Alcohol Help

A new imperial glass size, measuring two thirds of a pint, is set to be introduced in pubs and clubs under proposals to change prescribed quantities of alcohol, Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson announced today.

The option of pouring a two-thirds measure follows calls from many members of the pub trade to allow them more flexibility in serving draught beer and cider, especially those with a higher alcohol content.

The proposal is contained in the Government’s response to the National Measurement Office’s Consultation on specified quantities – non pre-packages and food information, which also includes measures to:

* Deregulate specified quantities for unwrapped bread, while ensuring consumers are still provided with information about the size of non-standard loaves

* Deregulate wine servings of less than 75ml from the requirement to use specified quantities, allowing for more flexibility at wine sampling and tasting sessions

* Replace the existing specified quantities for fortified wines with smaller sizes of 50ml and 70ml, bringing the law into line with current trade practice

* Bring the sale of Brandy into line with other spirits by requiring its sale in specified quantities of 25ml and 35ml

Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson said:

“There is no question of replacing the British pint, but introducing the option of a new imperial measure is good news for consumers, providing them with more choice.

“And the majority of respondents to the consultation supported our view that the two-thirds of a pint measure will also offer greater flexibility for landlords, while not imposing any extra burden on them.”

The consultation sought the views of consumer bodies, retailers, licensed premises and other interested parties. The proposals will require changes to legislation, which the Government will bring forward at the first available opportunity.

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills

Is social drinking becoming an issue for women?

According to a recent survey of 3,000 ladies in the UK women are drinking significantly more than their mother’s generation; with one in ten of the women questioned admitting to having a drink every day and a third saying they enjoyed alcohol a few times a week. Most – nearly 80 per cent – drank wine at home, with almost half – 46 per cent – admitting to drinking on their own. What is most interesting about this survey is that it was not carried out amongst 20-30 year olds as would be expected, but 35-60 year old women.

It seems that alcohol is seen by increasing numbers of women as an everyday ‘treat’, whereas in former generations, women either rarely drank, or saved alcohol for special occasions. The increase in alcohol consumption in women over the age of 35 is further re-enforced by results released earlier this year by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that showed that the largest rise in alcohol consumption levels was in women over 65.

So why are women of a ‘certain age’ increasingly turning to the bottle? Sue Allchurch, director of Linwood Group, explains further: "From an economic point of view, more women earn their own money than any other previous generation and buying alcohol is 65 per cent cheaper than it was 30 years ago. As far back as 2002, the Office of National Statistics was showing that women from managerial and professional households were drinking more regularly than those from routine manual households. In addition, 30% of full-time working-women drank three or more units at least once a week, compared to 21% of women who were economically in-active.** Also, women are using alcohol increasingly as a way to relax and escape from the stresses of life; whether that be opening a bottle of wine to unwind after a bad day, or going out with friends for a social drink mid-week."

So it seems that economic freedom, pressures of balancing work and family life and a rise in social drinking has led to an increase in alcohol consumption in the over 30′s. Although defined as "a casual drink in a social setting, without an intent to get drunk", social drinking can easily move beyond a harmless once a week event to a daily habit. According to Alcohol Concern a third of all women regularly drink more than the government recommended limit – which is 14 units per week for a woman (spaced over a week and not consumed in one or two sessions). The traffic light system, developed by the Linwood Group, is a good way to see if yours, or a loved one’s, drinking habits are within safe limits or not.

For many women it is difficult for them to admit they have a drink problem or even see that their ‘harmless glass of wine’ every day might be doing more damage than good. If asked, they would most likely say that they were social drinkers, and yet could not imagine dinner or a bad day without alcohol. If you are unsure if that social drink or two is becoming a damaging habit, Sue Allchurch recommends the following: "Keep an alcohol diary for a week or two and see just how much alcohol you are actually consuming. It will very soon become apparent by doing a diary, if that ‘odd’ drink is a regular occurrence or not."

Some of the tell tale signs of having a drink problem can be:

- Using alcohol to get through a difficult situation or painful feelings
– Getting annoyed if others tell you that you should be drinking less
– Defending or hiding your drinking from others
– Finding that you have an increased tolerance to alcohol

Linwood Manor

According to the 2008 data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) survey, there were 19.3 million people in the United States who fell under the criteria for needing alcohol treatment. However, only about 8% of these people actually ended up going into a rehabilitation facility. The survey also found that while another four and a half percent realized they had an alcohol problem, they decided not to get help through some form of treatment.

In addition, the survey states that the remaining 87% neither received nor perceived a need for rehab. The criteria looked at for treatment was withdrawal, tolerance, legal troubles, alcohol use in dangerous situations and interference of alcohol in obligations such as home, school and/or work.

The reasons for those not getting treatment varied. Some people reported not being ready to quit abusing alcohol while others stated that cost and insurance barriers got in the way of going into a rehabilitation facility.

To many in the addiction treatment field, these reasons are not surprising. “The two main barriers to getting into a rehabilitation program that we have seen are the ones outlined by SAMHSA,” explains Erica Catton Director of Promotion for Narconon Eastern U.S. “But with more than 8% of our population addicted to alcohol, making successful treatment more available is the best solution to ending this problem.”

Alcohol abuse and addiction cost Americans billions of dollars and many thousands of lives each year. It is also a major contributing factor in many other societal problems, such as the spread of disease, domestic violence, teen pregnancy and automobile accidents.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), there is an average of 79,000 alcohol-related deaths each year and excessive alcohol use is currently the third leading lifestyle-related cause of death for citizens of the United States.

“There was no doubt in my mind as to whether something extremely tragic would result from my drinking,” claims a former alcoholic named Aaron. “I was very fortunate to not have killed someone else or myself because of all of the stupid things I did when I was drunk. Thankfully my family found the right help for me before it was too late.”

Aaron went to a Narconon drug and alcohol rehabilitation center and has now been sober for ten years. Narconon has several long-term treatment facilities throughout the country that have a success rate of more than 70% for permanent sobriety.

Narconon

There is new evidence that depression, obesity and alcohol abuse or dependency are interrelated conditions among young adult women but not men.

Using data collected when young adults were 24, 27 and 30 years of age, a team of University of Washington researchers found that nearly half the sample of 776 young adults tracked during the study met the criteria for one of these conditions at each of these time points.

"The proportion of people with all three of these conditions at any one point is small," said Carolyn McCarty, the lead author of a new study and a UW research associate professor of pediatrics and psychology. "For women there is a great deal of overlap between these common emotional and health problems that span early adulthood. Men may develop one of these conditions but they don’t tend to lead another one later on."

"These conditions are major public health problems. They take a toll on families and community and are not subject to quick fixes. It requires a lot of time, money and energy to treat them."

The study found that:

* Women with an alcohol disorder at age 24 were more than three times as likely to be obese when they were 27.
* Women who are obese at 27 were more than twice as likely to be depressed when they were 30.
* Women who are depressed at 27 were at increased risk for alcohol disorders at 30.
* Obesity offers men some protection against later developing depression.

McCarty said the research did not uncover any step-by-step progression from one these disorders to another. However, she said clinicians treating women with one of these conditions should be aware that patients might develop another disorder.

McCarty said there are two possibilities as to why women with alcohol disorder at 24 were more likely to be obese at 27.

"The caloric intake associated with drinking alcohol may increase metabolic processes leading to weight gain. Or there may be an underlying connection to levels of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, in the reward pathway in the brain because the same pathways reward both food and alcohol intake. It also may be that some people substitute food for alcohol, leading to obesity."

She said body image may play a key role in why women who are obese at 27 are more likely to report depression three years later.

"Body image is particularly important for women. There seems to be a transfer that when women feel bad they eat more. That can have devastating effects emotionally and physically. But for men experiencing obesity, the reverse is true, and obesity seems to be protective against depression. It’s the so-called ‘jolly fat man’ theory, which suggests that overweight people are actually happier."

The link between obesity at 27 and subsequent depression at 30 among women may develop as a result of individuals self-medicating themselves.

"People who feel more emotionally down may use alcohol for a quick lift or a short-term boost. The two conditions may be connected by an underlying stress mechanism. Stress is linked to depression, so women under stress potentially eat and drink more," she said.

The study also showed that income has a significant effect on obesity at age 24 and those with higher incomes had a lower risk for weight problem.

McCarty said that finding is not surprising since many of the least nutritional items are inexpensive, and low income areas do not have the same sources of fresh fruits and vegetables that more affluent ones have.

"It costs more to eat well," she said.

McCarty believes that intervention programs are needed and can play a key role in reducing the growing public health burden caused by these conditions.

"Early prevention is important because the sooner we start the more impact we can have. Interventions should include stress management so we can provide young people with tools to cope with situations and emotions. We also need to explore underlying factors that predispose people to these conditions, such as a family background that is not supportive or is toxic."

Data from the study was drawn from the on-going Seattle Social Development Project, which has been tracking the life course of an urban group of now young adults since 1985. The group was almost evenly split between men and women and was 47 percent white, 26 percent African-American, 22 percent Asian American and 5 percent Native American.

University of Washington

Heading back to campus can expose teens and young adults to many substance-related dangers, including alcohol poisoning.

It’s back-to-school time and that means new or returning dangers facing your kids. Binge drinking is at near epidemic proportions among college students, with drinking starting earlier and earlier. The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (www.niaaa.nih.gov) defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to .08 percent or above. This typically happens when men consume five or more drinks, and when women consume four or more drinks, in about two hours.

Most people who binge drink are not alcohol dependent, according to the Centers for Disease Control. They also report that 30 percent of binge drinking episodes involve college students, with twice as many men binge drinking as women. The most startling statistic may be that nearly 90 percent of the alcohol consumed in the U.S. by those under age 21 is in the form of binge drinks, a practice that carries very serious health risks.

Alcohol poisoning is the most life-threatening consequence of binge drinking, attacking the body’s involuntary reflexes like breathing and the gag reflex. While the latter may seem inconsequential, if your gag reflex isn’t working properly, you can choke on your own vomit and die.

La Paloma

A joint test purchasing operation carried out by Devon County Council Trading Standards Service and Devon and Cornwall Police earlier this month has proved a success.

The exercises, which took place in Torrington, Barnstaple and Braunton, were to check whether retailers would illegally sell alcohol to young people following an earlier operation in June.

On the 4 September Officers and a young volunteer visited a total of eleven businesses and all refused to sell alcohol to the youngster. On the following day in Bideford, to coincide with the local Carnival, two of the ten premises visited sold to the volunteer. Both of the sellers were subject to a fine and the businesses will have a follow up test purchase operation. If the offence is repeated they could lose their licence and face prosecution.

This latest operation has seen a third less off licenses selling to under18s compared with a similar operation in Barnstaple and Torrington in June of this year where six out of eighteen off-licenses sold to underage volunteers.

These operations are coordinated through the Devon Alcohol Awareness Partnership, which represents agencies in Devon committed to reducing alcohol related harm. They were part of an ongoing focus on the problems caused by the sale of age restricted products to youngsters. In previous Devon exercises, approximately 40% of pubs and clubs have sold to those underage compared with 20% of high street retailers.

In the last year, the County Council’s Trading Standards Service has helped and advised all premises selling alcohol and other age restricted products in Devon, including targeted officer advice visits and sending a film and staff training pack called ‘No proof of age – No Sale’. The advice aims to make businesses aware of their responsibilities, such as checking the identification of customers believed to be underage. Retailers are advised to use the Challenge 21 scheme to prevent sales of age restricted goods such as alcohol to young people and some premises are choosing to adopt stricter schemes such as Challenge 25.

Councillor Roger Croad, Devon County Council’s Cabinet Member for Environmental and Regulatory Services, said: “In national surveys, nearly half of the children under 17 claim to drink alcohol at least once a week and a similar number say they buy the alcohol themselves. No illegal sale of alcohol to a young person is acceptable but we are pleased to see such an improvement in North Devon.”

PC Paul Daw, of Barnstaple Police Neighbourhood Support Team, said: “The figures clearly show an improvement, with off-licensed premises becoming much more diligent with regard to not selling alcohol to underage persons. I am pleased that the majority of the trade is taking its responsibilities seriously and implementing the measures to prevent such sales.

“There is a clear link between anti social behaviour and alcohol use in young people. These operations conducted together with our partners at Trading Standards, help reduce alcohol getting into the hands of underage persons.”

Devon County Council

U.S. colleges with the biggest student drinking problems have so far failed to turn the tide, according to a new study.

The research, published in the September issue of the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, found that at 18 heavy-drinking U.S. campuses, students’ alcohol habits showed little change over a dozen years. In 1993, 58 percent of students reported binge drinking in the past two weeks; in 2005, 56 percent said the same. And although 28 percent of students in 1993 said they frequently binged, that figure was 32 percent in 2005.

The study did not look at what, if any, measures the colleges had taken to combat student drinking. But whatever they might have done has apparently not been enough, according to lead researcher Toben F. Nelson, Sc.D., an assistant professor of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.

"Clearly the work is not over," says Nelson, "because what has been done so far has not put a dent in the problem."

For their study, Nelson and his colleagues focused on 18 U.S. colleges that had, in a 1993 survey, shown particularly acute drinking problems. More than half of students surveyed at each school reported a recent drinking binge — defined as at least four or five drinks in a row.

Students at those same schools were surveyed several more times through 2005.

Nelson’s team found that along with the persistently high levels of binge drinking, schools showed little change in the number of students who reported any drinking: 88.5 percent in 1993, and 86 percent in 2005.

Nor was there progress in the behaviors that often go hand-in-hand with problem drinking, like physical injuries, unprotected sex and drunk driving. In 1993, 37 percent of students said they had driven after drinking, and in 2005, the figure was the same — although that marked a decline from a high of 43 percent in 1997.

Yet, Nelson pointed to recommendations made by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism College Drinking Task Force and recent studies that show that there are effective ways to curb college drinking. One of keys seems to be getting the wider community to work with colleges, which includes more controls on the supply of alcohol and better enforcement of laws against underage drinking and alcohol-related violations, such as drinking and driving.

Many schools focus their efforts primarily on the students — for example, offering counseling to those who’ve been found to have a potential drinking problem. But, Nelson says, "we also need programs with broader reach."

In a recent JSAD supplement devoted to college drinking problems, researchers detailed programs that have shown positive results at U.S. campuses, using interventions focused on individuals as well as universities and the surrounding communities.

Parents can also do their part by helping to steer their children toward schools where alcohol is less ingrained in the culture. "Not all colleges are the stereotypical heavy-drinking campus," Nelson points out. "Parents can help their child identify a college environment that will support healthy behavior."

He says that certain characteristics of a school can serve as a tip-off that heavy drinking may be common on campus — including a strong fraternity/sorority presence and a conspicuous number of bars surrounding the campus.

Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs

How long do you wait before getting alcohol under control?

"I’ve got a good job, a loving partner and a cheerful outlook on life. How can I be an alcoholic?"

It seems a reasonable question to ask – but recent research from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden suggests that otherwise ‘socially stable’ people can still suffer from serious alcohol problems and are more likely to delay seeking help getting alcohol under control, even when those problems become critical.

The thesis, submitted by Kristina Berglund of the University’s Department of Psychology, argues that, in order to reach individuals with a ‘hidden’ alcohol problem, public healthcare professionals need to focus on early-stage intervention, perhaps via awareness programmes within workplaces and educational institutions.

"This all goes back to the myth that the typical alcoholic is a lonely down-and-out, sitting on a park bench and swigging from a can of maximum-strength lager," says Sue Allchurch, director of research at Linwood Group. "Time and time again, at our residential rehab centres, we see that this is not the case. Clients come from all walks of life and many have successful careers, loving families and wide-ranging interests. But they’ve found to their cost that the speed at which an alcohol problem escalates can put it all at risk."

Indeed, the University of Gothenburg study demonstrates that point neatly. It found that, while those with incipient alcohol problems may enjoy a good career and social life and experience themselves as being mentally healthy, quality of life rapidly begins to flag the longer the problem persists. Subjects in the study increasingly reported a greater number of physical and mental health problems, and also problems with work and relationships.

That was the case for both men and women, the study found. "With the exception of a small number of differences in drinking habits, there were no differences between the sexes", says Kristina Berglund.

"It’s time society put aside its misconceptions about alcoholics and woke up to the fact that anyone can suffer from this disease," says Sue Allchurch. "If there was less confusion about alcoholism, those people who have the most to lose might be persuaded to seek alcohol addiction help at an earlier stage."

Linwood Manor