Middle class parents drinking heavily - new report published

[Digga]

grumbledoak said:

Derek Smith said:

To give my doctor her due the only thing she said was that by any definition, alcohol was a poison.

Oh, it is. That is why we develop a tolerance for it; our body chemistry changes to protect us from the toxin. But we are very resilient to it; a hardened alcoholic can drink enough in one session to kill a non-drinker and still function. This is (part of) why binge-drinking is so bad, the binge drinker does not start with the body chemistry to cope with the alcohol load.

Always remember my grandfather's story of the first death he saw in WW1. They were shipped over to France and put onto a train in big cattle trucks, each carriage had a massive cheese rolled in to sustain the men therein until they got up to the front. One of the lads had bought himself a bottle of scotch which he drank - all of it - on the journey and died before they were off the train.

[Justayellowbadge]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's probably overvaluing the contents.

I'd love to know the last time you drank a 3 quid vino collapso!

[Digga]

Justayellowbadge said:

anonymous said:

[redacted]

That's probably overvaluing the contents.

I'd love to know the last time you drank a 3 quid vino collapso!

Depends where you are! I can remember buying a bottle of El Coto Rioja from a mini market in Lanzarote in the late nineties for under £3 quid, which even back then was about half price.

[prand]

Justayellowbadge said:

That's probably overvaluing the contents.

I'd love to know the last time you drank a 3 quid vino collapso!

They were talking about "British" wine - essentially wine made in the UK from grape extract imported from europe. Never seen any in any shops myself, but they said it was only about £3 a bottle.

In Spain the tax is much much less on a bottle of wine (I believe it's zero, but they migth be taxing it now) so there's no reason you couldn't get a half decent wine for €3.

[otolith]

prand said:

They were talking about "British" wine - essentially wine made in the UK from grape extract imported from europe. Never seen any in any shops myself, but they said it was only about £3 a bottle.

Sounds exactly like homebrew made from a wine kit, which would be a much more cost effective way of obtaining a product made from concentrate!

[Ozzie Osmond]

My experience has been that decent wine isn't much cheaper in France than in UK. Plenty of cheap stuff out there though if that's the bag that you're into.

[c7xlg]

Derek,
I'm sorry to say that I feel I can't agree with your comments about any level of drinking alcohol being bad. You seem to be jumping to some big conclusions.

For example this study http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/06... suggests that no link can be found at all to 'light' drinking during pregnancy and health issues in the child. So making comments that I should be scared after seeing a child with a cleft pallet and therefore my wife shouldn't have drunk a thing during pregnancy seems a little simplistic.

My view, mostly based on articles in the popular press (including things like New Scientist and Scientific America) and some google searches is that moderate drinking, with one or two days of no drinking a week isn't going to have much of an effect either way on my health. Likewise 'light' (couple of glasses of wine a week, never more than 1 at a time) drinking by the mother during pregenacy isn't going to have an effect.

As for drinking and driving. I'm also firmly in the camp that a couple of units isn't going to make a significant effect on your overall safety on the road.

When you factor in how big an effect tiredness, having a cold, being in a grumpy mood, listening to relaxed/aggressive music, talking to a passenger, ranting at the news on the radio can have on your driving, the slight delay in reactions/judgement JUST from having a little alcohol in your system is IMHO insignificant when considering your overall ability to drive safely.