Addiction & Mental Health Resources

Introduction

It is commonly believed that binge drinking culture in Britain is their most serious drinking problem. However, experts in this short video, featured on the BBC programme ‘Tonight’, discuss a different concern – at home drinkers. According to a study discussed in the video, more and more people are regularly drinking alcohol at home, sometimes every night of the week. For some, it’s seen as a reward after a long day at work, and for others, it’s a way of relaxing. Unfortunately, many people appear unaware of the consequences of such behaviour.

After experiencing her big “wake-up call,” Lucy Rocca set up a social networking site for women worried they’re drinking too much – Soberistas. She and others discuss the harmful, and largely unnoticeable, impacts that at home drinking is having on the population. Another woman, Gillian, has her wine consumption monitored to reveal exactly how much she is drinking on a weekly basis.

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Quotes

“I am conscious that I’m drinking more than is healthy for me but I don’t necessarily count it up every day. If I did it would probably scare me.” [Gillian]

“The brewing companies realized there was a whole new market to be tapped by getting their products into the homes of the middle class.”

“I drank on my own … three bottles of wine – I never had an off switch so I didn’t think I was drunk, I felt perfectly in control. I obviously wasn’t. I took the dog outside to the toilet at about 10:00 and the next thing I knew I woke up in the hospital at 3:00 in the morning. I’d passed out on the pavement. I had a completely memory black out, had no idea what happened and was terrified so that was my big wake-up call and I never had a drink after.” [Lucy]

“Pretty much all the patients who come and see me, whom I identify as drinking to excess, have a picture in their mind of what constitutes problem drinking or alcoholism. Funny enough, it’s always a different pattern of drinking than theirs.”

“Lots of people are on the spectrum of dependency without recognizing it and probably the best way to find out if you’re on the scale of dependency is to see how easy it is to cut out the booze for two or three days of the week. And if you find that really a problem then that is a suggestion that actually alcohol has become much more important to you than it should be and that’s all that dependency is.”

“As a nation we spend 30 billion a year on alcoholic drinks, but when you compare what’s sold to what we say we drink, over 40% of Britain’s booze simply goes missing, and researchers are convinced that’s because either we don’t know or we don’t want to know exactly what wer’re drinking.”

“Liver disease develops completely silently – there are no symptoms, the liver has no pain fibers in it. There’s just absolutely no way of knowing that you would be developing liver disease.”

Standard Drink Sizes

Although the following information is not from a U.K.-based website, it is still useful. You can also use this online standard drink calculator with DrinkAware to help as well. I have also found an article by Furtwængler & de Visser (2013) that discusses the ‘lack of international consensus in low-risk drinking guidelines.’ Please note that clicking the link will open a GoogleScholar page where the article must then be downloaded.

Alcohol Use Disorder

• Alcohol Use Disorder (AMH Resources)
• Alcohol Use Disorder (Mayo Clinic)
• Alcohol Withdrawal
• Alcoholism – Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment, Pathology
• Alcoholism – The Deadly Truth About Its Stigma
• Canadian Alcohol Use Disorder Society
• Canadian Guideline for the Clinical Management of High-Risk Drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder
• High-Risk Drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder
• How I Overcame Alcoholism
• Medications For the Treatment of Alcohol Dependence
• Stages of Alcoholism
• The Impact of Alcoholism on Society
• The Truth About Dopamine After Alcohol Addiction Recovery
• Why Alcohol Belongs in the Mental Health Conversation

Medications for AUD

• In My Experience: AUD Treatment
• Medications for AUD
• Medications for AUD
• Medication Treatments for AUD
• Medications for Treating Alcohol Dependence
• New Study Finds Medications to Treat Alcohol Addiction Underused
• These 5 Medications Can Help You Stop Drinking
• What Medications Are Used to Treat AUD? [PDF]
• Why Aren’t More People Taking Medication for Alcohol Use Disorder?

U.K. Drinking Culture

• A New Approach to Measuring Drinking Cultures in Britain [PDF]
• Britain Has a Drinking Problem – And the Alcohol Industry Can’t Afford to Let Us Kick It
• Drinking Trends in the UK
• The Great British Booze Problem
• Foreigners Reveal What Shocked Them Most About British Drinking Culture
• UK Drinkers Get Drunk More Times a Year Than Anywhere Else in World
• Why Do The British Drink So Much?