Cycling UK Forum

No. That is a lie pushed by anti alcohol campaigners.

To insist that there is a safe level may be unwise. There's plenty of sober (see what I did there?) evidence to back up ideas that alcohol raises risk levels across all sorts of diseases and conditions and at all sorts of levels, for example here from the WHO. Best to keep an open mind, if poss..

irc wrote: ↑24 Jan 2022, 4:31pm

simonineaston wrote: ↑24 Jan 2022, 3:29pmLatest view is that there's no safe level of alcohol (if I was listening carefully enough to the radio the other day...)

No. That is a lie pushed by anti alcohol campaigners.

"mortality risk is lower for light drinkers than for teetotallers but it then rises. According to this graph, drinkers’ mortality risk rises to that of a teetotaller at 17.6 units per week for women and 21.2 units per week for men. On this analysis, a guideline of 21 units for men was appropriate and a guideline of 14 units for women was slightly over-cautious."

https://velvetgloveironfist.blogspot.co ... s-are.html

This is about the J shaped curve which I mentioned above and the UK guidelines.

If you remove the whole of his argument it doesn't affect the published evidence around harm at all. Evidence is different from policy and national guidelines.

And there are more reliable sources of evidence than Christopher Snowdon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Snowdon

Jonathan

Back to my own boozing, I had forgotten the time when I was an English language assistant in France. I lived in a partly-built school which would eventually house several thousand boarders, but I was then one of only a few residents. On school days, Monday to Wednesday and Friday/Saturday I lunched in the subsidised teachers' canteen and that included wine, consumption limited only by common sense. For my evening meals and lunch on Thursdays and Sundays (and public holidays etc) I fended for myself, eventually using a café not unlike Chez René in Allo, allo. but no German soldiers or British airmen in the attic. I went there with a group of young single male teachers. The meals were 5 NF (7/6d) and a booklet of 10 attracted a 10% discount. Re the booze, the 5NF included a 25cl carafe of red wine but we used to shift a lot more. I eventually wondered if it might be doing me harm, but when I returned home I didn't need a load of red wine with every meal. I regret now not having kept in touch with the many friends I made in France - but that's the Billy-no-mates in me - so I don't know if any suffered from the booze. I do know that a couple of them were affected by the fumes from a faulty heater and one of those died from CO2 poisoning, just after I came home.

simonineaston wrote: ↑24 Jan 2022, 3:29pm

As I understand it very moderate alcohol consumption, a regular glass of wine or a single pint is supposed to be good for you. Thats where I am and where I will normally stay.

Latest view is that there's no safe level of alcohol (if I was listening carefully enough to the radio the other day...) however, that doesn't take into account the psychological effects. How on earth does one quantify countless positive and uplifting social interactions, wheels well & truly oiled - or conversely, countless hours of savage aggression, both verbal and physical, hard on the heels of consumption?

If there is a safe level of consumption - of something that might be described as a poison - then it’ll almost certainly be both low and vary from person to person. By not drinking alcohol at all you loose any health benefits that it might give but you also you limit your risks by definitely being at the safer side of the J curve. To me that abstinence seems like a sensible move and the health benefits of consuming a small amount of alcohol are debatable as is what’s a small amount - to me it’s a grey area that I don’t need to explore but YMMV.

Anecdotally a couple of older relatives were regular drinkers, one heavy and the other moderate, one died after living for nearly a decade with severe dementia - an enormous load on his immediate family - and the other is living in a nursing home now. We’re all different but such observations make you stop and think.

I don't drink at all, and haven't for donkeys years, not because I'm on the wagon or teetotal, I'm just reclusive these days and not being very sociable. I used to drink in my 20s, two or three times a week, but never (deliberately) to excess because I was emetophobic as a kid, and still don't like it as an adult. I always aimed to stop short of going that far, but as a beer drinker I tend to get caught out misjudging quantities with wine and spirits. I made a spectacle of myself at a cocktail party once, and had a helluva hangover after a night out in Corfu where the red wine was on the tables in big jugs that kept getting refilled.

I once broke up with a girl largely over alcohol, she was far from an alcoholic, but she just wasn't the same affable person I was attracted to after she'd had a few drinks.

I enjoy a drink most evenings, beer or red wine as I like the taste. I've never been a spirits man. I rarely drink during the day, christmas day is usually the exception. For 30 years I worked shifts so rarely touched it but I'm now enjoying retirement.

One thing I absolutely do is seek out lower alcohol wines, so 11/12% maximum. The same with beer. This is solely based on how my body reacts to anything stronger, so I've probably found my level in that respect. I also drink plenty of water, so my glass of vino will be next to a pint of chilled water.

I've taken a few sabbaticals from alcohol ( including a year off ) but have decided I'm happy with my drinking habits even though my doc would probably disagree. I guess if a medical issue suddenly came up that was directly attributed to my drinking I'd bin it on the spot.

After 2/3rds of a bottle of Barolo I have nothing useful to contribute to this thead, but please don't stop on my account.

beer or red wine as I like the taste.

With all due respect (as I'm the same as you), you've learnt to like the taste. Humans that haven't aquired the taste, as a consequence of social pressures, will spit out alcoholic drinks as being unpleasant...

simonineaston wrote: ↑24 Jan 2022, 9:17pm

beer or red wine as I like the taste.

With all due respect (as I'm the same as you), you've learnt to like the taste. Humans that haven't aquired the taste, as a consequence of social pressures, will spit out alcoholic drinks as being unpleasant...

No social pressure here. The main pressure was actually smoking, I tried but couldn't do it. There are many foods that I've since acquired a taste for as I got older so our palate changes with age rather than social pressure. None of my grown up children liked red wine but my eldest (almost total non drinker) recently tried a glass at Christmas and commented that it was actually quite nice. I can imagine in 20 years time like me he will be enjoying a glass or two at dinner but who knows, he certainly won't drink it because his dad does.

Alcohol is disguised in all way shapes and forms nowadays but rarely beer (Brewdog aside ) or red wine . In my experience you either like it or don't, or you like the effect alcohol has or don't.

Unless you have been there stop making assumptions.

I just wish I could have some of my friends back - selfish, I know but so many of the ones that have gone were the greatest fun... it doesn't seem right.

Hi,
There is a difference between -

Enjoying it

Cant stop

Won't stop!

I gave up completely for a year about ten years ago, no reason other that I did not need to drink, albeit solely at home.
Another Billy No Mates so not drank socially for over 20 years.

I drink nowadays but only because I fancy a drink of something that tastes that does not upset my dodgy guts, result of several ops due to misspent youth.
I only drink one particular lager, as it sits well in my stomach 4%, I like beer and Guinness etc but has side effects like nausea headaches etc.
So it never touches my lips.
Once drank too much.
Coffee upsets my guts, tea takes too long unless someone else is making it, so its milk for lunch, our tap water is vile and I won't buy bottled water.

But bear in mind I drink an average of two to four cans a week...............................never normally drank more than 3 pints at once 40 years ago.
If I feel not right in the head I am very likely to go for a ride or walk, than take a drink.

Have.................had three alcoholics in the family.
One drank their selves to death at 53.
One kicked their younger brother in the stomach nightly home from the pub.
One uses snide remarks and is bankrupt.
All think they were "Pele"

I think it can be a social thing.
I actually like drinking alcohol and it does not make me averse, but I don't get much opportunity.
Certainly does not mix well with exercise.

Slowtwitch wrote: ↑23 Jan 2022, 7:59am Just wondering what others experience of stopping drinking are, and what effect it has on their social, and cycling life?

For me it's the other way round. Alcohol for me is purely a social thing, and most of that has been cycling related: Wednesday night pub rides and the like. So over the past two years, with those events largely gone, I haven't been drinking. There were three occasions last year on which I drank alcohol (one a bike ride to a pub, one a camping social event, one visiting a cousin). I'm lucky – I think of it as luck – in that I can take it or leave it. I reckon we all probably have an addiction weakness if we happen to meet the right substance, but for me it's not alcohol. (I don't, as yet and maybe ever, know what it is.)

Vorpal wrote: ↑24 Jan 2022, 10:35am

The biggest problem for me has been people being nosy about why or pushing me to have a drink at things like Christmas parties & after-hours work events. Mostly, people just accept it when I say I don't drink, but there is a correlation between how much others have to drink & how nosy or pushy they are about me drinking, so I either stick with a friend who's not drinking, or leave when most everyone else has successfully lowered their inhibitions enough to get pushy with me about it.

The problem in my social circles is that its mainly male dominated. Unless you have a medical condition, a non drinker is always viewed with some suspicion. I've experienced this myself, as a young man I hardly drank at all up until the age of 21. I had a girlfriend at the time and I remember the first time meeting him (a big sailor from Birkenhead) he put a cup (not a glass) of whisky in my hand, as if daring me to drink it. To see, perhaps if I was a 'real man' : I did, and was sick to my stomach that evening. It was probably a third of a bottle.

In many ways I think this idea of a manly drinker is still pretty much the norm, though my son says that drinking is beginning to become less popular in his demographic.
It's for his reason I think giving up still be very difficult. I can't readily remove myself from this social network without a lot of anguish. I suppose its less pervasive among women, but conviviality and a good social life still seem to be tied very tightly together.