How to tell your parents they’re drinking too much
Giving up alcohol gave Andy Ramage a new lease of life – but could he persuade his mother and father to do the same?
When I hosted a party to celebrate my four-year break from alcohol, last year, I didn’t expect my parents to turn up armed with bottles of champagne. I was marking the publication of my book, The 28-Day Alcohol-free Challenge, which chronicles my mission to give up booze.
Copies of the book lay on the kitchen table, next to an assortment of soft drinks and healthy snacks. But I opened the front door and there they were: my mother and father, standing gleefully on my front step, with bottles of bubbly tucked under each arm.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, really. My parents are both 70-yearold “baby boomers” and, for members of their generation, it seems alcohol is as integral to life as food, water or shelter. It is socially ingrained into their culture. For any birthday, anniversary or, indeed, any book launch, you must bring a drink.
I was not surprised, then, when I read yesterday’s NHS England figures showing that people aged 55 to 64 are driving an increase in alcohol-related hospital admissions. While drinking rates are going down for younger people – almost a third of under-25s have abandoned alcohol entirely – baby boomers can’t quite manage to pry themselves away from the bottle.
With research continuing to link alcohol to high risks of cancer, dementia and stroke, the news will leave many men and women of my age (44) scratching their heads and wondering: just how do you talk to your parents about their drinking habits?
For my own parents, I’ve tried to lead by example. I gave up alcohol five years ago, and it’s transformed my life. Working as a commodities broker in the City, alcohol was everywhere. It was my job to entertain our clients, which invariably involved large quantities of the stuff. Even if I didn’t fancy a drink at the pub, my arm was usually twisted. It was difficult, but I was told my career would suffer if I stopped.
But I did, and the effect was transformational. Even though I had only been drinking twice a week, I realised I had still been under alcohol’s cloud, because it destroys your quality of sleep. After I gave it up, I found myself waking full of energy half an hour before my alarm, my eyes bright. Then it became an hour, then two. It’s incredible what you can do with two extra hours each day.
My drinking had also ruined my diet: with a hangover, a well-planned salad quickly became a hastily bought Mcdonald’s muffin. When sober, I embraced exercise, losing 3st in weight, with my body fat dropping from 30 per cent to just 10 per cent. No more hangovers meant no more pathetic excuses to my personal trainer for why I couldn’t practise that day.
I went back to university and completed a masters in coaching psychology. I left my firm to set up a new brokerage, which eventually grew seven times in size. But the most impressive benefits were those felt by my family.
When I was drinking, I would usually wake up late on a Saturday, buried deep in a painful hangover. My two daughters were already awake, having fun, and I’d have missed half the morning already. Now, I get up before them, full of beans and vibrancy. I can take them swimming or for a walk in the park.
I’m clearly a disciple of the alcoholfree message. But how can I best preach it to my parents’ generation, many of whom have been drinking merrily their whole lives? The absolute worst thing I could do is charge in, like a white knight on his horse, to deliver a pious lecture on the values of sobriety. Nobody likes a finger-wagging, nannystate sermon, especially not your own parents.
But I’m keen to dispel the myth, believed by many members of my parents’ generation, that alcohol is perfectly fine as long as you’re a “social drinker” rather than a “problem drinker”. Social drinkers, the thinking goes, should not worry about their alcohol intake – it’s only those poor alcoholics who should stop. This is wrong. Alcohol consumption is more of a gradient, I think, and there’s no such thing as a “healthy” amount of it; studies have shown that drinking just six glasses of wine per week could knock years off your life.
When trying to get your Baby Boomer parent to cut down, it’s also a good idea to get them involved in some sort of challenge, with a clear aim.
The toughest part of giving up booze, I found, was social pressure. In the early days, I certainly got some funny looks when I said no to a pint. On my 40th birthday, my best friend sent me to the “boring corner” and told me I could come out only when I wanted
Nobody likes a fingerwagging, nannystate sermon, especially not your own parents
a beer. Over my four, alcohol-free years, I have felt this social pressure soften, and I think popular challenges like Dry January are largely to credit. Many dismiss these trends as shortlived fads, but they do offer people a ready-made excuse to pass on a drink. “Sorry, I’m on Dry January,” we can tell our cousin at the family wedding. After a small eye-roll, they’ll usually forget about it.
I fear that the same options aren’t there for baby boomers, who, for whatever reason, aren’t so willing to get on board with these trends. Next January, they could give it a go. Or, even better, they could take a break today.
I have long subscribed to the selfdetermination theory that somebody is far more likely to make a change in their lives if they feel in charge, and they feel it is happening on their own terms. In other words, forcing your parents to abandon the booze probably won’t work. I have always tried not to come across this way. Nobody likes a spoilsport.
Instead, I casually throw into conversation mentions of my own alcohol-free life. I show them that I’ve become a better husband, better father, and better person since I dropped the booze. And it works: my mother and father both drink much less since they’ve seen how much happier it has made me.
Maybe they’ll bring soft drinks to my next celebration…
The 28-Day Alcohol-free Challenge: Sleep Better, Lose Weight, Boost Energy, Beat Anxiety, by Andy Ramage and Ruari Fairbairns (£12.99, Bluebird) is out now. To order, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk