Drinking is something to enjoy, but please treat it with respect
I wish reformed alcoholics, health zealots and others would stop preaching to those of us who still enjoy a pint, writes Liam Collins
‘I like a bottle of wine and a good steak while sitting in my garden’
AM I the only one fed up with reformed alcoholics lecturing us about the perils of drinking?
OK, I do drink too much. I’ve always drunk too much, but the question you have to ask yourself is, ‘how much is too much?’, and if the answer is, you can’t function properly, then that’s too much, so give it up. But I wish they would stop proselytising those of us who still enjoy their pint.
A study published recently in the British medical journal The Lancet and given widespread prominence in Ireland, because we love talking about ‘the drink’, concluded that there is no safe level of drinking.
But is there a safe level of living? Go out in the morning and it’s possible you’ll get hit by a bus. And if you stay at home you might fall down the stairs, cut an artery with a carving knife, or fall victim to some other calamity.
Life just isn’t safe, although living in Ireland in 2018 is probably the safest it’s ever been. But back to the drinking. Listening to the evangelism of Senator Frances Black on the radio the other day reminded me of the old Ogden Nash poem: ‘People who have what they want are fond of telling people who haven’t what they want that they really don’t want it.’
Drinking was a problem for Frances. Now she wants all of us who enjoy the jar to be scared into staring at pints with cancer warnings attached.
But I like the ambience of pubs and bars. I like a creamy pint of stout with a fire burning in the corner and good company. I like a pint of Bulmers sitting in solitude outside the Blue Light in the summer after walking in the hills. I like a beer on the pavement in Paris or Rome. I like a bottle of wine and a good steak sitting out in my own back garden.
And yes, I’ve had too much of all those drinks. And I’ve ended up in A&E wasting some kind doctor’s time after cycling into the side of a parked flat bed truck after ‘one too many’.
But A&E is also stuffed with sober people who have also gone and done something stupid like breaking a limb rock-climbing or getting concussion from playing rugby or GAA, or bitten by their pet dog. Are they not equally guilty of wasting the doctors’ and nurses’ time in A&E?
The killjoys who hate alcohol tot up the enormous cost of drinking to the health services. Like with most statistics, it’s bogus. But if they were to do it honestly, they should also factor in the savings in terms of pensions and nursing home costs for those whose drinking puts them in an early grave. And they should also factor in the billions in extra taxes paid into the Exchequer by the steady drinker.
Of course, drink sometimes does bring out the worst in us. I regard myself as reasonably placid by nature, one of those inclined to believe the glass is three-quarters full. But, yes, I have been ratty and raised my voice and become argumentative and alcohol has played a part in that — and for that, I am ashamed. But, as a friend of mine used to say, you always have to go somewhere twice, the second time to apologise.
Is it that reformed alcoholics and health zealots want to take the enjoyment they once got out of drinking (in the early stages of their drinking lives, at least) away from the rest of us who enjoy drink, possibly drink too much on occasions, but can handle the hangovers and never miss a day of work or shirk our responsibilities because of it?
Writing in the Financial Times recently on the subject of why we drink, psychologist Robin Dunbar, of Oxford University, said that “loneliness is a health threat in the western world... how to solve it is a huge challenge, but encouraging people to get out and socialise over a few beers, or a bottle of wine at a village pub, may be a good place to start”.
Scientifically, alcohol plays a huge part in “sustaining friendship networks” and he concluded: “So, if you want to know the secret of a long and happy life, money is not the right answer. Get rid of the takeaway in front of the telly and bin the hasty sandwich at your desk — the most important thing is to take time out with people you know and talk to them over a beer or two, even that bottle of Prosecco if you really must. There’s nothing quite like a convivial evening wrapped around a pint to give you health, happiness and a sense of well being.”
The real problem with drink in Ireland, I believe, is not the lack of regulation, it’s the over-regulation of alcohol that’s got us where we are. The long-running Public Health Alcohol Bill is a perfect example.
The busy-body lawmakers, with nothing better to do than interfere in the process, the more they exaggerate the problem.
In Florence, you see groups of businessmen drinking a Prosecco at 11 in the morning, but they have one glass and go back to work.
In the south of France recently, I asked the barman around 11.30pm what time he closed? He looked around the empty premises and said: “When you go home.” People don’t feel they have to stay until closing time because they’re treated like adults.
Some of us grew up in an Ireland where the barman flashed the lights 20 minutes before closing time and everybody ordered two pints, one of which they didn’t need, but they didn’t want to be bullied out of the premises. These petty rules attempting to make alcohol unattractive actually have the opposite effect.
Let’s treat alcohol as something to be enjoyed and treated with respect and stop scaremongering.
And, by the way, I know plenty of people who have given up the drink for various reasons and continue to have a great time — but they don’t feel the need to convince people who like a jar that if they give it up they can live to a ripe, but joylessly, old age.