Veronica Callanan

I have yet to meet anyone who counts there alcohol units, have you?

I mean, does anyone go out on a Friday night and think; “well I had 4 units on Wednesday and Monday so I can only have 4 tonight and the other 2 tomorrow lunchtime”.

Nobody does this.

The government drinking guidelines are that men can drink up to 21 units per week and women can drink 14 units per week, by the way these aren’t safe drinking levels (as there is no such thing) but low-risk drinking levels. These units need to spread over the week (not taken in one go) with at least 2 alcohol free days.

It was in the news today that alcohol manufacturers will start labelling bottles with how many units are in each bottle to help drinkers regulate how much they consume.

Don’t get me wrong anything that drinks manufacturers are willing to do to address our nations drink problem is a good thing, however there’s something here that doesn’t quiet add up. Alcohol is a mood and mind altering substance people don’t drink it because they like the taste (generally speaking who actually liked the taste when they first tasted alcohol?) we drink it primarily for the effects. And the effects are that they alter your perception slightly, loosen you up and make you feel differently so there is something bizarre about expecting people who drink this mood and mind altering substance to be able to regulate the amount they take in.

It changes how you feel, so before you drink it you may feel you only want two glasses of wine but after having those two glasses its not unlikely that you feel differently and may feel that another 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 glasses are a good idea.

It’s kind of like asking 5 year olds to regulate their candy intake all by themselves.

There’s something about alcohol that makes you want more of it no matter what your intentions were. I don’t really see how labelling bottles differently is going to change that, after all there are big labels on cigarette packets that scream “SMOKING KILLS” and thousands of people still die of smoking related illnesses every year. Well done to the drinks industry that they are doing something but they are going to have to go much further than that and take responsibility for the drinking culture they helped create. This is what needs to change.

There is a lot of money at stake here, the drinks industry is booming and the more alcohol that is sold the more taxes the government can rake in…………………is it any wonder that no one wants to regulate our alcohol intake too much?

I would be interested in your comments on this issue.

There just isn’t a day that goes by when there isn’t another story on all the awful things drinking can do. It’s a wonder the pubs can get any trade at all its so dastardly bad for everyone. I don’t know about anyone else but I have an amazing ability to ignore this kind of information as I think it doesn’t apply to me. During the worst of my drinking I was always getting different pills from the doctor, for my various ’symptoms’, depression, anxiety, paranoia etc, of course I couldn’t make the links that the massive amount of mood and mind altering substances I consumed could have anything to do with these deeply unpleasant feelings. So when I was checking out the side effects of said pills there was always a big warning, something to do with not mixing them with alcohol or driving heavy vehicles.

Of course the warnings weren’t referring to me they were referring to other people. People who drank too much.

I rationalized that it couldn’t make that much difference, the risks weren’t very high, they probably didn’t mean it, they were just be over cautious.

Now I’ve ‘woken up’ I hope to God I stopped in time, even now I worry from time to time the long term damage I may have caused myself through alcohol and drug abuse. Now I have been ‘restored to sanity’ I don’t even drink coffee because caffeine isn’t good for you. It’s funny though when drinking all the risks in the world wouldn’t have stopped me drinking, potential breast cancer, heart disease, mental health problems, rape, that was stuff that happened to there people. Drinking took priority over all of these potential hazards.

That was stuff that happened to other people, not me right?