To rant about alcohol and the way it's normalised?

[CheapSausagesAndSpam]

It's EVERYWHERE and it's poisonous. People normalise it..."Oh...wine o'clock already tra la la!"

And all that shite.

It's responsible for thousands of deaths and injuries and trauma every year and yet it's the first thing people think of when they want to celebrate something.

Get this

3 May 2017: New figures released today show that hospital admissions due to alcohol are at their highest ever levels.

The data, summarised in a release from NHS Digital, shows that alcohol-related hospital admissions in England have increased by 64% over the last decade, with an extra 430,000 people being admitted due to alcohol-related causes in 2015/16 compared with 2005/06.

This takes the total number of alcohol-related hospital admissions to over 1.1 million in 2015/16.

And this

Alcohol is linked to over 60 illnesses and diseases, including heart disease, liver disease and cancer. Figures from the local alcohol profiles for England show that admissions due to liver disease have gone up 57% over the last decade, and that the number of people diagnosed with alcohol-related cancer has increased 8%.

How is this a lovely drink? How is this something that is ok to do in front of children and even to allow children to partake of?

People on MN often say "Oh I let my 12 year old have half a glass of wine...it's a good way to introduce it!"

WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO!?

And new research points to the fact that it causes irreversable damage to stem cells, scrambling DNA and eventually causing cancers.

www.theguardian.com/science/2018/jan/03/alcohol-can-cause-irreversible-genetic-damage-to-stem-cells-says-study?CMP=fb_gu

Think about it. Society is not doing itself any favours.

I haven't had a drink for years and I don't want one after living with a drunk and I am also embarrassed for the girls and women who go out and get drunk then expose themselves while puking their guts up in public. We should have a fee for the NHS drunk tanks, any twat who cannot go out without making an idiot of themselves and then using valuable NHS resources should be fined.

Am I being really pedantic here? (Very possible - I have previous for taking things too literally)!

For clarity, I think the normalisation of binge drinking / heavy drinking / problem drinking is rant worthy. But that’s not what the op blimming well said! She said the “normalisation of alcohol” and one of her examples was introducing alcohol to children, (maybe 12 is a little young for half a glass of wine fwiw, but I agree with the principle of demystifying alcohol for teenagers at home before they end up binge drinking with friends on the sly).

Op, if you’re still there, what did you mean? The normalisation of alcohol or the normalisation of heavy drinking etc?

It’s impossible to have a sensible discussion when it’s like we’re talking about different ops !

Am I being really pedantic here?

Yes! One leads on from the other - we don't have to stick so closely to the OP's post to have an interesting discussion.

Yes, but everyone’s plunging in with “op I agree with you”. But you’re talking about different things!

Lovely to have a broader discussion though. I’m enjoying it, despite the confusion.

I agree with you to a certain extent, but I think that (as has been pointed out, several times) very poor diets are the bigger problem on the whole.

In my middle-class circle, it's definitely frowned upon to drink to excess. Mind you, I am more than alive to the pitfalls of drinking because my husband drinks too much.

In other words, the compelling info in that article is the 2x per head increase in alcohol consumption since the 1950s.

It's interesting that the lobbyists for more restrictions on alcohol only show consumption back to the 50s. If you show it going back to 1900 the story looks rather different. I wonder what happened in the early to mid 20th century that could have had an impact on alcohol consumption...

There's not really any comfort to be found in that article from the differences in alcohol consumption by age group. The article suggests that the differences are generational "habits" and "attitudes". If you replace "Age" with "Length of exposure to UK alcohol advertising", you'd perhaps draw a different conclusion.

Only if you look at a snapshot in time. If you consider the change in drinking habits of different age groups then it does show that drinking habits of the young are changing.

I think the normalisation of daily drinking, - of drinking at every conceivable occasion and venue - is a problem and I didn't see it at all until I couldn't drink. It's the ubiquity of drink and the pressure to join in, that's fairly new. (New meaning the last couple of decades.) Nothing ever seems to be tea and cake affair anymore.

I think the facts stated in the op are fairly clear in that all of those things are not caused by alcohol per se but by excessive consumption of alcohol due to its normalisation (I.e. it's funny/ acceptable to refer to wine o clock etc). The problem is that people have lost sight (if they ever had it in the first place of course - and not even scientists and medical people can agree on what is 'normal' or 'safe' as the guidelines keep changing) of what is 'normal'. Alcoholism itself is a huge grey area as I have said in other posts. I know several close family members who have problems with alcohol - but each one has different issues, different 'causes' and different levels of resulting fallout. It's not a black and white area. Hence, for example, the argument over the use of the word 'alcoholic'. Well, what does that term mean exactly?

"Wasn’t ale safer than water for a long time? So everyone would have had to drink alcohol every day."

I think it was very weak in those days, not like beer now.

There were many different strengths of beer in the 1800s. Yes, there was 'small beer' that was often given to children instead of water and was comparatively weak. But most 'normal' beer was at least as strong as you get now. Beer with an ABV of 6% and greater were very common. One of the biggest current beer brands, Greene King IPA, has an ABV of 3.6%. This is very weak for historical standards for an IPA, and is mainly the product of the reduction in beer strength during the 2nd world war. Beers have got slightly stronger since then but certainly not back to what they were pre-1900. Lots of beers have been reduced in strength as a response to tax - e.g. Stella Artois has gone down from 5.2% to 4.8%. Similarly with spirits where most mainstream vodkas are now 37.5% rather than 40%.

"its normalisation (I.e. it's funny/ acceptable to refer to wine o clock etc)"

Normalisation is not the problem. A bit of wine with every social occasion is perfectly normal here in France, too.

The difference is the amounts consumed. We go through a meal with friends having had a single glass of wine - and by that I mean a glass asserved in France (small glass, filled to less than half), not the half-liter you get served in a giant glass filled to the top in London.

It's the difference between having a small bit of dark chocolate with your coffee after a meal for the taste, and inhaling huge slices of chocolate cake as desert after every meal.

'Wine o clock' references any time of day though CoteDAzure and that's not always a social occasion is what I'm saying. Essentially we are talking about the same thing - drinking excessively. What is 'normal' over here probably is very different to what is normal in France (and certainly I don't see the same kind of problems we do over here with the pavement cafe culture in continental Europe). We are normalising what is actually heavy drinking over here. And that most certainly is a problem.

In France on average they drink more than in the UK and have more alcohol related deaths.

Cote - I thinks that's right. I "learned" my drinking habits from living in France. I still have a "French sized" glass of wine with dinner about 5 times a week, and a bit more (champagne, maybe a digestif) on special occasions, but have never been blind drunk or ill through alcohol. Generally speaking, the modern English culture seems to be one of excess and lack of restraint; the fact that I feel like a real prude or killjoy even writing that speaks volumes.

"In France on average they drink more than in the UK"

No they don't. Unless you are looking at British expats, who do indeed get plastered regularly.

Drinking culture is very different here in France. Most people I know have wine at every meal out including lunch, but in very small amounts - for the taste, almost. There's no drinking a bottle of vodka at home before going out, brawling & puking on the streets.

Especially British men on average have a very unhealthy relationship with alcohol imho - drinking to get drunk & legless, humiliating events of a drunken night being considered "fun" etc.

I was going by this.

Or to see it in some more context, the graph on here is quite interesting. Shows that drinking quantities have reduced from 2000, quite substantially in France, but still more than the UK.

There's no drinking a bottle of vodka at home before going out, brawling & puking on the streets.

People focus on this sort of thing (handily stoked by the media) as if it is how most people drink in this country. It isn't. Not denying that there is an element of that here, but it is not how most people drink.

but I think that (as has been pointed out, several times) very poor diets are the bigger problem on the whole
I agree but I would add that poor diet combined with alcohol consumption combined with a sedentary lifestyle.... all these factors interact so that the sum of the damage is far greater than the sum of the parts

whatsthe - re your article: "Dr James Nicholls, research manager for the charity Alcohol Research UK, told the Daily Mail"

Well, I think I'll trust my eyes instead of what some alcohol charity person told the Daily Fail.

Anyway, he seems to be saying that drinking every day like in 'continental Europe' wouldn't be good for the UK. Well, no shit Sherlock. It won't be, because UK drinking amounts are so ridiculously high.

The whole culture around drinking needs to change in the UK. You need to look at places like France and learn from what they do better, rather than Google around for what you can use against them.

Come and spend some time around here. See for yourself.

"as if it is how most people drink in this country. It isn't. Not denying that there is an element of that here, but it is not how most people drink."

I don't know most people who live in the UK. I don't know most people in France, either. I only go by what I actually see in the streets.

And I have seen a lot of drunken brawls, people getting legless and shouting incomprehensibly, throwing up on the streets in the UK. I have seen none of that in the +15 years I have been living in France.

There is a clear and significant difference.

Cote, feel free to find better info if you want. You are judging by what you see. Yes, there is a very visible part of the UK drinking culture that involves getting pissed up in town centres. But just because it is highly visible and gets attention from the press does not mean it is 'normal'. Nor does it say anything about how much the average person drinks, or what health outcomes are in the UK versus France.

I don't need to go to France to change my drinking habits, because I'm already not going out in town getting pissed and starting fights. That aspect of UK drinking culture is obviously not great, and of course it would be better if people could go out and have a few without getting blind drunk. But I disagree when you say that it is so much better in France when they drink more overall and have worse health consequences from alcohol.

" Yes, there is a very visible part of the UK drinking culture that involves getting pissed up in town centres. But just because it is highly visible and gets attention from the press does not mean it is 'normal'."

Er... What exactly is your definition of 'normal' if not stuff that happens often & is expected?

This thread is about drinking alcohol being 'normalised' and I have been saying that the problem in the UK is not that it is normalised (because it is normal in many other places including France) but that the culture of drinking is about consuming huge amounts and drinking to get drunk.

"...the culture of drinking is about consuming huge amounts and drinking to get drunk."

No it's not. Some people maybe, but a relatively small proportion.