Rise of teetotalism: almost half of Brits shun regular drinking
You worry about where your next drink is coming from and plan social, family or work events around alcohol. You have a compulsive need to drink and find it hard to stop once you’ve started. You wake up and drink — or find you want to have a drink in the morning. 1 2 3 It’s very concerning that while the rest of the population ... reduces its alcohol intake, baby boomers are drinking at a similar rate as before.” Dr Tony Rao, co-chairman of the older people’s substance misuse working group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Official figures signal the rise of the teetotaller in Britain — with almost half the population now shunning a regular drink.
The data from the Office for National Statistics shows the proportion of adults who say th0ey drink alcohol is at the lowest level on record.
In total, 56.9 per cent of those aged 16 and over had a drink in the week before being interviewed — a fall from 64.2 per cent in 2005, the new data shows.
The trend has been fuelled by a rise in teetotalism, with 21 per cent of adults not drinking alcohol at all and lower levels of drinking among the rest of the population.
After decades of rising binge drinking, young people are increasingly turning away from alcohol, the figures show. However, hospital admissions related to alcohol have reached a record high, with Britain’s baby boomer generation suffering ill-effects of years of hard living.
The ONS figures show that people aged 45 to 64 were the most likely to have drunk in the last week, with 60 per cent of women and 69 per cent of men doing so.
Separate NHS statistics released yesterday show alcohol-related hospital admissions in England have increased by 64 per cent over the last decade. In 2015/16, there were more than 1.1 million alcohol related hospital admissions, compared with 670,000 in 2005/6. They included 339,000 admissions where alcohol was identified as the primary factor — a record high.
Alcohol is linked to over 60 illnesses and diseases, including heart disease, liver disease and cancer. Admissions due to liver disease have risen 57 per cent over the last decade, and that the number of people diagnosed with alcohol-related cancer has increased 8 per cent.
Clive Henn, Senior Alcohol Adviser at Public Health England said the number of people cutting down their drinking was “very welcome”.
“Alcohol increases the risk of a wide range of health conditions including high blood pressure, some cancers and depression,” he said.
But he said 10 million people were still drinking at levels that increases their risk of harm, impacting particularly hard on poorer communities.
Married and cohabiting couples are also more likely to knock back alcohol on five or more days a week than single people, though they are slightly less likely to binge drink.
Men and women aged 45 to 64 are also more likely to binge drink than other age group across the whole population (classed as four or more units in one session for men and three for women).
The study found that those in managerial or professional jobs are more likely to drink five days a week or more and drink more heavily in a single session than those in intermediate or manual jobs.
Dave Roberts, director general of industry-funded Alcohol Information Partnership, said: “We welcome the positive trends around binge drinking and harmful drinking which have declined by 17 per cent and 23 per cent respectively since 2005.
“The majority of people that choose to drink do so in a moderate and convivial manner.”
Dr Tony Rao, co-chairman of the older people’s substance misuse working group at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: “These figures show that alcohol abuse is not a ‘young person problem’.
“It’s very concerning that while the rest of the population, including younger people, reduces its alcohol intake, baby boomers are drinking at a similar rate as before — and exceeding recommended guidelines.
“People expect to live longer, so they aren’t slowing down just because they’re in their 60s.”
Sarah Hanratty, interim chief executive of the Portman Group, said: “It is not surprising that fewer people are drinking every week as alcohol consumption in the UK has been falling for over a decade.
“What is most welcome is that this change has been accompanied by significant falls in harmful drinking patterns, such as binge drinking.”
They discovered that just three per cent of people who scored highly for all five positive attributes had symptoms of severe depression compared with 22 per cent of people who had a low number of life skills.
Nearly half the people who reported the highest levels of loneliness had the fewest skills, declining to 10.5 per cent in those with the most.
Highly skilled people also had lower levels of cholesterol and of C-reactive protein, a marker of inflammation relevant to a number of different diseases including type 2 diabetes and heart disease. They also had smaller waistlines and walked more quickly, which often predicts a longer life.
The proportion of respondents who rated their health as only fair or poor was 36.7 per cent among those with low life skills, but fell to just six per cent in participants with a higher number of attributes.
Although the researchers say causal conclusions cannot be drawn from the observational study, they said they had been careful to take into account cognitive function, education and family background, ruling them out as being responsible for the outcomes associated with life skills.
Co-author Prof Jane Wardle, of UCL concluded: “Life skills such as persistence, conscientiousness, and control are important in early life.
“Our results suggest that fostering and maintaining these skills in adult life may be relevant to health and wellbeing at older ages.
“This work opens up possibilities for exploring ways in which a range of life skills might be enhanced in people at older ages, for the possible improvement of health, wellbeing, and social function in the later stages of life.”
The research was published in the journal PNAS.