How Much Is Too Much?

I have 2 Questions for you:

1. Do you know what the recommended low-risk guidelines for weekly alcohol consumption are?
2. Do you know what a unit of alcohol is?

In August 2017 thejournal.ie reported on a study that showed that between just 2% & 3% of drinkers in Ireland know what the low-risk guidelines are.

Just to clarify, the guidelines in Ireland are 15 units for men & 12 units for women. But if you don’t know what a unit of alcohol actually is what use is this information? Part of the problem is that, we can make every effort to educate people about the effects of alcohol on our physical & mental health, but if the guidelines offer a parameter that means nothing to most of us, our efforts may well be wasted.

To be clear, there is no healthy level of alcohol to consume. Alcohol is toxic to the human body and no amount of consumption is entirely safe. Sure, you’ll have seen occasional reports in the press like how drinking a little red wine is good for the heart, but these articles ignore the effects on the rest of the body & the impact on your mental health.

In an ideal world, we could rely on alcohol products to be adequately labelled, describing how many units are contained in every bottle or glass but until the industry is forced to label it’s products in the same way that tobacco products are, we are expected to do some maths.. maths which look like the following:

The size of your drink in ml x the ABV (the alcohol volume) / 1000 = Number of Units in your drink.
An example would be 500ml x 5% / 1000 = 2.5 Units

   So at the very time you’re supposedly relaxing, focused on having fun & consuming a product that impairs your cognitive abilities you’re expected to dig out a calculator and work out whether what you’re drinking is within the recommended guidelines. I’m 44. Although I no longer drink alcohol at all I’ve been visiting bars & restaurants regularly for over 26 years and the only time I have ever seen anyone doing maths in one is when a party of folks want to split a bill or if they happen to be playing darts.

So here’s the problem, we rely on an industry to give us the information we need but, clearly, it isn’t in their interests to give us that information – they want us to keep drinking. It’s how they make their money. Our ignorance = profit.

Ireland ranks 6th in the World Health Organisation’s table of countries charting the greatest number of years of life lost by number of litres of alcohol consumed per person.

Now you may be thinking that these figures don’t apply to because you can ‘hold’ your drink better than others. In the world of therapy we call this ‘tolerance’ – In short your tolerance increases over time as you need to consume more alcohol to achieve the effects you desire. Although some people celebrate their tolerance levels, actually tolerance is your enemy. It can fool you into thinking that your body copes better with alcohol but actually it demonstrates that your brain chemistry has changed and although you may need more alcohol to be as effected as before, organs like the liver will be working harder than ever to process the toxins you are consuming and cope with the strain you are putting your body under. It’s easy to see that this is a very dangerous set of circumstances.

Former UK government advisor on alcohol policy, Professor David Nutt special guested on the podcast ‘Jacob Hawley on Drugs’ & explained how alcohol consumption effects longevity:

Consumption 14 Units/Week over 40 years will typically cost a person 4 months of their life.
Consumption of 21 Units/Week over 40 years will typically cost a person 8 – 12 months of their life.
Consumption of 2x bottles of wine a day will typically cost a person between 15 – 20 years of their life.

If you’d like to talk about alcohol use, drug use or any other mental health issue, get in touch to see how we can help you. BroadMinds Therapy remain open for business and we will be happy to help. You will be dealt with privately, discretely, and in complete confidence.