'Baby Boomers' and Alcohol

The only alcohol we have is a small bottle of brandy in the pantry that is used for flaming the Christmas pud - it has lasted for years.

In Spain it is perfectly acceptable to say you don't like alcohol in the same way you might say you don't like fish or broccoli. Here people are apt to snigger and say you are being a bore. It all started after Oliver Cromwell. "To prove you are not a Puritan, get drunk with us."

PS I drank enough in my younger days to last a lifetime, stopped a while ago as lost the taste for it.

Thank you Ana I never knew that was how they arrived at a unit

I do agree with Mamie though, that it would be nice to have some proper evidence of the 'safe' limits, rather than the suspicion that someone at the Department of Health plucked a figure out of thin air.

I hardly drink just a glass of wine on social occasions.

I think the reason is that there is an alcoholic streak in my family.My father, and his father before him were both alcholics. Two of my nieces became addicted to drink at an early age.One of whom commited suicide while under the influence. She was just 37 and left three children.The other is now in her early forties and drinks to excess and has accompanying health problems that go with it.

Alchohol is fine in moderation and I would never criticise anyone for having a drink, but when you have experienced the damage that heavy drinking can cause in a family it puts you off. My childhood had unhappy memories caused by my father's drinking habits, his violence being one of them.

Sorry if I have offended anyone but those are my reasons I stay clear of it most of the time.

I have yet to find an alcoholic drink I like, can see no reason to have one just to be sociable, I hope I am that without a glass of wine, and will just have a sip of something if we are having a 'toast'. I find life in pubs easier these days, where we can buy a soft drink and or coffee. The other half enjoys a glass of red wine with his lunch.

I did a small poll of my friends when I saw this thread. Starting with me, hardly at all and rarely buy alcohol except at Xmas. Most of them are either social drinkers or the odd glass of wine. I sure there are plenty who have more but saying older people drink too much is an exaggeration .

MIL is 102 she has a large brandy every night and sometimes a lunchtime sherry - do you think that's what is keeping her going?

How does your small sample of friends counter the research undertaken over many thousands of people, dorsetpennt? All you have found is that your own small poll showed a different experience in your friends (how honest were your friends? Older people's drinking is hidden and not talked about).

The survey used anonymised health records of almost 28,000 people.

www.news-medical.net/news/20150824/Older-people-drink-unsafe-amounts-of-alcohol-study-finds.aspx

Drinking guidelines are not figures plucked from the air, but they are a matter of judgment - this is why they sometimes differ from country to country.

Teetime, your MIL is drinking within 'lower risk' guidelines, from the sound of it - 2-3 units per day.

Born nearer to the beginning than to the end of the War, I'm a 'pre-boomer'. I have rarely been a solitary drinker, apart from a G&T in the bath before a date when I was in my 20s. I probably drank too much at that time, but after marriage and childbirth, we couldn't afford much, apart from that dreadful blended wine in litre bottles - Hirondelle - in the 70s. I am, nowadays, a very minimal social drinker because, being single, I have to do my own driving. My 'drinks' cupboard contains a one third full bottle of Drambuie that must be about 16 years old and various other almost untouched bottles. I have seen the effects of alcohol on senior members of my own family and it's not going to happen to me.

I am probably guilty of drinking more than the recommended guidelines. My DH and I enjoy a drink. We never drink in the daytime (except for the odd beer when on holiday). We make sure we have two alcohol free days a week. I have just had blood tests and I am fine, apart from raised cholesterol which my GP has advised me to try to reduce with exercise etc. Whenever I see these headlines about over 65s drinking too much, I think 'well why wouldn't they?' By the time we reach this age (I am 66) most of us have gone through a lot of awful stuff, I know I have. Having a couple of glasses of wine or whatever in the evening to relax does no harm in my opinion. Some years ago when my DH was in a very stressful job, he began to get chest pains. He had tests and his heart was fine. His GP advised him to sit and relax in the evening and 'have a couple of whiskies'. So he does. Or in his case G&Ts.

I am a pre-boomer too, anno and if alcohol suddenly became extinct, I don't think I would even notice.

Hwever I have a cupboard full of various bottles - most of them bought while on holiday, because we liked the wee taste of them there and then left nine-tenths full because we found that they were not nearly as nice without the sun ans scenery. There are also several bottles of whisky, received as C . . s and birthday gifts and most of them never opened. I am gradually giving them away to deserving causes.

I like a glass of wine with a good meal, and I do use alcohol in cooking sometimes (I make a killer whisky-choppedtomato-and-ketchup sauce for steaks) or I have been known to have a small snifter very occasionally.

Not exactly AA material.

Today's You and Yours is all about this, could be interesting although I suspect we have said much of it!

Yes, dorsetpennt, of course the headlines have exaggerated the results of the report.

Of the 27,991 interviewed, only 9,248 reported consuming alcohol (ie around two thirds said they did not drink at all).

The median alcohol consumption was 6 units per week for the 9,248 who reported drinking (just over half a bottle of wine a week).

The top 5% of the alcohol drinkers (so 462, or 0.02% of the people surveyed, were drinking more than 49 units per week for men and more than 23 units per week for women.

So the bottom line is that 1 in 500 of the people surveyed were drinking way too much. Even then, 23 units is the equivalent of around two and a half bottles of wine a week, or a 250ml glass per day. There will certainly be personal tragedies within this group - and who would have doubted it? - but on the whole the findings are good news surely? Most over 65s drink very responsibly, shock horror.

I hardly drink these days. It's one more thing that contributes to a bad night's sleep. It also contributes negatively to my mood the next day. Just a little little less cheerful and a little less motivated that I would otherwise be. My DH has never really been interested and struggles if he tries to down a second pint of cider in a social setting.
It's possible that the most negative effect on the moderate drinkers is weight gain - and the knock-on effects of that. There are lots of calories in those innocent looking glasses of white wine. G and T with a low-cal tonic is one of the best options from that point of view.
I do wonder about the older drinkers (e.g. someone consuming a bottle of wine a night or more) - whether they have cleared it from their systems in the morning if they are planning on driving. Young livers process alcohol much faster than older ones. And the male liver faster than females (because they are bigger maybe).
On a slight tangent - I would bet that there is a fair number of "baby boomers" for whom cannabis is their drug of choice. Is this is hidden issue? And if so, is it a lot less harmful than alcohol maybe?

Yes, cannabis would be my drug of choice if it wasn't for the fact that I know of too many people that have had problems after smoking the stuff that's around now. A lot of employers test people for cannabis anyway [I believe it stays in the system for a long time]. Someone I know who drinks heavily as a way of unwinding from a stressful job said they would much prefer having a spliff at night but can't because they'd lose their job.

Maggie, no, I don't think that the survey showed that two thirds of over 65s did not consume alcohol - two thirds did not have it on their GP records. This would make sense - the GP would have had to ask, and in most cases, it's just not recorded.

So they had 9000 plus records to go on.

Of these, the ones known to drink, one in 20 were drinking at seriously problematic levels.

This is not the same as '1 in 500 surveyed were drinking way too much' - at least it may be the case literally, but two thirds of the survey were outside the parameters.

Whole study here:

bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/8/e007525.full.pdf+html

What's interesting about this I drink real ale, and with recent things such as diabetes, I do not sympathise with the binge drinkers.
Having to diet I looked on the Drinkware website at units and calories, and even 2 pints are dangerous the more you have the calorie intake increases so less of things like food , will increase your weight, and cause from experience other things.
I have been told to drink 2 litres of water per day as it thins the blood etc
Mick

My mother never touched alcohol or cigarettes and was dead at 58 from a heart attack. My father was a chain smoking alcoholic who lived to be around 70. Until the day he died, he was slim, fit and handsome. My mother was overweight and stressed to the hilt through her life with him. I know it always doesn't follow and sometimes it's the luck of the drawer, but just saying.

luck of the draw not drawer!

Two litres of water a day is a lot Can it really thin the blood? Did a doctor tell you that, 12Michael?

Of course, two litres a day of water are going to be better than 2 litres a day of wine

It definitely does not thin the blood if by that you mean it works as an anti-coagulant. However, if you are anaemic , amongst other Things such as blood pressure issues, you are discouraged from allowing yourself to get dehydrated so perhaps that is one reason behind the recommended 2 l a day.

I expect older people are eating too much cake as well!

I know that I am !

Ah well, I'll take your word for it, elena, because I sadly haven't the time to read the report you've now linked to . I'm easily confused. You're saying then that the report was only based on the records of 9000 people, not 28000 as you stated earlier?

Even if it is 1 in 20 of people who drink having a 250ml glass of 13% wine per day or more, I still can't see this as a cause for panic. The percentage will be much lower when applied to the population in general assuming we accept (do we? does the report?) that rather a lot of over-65s don't drink at all.

You described 21 units earlier as being within 'lower risk' guidelines for Teetime's MIL. I thought the guidelines for women in the UK were up to 14 units per week? Do tell me if I'm wrong again, and I'll increase my consumption! I doubt Teetime's MIL will be worrying either way about her tipple shortening her life!

Incidentally, Canadian guidelines were mentioned earlier in the thread, and they are more generous than ours. For women, they recommend a limit of 10 drinks a week, with their definition of a drink being 142ml wine at 12%. So 17 units a week, and cheers, grannyisland!

www.ccsa.ca/Resource%20Library/2012-Canada-Low-Risk-Alcohol-Drinking-Guidelines-Brochure-en.pdf