Alcohol Awareness Week ends today, and this year’s theme, “Alcohol and me”, is a useful one [1]. Not alcohol in general. Not alcohol as a political argument. Alcohol and me.
That is the right place to start, because drinking is rarely just about alcohol. It is about what we are trying to get from it.
For some people, the answer is sociability. A drink marks the end of the day, helps conversation begin, and makes a table feel more convivial. For others, it is confidence, reward, stress relief, sleep, habit, boredom, or simply not wanting to be the person who says no when everyone else is having one.
None of this is foolish. Alcohol has endured because it does something people value. It can reduce inhibition, lower tension and make social contact feel easier. That is why it has been woven into meals, celebrations, pubs, sport, grief, dating, work events and family life.
The difficulty is that alcohol is a rather blunt way of achieving these effects. It acts on GABA, the brain’s main calming system, which is part of why it can initially make people feel more relaxed. But it does not stop there. It also affects sleep, mood, judgement, memory, appetite, anxiety, blood pressure, and the reward systems that shape habit.
This is why the question “am I drinking too much?” is not always the most useful first question. A better one may be: what job am I asking alcohol to do?
If the job is to celebrate with friends, that is one thing. If it is to cope with stress, loneliness, anxiety or low mood most evenings, that is another. If it is simply to fit in, keep up, or avoid awkwardness, that is worth noticing too.
The Alcohol Awareness Week campaign encourages people to check in on their drinking in a non-judgemental way [1]. I like that phrase: check in. It is not an instruction to panic, nor a demand to abstain. It is an invitation to be honest.
The most useful kind of change usually begins with observation. Keep track for a week: what you drank, when, where, with whom, and why. You may find the pattern is not what you thought. Many people do not decide to drink as often as they drift into it.
Then decide what you want. Do you want to drink less often? Less per occasion? Avoid drinking alone? Stop using alcohol as your default response to stress? Protect your sleep? Lose weight? Feel clearer in the morning? These are much better goals than vague promises to “be good”.
For some people, cutting down is a sensible aim. For others, especially where there may be dependence, withdrawal symptoms, repeated failed attempts to stop, or a health condition made worse by drinking, it may be better to seek medical advice and consider stopping altogether.
For everyone else, a few simple rules can help.
My practical advice
- Don’t drink alcohol to quench thirst. Have water, a soft drink or a functional alternative first.
- Decide before you start how much you intend to drink.
- Try 'Zebra Striping' by alternating between one alcoholic drink, then one non-alcoholic drink.
- Don’t pre-load before going out. It is very easy to arrive already past the point you meant to stop.
- Eat before drinking, ideally something with protein, fat and slow-release carbohydrate.
- Avoid energy drinks as mixers. Caffeine can make people drink more and faster.
- Notice the reason. Are you drinking for pleasure, or to cope?
- If alcohol is doing too much emotional work for you, talk to someone.
Pleasure is part of life. So is risk. The aim is not to remove every pleasure, but to know what you are getting from it, what it is costing you, and whether there is a better way to get the benefit you want.
—Professor David Nutt
References
[1] https://alcoholchange.org.uk/get-involved/campaigns/alcohol-awareness-week-1
