Drinking wine each evening

What on earth are you talking about? There is no "excessive state control" over alcohol usage in the UK, unless you consider it excessive to have minimum age restrictions for alcohol purchase or restrictions around certain activities such as drink driving. Nobody is legislating to tell you how many glasses of wine you can have with your dinner, and to the best of my knowledge, no mainstream political party is proposing to do this.

What the state is doing is issuing sensible public health guidelines about recommended limits on alcohol consumption, which are informed by extensive research.Yes of course these are based on averages and of course there are individual differences. However, very few people will have the necessary expertise to calculate exactly how much alcohol would be dangerous to them personally, as several very sad posts on this thread have already demonstrated. The general guidelines therefore serve a useful purpose. People are free to ignore those guidelines if they believe that they know better.

I am not sure if your posts reflect a wish to bury your head in the sand about your own drinking habits or whether you just have strong political objections to any public health guidance because you believe it to be a manifestation of what you perceive to be the "nanny state". Or perhaps some combination thereof.

Yes, other cultures seem to be very serious about their wine but often as an enhancement to their evening meal. And only a glass or so with plenty of water on the table. I’m sure it might seem strange to them, the concept of opening a bottle an hour or so before bedtime, if you finished dinner ages ago.

Haha, yep, DH trots this one out every so often 🤣

@GasPanic The government & NHS has easily accessible legal charters, which outlines their commitment to the public ie what they should do. Not what your weird, irrelevant opinion is, but what their actual responsibilities and duties are.

No the government should provide people with information to make informed choices as a consequence of their actions.

It shouldn't dictate to people what is good or bad, too risky or excessive (in the case of drinking anyway), because that is something for them personally to judge, not for the government to tell people what to do. That route just results in zealotry and excessive state control, as many threads on here on alcohol demonstrate.

To me, there is a pretty fine line between telling everyone they shouldn't drink more than X units a week and telling them they shouldn't drink at all, then actually moving towards banning it, which actually looks like the path we are going down if you look at the way "guidance" has changed historically.

If you are happy to have the government dictate these sorts of things in your life, fine.

The trouble with a glass every night, is that by the time you realise you can’t go without you’re already in trouble.

If you are taking days off at least you can tell easier how you feel about that. If it’s fine when you don’t drink, you don’t think about it, don’t resent it, then fine. If you crave it on your days off and are counting the hours til your next drink then you know you’ve got a problem.

Me too, and DH.

I have been drinking around the same for years. It has never increased and I make sure I keep a close eye and don't drink any more than my allowance.

I also mix my wine with alc free to make it go further!

@GasPanic The NHS shouldn't define what is excessive to anyone. The government doesn't have a right to tell me or anyone else what is excessive and what isn't.

Of course the NHS should. The service is designed to improve, prevent, diagnose and treat both physical and mental health problems. How can they do that without parameters?

The NHS has a duty of care, which includes managing excessive amounts of alcohol consumption before it causes irreversible harm to patients. If a patient is causing detriment to themselves, it’s prudent for the NHS to advise of lifestyle changes for improvement and to prevent further problems. Not only should the NHS state what is excessive, but also what might be excessive to different people eg gender or age differences.

The NHS should not shrug their shoulders at risky decisions or merely act as a safety blanket when it all goes wrong. They have a duty of care to implement preventive measures, and ultimately have limited resources. If you’re doing something excessive as per medical research, of course they should tell you.

The most important thing about drinking IMO is to be mindful of it. Which is what you are doing. Keeping an eye on it, thinking about how it may affect your health based on information you have, both personal and public information that is provided. There are loads of strategies you can use, for example dry months (I am doing dry January), lowering the alcohol content of drinks you have plus a load more things if you are concerned about alcohol intake.

IMO the second most important thing is to enjoy it - that's the point after all !

And the third most important thing to me is to not get influenced by zealots of either persuasion (it's all bad, or it's all good) who often have their own hang ups about it for various reasons.

I agree with PP that every night is the issue, not the amount overall. I would aim for 2 days a week off. We don't drink M-Th unless on holiday and whilst I don't notice a huge positive difference when I'm doing this I really notice a negative difference when I drink every day ie the Christmas hols. Currently feeling sluggish and bloated and only drank to excess a couple of times. I also think regular alcohol slows my metabolism, I find it much more difficult to maintain my weight even if I factor alcohol calories in.

The government doesn't have a right to tell me or anyone else what is excessive and what isn't. Because that is based on my own personal opinion of risk and reward.

Of course it does, and it has a responsibility to be a source of reliable evidence-based information for the general population.

(Whether it always fulfils that is another conversation).

If you think you know better because of your knowledge of your individual circumstances, then crack on. The government isn't controlling your freedom to act in ways that are not in line with their advice.

Society has a huge drinking culture. There’s normalised ways to include alcohol in every meal. As a result, people are generally conditioned to think that you have to be on the extreme end of the spectrum to have an alcohol problem, whereas your body might not be able to tolerate these moderate amounts of daily consumption. The perspective is skewed - the line isn’t swigging vodka all day starting at 9am and being gross and unable to function. Lots of people struggle to notice when their drinking gets excessive because it’s such a commonplace part of society.

You should seek medical advice vs comparing yourself to others - especially people online. You don’t know if the person that’s reassuring you is a pinnacle of health themselves - it could be an echo chamber. Best thing is to start by getting blood tests and see 1.if anything is abnormal and 2.what has changed in comparison to your last blood test results which might pinpoint trends.

The NHS shouldn't define what is excessive to anyone.

What it should do is provide information for people to make informed choices.

Certain government bodies cite certain amounts of alcohol consumption per week as "safe" but what is "safe" ? A 1% chance of having it affect your life in a meaningful way ? A 2% chance ? What chance should be acceptable ? How do you define meaningful ?

A lot of people just parrot the NHS numbers as things that are considered "safe" or not excessive. But those numbers need to be informed by individual information in order to make them in any way accurate. Sex, family history can be things that change the equation considerably as well as personal attitude to risk. You can either use that information to argument what the government tells you and modify their numbers up or down, or you can just blindly accept the numbers as given and hope you conform to the average person and have the same idea as the government of what is "safe".

The government doesn't have a right to tell me or anyone else what is excessive and what isn't. Because that is based on my own personal opinion of risk and reward.

What it does do (and should do) is provide me with information so that I can understand the consequences of my actions.

I'm pretty sure the government would want to ban people from doing lots of stuff and deem a lot of our activity that costs it money illegal if it had half a chance. But I quite like skiing and I'm not keen on having the government ban it or disuade me from doing it because it deems it too risky and it costs it too much money.

In fact, the UK guidelines are starting to look a little outdated. More recent studies and evidence suggest that about 3-4 units a week can be considered low risk, then you’re looking at moderate and high risk depending on your level. 25 units a week would not be considered low harm
even in the current guidelines.

I think you need to differentiate between it being common and it being risk free. Posting on here will help convince you it's common, which it is because our relationship with alcohol in this country is awful. But lots of people telling you its fine doesn't make it risk free. If you do a literature search you will find all the way it's risky - cancer, cognitive function etc etc. The evidence is unambiguous. As well as the effects on your skin and your sleep. It's up to you to make a choice based on risk but the factually correct answer is that the amount you are drinking has been proven to be associated with health risks.
I'm not writing as a small sherry once a year drinker either - I definitely drink too much at times. I recently had breast cancer, for which alcohol is a risk factor, and I now fluctuate between thinking I must stop drinking as I don't want to increase my risk of future cancer, and thinking alcohol one of life's pleasures and having cancer has shown me that life can be short. I don't know which is the right way of looking at things!

I’ve known so many people turn to alcoholism so I’m a bit biased and get worried about it!

But it is excessive according to NHS guidelines, which are themselves based on extensive research. Your personal opinion doesn't change that.

And yes, of course the OP is entirely at liberty to choose to accept any risks that are associated with excessive drinking if she feels that they are worth it. We all take calculated risks on a daily basis. But she should take those risks having properly understood the fact that the amount she is drinking is considered by the experts to be unsafe.

If she is happy to go ahead regardless, then that's her prerogative. But she asked a question on this forum about whether her current drinking is OK, and many of us have pointed out that, according to most mainstream health advice, it is not.

It’s obviously not good to drink every day, just as it’s not good to eat junk food meals every day and to be obese. No point pretending it’s healthy. It will age you too so just keep an eye on it op.

if its every day it does sound like you ‘need’ it which isn’t ideal. What if things go wrong - how easy would it be to increase?

could you try and decrease it and have at least one night off? If not then I think that’s your answer.

I’m slightly torn between the health implications and what alcohol actually does to you but also agree that if you enjoy it that is also important which makes it hard to say it’s ‘bad.
I think the mindset in how you drink alcohol is also a big factor. If it’s enjoyment/relaxed/positive I genuinely believe your body responds and reacts better than if you drink it angrily/to forget/as a crutch/negatively.

However, I have recently learnt a lot about alcohol and it is quite horrendous stuff and essentially should be classed as a poison. This is coming from a huge wine lover so totally get it !

No one that I know or take any advice from claims that any alcohol is good for you.

IMO (and it is a personal opinion because everyones idea of risk and reward is different) the amount of drinking specified is not excessive and the risk it poses is small given the pleasure it brings. Everyone has to make their own assessment of that and whether the risks outweigh the reward.

If you want to eliminate all risk from your life you would never leave the house and sit in a bulletproof jar all day.

People generally aren't very good at judging risk and reward.

Exactly.

Normalising excessive drinking won't help anyone.

I agree that most people think that drinking small amounts is fine. I will admit to having generally believed that myself though now I'm wondering.

But a lot of posters have responded to the OP to say that her drinking is fine, it's normal, it's not an issue etc. I don't think that's helpful as she is clearly drinking an excessive amount.

And yes @winterrabbit, lots of people are overweight, or they smoke, and/or have various other vices. I'm certainly no paragon of virtue myself and I'm absolutely not judging anyone. However, I do at least know what my unhealthy habits are and I'm not trying to kid myself that they're just fine.

If the OP acknowledges that she is drinking an unhealthy amount but chooses to do it anyway, she is at least making an informed choice. If she kids herself that it's fine and normal, then she may not realise the damage that she is potentially doing to her body. We need to be honest with ourselves at least about the choices that we're making.