Boozers Galore

Some interesting statistics have surfaced this morning. Interesting, even if hardly surprising. Research by the National Health Service has discovered that the average adult in Scotland is consuming the equivalent of 46 bottles of vodka every year. This is an astonishing amount of alcohol and is 25% higher than in England and Wales. By comparison my consumption of one bottle of whisky, plus about the equivalent of two bottles of whisky as beer and wine in a year is very modest. If the adults in Scotland were to consume their alcohol only as normal strength beer it would be well over 500 pints per year. The government in Scotland is at present pursuing a policy to fix a minimum price for alcoholic drinks. Whether this will help or not is debatable - it will certainly make selling alcohol more profitable, unless the government takes more in tax. Consuming so much alcohol can only be bad for any country. Disruption at week-ends caused by drunks and alcohol fuelled violence cost much in social disruption and in paying for the police and NHS services needed to deal with the consequences. On top of this there are the commercial losses to firms whose staff are drunk or have hang-overs. And finally there are the long-term health consequences to the heaviest drinkers. Some parts of Scotland already have male life expectancies of only 55 years - some 17 years less than the UK national average.

I got drunk a few times as a student but since I was 23 years old I have never been severely drunk. I may have exceeded the driving alcohol limit a few times - not when I was driving a car - but I could never get near the long-term performance levels of these mega-boozers in Scotland.

Alcohol consumption is a national problem in these days when some young people go out every week on Friday and Saturday nights deliberately to get as near as possible to unconscious drunk. The low price of alcohol in supermarkets - where alcoholic drinks can cost less than bottled water - is a factor but at base there is something wrong with a society whose members believe that life is only tolerable if they can drink themselves into oblivion at least once or twice per week. We have members of this society who come to our gym. I would expect it in 23 year olds but there are some men over 40 who still consume vast amounts of alcohol. Coming to the gym regularly helps their overall fitness but it cannot overcome the constant onslaught on their bodies of regular binge drinking.

/