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.

Bit of a bold fail at the top of my post sorry

What is it about alcohol that makes people so sanctimonious? There's more support on MN for smokers than for people who like a glass of wine. It's weird.

I totally understand the attitude from people who've suffered an upbringing tinged by alcoholism. But that isn't most of us.

Drinking alcohol is entirely normal in my extended, working class family. All adults drank when I was growing up. Most older members of my family lived happy, long lives.

Of course it's not good for you. Neither are so many things. We all choose our risks. Riding a motirbike is a lot more risky than having a glass of wine on Friday, but that's not scorned in the same way.

I know I'd be healthier if I didn't drink every weekend. But I'd also be healthier if I had a superfood salad for breakfast and ran 5k a week. So what? Why the extra special scorn reserved for alcohol?

" how much they don't rely on alcohol to secure smug points, when I'm sure their FB feed is chocca with them having pub lunches, weekends away with friends and xmas parties agogo."

So you think someone who has pub lunches and goes to a Christmas party relies on alcohol? Can't you see that you just don't understand moderate drinking.
Having a drink sometime is not RELYING on it, it's ENJOYING it.

I'm on MN quite often. Do I rely on it? No, I think that would be an exaggeration.

OP, I agree with you.

I drink too much. I need to not.

It’s not the same as sugar or fatty foods because those things aren’t used as social glue. We might joke about needing chocolate but we don’t all get together to eat it until we are sick. Alcohol in and of itself may be fine but culturally, our relationship with it is not.

Twin I don't see booze as being absolutely essential to anything.

On MN you're not allowed to have an alcoholic drink unless you actively don't want one. Otherwise you're dependent

"That is the fault of the people drink driving and getting violent, not the fault of the alcohol

Obviously it is, as without the alcohol they'd just be driving."

And without it they'd just be drinking. Doesn't make it the fault of the car either.
People who drink and drive or become violent should be dealt with. Why should the majority of responsible drinkers be punished for their behaviour?

We might joke about needing chocolate but we don’t all get together to eat it until we are sick

Most of us don't do that with alcohol either.

Crazy that so many of you can't tell the difference between moderate drinking and excessive drinking. Suggests you are the ones with alcohol issues.

" if you've ever tried to push alcohol on someone else you should be very ashamed of yourself."

What do you mean by 'pushing' though. Do you mean like Mrs Boyle does for the tea?
I think we shouldn't push people to eat cake when we have an obese population, but that's apparently fine.

On MN you're not allowed to have an alcoholic drink unless you actively don't want one. Otherwise you're dependent

A neat summary of this thread, it seems.

We might joke about needing chocolate but we don’t all get together to eat it until we are sick*

To be fair I am more likely to do that with chocolate than boozw

If we're talking about making yourself sick from alcohol, we're not really discussing normal, everyday use of the stuff, are we?

I actually totally agree with you Gwen about some people not wanting to acknowledge that not only do they enjoy alcohol, but they also rely on it.

" if you've ever tried to push alcohol on someone else you should be very ashamed of yourself."

Totally agree with Gwen's post above. Is it also shameful to 'push' cake?

Tones of Nancy Reagan on this thread. Binge drinking is very bad. Drinking moderately is very, very nice.

@TheOtherGirl so you have thrown alcohol free parties in the eveninf

Any adult who throws an alcohol-free party should be ashamed of themselves, IMO.

Yawn

Twin it depends on the get together. We all regularly get together for a board games night, where alcohol isn't on the menu (we're very competitive, and it inhibits your ability to play Trivial Pursuit )

Conversely, we throw other get togethers where we do have an alcoholic drink.

@TheOtherGirl so probably exactly the same as those people you are accusing of needing a drink.

Or not. There seems to be a consensus among certain posters that you couldn't and shouldn't have any type of social gathering without alcohol.

"There seems to be a consensus among certain posters that you couldn't and shouldn't have any type of social gathering without alcohol."

Who said that?

Where? Only one person made any comment on it.

I wasn't referring just to comments made on this thread.

You make a very fair point OP

We have normalised it so so so much haven’t we .

I have a very unhealthy relationship with it and I am on my second alcohol free day

I have been binge drinking since I was 17 years old and it’s scary the mishaps I have done in this time

It’s a very important conversation but not a very popular one !!!

@TheOtherGirl was your wedding alcohol free? Was your NYE alcohol free? You have said yourself that you throw social occasion at which you have drink. It seems to me that you do think that alcohol can add to the enjoyment of an occasion whilst chastising others for doing the same as you.