Britain’s drinking problem | Sam Hall
Britain has a booze problem. Specifically, a problem of quantity and frequency; when we’re sad, happy, and celebrating; at weddings, funerals, sports games; when our team loses and when they win. At home, in pubs and clubs; to celebrate the end of the week or even just one day. Fuelling this problem is the availability of cheap alcohol. It is purveyed everywhere in student life, drunk by seemingly everyone, and it isn’t uncommon to see students sinking a drink or two after a lecture or seminar in the Student’s Union and local pubs. Before midday even.
Nor is it uncommon to see my social media awash with pictures of yet another boozy night every Thursday and Saturday morning. Booze has become an emotional support crutch. During the Lenten period and especially since most of the places that serve alcohol are shut, it’s time to re-assess our relationship with alcohol.
Make no mistake; Britain does have a booze problem. Although encouragingly, one-fifth of adults aged 16 and over said that they did not drink alcohol in 2017, and between 2005-2017 the proportion of men who drank alcohol in the week before being interviewed dropped by 10%, it is still a large proportion of young people in particular who seem to have serious drinking problems.
Specifically, a binge drinking problem; of drinkers aged 16-24 in Great Britain who drank in the last week, 33% of men and 27% of women drank more than 12 and 9 units respectively on their heaviest drinking day. Drinking advice has changed recently and now both men and women are recommended not to drink more than 14 units a week on a regular basis; about 6 pints of average-strength beer. Although drinking patterns do change according to age, location, etc. young people specifically have a problem with binge drinking. Though, this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who has had the experience of meandering through our town and city centres late into the night!
But why is this specifically such a severe problem? Calories for a start. Britain has an obesity problem- with 1 in 10 of us overweight- costing the NHS £5.1 billion per year. In 2013, to contribute towards the fight against this, consistent (yet voluntary) colour-coded labelling was standardised on the products on our shelves to help consumers make better informed choices. This isn’t common practise in booze. Probably because the calories in alcohol are dense (almost as much gram for gram as pure fat!) and ‘empty’ without any nutritional value. So, it’s easy to put away the calories and pack on the pounds. Like your beer? A 4% ABV pint contains as many calories as a large slice of pizza. Spirits? Two rum and cokes (singles, you alcoholics!) will set you back a bag of chocolate buttons.
Aside from the calorific ‘weight’ of your drinking, there can be other short-term effects that should not be discounted like:
Accidents and injuries requiring hospital treatment, such as a head injury
Violent behaviour and being a victim of violence
Unprotected sex that could potentially lead to unplanned pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
Loss of personal possessions, such as wallets, keys or mobile phones
Alcohol poisoning – this may lead to vomiting, fits (seizures) and falling unconscious
And alcohol can contribute towards more serious long-term effects such as:
Hopefully this shouldn’t be news for anyone but rather a timely reminder that as pubs and clubs are shut around the UK due to the Coronavirus, now might be a good time for us all to assess our relationship with the bottle. Not to be too morbid but it is also important that it is remembered that alcohol consumption is one of the strongest known links to suicide.
Shifting from the personal to collective sphere, how alcohol consumption affects our communities more specifically is more subtle.
The government believes that alcohol is in some way important to our lives. They must do at some level because in the latest budget duty on wine, beer, cider and spirits was frozen. This comes from a place not of genuine concern for communities but from wanting to be seen as ‘of the people’. Nigel Farage, whatever one might think of his politics, is quite an expert in this form of image-led populism.
Source - Nigel Farage in Belfast, Matt Chorley, Boozer Nigel Farage gives up BEER for January admitting: 'I need a break' (but he still can't kick the smoking habit), Mail Online.
The trouble in perpetuating the drinking culture, where alcohol is seemingly inescapable for those in Britain wanting to attend invite-events and social gatherings of any kind, is that it encourages people to continually break the unwritten social contract that keeps communities alive. Quite literally in this case. Every resident of the UK gets ‘free’ healthcare at the point of use courtesy of the excellent NHS. However, generations of politicians, scared of being called draconian, have been wary of elocuting the second part of that contract- which is just as crucial. That people should do all they reasonably can to avoid unnecessarily burdening our free-at-the-point-of-use healthcare system so that it has the resources it needs for people of genuine accidents and need. That means we should make efforts to eat sensibly, realistically cut out smoking, and of course, watch our drinking. Freezing the duty on booze might be the popular thing to do. But the popular thing to do and the right thing to do are unfortunately sometimes (often) not synonymous.
What the government should do in this respect is recognise that, people are watching their health more and more. The UK in fact, is the second largest fitness market in Europe!
Source - Lora Jones, 'Saving pounds: The rise of the budget gym', BBC News, (16th July 2018), accessed 23rd March 2020.
When it comes to food and drink therefore, Brits ought to be opting for quality and not quantity. It’s encouraging to see that drinkers are beginning to adopt this approach. A trend known as ‘Premiumisation’ has been observed where an increase of sales in £172 million was attributed not towards an increase in overall consumption, but towards more expensive products. Hopefully this is a trend set to continue that will have the side effects of better physical health, in line with our increased interest in overall health and wellbeing, and a stronger national community, by reducing the strain on our beloved NHS. Done so that it can exist and function well for genuine accidents and needs rather than dominated by poor choices.
In all don’t we all need to ask ourselves the following questions for better physical and communal health;
What am I drinking? (calories)
Why am I drinking it (genuine celebration or just to fit in)?
And perhaps, most importantly…
Do I want to?
Combined with observable trends in health and fitness, a focussed emphasis on quality not quantity, should lead to healthier and happier communities. The research is out on this. Britain, though cynical, is an instinctively jolly nation and shaking the excesses of our self-destructive habits would improve our society in untold ways. The UK government and devolved governments should take bolder steps in combatting extreme levels of alcohol consumption and, in this respect, are out of touch with an increasingly conscientious market.
Some might call foul on draconian, nanny-state action. But realistically if we are all to make good the promise of healthcare that’s free at the point of use for generations to come, we need to take good, hard looks at our lifestyle choices.
So with the pubs shut up and Lent coming to an end, what changes will you make?
Cheers!
