Drinkers in Spoons

Who is less healthy - a guy who has two pints of fairly low ABV ale on a Saturday morning in Wetherspoons or someone who polishes off a bottle of wine over a Friday night meal at a high end restaurant?

Because the drinking habits of a theoretical stranger are, you know, nothing to do with me?

that’s hardly enabling them is it!?

Why do you keep banging on about “unhealthy” habits - assuming you mean physical health? I doubt you could care less about the physical health of isolated old men trooping to Spoons in the morning for Ruddles, nods and chats.

If you’re using “unhealthy” in the sense of morally bad habits, then you’re proving me right.

'Gloriia’s language is revealing. “Enabling” is what is said about people who promote physical or mental abuse by a third person'

'Enabling' can be used in many contexts. Here it is being used to demonstrate how some posters excuse, dismiss and minimise extremely unhealthy drinking habits. As seen repeatedly on this very thread.

It's probably all those people drinking cheap pints that allow you to get a cheap breakfast - which is why you were there I presume.

Spoons is all about the volume.

But you didn't refine your query to Google to ask it if that's the only time you drink?

Lots of people who drink in the morning, aren't recovering from a hangover, they have done all their "daytime activities" already and will head to bed shortly after. I'm pretty sure a desire to drink at any time of the day can indicate alcohol dependency.

Re Dehydration... again, wouldn't really apply if 8am is in the latter end of your 24 hours period!

Morning eating on an empty stomach.... again, your stomach can be empty at any time of the day 😂 Good thing all the offenders of morning drinking are in Spoons for a big fry up then

There is a lot of shame and generational trauma in societal binge drinking. It’s never in isolation an issue because people are stupid or uncontrolled.

That’s fair. Many years ago a bar owner in the Canaries told me that the Scandinavians were the worst for bingeing because the beer was so expensive at home and so cheap there, and I’ve heard that since from others. And East Europeans are very heavy drinkers.

But I still think it’s true that bingeing was a problem here - even if it wasn’t or isn’t particular to Britain - but has much improved.

Here is a novel idea. Go elsewhere to get breakfast if it bothers you?

People always say this but It really isn’t. See the Dutch, Germans, Irish, Russians Christ the Japanese! Many countries have issued with binge drinking. The uk has been really successful at turning it around actually, compared to the days of the 2000s where people who went out and got pissed were made to feel like scum despite capitalism telling us to do it.

Yes I agree. The level of disgust is unusual

Yes, binge drinking and the pursuit of drunkenness is particularly British. Public drunkenness is shameful in much of Europe, quite rightly.

Binge drinking was at least in part encouraged by restrictive licensing laws. The old blokes in Spoons in the mornings are continental and enlightened in their own way!

Alcohol consumption generally is not great for your health, particularly to excess. However a lot of countries have a culture of moderate spread out alcohol consumption during the day rather than shoving it all in to a few evening hours.

Gloriia’s language is revealing. “Enabling” is what is said about people who promote physical or mental abuse by a third person.

Moral, not health, judgement is at the heart of her difficulty with old men who drink beer and chat in Spoons of a morning.

Yesterday I had a pint of beer at 3pm as we popped in to the pub in the middle of a long walk to escape a heavy rain shower. Pint drunk and rain tailing off, we resumed our walk and then went home. I drank no more alcohol the rest of the day or evening.

Indeed. All of those posts seem to immediately assume everyone who drinks has zero ability to moderate their intake of alcohol. Why would someone be at more risk of dehydration and vomiting from one single pint at 9am than from one single pint at 6pm?

Excess alcohol consumption leads to those outcomes, regardless of when you consume it.

I think this point has already been made re the day drinking. The men you see with their pints in the morning are nursing the same one for ages. They are not flinging back shots, and they are not getting drunk and rowdy. They have usually gone home by late afternoon.

I suspect you've a history or trauma around someone's alcohol misuse and I'd kindly suggest you see a therapist to deal with it.

Drinking at 8.30am isn't societally 'the norm' in the UK.. Purely because of the way our shops and jobs run. However I genuinely don't see how it's any worse than drinking at any other time of the day.

Alcohol isn't a good thing to ingest, full stop. The time is irrelevant.

No one is saying morning drinking is a good thing. People are saying it happens. Some people are alcohol dependant. what are you going to do?
Tell them glorriiiaa on mumsnet thinks they’re vile so pull themselves together?

your link still doesn’t state why drinking in the morning is worse for your health than drinking at any other time.
If you’re alcohol dependant it’s irrelevant what time you drink. Drinking in the morning doesn’t lead to anymore risk of physical hazards than drinking at night.
These things do not make drinking in the morning, in itself, any worse for you than any other time.
now if you could make some argument that your liver processes alcohol more slowly at 8am, leading to proven liver damage risk, I’d be with you. But you might get more dehydrated?! Give your head a wobble.

'Give up'? A very cursory Google states

Key risks associated with morning drinking include:

• Alcohol Dependency Signs: A desire to drink early in the day often indicates that the body has become dependent on alcohol to function or to alleviate a hangover.
• Physical Health Hazards: It can lead to increased tolerance, chronic liver damage, and mental health issues like depression.
• Immediate Effects: Drinking early causes severe dehydration, increased risk of accidents due to impairment, nausea, and vomiting.
• Disrupted Metabolism: Morning drinking, particularly on an empty stomach, can lead to a faster, more intense, and harmful, effect on the body.

So much denial, enabling and minimising going on. Morning drinking is not a good thing it is astounding that it needs pointing out.

@Ginmonkeyagain

Also don't forget large airports will have people on different body clocks and times. Not everyone is getting a 8am flight to Malaga. Heathrow is full of people doing onward connections, so for them 6am UK time might be their evening.

Absolutely spot on, many of those drinking whilst eating in the AM airside at airports like LHR are connecting through from places well east of the UK, for those folks it's still lunch/tea/dinner time on the body clock.

As for elsewhere - having maybe a pint or glass of wine at something odd o'clock with colleagues prior to turning in post a long night shift isn't unknown...

The frankly wierd/almost authoritarian idea that everyone should conform to some fixed simple model of how the world works really got an outing here during Covid ("why should anyone be travelling??"), looks like it's back again...

That's really nice about the young couple.

I have a favourite local (where the cost of wine is double that of Spoons) and there is a young woman with clearly MH issues who comes in. They just quietly give her a coke and she then wanders off again. It means alot to have that sort of community.

I won't lie, I like Spoons. I've had some meals there that would rival so called gastro pubs. DS1 rates their pizzas really highly and he has food issues so it's an easy win. There are 2 near us and one slightly further field. My understanding is they have to/ choose to keep the facade of a building they buy so one near us is a former church with a gorgeous stained glass windows. One is a former historic Edwardian hotel. It's only anecdata but i was chatting with one of the bar staff once who was a uni student. She liked working there, they had good management and were flexible on shifts. But that is no different from any workplace and down to personalities to hand. You also see large family groups of multi generations eating a decent meal together. It's affordable. My family went out last night to a naice pub and the cheapest wine was £9.75 a glass. A hamburger was £16.00 a pudding was £6.95. One of us has an allergy so the staff had to check the back of the box for various puddings, so brought in en masse just like Spoons would be. So about a third more expensive at Spoons which adds up if you have a group.

Oh give up. You really are scraping the barrel rather than just saying what is obvious to every other poster- you have no idea whether drinking at 8.30am is more unhealthy than any other time of day, you just made it up because it sounded like it should be true, and now you’ve realised it isn’t.
The stubbornness is quite astounding 😂

'You've been preaching through this thread about how it's unhealthy to drink at 8.30am bs pm..With no backup aside from you don't do it '

Well I could say folk have been 'preaching' that 8.30am boozing is fine and dandy but it is actually a chat forum so sharing views is what happens, it isn't 'preaching'.

Please Google alcohol and healthy recommended drinking habits. Starting at 8.30 will not be there. Moderation will be, on an evening usually when all daily activities have been completed and we relax. This is not new news or rocket science. Starting early is of course a slippery slope to all day drinking and that is not good for anyone. Least of all poor friends and relatives who have to deal with the pisshead.