Author: superadmin

Lying to yourself

“Four to six pints most evenings” he said hoping that it sounded reasonable. I didn’t follow up. I had a feeling that he probably drank more than this, but I didn’t push him because it took guts to tell me that he drank that much. Pushing it would have been counterproductive. As the session progressed, […]

Everything is expensive, but alcohol is still cheap!

Prices are soaring but don’t worry, booze is still cheap! You can bust the government recommended weekly maximum alcohol intake for less than the price of a coffee. Full disclosure: according to the Mirror, which I don’t usually read, if you go to Morrisons, where I don’t usually shop, you can buy a bottle of […]

90% lies

“Booze is 10% ethanol and 90% marketing.” I wish I’d thought of that but it was actually Arwa Mahdawi from the Guardian. It’s a great line but what does it actually mean? Let’s break it down, ethanol is pretty toxic. Less than an egg cup of pure ethanol would kill me. If you weigh more […]

Damp February

New Year’s Day is all but forgotten. Your resolutions are a distant memory. Even though January is scarcely a week gone it may as well have been years. Dry January is long forgotten. All that excitement at the start of the year where did it go? It got crowded out by price rises, it got […]

Are you a twilight drinker?

There is a point between light and darkness that we call twilight. It is a point that I see a lot of drinkers getting to. They have not reached the true darkness of dependency, but they have long since passed from the light of stress-free, social drinking.  They live between drinking and not drinking. They […]

Strength of Character

Think Royal Marine Commando: think strength of character.  To complete the Royal Marine training you need willpower, discipline and what the Americans call intestinal fortitude. Weak people don’t get into the Marines. To move from there into the Special Boat Service requires an elite level of strength and determination.  Sitting opposite me was one of […]

Alcohol: a definition

“Alcohol is a flammable, colorless liquid that makes you pay attention to the wrong things.”  True I made that definition up. But for years it defined what alcohol did to me.  I paid more attention to where my next drink was coming from than I did to how my wife was feeling.  I paid more […]

Peer Pressure?

It is natural to think that there is a lot of pressure on you to have a drink.  It seems like society wants you to drink. The TV is telling you to drink. Your friends are telling you to drink, Heck, even the government is telling you to drink – responsibly. There is pressure coming […]

The End of Doctors

Overindulgence is expensive. Alcohol costs the NHS at least £3.5 billion per year  Indulgent food costs the NHS at least £6 billion per year  Smoking costs the NHS at least £2.6 billion per year  As a society, if we continue to drink, eat and smoke our way to ill health we will break the NHS. […]