.

Anyone read Minority Report?

Who needs a drink........

Not me! That Dispatches programme included footage of a liver transplant, and I can't understand why anyone would risk maybe needing one of those.

Seriously, they made the point well that people's tolerance can vary widely. One girl interviewed said she drank 3-4 pints of beer every day, and on a big night could get through 3 bottles of wine or more, yet her liver function tests showed barely above average.

The idea was to raise awareness that people can be storing up massive problems for the future, without even realising it, and to try and think about it now before it's too late.

G.

Jamie

I don't see anyone advocating prohibition, only information. Unfortunately with a socially accepted drug such as alcohol, and one whose makers endlessly bombard us with glossy aspirational advertising it is necessary to broadcast some hard truths too.

quote:

Anyone read Minority Report?

Yup, and I've read Dick's 'Through a Scanner Darkly' too; which is a powerful essay on drugs, addiction and society. The drug Death in that book could easily be alcohol.

Bruce

Jamie,
I think you raise some valid points and I think it is just the government 'fad' at the moment, as they need to be seen to be trying to counter the increasing health demands from 'lifestyle' related illnesses.

I don;t think they'll go too far though as we couldn't afford, as a nation, to completely give up drinking and smoking.....we'd lose too much money through taxation and the coutry would be bankrupt.

I think the main problem is, is that people are starting younger and younger on this road. Couple this with living longer and you have a far longer period of bodily abuse through these substances. I have worked on Gastro wards in liverpool and we had 13 year old alcoholics being brought in with jaundice and liver related problems....very sad.

Ryan

Ryan

so twelve pints, a couple of lines of charlie and a indian on a tuesday night in sheffield would be a little ott?

Sheffield's alright, but the quality of the gear in Leeds is terrible. Steer clear.

As we probably all know from experience the rate at which one drinks has an effect as well.

From my pharmacokinetics years ago alcohol follows a 2 compartment model which basically means the normal metabolism pathway becomes saturated and hey presto you've reached the stratosphere. So if you drink at a rate that does not saturate this pathway and keeps acetaldehyde levels to a minimum you are doing less damage.


So my 3 units of wine between 8 and midnight will be a lot less harmful than my 3 units between 11 and midnight.


Drink can have savage consequences and in Ireland we've seen this as much as anyone but my feeling is the risk of a beer or two or glass of wine every evening is a far lesser risk than the one we take when we get in a car.



SJB