I'm quitting my recreational drug use, and hope new guidance can help others manage theirs

So, we’re going to get some new guidelines from Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer. Shock of all shocks, they're widely expected to tell us that drinking isn’t good for us. Well wouldn’t you know! Nearly every choice we make involves a degree of robbing Peter to give to Paul – ask any smoker who banged on the weight when they tried to quit, or anyone walking around puffing and spluttering like lung cancer on legs insisting that smoking calms and relaxes them.
Whatever the up side of smoking (and there must surely be one), officialdom is quite happy to tell us, unequivocally, that it’s pretty bad for us. We can, of course, choose to ignore it: I admire anyone who openly admits that they know the risks and they have prioritised their enjoyment of smoking over longevity and will face any consequences of that choice.
I take a similarly defiant view with food: sugar and carbohydrates, it seems, are the enemy these days. Fat may be going through a slight period of redemption, but it is only partial. Guidelines are clear that we should lower our intake of both, and they haven’t changed just because there are too many fattsos like me, who believe that our fry-ups, cakes and takeaways make for a more enjoyable life than a life that involves living to 100 thanks to munching rabbit food and having to do ghastly things like jogging. We may dismiss the guidelines, but we certainly haven’t succeeded in stopping the great and the good of conventional health science telling us what’s what, and nor should we.

The question, then, is why officialdom’s perspective on alcohol should be any different. My guess is that Dame Sally, and those who commissioned the anticipated shake-up of guidelines from her, asked themselves the same question and decided that it shouldn’t be. The Daily Mail points out that Dame Sally’s guidance has been criticised for lacking scientific evidence. Why do we need the change if the experts haven’t led the call? But then, our drugs policy has never been based on science alone, otherwise alcohol would almost certainly be a class A drug – like many a class A drug, it can kill you quickly, and its consumption causes antisocial behaviour. That is to miss the point: the new guidelines offer us a new way to think about the booze.
Previous advice has skirted around the facts: like smoking, any good to come from drinking is outweighed by the bad. If people want to make decisions based on the best evidence, therefore, they should adopt a mentality that any drinking is bad for them. Trying to convince people that they should ignore the multiple cancers whose risk is raised by alcohol, or the damage to organs such as the liver and kidney, because red wine may be slightly good for the heart, demonstrates a timidity: alcohol is so pervasive in our society that we’re scared to be blunt about what it does to us, preferring instead half-truths to make the people who sink a couple of glasses of red every night feel a bit better about themselves.
The fact is, guidelines to date have tried to offer us safe limits: safe limits for driving, a safe number of units each day, and a safe amount to drink during pregnancy. If Dame Sally and her team will finally have the guts to point out the bleedin’ obvious – that these so-called safe limits are just the least dangerous options out of a dangerous choice, I welcome that.

I have been truly appalled this year (even only 7 days in), by the extent to which everyone is trying to capitalise on half-arsed resolutions to stop drinking. Cancer Research have been branding it “Dry Athlon,” as though it’s somehow a big achievement, like years of endurance training to compete in the toughest arenas of sport. Meanwhile, Alcohol Concern has been encouraging everyone to adopt a ‘dry January,’ whilst Dame Sally’s suggestion that we stay off the booze a few days a week has received far more anguished or defiant column inches than it ought. Meanwhile, Saturday evening saw LBC devote a whole hour to exploring the question of whether or not Britain has a drink problem, considering such questions as whether drunks are funny or not. The presenter himself came up with the usual nonsense: isn’t it really boring not to drink? Doesn’t it relax you?
These classic New Year scenes, it seems, don’t make the answer to whether or not we have a national problem obvious.

And yet, whilst I listen to all this with absolute dismay, the thing that saddens me more than anything is that I understand why there is such denial and such fierce debate. Like most people, I drink. Like most people, I feel under pressure to drink even if it is, of course, my choice and my responsibility. Alcohol is everywhere: whether it’s business or pleasure, a night out with friends or a family gathering, booze is a part of it. As a serious light-weight, I’ve got used to events big and small dissolving in to half memories where I try desperately to focus on keeping my conversation coherent, not knocking things over, and trying to stay alert if on a train home. Then there’s the mornings: the shame, the worry, the feeling bloody awful. And why is it funny? Because we did it with wine, beer or some other substance. The acceptability of the stuff I’ve been consuming allows me to brand it ‘social drinking.’ Actually, it makes me a recreational drug user. I don’t want to be a recreational drug user.
So I am doing ‘Dry January.’ I will probably do a dry February as well. I will probably stick to it this time, for good.
What has put me off making a permanent choice to be teetotal before, is the initial difficulties of coming off the drug that changes our social interaction. I now won’t have to worry that I’m babbling or talking too loud, or going to say something I shouldn’t. Instead, I’ll worry that people will think I’ve suddenly become pious; that I’m judging those drinking around me; that I’ll be less fun; that I’ll make other people feel uncomfortable and less relaxed (no-one likes there to be a sober one who might be taking notes). But I have, over the past year, chosen on several occasions not to drink without anyone even noticing, simply by not bringing it up. When I have drank, the way my senses are dulled, the way I feel and the way I react has caused me more anxiety and unhappiness than it has in the past. When I can’t concentrate on what’s going on because everything’s slowed down, I have felt more alone even in a crowd than when, absolutely sober, I get up and dance, do karaoke or chat as freely as all the people drinking around me. When I’m sober, if it’s a chance to let one’s hair down, I still let it down. I just don’t have to live with feelings of disgust at myself for getting out of it in the process.
There comes a time when any drug stops being fun. This past year, I’ve realised that, where the booze is concerned, that time has come for me. I came to this realisation myself, without Dame Sally’s guidance. But her guidance is finally stripping away the idea that any amount of alcohol is totally acceptable. That might just give even small numbers of people who, like me, are tired of the drinking they’ve been unable to completely stop, the kick up the backside to go with their heart. Make no mistake: for some people (I’m not one of them, fortunately), their very confidence and sense of ease in social situations, is achieved by one glass, then a second, then the bottle. I have spent, out of necessity, periods of my life being teetotal in years gone by, so I learned strategies to navigate an alcohol culture that I can and will go back to. But whatever my personal choices, I think we should all welcome a new language surrounding alcohol. Let’s do away with 'safe limits,' and 'social/moderate drinkers.' Let’s even stop talking about 'binge drinking' and talk about 'alcohol abuse.' Let’s start to treat alcohol as the powerful and addictive drug that it is. That way, those of us choosing to abstain won’t feel so anxious about so-doing. More people might be encouraged to do the same. As for the rest, they too will start to respect alcohol for what it is. Good work, Dame Sally.