Two bottles of wine a week is 30% over Govt alcohol guidelines for women - YIKES

[MintyyAeroEgg]

I am slow on the uptake but I have just sat down and worked this out and now feel, well, almost tearful tbh.

I know its only guidelines and there must be some leeway but it has never truly hit home to me just how little alcohol is, apparently, too much .

No SGB what is bullshit is the way this society fails to recognise the problems drinking to excess is causing us.

Health, relationships, finances, reproductive ability, work and personal safety are all compromised by excessive alcohol.

If you have to ask yourself if you're drinking too much then you probably are. We need to stop seeing alcohol as a benign substance that we can swig away at as a god given right and recognise that it's a poison to our bodies.

I'd've thought there's a very good chance that two bottles of wine every week would have some effect on some organ or other.

Jesus. I knock back 2 bottles a week on a good week.

That's a little extreme Solid!
I think biggest problem in UK is that we drink without food.Doesn't really happen in other European countries. Two bottles a week if taken with food not excessive imho.

Biggest issue is being honest with how it makes you feel. I used to drink a fair bit of wine but gradually realised it didn't make me feel great so cut down drastically. Now I barely drink a bottle a month but have occasional splurge. I still love it.

half a bottle of wine a night is a lot

it is scary how such a smalll amount ( IMO ) Puts you over the guidelines/
2 bottles a week is the minimum for me, and I am sur I am not alone

Here is the pubmed abstract for the Million Women Study's results on alcohol.

As I understand it, cancers depend on a multitude of mutations to really develop, so that's why they tend to occur in older people, who've had longer for these mutations to take place. I guess in studies like this you're often looking at maybe a shortened life expectancy rather than "you will get cancer next week".

I like pubmed, as you can at least hunt down a bit of the original research, and therefore aren't dependent on the mediation of journalists.

I did some study recently for an OU course on alcohol and human health - can dig out what stats were there if anyone's interested.

re southern europe, they don't sit and gulp down glass after glass as the Brits can do. So I doubt they drink as much in a week.

I would be interested Habbibu.

er lovemygirls

'AND 8+ pints today (been to a naming ceremony) and just opened my second bottle of wine now. '

8+ pints at a naming cermeony?????? where was the ceremony, Wetherspoons presumably you can't remember how much you actually had with the +, and then you came home and had a whole bottle of wine and were opening your 2nd at half nine? I don't know whether to think your lying or to say respect

thinking about it you posted yesterday so might be still in bed hungover

Well i'm on third pregnancy in 5 years so surely my liver is like a child's now what with all the enforced abstinence.

OK - book is called Alcohol and Human Health, ed. Lesley Smart (OUP, 2007)

p. 101 (paraphrased) - levels of alc. consumption that are harmful vary depending on e.g. BMI, age, medical hist, genetic inheritance and ethnicity. No universal definition of how much alc a person can drink on reg. basis without causing harm.

Amounts quoted as moderate tend to be 1-3 UK units per day (NB this doesn't have gender noted here).

Drinking patterns impt -safer to spread out over a week than same amount all in one go - allows liver a chance to manage it.

p. 16 Women seem more vulnerable to alcohol-related diseases than men - i.e. more likely to dvp serious illness at lower level of consumption than men.

Umm - after all that, it doesn't come down with an opinion on "safe" levels - I guess it's a textbook, rather than guidance. I don't think I've been any help at all!

I like to alternate between wine, weed and nothing. I feel better on nothing but then stress levels tend to build and I pick a poison for a couple of weeks and so the cycle goes on.

I think alcohol is worse for me than it is for others. I know, for example, that if I have as much as a bottle, with or without food, I will be sick at least once.

I can get away with about half a bottle and still feel just about OK. That's pretty lightweight, but I have found I can do other stuff to excess though I don't so much any more.

I feel pissed after half a bottle of wine too

I wish wine was weaker to be honest - I love a glass but 14% is way too strong and I don't like it mixed with soda. If it were 7% or 8% I'd be happier.

I'm clearly a lightweight . That's what happens when you've been pg and bfing for aeons.

I find some of the Times health things are terrible. They really should not be printed. Things are sensationalised to sell papers, not to inform the public of anything sensible.

Plonkety - do you mean the Times article that Kathy linked to? I found that quite cheering tbh. I didn't clink on the very depressing link .

If I'm honest with myself, I do know that my habitual 3 bottles of wine a week is too much. Not good calorie-wise for one thing. So I have decided to cut down but then to find that 2 bottles is STILL too much seems just, well, unfair.

In S Europe, they will drink with food but they also drink a lot less. In Italy, it would not be untypical for 4 people to share ONE bottle of wine with dinner out. It is also common for people to meet for coffee in the evening rather than booze.

I remember a few years back sitting in a very chichi restaurant in Rome seeing a family of 3 adults out for dinner who LEFT half a bottle of (gorgeous, expensive) wine. DH and I had finished our bottle and were pondering going over to pinch theirs before the waiters cleared the table (we didn't, but were tempted). Getting drunk is not common in Europe generally and certainly not among women.

Remember too that a glass of wine is usually larger than the guideline on the bottle. They give you a value per glass which is based on 125ml Paris goblet. Most wineglasses are at least 175ml and some 250ml so you may be taking on more units than just a couple.

I agree that 2 bottles of wine per week per person is very little though. I try to have several alcohol free nights a week, but get through at least 2 bottles a week to myself, so no doubt would be classed as a binge drinker.

Off for a quick (and small) glass now while I prepare our supper.

I am trying to cut down to 2.5 bottles of wine a week. I think that is fair enough. What they don't say is how you drink, what with, etc. I hate being told what to do by the sodding government and almost took up smoking again. It's very dictatorial.

Everyone has their escape. I think it is part of the human condition, and unless lots of things change, we all have our poison.

It's not dictatorial at all. No one's going to make you. Read it and ignore as you wish.

I wish wine producers would go back to the old strengths - when did it creep up from one glass = one unit to whatever it is now? What happened and can it be put back?

Would probably help if pubs went back to selling the old measures as well - the size of a 'glass' of wine has trebled or something over past 20 years.

A lot of the wines are ridiculously strong, some are 15%
I prefer lighter wines 12% but it is really difficult to find them in the super market.
The upsied is they tend to be cheaper!