The Lemon Fool

Governments, get your recommended alcohol limits here,

http://www.miraclesalad.com/webtools/ra ... &Submit=Go



Julian F. G. W.

didds wrote:must be the water over your way!

didds

Dangerous stuff, that. Never drink it unless you've passed it first.

You can of course ignore any wine used in cooking since the alcohol is burned off.

I drink five pints of beer in the pub every Tuesday night...that's my 14 units for the week!

I will also have a bottle of wine over the weekend, maybe a few bottles or cans in the week, the odd glass of champagne with Mrs RS, hmmm it probably isn't worth thinking too much about. Of course this week is the local beer festival so perhaps another 30 units!

John

bungeejumper wrote:

Lootman wrote:Is it? So a bottle is 9 units? So a glass is 2 units? Thought it was 1.

Used to be, back in the days when wine was 8% alcohol. I think 1.6 units per glass /10 per bottle is closer to the mark now that ABV is widely 14%

So wine has become much stronger? Didn't know that.

Majestic Wine Warehouse allows you to search its wines by ABV which I always thought was a handy feature if you want to avoid the weak, watery stuff. A friend of mine always looks at the ABV on the label before buying, but I'm not that bad.

Maybe drinks are getting stronger generally. The resurgence of real IPAs has pushed the ABVs for beers up a quite a bit. 4% beer seems weak these days. And the craft gins are closer to 50% than 40%.

So perhaps the recalibration of units makes sense. Cheers.

And remember that in Scotland the drink driving limit is significantly lower than in England, so if you have a couple of pints of beer at lunchtime, or a large glass of wine - then use public transport. I lunch out regularly with retired colleagues, and most of us previously had a glass of wine with the meal, but with the new limits we have all switched to soft drinks or water. And if you think you may be called upon to drive in the evening (e.g. visit an elderly relative or babysit a grandchild), then the glass of wine at dinner is also off the menu. With these restrictions you have to be pretty determined to reach a level of alcohol that is likely to receive a red card from your GP. On the other hand - if they don't get you on the alcohol, just wait until they extract a blood sample, and you get a stern warning on your sugar intake.

Of course, increasingly dracomian drink driving thresholds (which I am not arguiong about lest there be any confusion!) potentially mereky drive drinking indoors and unseen and largely unmeasured. If you have two glasses of whiskey in a pub, you know exactly the volume consumed. have two whiskies at home though, self poured...

That's not an attack on DD thresholds! Just a thought wrt the "how many units" etc

didds

didds wrote:Of course, increasingly dracomian drink driving thresholds (which I am not arguiong about lest there be any confusion!) potentially merely drive drinking indoors and unseen and largely unmeasured.

I think there is a more ominous unintentional consequence of ever stricter drunk driving penalties, and that is that it increases the incentive to leave the scene of an accident (AKA hit and run).

I was reading about a case (admittedly in the US but the situation isn't that different there) about a man who hit a cyclist and then drove off because he feared the punitive consequences of a DUI. It turned out (there anyway) that the penalty for DUI was worse than the penalty for leaving the scene.

And given that a drunk driver is going to be blamed 100% for an accident even if in fact the drink was not a factor, should it surprise us if the hit-and-run stats go up?

Both of the above might be negative consequences of reducing the drink driving limits. Pub closures are another one.

But I'd think they are negligible effects compared to the positive impact of having fewer drink-related driving incidents.*

* - which I'm sure will be the case. Most people I know in Scotland now drink less when driving.

Scott.

dionaeamuscipula wrote:

didds wrote:

I went to a university that had a medical school, although this was many years ago, as I have just said. I can only assume that if the medics out of that school didn't really understand alcohol units it was because they were too wrecked to go to the appropriate lecture.

DM

Ah, the good old days. I seem to remember that you were only an alcoholic if you drank more than your doctor. The idea being that they had five years at university developing their drinking skills whereas you probably only had three.

Having said that, the real drinkers were the agrics, who seemed to pack five years worth of drinking into three.

Watching Dr Phil Hammond on Countdown, he commented that if you told him that you had X units of alcohol in a week, then he would double it and add 10 to get a realistic figure.

TJH, enjoying an old Specked Hen with a best before date of June 2017. I am obviously not drinking enough.

AleisterCrowley wrote:Nobody will miss me, I have no dependents. Not even a cat.

You will be missed. Make no mistake!

Possibly missed like one misses a bad migraine, or gout

Yes, I get the impression cats are very good at getting over that sort of thing. Most of them eat at several locations anyway (and I'm sure there are groups of people who all think they 'own' the same cat)

I find people that drink alcohol fascinating but not, as a drinking friend tells me, as much as drinking friends find it fascinating that I don't drink.

Drinking friend asks me how i can get though a week, let alone a day or two, without drinking.
I told him I think drinking is for me pointless. I said that being self-employed I have to be alert every moment.
Also, the cost of a drink has gone up a lot. In a rare fit of generosity, I bought my weekly visit to the pub three friends a round of their usual drinks. Chatting to the barman about how much money he had asked me to pay, I asked how do other drinkers manage? He said it amazes him too, just how much the cost of a round or two or more adds up to. Mind you, my small bottle of water at the pub bought just be sociable costs me £1.20. Time I've thrown in a couple of bags of crisps and/or chilli and honey peanuts, we're talking about £2-3. My drinking friends would spend about £5-£10 each.

Actually, when my drinking friend asked why i don't drink, I said I do very occasionally. Took out from my pocket a bottle of Bach's Rescue Remedy" - base is 27% grape based brandy. Friends passed around the phial and all had a sniff. Thanks for that, I said to myself, unusable now.

o/b joke

Q: Do you drink much?
A: No, I spill most of it.

AleisterCrowley wrote:Possibly missed like one misses a bad migraine, or gout

Never underestimate yourself. Let others do that for you.

brightncheerful wrote: a bottle of Bach's Rescue Remedy" - base is 27% grape based brandy. Friends passed around the phial and all had a sniff. Thanks for that, I said to myself, unusable now.

We used to give that to our children when they were young and were ill, or could not sleep.

Does that make us bad parents?

They both like to drink a lot now. I wonder if that caused it?

brightncheerful wrote:... I said that being self-employed I have to be alert every moment.

I'd recommend finding a more believable story - even if you do in fact never sleep, few will believe you!

Gengulphus

The other day I was out on a hike with an old friend who used to be the Dean of a University science faculty. By coincidence she happens to personally know the scientist whose research led to the nomination of 14 units per week being the safe limit.

It turns out that the research has been misrepresented. She was actually asked to come up with the drinking limit that involved zero risk. And that number is 14. But most people are willing to accept a relatively low risk, rather than none, and the safe number in that case is much higher.

Moreover even zero units carries risk as those who don't drink at all carry other risks. In fact the research indicated that an intake of 40 units a week carries the same risk profile as an intake of zero units. 14 is the sweet spot if you are averse to any risk but it is as fair to regard that as a recommended minimum as a recommended maximum. And to adopt that as official guidance smacks of a government conspiracy to try and reduce drinking in general.

Of course, this is just a third hand anecdote if you like. But it is a plausible explanation as to why the "science" varies so much from one country to the next. Because it is more about politics than science.

*rocking to and fro in the corner*