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

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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 wonder if it times alcohol Will go the way smoking has
Utterly unlikely

Smoking was clamped down on because of the damage it did to non smokers
Roy Castle was the poster child for "passive smoking"
there is no such thing as "passive drinking"

Before the smoking ban my clothes stank after work because my colleagues smoked
The fact that they drank at lunchtime had no direct impact on me.

Lots of things were normalised in the 19th century and earlier that would be considered dysfunctional and unhealthy now

How is that relevant to people in the U.K. today who have access to a safe water supply? There are plenty of things that were normal in the past that aren't advisable today. Maybe we should shit in holes in the ground instead of using toilets as well?

I think what you lot are missing is this: NOBODY CARES. People like and had always liked alcohol. It never changes, no matter how many new guidelines come out or what reports you come up with.

Some people will not drink, some people will drink far too much. And most of us will be in the middle drinking what we want when we want to. And no patronising lecture or new guideline is going to change anything at all.

I'm very damaged by another person's drinking.

No, not missing that bit. Got that

And FWIW, I think the people who can just say "Societally we might have an issue but in my house I think we're okay." probably are okay.

The people on a mission to cite historical drinking patterns and deny any society-level problem are more interesting and would worry me if they were my friends talking.

~430ml to be a bit more exact dieselKiller. That's one large and one standard glass in pub measures. Up to you whether you think a large glass as served in a pub/restaurant is 'enormous' or not. Either way, it is not what most people have in mind when the loaded word 'binge' is used. The anti-alcohol lobby use this as evidence to show that more people are drinking dangerously. But I'd argue that the basis for this being a dangerous level of drinking is very flimsy. And the problem with all this is that it focuses on those who drink relatively moderately - maybe a bit above government guidelines, but not massively so - and the main issues associated with drinking in this country (those drinking a bottle of wine a night killing themselves with liver damage, violence and crime as a result of excessive drinking) are not addressed as well as they could be.

Campaigns, changes in pricing and labelling etc do work though.
There are some people who still smoke the same amount now that cigarettes are nearly £10 a pack and have hideous pictures on them but many have cut down or stopped. I'm not sure why you think it would be any different with alcohol.

because it is different with alcohol, that;s why.

I agree, but I also accept that my views may be biased as my mum and her husband both drink to excess and it's very hard to witness.

They drink to the point they can't stand, walk or talk. Other family members find it funny and harmless but I find it hard to deal with- especially when they become abusive and hurt themselves or each other.

They both have alcohol related heart conditions.

As a child my mum lost her temper with em regularly when drunk, beat me and threatened to kill herself. At 12 I found her passed out on bathroom floor and had to call 999 as I couldn't break the door down or rouse her. It was a horrible experience and has stayed with me.

As a result I never ever drink with my mum present and rarely drink at all.

I can't understand how it's touted as a good way to relax. Numbing maybe yes, but not relaxing. But I accept that's maybe just my perception.

In case you were including me in that Battleax, I don't deny that there are problems with how alcohol is consumed in this country. I just think that it is overplayed, and talk of 'Binge Britain' and the like, whilst highlighting a real problem, is not typical of how people drink in this country.

The stuff about how we've drunk through history I just find interesting. You're right that just because we drank lots in the past doesn't mean it's OK now. But it is frequently portrayed that we are worse than we've ever been before, which isn't the case.

Pretty soon the guidelines will be zero. Because they're created with the assumption that everyone is a drunken idiot. It's the same way with alcohol in pregnancy guidelines.

No, I meant Talk and some others way up thread.

There's a difference between interesting historical information and "it's 'normal' because the Georgians did it".

'There are some people who still smoke the same amount now that cigarettes are nearly £10 a pack and have hideous pictures on them but many have cut down or stopped. I'm not sure why you think it would be any different with alcohol.'

Because it's been around for thousands of years. Pricing it higher leads to black markets and crime. Personally, I'm learning to make my own wine because the fucking nanny state in Scotland went for minimum pricing. It won't make me stop enjoying alcohol. Just another way to tax responsible people.

Trouble is before you have that first drink you dont know if you will be a problem drinker or not.

Or as my good friend once said 'sucks to be you, Batty'.

Im sober. It took too much away from me. My home. Any kind of bearable future. My health.

Ild never demand people dont drink. I begged my children never even to taste it, as im not so sure it doesn't have a genetic component.

I hate booze passionately.

My life cant ever be fixed and it is all booze's fault.

I take the point about all the other vices that many of us have- sugar, fat, lack of exercise. However, these are different in that excess of them don't make people loose their judgement, inhibitions or become out of control.

They are dangerous in their own way- but it's different to alcohol.

Tobacco does not grow in the UK : makes it a lot easier to regulate.
Tobacco usage is dropping because tobacco is so horribly toxic - very few long term smokers end up without disease.
Smoking indoors is antisocial.
A smoker sat in front of me in the cinema the other day. I could smell it.
One of my clients smokes so much I can tell when he's dropped off papers in the porch.

Alcohol can be made from myriad things that grow in the UK
It is no longer acceptable to drink at work, it is no longer acceptable to be drunk at work.
It is no longer acceptable to drink while driving, it is no longer acceptable to drive while drunk.

But drinking per se will persist because alcohol goes better with food than IrnBru

Minimum pricing may not make you stop or drink less expat but nor does it seem to have plunged you into the criminal underworld. On the whole higher pricing will make people drink less and suffer less alcohol related disease.
My gm smoked heavily from a teen until she was 70 and then stopped overnight. Not due to a health scare or anything but because the price of her brand of cigarettes went up to more than she was prepared to pay. These things do make a difference.

portia me too :-(

There is a new government strategy coming in to be implemented next year called CQUINS.
There's also talk of mandatory screening in a&e, because people rarely say how much they drink truthfully- understandable we all know the guidance and a lot of people don't want what they thing will be a lecture.

The other thing coming is is when blood tests come In LFTs will be done as standard and any trends emerging with be flagged up automatically.

We will see how the NHS goes with that though.

I do take everyone's points on here on board, do drink the odd drink myself. Maybe is my childhood and now taking care of my father who is very old and ill before his time due to drink related illness that makes me think they way I do.

' On the whole higher pricing will make people drink less and suffer less alcohol related disease.'

Yes, fab, let's have people living longer and longer! That's going really well already . . . oh, wait. As for one person quitting overnight because the price got high, well, I live on a council estate. About 70-80% of everyone here smokes, but no one buys fags or baccy at UK prices.

But hey, makes a lot of self-righteous people feel all fuzzy inside.

The other thing coming is is when blood tests come In LFTs will be done as standard and any trends emerging with be flagged up automatically

LFT's can't tell you how much people drink.

I'm afraid they can along with AST, ALT, ALP amongst others. They can be comparable over time and will show patterns and trends

No, they can't. They can tell you about liver damage, they cannot tell you whether alcohol caused it, or how much alcohol a person drinks. It's very dangerous for people to think they can and assume alcohol intake based on LFT's.

I'm not on about working out how much someone drinks. I'm meaning a deranged of reduced liver function over time will give you a bigger picture of damage caused acutely, chronically and then you can go through reasoning to why this is occurring. There are many things other than alcohol but the majority is that cause

Are you going to retract that totally inaccurate statement or not?

I have just explained myself in my post. I'm a nurse, working in this sort of thing. If I wrote down everything we look at regarding bloods and tests and other things I'd be writing all night so apologies if it came across uneducated I just didn't think anyone would want to read it all @peppapigwouldmakelovelyrashers