https://www.humantruth.info/binge_drinking_and_pub_culture.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2020
#alcohol #alcoholism #binge_drinking #british_culture #drinking #france #health #italy #pub_culture #trash_culture #UK #UK_health
| Alcohol Consumption in Europe (2016)1 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Pos. | Higher is worse Per Capita1 | |
| 44 | Moldova | 15.2 |
| 43 | Lithuania | 15.0 |
| 42 | Czechia | 14.4 |
| ... | ||
| 29= | Poland | 11.6 |
| 28= | Switzerland | 11.5 |
| 26= | Slovakia | 11.5 |
| 24= | UK | 11.5 |
| 25 | Hungary | 11.4 |
| 24= | Andorra | 11.3 |
| 23 | Belarus | 11.2 |
| 22 | Serbia | 11.1 |
| 21= | Cyprus | 10.8 |
| 20= | Finland | 10.7 |
| Europe Avg | 10.3 | |
| World Avg | 6.2 | |
| q=44. | ||
The UK has seen a 50-year growth in alcohol consumption and it has become a public-health crisis2. In 2007-8 it directly cost the NHS £3 billion2, and overall the national cost is up to £55 billion a year2,3. Across 2007-8, the UK had up to 40,000 alcohol-related deaths, including 350 from acute alcohol poisoning and 8,000 from cirrhosis of the liver2. Consumption has doubled since the late 1950s, whilst in other developed countries such as France and Italy, it has more than halved4; liver disease rates are falling in the EU, but the UK's rises5. The price of alcohol is half what it was in the 1970s4,6. Between 1995 and 2001, binge drinking increased by 35% in the UK4 . The increase in drinking "is reflected in rising death rates from chronic liver disease, the primary cause of which is too much drink", and the UK has some of Europe's worst rates of childhood drunkenness and several thousands of babies are born each year with foetal alcohol syndrome2, which has lifelong effects.
#alcohol #health #sociology #UK
There is nothing wrong with drinking modest and sensible amounts of alcohol but fitness, physical health, mental health and long-term health all suffer as a result of medium- or heavy- drinking7 and the health risks to the baby when pregnant mothers drink8 are well-known. Aside from the effects on the individual, alcohol misuse impacts on entire economies9 via increased health service costs, policing costs and lost days' work. Worldwide, alcohol misuse is "among the top five risk factors for disease, disability and death" and is a "cause of more than 200 disease and injury conditions in individuals, most notably alcohol dependence, liver cirrhosis, cancers and injuries"10. "In 2012... 5.9% of all global deaths, were attributable to alcohol consumption"11. Deaths from chronic alcohol misuse have been rising for decades, and so has violence, abuse, vandalism and crime all associated with alcohol over-use. The aggression and crime associated with alcohol in some Western countries infringes on the human rights of those who want nothing to do with such behaviour. Many of the social effects of alcohol are psychological and cultural; i.e., people don't have to behave criminally or destructively whilst drunk - it is a culturally learned behaviour. Experiments have shown that behaviour can be controlled: Those who do not wish to behave badly whilst drunk, will not do so.
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“In the last 30 years of the 20th century deaths from liver cirrhosis steadily increased, in people aged 35 to 44 years the death rate went up 8-fold in men and almost 7-fold in women. [...] Three times as much alcohol per head is drunk as in the mid 20th century. [...] Binge-drinking causes serious disorder, crime and injuries. 27% of young male and 15% of young female deaths were caused by alcohol. Our teenagers have an appalling drink problem; among Europeans only Bulgaria and the Isle of Man are worse.”
"Alcohol - Health Committee" by UK Govt (2010)3
In 2003, the UK Strategy Unit "estimated the total cost of alcohol to society to be £20 bn"3 and in 2007, another study found it to be £55 bn3 in a period (2007-2008) where the UK saw more than a million hospital admissions caused by alcohol intake2.
“A couple of years ago, the [UK's] Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Sir Liam Donaldson warned of the rapidly-growing medical costs of alcohol use and recommended a sensible policy of increasing the price of the cheapest drinks. [...] Alcohol-related damage already costs each taxpayer £1,000 a year, tripling the price and reducing the harm by two thirds would save everyone £666, making up for the price increase over the bar.”
Criminal Misbehaviour: After a 20-year span of worsening results14, alcohol-related crime came to cost the police £7 billion in 2007/82 and it commands the single biggest use of police manpower in the UK including "1.2 million violent incidents and 500,000 crimes"2. Alcoholism and binge drinking are by far the biggest social problem that British society faces. UK holidaymakers and football fans abroad are bemoaned as the most drunken and most unruly of all foreign travellers. It's hard to tell if it is tragic or hillarious that "binge drinking" appears in the UK Citizenship Test lexicon's list of phrases that immigrants ought to learn in order to integrate into British life15.
#alcoholism #british_culture #children's_health #parenting #trash_culture #UK #UK_health
The effects of UK patterns of alcohol intake on the young are increasing. Between 1970 and 2000, death by cirrhosis, which is normally seen in those after long lives of alcoholism, increased by more than 900% for people aged 25 to 444. The cause is that the young are drinking more frequently, and more heavily. In 2007-8, there were 13 000 hospital admissions of under-18s due to alcohol intake2.
The problems were seen coming. Half a generation ago, according to the NHS, "hundreds more" children found themselves admitted to hospital16 after drinking, compared to previous five years, diagnosed with alcohol poisoning and behavioural disorders caused by excessive drinking17. In 2009 this was confirmed by "an OECD report identifying [British] teenagers as the world's drunkest"18. But perhaps worse of all is those who never had a chance, or a choice: each year now, 6,000 children are born with foetal alcohol syndrome2, with serious lifelong effects.
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#alcoholism #binge_drinking #british_culture #drinking #pub_culture #trash_culture #UK #UK_health #USA
Pub culture is based around drinking relatively strong beer in a (once) smoky, noisy environment that is devoid of any intelligent conversation. It serves as the place where social groups all default to meet in, where businessmen network, where all go to relax. In trash culture the home is not a primary place to entertain friends: the pub is. Home cooking in the UK has quartered, fast food, eating-out and take-away consumption have experienced long-term booms. Once a proud nation of kitchen-socializers, our fitness and health is plummeting to the same fast-food standards of the USA. Pubs are centres of youth violence, shrines to football and sport and most pubs show frequent football games on a variety of large and small screens. Alcohol over-use has become institutionalized, and not just in labour industries. Professional meetings are frequently held in pubs and involve after-discussion binge-drinking. Feminist groups have complained that this pub & alcohol 'circle' around work meeting discriminates against women (who drink less).
Alcohol, irresponsible behaviour, crime and all the other factors of trash culture are all inter-related20. Sociologists sometimes classify households according to the wages of the principal income earner of the house; "lower social groups tend to smoke more, drink more, take less leisure, fewer holidays and participate less in voluntary work"17. There is an association between poverty and drinking, but also between drinking and smoking, and between drinking and all the other aspects of trash culture.
This is not a new phenomenon. For example, an Anglo-Saxon times (5th-11th century) there were many problems with social behaviour, and alehouses were singled out as the cause so that in order to encourage people to drink and behave in moderation, "any quarrels that arose there were more severely punished than elsewhere"21.
The UK government and alcohol lobbies have been too closely knit for too long, making any attempts at curbing alcohol intakes impossible. Although it was the Labour party that rudely reject its Chief Medical Officer's advice, it is mostly the Conservative Party that has allowed business interests to thwart the health profession when it comes to alcohol.
“A couple of years ago, the Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Sir Liam Donaldson warned of the rapidly-growing medical costs of alcohol use and recommended a sensible policy of increasing the price of the cheapest drinks. His report was dismissed in an insulting manner by the Labour government, leading to his leaving the post of CMO early.”
The House of Commons Health Committee summarised the failures of the rest of the government to listen to its own health department, in its stark and direct report of 2009-2010.
“The alcohol problem in this country reflects a failure of will and competence on the part of government Departments and quangos. [... Department of Culture, Media and Sport] has been particularly close to the drinks industry. The interests of the large pub chains and the promotion of the 'night-time' economy have taken priority; Ofcom, the [Advertising Standards Authority] and the Portman Group preside over an advertising and marketing regime which is failing to adequately protect young people. [The Office of Fair Trading] shows a blinkered obsession with competition heedless of concerns about public health. The Treasury for many years pursued a policy of making spirits cheaper in real terms. Collectively Government has failed to address the alcohol problem.”
"Alcohol - Health Committee" by UK Govt (2010)22
#alcohol #health #public_health
The most important and effective way to reduce national alcohol consumption is to increase its price23,24,6,25,26, and reduce its availability23,24,6,26. These cost-effective measures in particular have also been shown to reduce car accidents, liver disease, violence and crime24. Given that prevention is better than cure, and younger adults and teenagers are the most sensitive to price hikes6, increasing the cost of alcohol helps to stop addiction at the best age to do so. Clever marketing increases alcoholism26, and therefore, a standard family-friendly route to curb abuse is to make it illegal to broadcast alcohol advertisements before the national watershed.
Specific interventions can be made against specific problems. A method to reduce antisocial behaviour at night in public spaces is to preventing the sale of alcohol from shops past (for example) 9pm. The UK "has the highest legal limit for drivers' blood alcohol in Europe"6 (80mg per 100ml), although in 2014 Scotland aligned with European norms by reducing its legal limit to 50mg. Setting very low blood alcohol limits for driving6 both saves lives and also reduces alcohol consumption among drivers24 and creates a culture where alcohol is treated more sensitively. It is noteworthy that many of these measures could be unpopular and "require real leadership from government" and "a willingness to stand up to criticism from both the drinks industry and the tabloids"27.
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