The hypocrisy surrounding alcohol

[cookiebee]

I was commenting on a thread that was discussing the proposed measures for further restrictions on smoking, that is the banning of smoking in beer gardens and other public spaces. I’m an ex smoker and drinker for health reasons, I’ve had lots of support from you lovely people in the alcohol support section and hopefully have helped in turn and find most of you a bit more rational around this subject than those who comment on AIBU.

So on that thread I posed the question to anyone who is for these restrictions and the eventual phasing out of cigarettes, how would you feel if we stopped selling alcohol to anyone born after 2009 to try and phase it out, I wasn’t asking about the practical aspects of it, more the taking of something that is pointless in our lives and trying to be rid of it, the same way that we are treating smoking. My point is if you let them come for one pointless activity, then eventually they will come for others, the ones that YOU love.

I never actually said I wanted alcohol banned, but have so far been told to go live in a Muslim country, where alcohol is banned! That prohibition didn’t work, well I never said it did! Also that my arguments don’t even make sense because there’s no second hand effects of drinking like their are with smoking, I argued that actually there are plenty of knock on effects from drinking, as we all know here.

I just really don’t like the hypocrisy that surrounds people, sitting there with their glass of red and judging others like smokers for example. As soon as you even suggest threatening alcohol they are up in arms about it, of course suggesting that THEY don’t have an issue with alcohol, they are different, it’s people like smokers or drug users that are the real problem. Drinkers don’t see that their vice is a huge issue and that yes, the government could one day come for them with health labelling and restrictions on the sale of alcohol and where it can be served, the price could rocket, it could happen just as it is with smoking. But of course alcohol is the last socially acceptable drug, people don’t want to believe it could happen, they get defensive.

I absolutely hate the ‘nanny state’ as they put it interfering with our lives, but interfering they are, and they will come for all someday, including that glass of Chablis that is sooooo much more acceptable than that cig hanging out someone’s mouth.

If anyone even would like to discuss this, please don’t write post after post about why it wouldn’t work, I’d like to more hear your thoughts on why people get defensive about this and why they think alcohol isn’t actually a serious problem that needs addressing, I’m hopeful of a discussion, but I could of course regret this gamble lol.

So why is alcohol so untouchable, do you think there will eventually be heavy pricing and warning labels, would this be a good thing. There is no longer a safe recommended limit on consumption and the glass of red being good for the heart myth has been debunked. We socialise just fine as youngsters without alcohol, so what exactly is its use, apart from ruining lives from the very first sip?

You smoke in pregnancy? You baby might have a low birth weight. Take heroin? You baby may be born addicted and experience withdrawal. Drink alcohol? Your baby might be born with fetal alcohol syndrome.

I'm not denying that foetal alcohol syndrome is awful but you're presenting it like "with heroin use there's nothing serious like FASD". Heroin use in pregnancy increases the risk of stillbirth, along with increased risks of things like heart defects, and cognitive impairments. Babies born addicted are also at increased risk of SIDS.

Smoking also increases the risk of some serious issues, not just low birth weight. Premature labour is one, which then leads to increased risk of all sorts of other things.

To be clear I totally agree that all of those have negative effects on a baby. My point was, why all the hysteria over smoking? I just don't get WHAT it is that makes it more terrible to society than alcohol. My view is that it really isn't SO terrible. And like the OP says it's just hypocrisy / cognitive dissonance.

30 / 40 years ago supermarkets didn't sell alcohol. The change has been where Tesco's can sell wine at £5 a bottle of 24 cans of beer for less than £20.
This simply encourages excess consumption at home and out of sight alcoholics.

Whilst I would be very much against the banning of alcohol (or for that matter smoking) I would be fully in favour of restricting the sale of alcohol to pubs and restaurants.

And if you want a bottle to drink at home then buy it from the local pub.

I think an important difference between alcohol and smoking is how addictive they are relative to each other.

For example, it's been shown that about 69% who try a cigarette become daily smokers dependent on nicotine (at least for a time). The figure for alcohol is 22% dependency among those who try it.

Loads of people enjoy alcohol as a treat, they don't abuse it. There are those who do and that is a huge issue. But the majority of smokers are quickly trapped by addiction while the majority of those who drink are not. That has to have some bearing on how the two substances are viewed by society.

I am not sure I agree with the ban of smoking currently planned. For me the hypocrisy is far more that smoking is ok... just not in public. Alcohol is fine. But weed isn't. I can't really see the massive difference between a joint or edible vs the buzz of alcohol. I personally would always take a glass of wine over a joint or any form.of weed, but I know plenty of people who would happily enjoy the odd moment of getting slightly high over alcohol.

I think smoking has much more notable long term health issues for a much higher proportion of smokers vs drinking. It's true of course that some people drink to excess and are a danger to themselves and others but proportionately, it's less of an issue.

As for the theory that alcohol doesn't taste good - rubbish. I have a bottle of very average wine in the fridge. So much so that while I might have liked a second glass I haven't had one the last few days. I'll probably land up throwing it away. In the othwr hand, I purposefully don't always buy my absolute favourite wine because it tastes so good it's too easy to drink more of it than I want. Similarly, I don't buy a lot of chocolate because it's delicious and once i have a piece, I want more.

I have found it mind boggling that the conversation is about making pubs "healthier" by banning smoking OUTSIDE under the pretence that this will save the NHS money.
Firstly, pubs are not a place of health and wellbeing - they sell a poison in the form of drinks, which in many instances costs people their physical and mental health, dignity and safety.
Secondly, not sure how it can be said that the second-hand smoke some people might be affected by in pub gardens is enough to be such a big financial burden on the NHS.

I’m going to say this hopefully for the last time, I APOLOGISE if I have given the impression that I believe alcoholic drinks taste awful, what I mean is ALCOHOL in its purest form tastes awful, no one would be able to stomach it, that’s why it is mixed and processed to form all the different products everyone loves, then marketed. From Bacardi breezers to wine and beer, you would probably die pretty quickly ingesting pure alcohol, it’s not a nice substance. But many of you keep getting hung up on defending how delicious it is, well of course it is, it gives your brain a hit and means you want more.

But one thing that people do not want to admit is that this is a very powerful neurotoxin, not really so much of a treat when you think of it. Think of this for a one off or occasional treat, akin to a lovely pudding. One measure of white spirit mixed with orange juice, lovely, just the one mind and I’m not like all those others who abuse white spirit, this is perfectly fine for me, good for me even, although my body will instantly want rid of it! I’m yet to be convinced taking alcohol is just about flavour and not it’s effects, otherwise no one would bother.

A lot seem to think on here that smokers are just junkies looking for their next fix, unlike you occasional wine drinkers, that’s part of the hypocrisy. Smokers can indeed enjoy cigarettes here and there, again taking chemicals into the body is not good, but it’s no different to wine, your body doesn’t like it and apart from smoke, which dissipates outside, alcohol causes many more issues within society, sorry not you in the corner of course!

But a huge part of my debate here is that the gloves are off, they will come after your booze just as they have militantly come after cigarettes. Il try and compose some further points of debate for this thread, I’ve spotted a fair few weird points as I’ve read through that I might like to address.

I agree. I dislike smoking intensely.

But I support the rights of people to do what is bad for them.

I agree with banning smoking indoors due to secondhand smoke but you are right alcohol has a lot of secondhand issues.

I am concerned by anyone that is willing to give others freedoms away.

The amount of tax raised on alcohol is £12 billion per year whereas the cost of alcohol to the NHS and the economy is £27 billion.

So basically ordinary taxpayers are paying £15 billion in taxes to subsidise the drinking of alcohol.

Of course there should absolutely be the freedom of choice on whether people drink alcohol or not or make or not. However it is unacceptable to expect others to pay for and subsidise that freedom of choice.

Well you can't drink just pure alcohol because it'd either kill you or you'd go blind regardless of taste. Even the strongest drinks we have are only about 40% alcohol.

The thing is that people can fairly easily make their own alcoholic drinks, whereas making (growing?) your own tobacco even for personal use isn't really a thing so a ban is more likely to be effective.

A lot seem to think on here that smokers are just junkies looking for their next fix, unlike you occasional wine drinkers, that’s part of the hypocrisy. Smokers can indeed enjoy cigarettes here and there, again taking chemicals into the body is not good, but it’s no different to wine, your body doesn’t like it and apart from smoke, which dissipates outside, alcohol causes many more issues within society, sorry not you in the corner of course!

Studies show that close to 70% of those who start smoking become addicted to nicotine. So, not everyone, but definitely a majority and the figures are far higher than for alcohol. So at a population level it is different to wine in that sense.

Bit of a slippery slope that one though. I mean, where do you stop?

Is it just alcoholics who need to pay for their own heath care?
Where do moderate drinkers fall?

Or those who overeat, or never exercise, or who don't choose to attend their GP in a timely fashion and wait until thier health problems are more severe and expensive to treat?

Or have an accident that's their own fault due to speed or thoughtlessness or recklessness.

Very few of us are models of virtue! I know I'm not.

Thre are all kinds of things I don't like to eat or drink in their purest form - doesn't mean that having them as part of a dish means they are still the underlying item. So no, I am not drinking pure alcohol, but the wine I drink is still alcohol and I enjoy it. I don't eat lemons, but I love lemons as a flavouring in other things.

I think that you're so hung up on this idea that alcohol is somehow manipulated to make it taste better.

And yes, of course you get a hit from alcohol, alongside the taste. Just like you get a hit from a cigarette (believe me, I know. I m iss that hit a LOT). But the reality is that most smokers are addicts, with a high chance of long term harm, while a relatively small amount of alcohol is unlikely to cause any harm and is less likely to lead to addiction. Taxes on alcohol are good - to keep prices from being insanely low and to compensate for the costs. Education campaigns to support healthy consumption are good. Strict rules about what alcohol limits are also excellent.

And let's face it, economically, even outside of taxes, alcohol keeps people spendin g- on alcohol, on longer meals out, on events and activities, which is a useful thing for the economy.

I reiterate however that personally, I'm not convinced that the ban on smoking in pub gardens is appropriate or necessary.

Exactly this.
I’ve never been a smoker, but can’t care less what other people do, as long as i don’t have to breathe it in, why should the state get involved.

Maybe we should raise the booze/fag/vape taxes sky high.
Maybe legalise and tax drugs too - the fight against doesn’t seem to be achieving much! banning people from personal choice, however stupid, doesn’t sit right for me.

Like lots of countries, the UK has a long history of consuming alcohol. This long history means that it has become culturally significant for many people.

Alcohol is associated with celebrations, events, bonding with friends and neighbours, even religion. And for a very long time, drinking weak alcohol was a healthier option than the dirty water that was available.

Smoking has a far shorter history so it's much easier for people to agree with getting rid of it.

I do think that the popularity of drinking is decreasing though. Younger people seem more health conscious and far more British people don't drink for religious reasons now than 100 years ago. Eventually it may just fall out of favour with enough people to lose its significance entirely.

@Coffeeatthelocalmarket

"Bit of a slippery slope that one though. I mean, where do you stop?

Is it just alcoholics who need to pay for their own heath care?
Where do moderate drinkers fall?

Or those who overeat, or never exercise, or who don't choose to attend their GP in a timely fashion and wait until thier health problems are more severe and expensive to treat?

Or have an accident that's their own fault due to speed or thoughtlessness or recklessness.

Very few of us are models of virtue! I know I'm not."

Ideally those who make poor decisions should not expect others to financially pay for those poor decisions otherwise you remove personal responsibility and transfer it to the state (which means tax payers) as well as reducing the incentive to avoid making poor decisions.

Of course in practice this is a lot harder to implement. In the case of over eating or under exercising - everyone needs to eat in order to survive and everyone does some exercise (even if it's just going to the bathroom). It's just a question of what is too much food (which depends on the person and their normal activity or how much exercise which again depends on the person and how active their lifestyle is without exercise.

However with alcohol and tobacco or even drugs there is no necessity to take them in the first place- it's a leisure choice.

Those that cause accidents through their own recklessness should indeed be fined at a level (or depending on the severity imprisoned) that reflects the actual cost of the accident to both them and any victims. It shouldn't fall on other tax payers to pay for their recklessness.

With alcohol I would simply bring in a minimum pricing structure so that supermarket alcohol is priced at the same level as pubs or restaurants.

I gave up alcohol about 6 weeks ago. I was drinking secretly and taking small amounts secretly from a bottle and kept going back. I've some non alcoholic wine in the house and if I have a small amount I have no urge to drink more it's been quite eye opening.
Read "this naked mind" it really makes you feel negatively towards alcohol.

It is amazingly addictive and causes far more harm than cigarettes if you look at it on a global scale.

Will I drink again....maybe. I don't know but I'm giving my body a break.

Ok so I’m apparently hung up on the idea that alcohol is mixed to taste like other things, well it is, but also I’m not hung up on it as much as a few posters have kept bringing up how ridiculous it is that I suggested that alcohol can taste awful, but what I said is true, alcohol does taste awful and various mixers make it palatable, it’s just a fact, but I don’t want to debate how lovely your bottle of Bristol cream sherry is when you get it out your sideboard for the vicar once a year! Good on you if you enjoy it, don’t come on to the vicar though when it loosens you up!

So it’s been mentioned that many raw ingredients are not very nice out of context of a recipe, fine, that’s true, but lemons will not fucking kill you or turn you blind if you drank its juice!

So yes as was mentioned people used to drink very weak beer, it was called small beer I believe, because water was unsafe, that’s true, think it was the Georgian period/regency, fair enough. But if you did that instead of water you wouldn’t feel great, it would build and you would feel groggy and lethargic, because you would be poisoning yourself, also why bring that up? Our drinking water is safe now, we have made lots of societal advancements that mean we have got rid of lots of strange practices. Oh it’s been mentioned twice that alcohol was in the bible, so what, also COME ON, how much other shit is in there!

It’s also been mentioned on here a couple of times that alcohol is an ancient human tradition but tobacco is more modern, tobacco smoking is indeed something that’s been dabbled in for a few thousand years, it’s more recently that it was marketed the way we know it and used as a deadly cash cow, hmmmmm, remind you of another industry, you know, the alcohol industry!

Another thing that’s cropped up, the notion that alcohol is woven throughout our lives in a celebratory way, friends, neighbours, weddings, birthdays etc, yes it is, and yes MANY are ruined by it. I’ve read threads on here where people will not even entertain attending a dry wedding, so if people can’t get pissed they can’t enjoy themselves. When people drink it presses fast forward on everything, it means people get through a whole day of celebrating without having to really engage with others. Despite what people think they look like, or how they think they behave, when you observe anyone past one drink, they change and not for the better. It’s that awful term I hear ‘social lubricant’ 🤢 we should be able to interact with one another without it, we can in fact, it’s just we are conditioned not to because alcohol must be there.

I do not want alcohol banned, I do not want cigarettes banned, we should be able to choose, but my point was and still is now you’ve opened the floodgates and are bullying one group you can only expect the same treatment with pointless things you love! Wait, hang on, I see a queue of people who want to tell me how delicious their drink of choice is and they only have it once a month, SHIT DUCK, the whole point of this thread has just gone over their heads!

If you're going to do that then are you also going to ban all sugar and all processed/unhealthy food as that actually causes far more deaths than alcohol?

Problem is that people who don't drink love to be smug and lecture those who do. We know the risks and do it anyway.

Just leave people alone. Apart from flavoured vapes which should 100% be banned as targeted as young people. I have a teenager who never would have smoked but is addicted to vaping.

The problem is you don't seem to understand what alcohol is or how it is made.... alcohol does taste awful and various mixers make it palatable, it’s just a fact Wine is NOT mixed with anything, for example. It is created using a process that converts grape juice into wine. Pure alcohol will kill you, yes, and it tastes awful, yes, which is why no one drinks it.

You say it's the hypocrisy but you clearly have massive issues with alcohol. As seen in these comments: When people drink it presses fast forward on everything, it means people get through a whole day of celebrating without having to really engage with others. Despite what people think they look like, or how they think they behave, when you observe anyone past one drink, they change and not for the better.

Frankly, as I've said, i think the obsessive ban on cigarettes seems disportionate at times. But I don't think there's any hypocrisy - as a society, we see and understand the direct risks of smoking addiction. As a society, we have ditched this idea that smoking should be normalised and accepted. This is the result of a combination of non-smokers hating it and a realisation of the health risks so it's long been banned in public places like restaurants, and flights, and workplaces.

We are not there with alcohol for all kinds of reasons, many mentioned on this thread. Perhaps that will change in due course or perhaps it won't, who knows. But approaches to alcohol DO change - after all, it wasn't that long ago that women drinking "hard liquor" was frowned upon or that gin was only for the poorest people who wanted oblivion.

@winterrabbit

"Problem is that people who don't drink love to be smug and lecture those who do. We know the risks and do it anyway."

Absolutely people should have the freedom of choice on whether they do or do not drink alcohol.

However the cost of alcohol should be raised significantly because currently tax on alcohol raises £12 billion per year but the cost to the NHS and the economy is £27 billion.

So it is unacceptable that tax payers currently subsidise people's freedom of choice to drink alcohol.

It's also unacceptable that tax payers subsidise people's choice not to eat healthily, and not to work, as well as legal and illegal immigrants (apparently it costs us £8 billion to support immigrant who have moved to the UK who are not working). Taxation is not based on fairness or behaviour or your own contribution unfortunately. If someone has paid a shit load of money in tax over the year then they are entitled to healthcare regardless of the cause of their illness and that's the way it should be.

Yes I know, exactly, my point of this debate was that if you go after one thing it will cascade into others like sugar, was wondering how anyone joining the chorus against smoking would feel when it’s militantly turned on them?

Also I’m not smug, drinking is fucking awesome, I’m strongly advised not to anymore because of pancreatitis, but still sit with friends and family in the pub while they drink.

So what’s with the leave people alone? I’m not hassling anyone, you all dropped by to comment, I started a debate, it’s not a court summons. But I guess I’m getting people’s backs up, so my question of would further and tighter restrictions bother anyone is a definite yes!

If you're so concerned about where our taxes are going then the welfare budget would be a good starting point rather than sick people. Getting a few more people off their backsides and into work.

The leave people alone comment is because you're suggesting more meddling and control over individual choice and restricting someone's right to free healthcare due to lifestyle choices which is pretty draconian. I would mind less if it was in the context of an attack on unhealthy choices overall or a discussion over where/how our taxes are spent, but you are specifically attacking one group - drinkers.

It seems that it has become quite trendy on social media to show off about not drinking and how amazing it is which I find quite bizarre and can only assume that these people were originally drinking massive amounts if their life is that different without alcohol.