With Dry July upon us, we thought now was a good time to have a chat about alcohol, how our drinking habits may have changed as a result of the stresses of the pandemic, what the new recommendations for safer drinking are and the benefits (some immediate!) of cutting down.
Effects of the Covid-19 Pandemic
Most of us have probably seen the funny memes that did the rounds back in 2020/21: “Home-schooling is going well. Two students suspended for fighting and one teacher fired for drinking on the job”. As with all good comedy, there is usually a basis of truth! Unsurprisingly, studies are revealing a “pandemic effect” of an increase in alcohol consumption in certain groups such as women aged in their 30s and 40s with child-caring responsibilities. Men in their 20s and 30s were also at risk, citing reduced hours and job losses. Spending on alcohol was up across all socio-economic groups. Anecdotal reports indicate that these habits may have persisted into our “new normal” – habits are hard to break and the disruptions and uncertainties of the pandemic are ongoing.
How much is too much?
Easily missed in the daily covid news cycle of 2020, were the release of updated alcohol guidelines by the NH&MRC, Australia’s leading expert body in health and medical research. In December 2020, based on extensive review of new research over the intervening decade, the safe limits for healthy adults were dropped from 14 standard drinks per week to 10. Any more than 4 standard drinks consumed in one sitting was defined as harmful.
Also reviewed were recommendations for those under the age of 18 and pregnant women, the conclusion being there is no safe level of alcohol consumption for these two groups.
What is a standard drink? The answer may surprise you!
A standard drink contains 10gms of pure alcohol, in whatever form – beer, wine or spirits. To use wine as an example – 100mls of white wine contains 10gms of alcohol. That’s one standard drink. The trap is, that most restaurant or bar glasses of wine are poured to 150mls. That’s 1.5 standard drinks. And most of us at home likely pour even more than this; two glasses of self-poured wine could easily amount to close to 4 standard drinks which is half the bottle.
It’s not hard to see that our actual intake of alcohol may be higher than we think it is! See the chart below for other standard drink sizes.
Why were the guidelines changed?
A number of new studies were looked at, which built on earlier findings, that revealed some alarming statistics. Top of this list was the significant increase in the risk of several cancers seen in those regularly consuming even the previously recommended limit of 14 standard drinks a week. Those cancers include breast, throat, bowel, liver, oesophagus and mouth. Even just regularly consuming one standard drink a day has been linked to an increase in the risk of breast cancer in women, for example.
Other health problems linked to alcohol:
- Cardiovascular disease including high blood pressure, heart attack and stroke
- Memory problems including dementia
- Being overweight
- Diabetes
- Injuries from accidents
- Relationship problems and family violence
Benefits of cutting down
There are many other benefits to cutting down your alcohol intake besides reducing your risk of cancer and the other health problems listed above. The good news is that many of these benefits will be noticeable within weeks!
- Improved sleep – despite having a sedative effect, alcohol disrupts normal sleep patterns making it hard to achieve proper deep and restorative sleep.
- More energy – by improving sleep quality and hydration (alcohol acts as a diuretic).
- Better immunity – who doesn’t want this at the moment?! Alcohol can suppress various immune functions such as white cell production, increasing our chances of getting viral and bacterial infections and taking longer to fight them off.
- Better looking skin – alcohol is linked to a number of inflammatory skin conditions like eczema, psoriasis and rosacea as well as puffiness, premature ageing and dry skin due to dehydration.
- Improved memory – even just one standard drink a day has been shown to shrink an area of the brain (the hippocampus) associated with memory formation. Cutting back can improve focus and concentration.
- Improved mental health – using alcohol to manage feelings of stress, anxiety or depression (“self-medicating”) is common but usually makes these conditions worse. Cutting back can significantly improve many of the associated negative emotions such as anger, irritability and anxiety.
- Weight loss – alcohol contains a significant number of empty (non-nutritious) calories, interferes with normal fat metabolism and deposits, especially around the abdomen and increases our appetite for high fat foods.
Tips on cutting down
Step one: it’s a cliché, but recognising you need to cut down is the most important step of all.
Some others:
- Set some limits such as alcohol-free days or the number of drinks if you go out and so on.
- Alternate alcoholic drinks with non-alcoholic drinks.
- Try to finish a drink before starting another – top-ups make it easy to lose track.
- Try swapping to a low or no-alcohol version of your favourite drink.
- Maybe you’d like to give Dry July a go? Do it with a friend, maybe even raise some money for charity. See below for links.
- There are a number of online resources to help you cut down, see below.
- Talk to your GP, we can provide support and refer you if you need specialist help such as counselling.
Photo by gaspar zaldo on Unsplash
Further reading: