Alcohol Consumption Guidelines: Do you care?

[beardy]

I ask why they need a quiet pint.

Those of us who have our quiet pint dont actually need it. It just helps the evening along, like another may enjoy a cup of cocoa and the pint may go hand in hand with a video or listening to some music. A pleasant experience rather than an addiction.
Though I will admit I find it hard to sleep without either my pint or a 200k Audax (and if I have done a 200k Audax, I do tend to reward myself with a pint anyway).

[sjs]

If you hold an opposing opinion you aren't just disagreeing you are evil, or stupid. Perhaps both.

I'd like to put in a word for the stupid. Not everyone can be as intelligent as some of the people here seem to be, and that shouldn't place them as far beneath contempt as some seem to think they are.

[reohn2]

If you hold an opposing opinion you aren't just disagreeing you are evil, or stupid. Perhaps both.

I'd like to put in a word for the stupid. Not everyone can be as intelligent as some of the people here seem to be, and that shouldn't place them as far beneath contempt as some seem to think they are.

+1.

[SpannerGeek]

Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Martin Luther King

[Manc33]

Alcohol pah... the bigger problem is the Government thinking it can tell people what to do and there being guidelines for something like this at all. We should fine them for even trying it... and I am someone that doesn't even drink saying that.

Govern = Control
Mente = Mind

[Shootist]

You still haven't explained why, in your humble (sic) opinion 25 million social drinkers are 'losers'.

Shakespeare put it a little better than your own John Wayne quote:

Hoist own petard.

Concentrate now. That's not what I said. (I assume that what I actually said matters when discussing it). Allow me to help.

But my real constant surprise is why people need to hide from reality behind drugs in order to 'have a good time'. In my eyes they are losers, who cannot cope with life as it is in reality.

If a person can only socialise in a drug taking environment, usually in the company of other drug takers to make it acceptable, then it seems logical that their life is lacking something. They need the drug in order to be better able to associate with their peers, who also need the drug. Can they not 'relax' without that drug? Ask a junkie why he is rattling because he needs a fix. He needs the fix in order to feel normal. The world seems better through a mild alcoholic haze. That, more than a tax increase, would be the intention of a vicious government. Bread and circuses to keep the masses quiet. Can you not see the problem of someone saying "I drink in order to socialise."?

Now, moving on to another fine analysis of yours. You imply that the government is taxing booze to raise more money by screwing the poor. Unfortunately your own post contradicts itself.

You have to look at the bigger socio economic picture here. Revenue from smoking has been declining year on year to £9 billion, revenue from alcohol sales has risen to nearly £20 billion in 2014/15.

To compensate for the loss in tobacco revenue obviously you will have to significantly raise the duty on alcohol. A very imprudent and unpopular thing to do. But not if alcohol is suddenly 'dangerous' and bad for your health. I predict a £7 pint in the not too distant and £35 a bottle of whisky.

Think about the trajectory of tobacco which has almost doubled in price over the last five years to almost £10 a packet...

Revenue from smoking has decreased year on year. This is largely because of the anti smoking advertising this wicked government is paying for and the price hike caused by the wicked government's increase in tobacco taxation. So the wicked government, having lost income by increasing the tax on tobacco products is trying to raise more money by doing the same thing for alcohol that they did with tobacco. Wicked they may be but never that stupid when it comes to money. Your analysis is, in the kindest possible definition, stupid, not to mention self defeating.

[SpannerGeek]

Again, hoist own petard.

Tobacco revenue has decreased (but only by 4%) because of the success of ecigarettes. It costs £70 a week to smoke 20 fags a day, and £3 a week to get the same effect from vaping. The anti smoking lobby is as useless as a chocolate fireguard. People take drugs and drink alcohol because they enjoy the effect. That's the cut and dried of it. If you fail to understand that simple equation then it's your analysis which is fatally flawed. It's also free from any facts or references. Perhaps you didn't think they were important?

I'll get your coat...

[Shootist]

Again, hoist own petard.

Tobacco revenue has decreased (but only by 4%) because of the success of ecigarettes. It costs £70 a week to smoke 20 fags a day, and £3 a week to get the same effect from vaping. The anti smoking lobby is as useless as a chocolate fireguard. People take drugs and drink alcohol because they enjoy the effect. That's the cut and dried of it. If you fail to understand that simple equation then it's your analysis which is fatally flawed. It's also free from any facts or references. Perhaps you didn't think they were important?

I'll get your coat...

You impress me. Very much. You'll never understand why. If vaping hadn't come along, the rate of tobacco use would still have reduced under the combined effect of cost and inconvenience. People start smoking, drinking, and taking drugs because of peer pressure combined with an innate stupidity common in the human race. I've never yet found anyone who enjoyed their first pint of beer, or their first cigarette, and I'll call just about anyone a liar if they say they did. They come to enjoy the effect largely because they are incapable of altering their own lives for the better, and after a while they feel good when intoxicated because that's the nearest they'll get to feeling normal.

With regards to your 'facts and references' I remind you about the saying 'lies, damned lies, and statistics'. Yours for instance do not measure the reduction in smoking caused by the public smoking ban, the price increase of cigarettes, and how long that had to take effect before vaping started to make inroads into tobacco usage. But they suit your argument so you accept them. Three pints a night, every night? At least? (On average, I assume, unless you binge drink to lose the weekend.) So every night, assuming you drink at night, you almost certainly render yourself unfit to drive a car. Not a problem in itself if you don't then drive, but what is it in life that you find you are so unable to face without your drug of choice that you use to such an extent that it renders you incapable of performing a fairly basic function?

You still, BTW, fail to address the point I made which is why people cannot 'have a good time' without disguising reality by putting poisonous mind altering drugs into their body. Might it not be better if people campaigned and worked to improve society rather that watching TV, getting pissed, and moaning about things they could change if they just stayed sober long enough.

[SpannerGeek]

Yes, but vaping DID come along. Here are some of those pesky facts you like so much (source ONS)

Current UK e cigarrette users: 3.1 million

Rise in usage 2013/14: 11%

Rise in usage 2014/15: 22.4%

Projected use 2020: 5.2 million

Those are ALL ex smokers. Pricing and anti cigarette lobbying had almost no effect on cigarette sales up until the e CIG became an popular activity. Check the hmrc tax returns for yourself.
.
Vaping is now the biggest growth small business in the UK

You should probably get your own coat now.

[Vorpal]

People start smoking, drinking, and taking drugs because of peer pressure combined with an innate stupidity common in the human race. I've never yet found anyone who enjoyed their first pint of beer, or their first cigarette, and I'll call just about anyone a liar if they say they did. They come to enjoy the effect largely because they are incapable of altering their own lives for the better, and after a while they feel good when intoxicated because that's the nearest they'll get to feeling normal.

With regards to your 'facts and references' I remind you about the saying 'lies, damned lies, and statistics'. Yours for instance do not measure the reduction in smoking caused by the public smoking ban, the price increase of cigarettes, and how long that had to take effect before vaping started to make inroads into tobacco usage. But they suit your argument so you accept them. Three pints a night, every night? At least? (On average, I assume, unless you binge drink to lose the weekend.) So every night, assuming you drink at night, you almost certainly render yourself unfit to drive a car. Not a problem in itself if you don't then drive, but what is it in life that you find you are so unable to face without your drug of choice that you use to such an extent that it renders you incapable of performing a fairly basic function?

You still, BTW, fail to address the point I made which is why people cannot 'have a good time' without disguising reality by putting poisonous mind altering drugs into their body. Might it not be better if people campaigned and worked to improve society rather that watching TV, getting pissed, and moaning about things they could change if they just stayed sober long enough.

Whilst I am not someone who uses any mind-altering substances, except caffeine, I am still willing to acknowledge that they may have some benefits for their users.

Nicotine, for example, aids concentration and mental work capacity. Alcohol, because it lowers inhibitions, in moderate amounts can also increase creativity. There is scientific evidence for these benefits.

As an example, here is one reported study about the benefits of tobacco use http://www.sott.net/article/269265-Brai ... telligence

Does that mean I am going to take up smoking? No. I don't even want to be in the presence of it, but that doesn't mean that I feel the need to criticise someone who makes a different decision about it.

The best predictor of whether someone will smoke, is not intelligence or economic status, but whether their parents smoke. Is it stupidity to do what one's parents do?

People *can* have a good time without disguising reality (which I'm not sure a pint is going to do, anyway), but some people enjoy a beer or another alcoholic beverage for all sorts of reasons, including flavour.

[Shootist]

Yes, but vaping DID come along. Here are some of those pesky facts you like so much (source ONS)

Current UK e cigarrette users: 3.1 million

Rise in usage 2013/14: 11%

Rise in usage 2014/15: 22.4%

Projected use 2020: 5.2 million

Those are ALL ex smokers. Pricing and anti cigarette lobbying had almost no effect on cigarette sales up until the e CIG became an popular activity. Check the hmrc tax returns for yourself.
.
Vaping is now the biggest growth small business in the UK

You should probably get your own coat now.

All good information on the original subject, which was alcohol consumption in case you forgot.

Why this obsession with my coat? Have you any government figures about coats, perhaps?

[SpannerGeek]

....

[SpannerGeek]

And here are several health benefits of moderate alcohol use (Source: Harvard Medical school) including reduction in heart disease and protection against stroke:

http://www.medicaldaily.com/7-health-be ... hol-247552

[Shootist]

Most of these alleged benefits have been challenged, Only recently the benefits of red wine in relation to heart disease has been challenged in that to obtain the required level of the chemical that is beneficial you would have to drink so much red wine that a pathologist will have to beat your liver to death within a month or two.

But here's the deal. You keep living in your alcoholic haze and I will struggle by without the benefits such consumption provides. Then we will both be content but my contentment will be based upon reality, a state of being I am unlikely to be able to explain to you. I'll also be about £63 a week better of than you, depending upon whereabouts you live (based upon beer). Or about £3276 a year.

And you cannot possibly get my coat as you don't have the slightest idea where it is.

[toomsie]

Alcohol pah... the bigger problem is the Government thinking it can tell people what to do and there being guidelines for something like this at all. We should fine them for even trying it... and I am someone that doesn't even drink saying that.

Govern = Control
Mente = Mind

Offering guidelines is on of the less forceful ways the governments controls its subjects. One of the benefits of having private health insurance is that they would have a vested interest in assessing real health risks( Seeing reality). They would give discounts for non drinkers or cyclists. The insurance companies would even be able asses the true risk cycling vs health risks due to inactivity.