Is three bottles of wine a week too much?

[PinkOrchidDream]

My husband, not me. Since I've been pregnant, so abstaining from drink altogether, I've been more aware of his drinking. It's by no means a problem judging by his behaviour but I just wondered if this is (obviously a bit unhealthy) but normal for some. It's spread out over the week so he doesn't binge at weekends.

@Coldwine75

Has anyone else noticed, every drama on tv now people are always drinking wine , with meals, in the evening , its normal life now!

Not necessarily a good thing, to normalize heavy drinking

Btw, we usually aim to have weekdays off booze entirely. We might occasionally have a weeknight drink, but it would be 1 drink. Half a bottle on a weeknight would only happen on a special occasion, birthday or similar.

I don't think we should be telling people that half a bottle of wine a day is normal. It's not.

Keating 5 i agree, obesity , smoking , even stress have a lot more damaging effects than a few bottles of wine a week. 2-3 bottles a week is not that bad at all. I wish people would just open their minds a bit more. Cancer is caused by many things, and many unknowns !!

@BeenAsFarAsMercyAndGrand

Btw, we usually aim to have weekdays off booze entirely. We might occasionally have a weeknight drink, but it would be 1 drink. Half a bottle on a weeknight would only happen on a special occasion, birthday or similar.

I don't think we should be telling people that half a bottle of wine a day is normal. It's not.

But it is , many friends i know share a bottle every evening with dinner. It is normal now , in this life.

It’s way too much.

I wish people would just open their minds a bit more.

You’ll be waiting a long time on here.

ha ha yes, as all Mumsnetters are tea total and perfect hippy mothers lol earning 100k a year !

as all Mumsnetters are tea total and perfect

Or used to treat wine as a food group like me and became t total to avoid killing themselves.

Thats a shame you felt wine was to avoid killing yourself, you must have consumed a lot , glad you have sorted that out for yourself.

Posters need to stop conflating what is normal with what is healthy in terms of alcohol consumption.

I’m not perfect.
I’m not tea [sic] total.

Some weeks I might drink more than what’s recommended but to it every week is really unwise.

It would be better if posters had more self awareness and recognised that they were drinking at unhealthy levels according to the NHS recommendations.

I have days or weeks where I drink a fair amount (well over the 14 units), so I'm not perfect. But that isn't most weeks. I would say that for the majority of people I know, it isn't the norm to drink a reasonable amount every single day, week in week out.

I've got a friend who consumed around 6 bottles of wine over two nights this weekend, i class that as excessive.

Most people i know drink every evening, usually a glass or 2 , its normal as far as i can tell. Better to drink a glass each night than binge drink. Not interested in Nhs limits, set by the government tbh as i do as i want to in my life, and am happy and healthy.

It would be better if posters had more self awareness and recognised that they were drinking at unhealthy levels according to the NHS recommendations.

We could apply this to lots of things though. How many of us are eating ‘unhealthy levels’ of processed food, red meat, salt, saturated fat, sugar according to nhs guidelines?

If you have a healthy diet, slightly elevated alcohol consumption isn’t something I’d be worried about personally.

no I'd say pretty normal for everyone I know, If anything slightly less than average

@TheKeatingFive

It would be better if posters had more self awareness and recognised that they were drinking at unhealthy levels according to the NHS recommendations.

We could apply this to lots of things though. How many of us are eating ‘unhealthy levels’ of processed food, red meat, salt, saturated fat, sugar according to nhs guidelines?

If you have a healthy diet, slightly elevated alcohol consumption isn’t something I’d be worried about personally.

This.....interested to know what these perfect people have in their lives, perfect diets? weight perfect is it? Do you exercise? Do you live your life by every guideline you are told? Get over it

We could apply this to lots of things though. How many of us are eating ‘unhealthy levels’ of processed food, red meat, salt, saturated fat, sugar according to nhs guidelines?

Absolutely. I’d say the same thing on a thread about those things. This is a thread about alcohol.

Yes but there are many many things apart from a few glasses of wine a week that are a lot lot worse Purple Daisies..............this is the point

@Coldwine75

Yes but there are many many things apart from a few glasses of wine a week that are a lot lot worse Purple Daisies..............this is the point

It is irrelevant to the thread.

This is about alcohol.

So on every issue you follow every guideline do you? On food, other parts of your life? Just go away , please

Absolutely. I’d say the same thing on a thread about those things.

Hmm, except that those kinds of threads don’t attract the same degree of comment and the vibe is usually much more ‘everything in moderation’.

People generally fail to recognise how long-standing cultural suspicion and condemnation (stemming largely from religious movements) influences their reactions to alcohol consumption.

From an old guardian article..

How do they know this? Without the aid of an Orwellian two-way telly in every living-room, how did they conclude what constitutes too much? They simply applied their own measures to the 13,000 homes they polled. It was the government that plucked out of thin air a weekly 14 units for women and 21 units for men as the limit for "sensible and safe" drinking. It was the government that worried over the size of the glasses holding these units

@Coldwine75

So on every issue you follow every guideline do you? On food, other parts of your life? Just go away , please

Who made you the thread boss? Why are people who think this is a normal and safe level of drinking the only ones allowed to put their point across here.

I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with knowing how perfect my life is. I am not arguing my own opinion about what’s a sensible level of alcohol consumption is based on my own perfection. It’s what the NHS says.

Exactly , who knows whether these limits are even right? Every person is different, you cant live your life by some government plucked out the air guildeines, you make your own decisions !!

There are some people in denial on here. 1.5 bottles of wine a week is the top end of what we should be drinking. Yes 3 bottles of wine a week (or 2 cold wine) could be doing damage
It’s like cigarettes. You might live to 100 smoking 40 a day or get lung cancer not smoking at all but the RISK is significantly more if you smoke.
You might be fine drinking 3 bottles a week but the risk of getting cirrhosis, gastritis, cancers etc. Or dying of liver failure at 37 like the poor guy I met once who had drunk ONE bottle of wine a night for a year and a half...