I come from a long line of hopeless drinkers. None of us can do it. Mum’s liver is so useless with alcohol that the after-effects of her annual half of lager-shandy have become family legend. Dad didn’t drink because he disapproved on principle of paying good money for anything which wasn’t essential to maintain human life, and couldn’t be kept for the next 20 years in an old cardboard box.
Physiologically things are only getting worse, doubtless as part of the aging process - try as I might I’m now down to half a glass of wine to 3 gallons of water, or else it’s instant headache, bright red face, and the entire weekend spent feeling like a flu victim (drinking on a weekday now being completely out of the question). I can no longer achieve that state between stone-cold sober and hopelessly drunk where amusing jokes seem to rise effortlessly to the lips. It’s just not worth it any more.
It’s all very depressing, especially when I see what a great time everyone else is having. Most of my friends, having drunk like thirsty camels at university, started again once they had babies - drinking being one of the few hobbies you can continue with small children. Everyone’s drinking now: women, children, even middle-class people. The upshot of this is that I’m one of the few people sober enough to spot that things are getting out of hand. I realise this because the only people on my operating lists under 20 stone are alcoholics.
I’ve only anaesthetised seven people this week (neurosurgeons being incapable of doing anything in under three hours) and two of them would keep a small brewery in business. Paul, at age 20, admitted to 70 cans-a-week, and I don’t think he meant Vimto. In theatre, both behaved, physiologically speaking, like patients two or three times their age. For them, and their families, alcohol has stopped being the road to fun.
In fact, just about everyone now accepts that we have a national problem with alcohol, but they still object to anything required to deal with it. A minimum price on alcohol will be unfair to the poor; more expensive wine will disadvantage sensible middle-class professionals; and restrictions on alcohol availability will breach the British right to celebrate the weekend by covering the town centre with vomit.
The usual spokespeople from the drinks industry are wheeled out to lecture us on personal choice and the need for education. Anything, in fact, as long as it’s business as usual down at the brewery. The BMA has now entered the fray…to say it has met a lukewarm response is to put it mildly.
Why is this government so reluctant to act? Does it really care more about pleasing the drinks industry than public health? New Labour is doomed anyway, so it may as well finish with something memorable.
We all suffer, albeit indirectly, from the effects of our national drinking habits. Anyone working with patients must see the misery it brings, and not just to those doing the drinking. For many, like Paul, it’s already too late.
If you believe in ‘small’ government and the supremacy of personal responsibility, you make think this is a price worth paying. Look around Casualty on any night and I think many people would agree it’s one we can no longer afford.
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Tags: Alcohol
