Last night I finally drunk a very nice beer which had been sitting in the fridge for a couple of weeks: a Grand Ridge Supershine. It was a dark ale with a lingering toasty flavour, full of complex malts – a perfect winter beer. It was also 11 percent alcohol, or 4.1 standard drinks, which according to the proposed NHMRC guidelines, constituted a one-bottle binge drink (see also). I guess the fact that I followed it up some time later with a Chivas Regal on ice makes me an alcoholic. Perhaps I can attribute my humiliating defeat at Scrabble at the time with brain damage caused by those two drinks.
I don't deny the need to quantify the safe level of alcohol that can be consumed – it at least provides some guidelines for those who like to follow such things – but putting the safe level at less than four standard drinks is just ridiculous. True, if a couple drink a bottle of wine every night, that might be indicative of some health problem (exactly what health problem isn't quite so obvious), but to label a couple who share a bottle of wine on a Saturday night as binge drinkers just devalues the term "binge" to the point of triviality.
Back when I was a lad, I'm pretty sure that every time I drank with my friends we were binge drinking (by older, more meaningful definitions of "binge"). In fact, we made something of a point of it. But that's what young guys do. And like most people, we all grew out of it. Referring to that sort of drinking as binge drinking is actually meaningful – you're drinking a lot in a short time with the primary objective of getting drunk. But equating that to two pints of Killkeny on a Friday night after work essentially removes any possibility of social stigma that is associated with the behaviour.
I was recently having a discussion with some people about the simplicity of public health messages compared to the complexity of the truth. Despite what we're told, not all cholesterol is bad and we do need some exposure to sunlight with it's UV rays, but you'd hardly know that from the prominent public health campaigns. I suspect safe alcohol consumption is falling victim to the same problem of simplification of the message for a stupid public. I'd imagine that most people could get away with safely binge drinking at the new levels a couple of nights a week, but it's harder to convey your message when it has those provisos.
Frankly, I'd like to see the research behind this new safe level. Just one good meta-analysis would be a good start. Then maybe we can see what the real safe drinking level is – not just the easily promoted one.
I don't deny the need to quantify the safe level of alcohol that can be consumed – it at least provides some guidelines for those who like to follow such things – but putting the safe level at less than four standard drinks is just ridiculous. True, if a couple drink a bottle of wine every night, that might be indicative of some health problem (exactly what health problem isn't quite so obvious), but to label a couple who share a bottle of wine on a Saturday night as binge drinkers just devalues the term "binge" to the point of triviality.
Back when I was a lad, I'm pretty sure that every time I drank with my friends we were binge drinking (by older, more meaningful definitions of "binge"). In fact, we made something of a point of it. But that's what young guys do. And like most people, we all grew out of it. Referring to that sort of drinking as binge drinking is actually meaningful – you're drinking a lot in a short time with the primary objective of getting drunk. But equating that to two pints of Killkeny on a Friday night after work essentially removes any possibility of social stigma that is associated with the behaviour.
I was recently having a discussion with some people about the simplicity of public health messages compared to the complexity of the truth. Despite what we're told, not all cholesterol is bad and we do need some exposure to sunlight with it's UV rays, but you'd hardly know that from the prominent public health campaigns. I suspect safe alcohol consumption is falling victim to the same problem of simplification of the message for a stupid public. I'd imagine that most people could get away with safely binge drinking at the new levels a couple of nights a week, but it's harder to convey your message when it has those provisos.
Frankly, I'd like to see the research behind this new safe level. Just one good meta-analysis would be a good start. Then maybe we can see what the real safe drinking level is – not just the easily promoted one.
2 comments:
yesh what he said. "hic"
Well said Doctor Faustus, and might I add, long time no see.
"what the real safe drinking level is": ground level.
Or anywhere above or below.
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