Giving up alcohol

[Dingdong]

You may not be, but other people are, while steadfastly refusing to admit their own vices. Fairly hypocritical, I'd say.

Probably best to direct your remarks at them?

They know who they are....

[djnotts]

"The abstainers that I know, are not a happy lot."

I'm a lot happier dry than on 2 bottles of gin/brandy a day!

AA is not for all. Too many religious undertones for me. Rather than 7 days in a locked rehab ward my GP bent the rules and prescribed same medications regime and I shut myself in at home. A hard week.

[Bmblbzzz]

I don't know why some people are asking others what their "vice" is. I haven't read any description of alcohol in this thread as a "vice", only as deleterious to health or wider society. The word "vice" has moral judgements but is devoid of health relevance.

[PedallingSquares]

You may not be, but other people are, while steadfastly refusing to admit their own vices. Fairly hypocritical, I'd say.

Probably best to direct your remarks at them?

They know who they are....

Yes and as per refuses to answer certain questions when called out!

I drink most days, rarely ever drunk, but drink most days. Beers maybe as many as four pints throughout the afternoon, and a couple of wines in the evening.

I'd encourage anyone consuming that much alcohol to cut down. And if they can't manage that on their own to seek professional help.
Jonathan

So tell us Jonathon why you would would recommend a normal drinker like MickF to cut down and seek professional help and why we should take notice of you?
You seem to be a self-proclaimed 'expert' on just about everything and insist on 'links to back up' anything you don't agree with but always seem to opt out when a question is asked of you that you don't want to answer.

[ossie]

- expensive habit. Average now around £4 a pint - £16 an afternoon, plus however much more in the evening. Let's say 4 days a week at £20 a day, (and it's going to be a lot more than that if you are a serious drinker) - £80 week, that's over £4000 a year. All that money pi88ed away. I'd rather have a new bike!

There's a reason Wetherspoons dominate . In my local real ales are around the £2 mark, the cheapest £1.37. They always have guest ales on tap. Its a nice pub in a nice area, full of normal folk. I don't think I've ever seen any drunken behaviour, ever. However when I do pop in (twice a month) I see the same characters who must be there most nights.

I make home brew, a hobby of mine, it works out at 40 pence a pint. So for me 80 pence a night most nights and a glass of claret over dinner or more at weekends. That said the bottles are 500ml less room for carbonation, so equivalent to a 440ml can.....a pint is 568 ml.

I popped up to the smoke two weeks back and paid £5.80 for a pint in Hammersmith, nearly had a coronary, now thats bad for your health

[simonineaston]

The word "vice" has moral judgements but is devoid of health relevance.

It's not a great leap to link personal consumption to the colossal cost of consumption to the nation as a whole. In a situation where a service has to ration treatment, you could make a moral arguement that says folks who bring illness upon themselves by say smoking or drinking, should join the back of the queue...

[Cugel]

The word "vice" has moral judgements but is devoid of health relevance.

It's not a great leap to link personal consumption to the colossal cost of consumption to the nation as a whole. In a situation where a service has to ration treatment, you could make a moral arguement that says folks who bring illness upon themselves by say smoking or drinking, should join the back of the queue...

Or, since its generally a good principle that you should pay for what you consume, charge the grog & fag-damaged rascals for their treatment, if the treatment can be demonstrated to be necessary because of the grog & fag over indulgences. Personally I'd also charge the car makers for the immense amount of harm their products cause.

On the other hand, the NHS does currently refuse treatment of many kinds to those who refuse to give up their damaging grog & fag, because there is no chance of the treatment succeeding if they don't. Why waste the time, effort and money on the kippered lungs and pickled livers either beyond the point of no return or likely to go there post-treatment as the dafty keeps glugging and sucking at their vices? After all, there's a queue of others far more likely to be made well and stay that way.

**********
Many enjoy their freedumbs to self-abuse. Let them do so - as long as they pay the full costs involved, including the compensations to others for the wider harms they do. Sadly, there can be no real compensation for many of these harms. A family damaged for years by a drunken sot and their various egregious behaviours can't be mended with mere cash.

Cugel

[simonineaston]

Quite. So, in summary, we find that we live in a society that attempts - or lays claim to attempting - to be 'as fair as possible' but in fact turns out to be, pretty much, a lottery. No wonder they invented religion!

[Jdsk]

The word "vice" has moral judgements but is devoid of health relevance.

It's not a great leap to link personal consumption to the colossal cost of consumption to the nation as a whole. In a situation where a service has to ration treatment, you could make a moral arguement that says folks who bring illness upon themselves by say smoking or drinking, should join the back of the queue...

This comes up very often. I disagree totally about the ethics. People should be treated according to their need.

And the best way of rationing that anyone has come up with so far is cost-effectiveness, as in the current policy of the NHS in England.

But there's an overwhelming counter-argument based on practicality. Patients don't arrive with problems labelled "caused by alcohol" so this would need to be determined in every case, along with what fraction of cause. Then there would need to be an appeal system. So we would have assessors and the right to legal representation and all of the associated delays. And then there are activities beyond smoking and drinking where the harm was caused by the actions of the patient. That might include contact sports and watersports and climbing, and of course some people might want to include cycling off and on public roads.

All of that expenditure would be much better spent on prevention of harm.

Jonathan

[Bmblbzzz]

The word "vice" has moral judgements but is devoid of health relevance.

It's not a great leap to link personal consumption to the colossal cost of consumption to the nation as a whole. In a situation where a service has to ration treatment, you could make a moral arguement that says folks who bring illness upon themselves by say smoking or drinking, should join the back of the queue...

Which makes it ironic that in this thread, alcohol has only been called a vice indirectly, by people saying "I like to drink, what's your vice?".

[simonineaston]

If the playing field is broad enough that everyone's every need can comfortably be accomodated, then great! But that isn't the case though, is it? Just two spanners: budgets are limited and increasingly, we have data that shows how personal choices can impact on health. As an aside, I recall that both grand-dads smoked, back in a time when the link between tobacco and certain diseases was not well-established.

[simonineaston]

"I like to drink, what's your vice?".

Or as the phrase is, "What's your poison?"!

[Dingdong]

"I like to drink, what's your vice?".

Or as the phrase is, "What's your poison?"!

Indeed, there seems to be a prevalence of 'holier than thous' in this thread. As if they have never abused a substance in their lives! I generally find these types of people have other vices, which they would prefer kept secret

[Jdsk]

If the playing field is broad enough that everyone's every need can comfortably be accomodated, then great! But that isn't the case though, is it? Just two spanners: budgets are limited and increasingly, we have data that shows how personal choices can impact on health. As an aside, I recall that both grand-dads smoked, back in a time when the link between tobacco and certain diseases was not well-established.

Unfortunately rationing is needed in every healthcare system, as you describe. My preference is for cost-effectiveness.

The parallels with tobacco and smoking are very important in this debate for several reasons. The connection was only identified a few decades ago. The researchers didn't expect the major cause of lung cancer to be smoking when they started out. They showed that it was. They showed that the risk went down after cessation. And the overall rates of smoking and harm decreased dramatically in those few decades.

Public health research works. Prevention is better than treatment. Change is possible, including big rapid changes in people's behaviour.

Jonathan

[Dingdong]

If the playing field is broad enough that everyone's every need can comfortably be accomodated, then great! But that isn't the case though, is it? Just two spanners: budgets are limited and increasingly, we have data that shows how personal choices can impact on health. As an aside, I recall that both grand-dads smoked, back in a time when the link between tobacco and certain diseases was not well-established.

Unfortunately rationing is needed in every healthcare system, as you describe. My preference is for cost-effectiveness.

The parallels with tobacco and smoking are very important in this debate for several reasons. The connection was only identified a few decades ago. The researchers didn't expect the major cause of lung cancer to be smoking when they started out. They showed that it was. They showed that the risk went down after cessation. And the overall rates of smoking and harm decreased dramatically in those few decades.

Public health research works. Prevention is better than treatment. Change is possible, including big rapid changes in people's behaviour.

Jonathan

And what exactly is your guilty pleasure?