hpdw

I am going to rant and no apology .

In UK I am sick of seeing how alcohol is promoted glamourized on TV ,magazines ,newspaper ads ,bill boards ,buses ,taxis ...... its advertised and glamourized everywhere .
Smoking is now seen as a dirty stinking filthy habit which costs the NHS X amounts of £billions . ( I vape now stopped smoking 7 years ago ) .
Smoking is seen as antisocial ,wrong , a killer .
So isn't alcohol just as bad ? in my opinion its worse . In Areas of UK the drinking culture is out of control and has been for many years .
I used to work in security and in Edinburgh at the weekend I saw unbelievable things through drunkenness .
The hospitals ,ambulance ,police are stretched to the limit due to alcohol related incidents ,its disgusting .
I cant for the life of me understand why the government put so much into hammering smokers and left the drinkers to continue to destroy themselves and others . Families ruined , millions lost through time off work , countless deaths , the list goes on .
We on here and in AA and other support systems are only the tip of the alcoholic iceberg . There are countless amounts of so called normal drinkers who are far from normal drinkers who are not in any type of help system destroying themselves and everything around them . On news daily I see stories of drink related crime but STILL the adverts promote and glamourize alcohol . Its not just all wrong ,very very wrong .

decchemist

I finished reading a book today (it arrived Friday afternoon) called The Naked Mind: Controlling Alcohol. It was recommended by several contributors on this site. It is a fantastic read and I thoroughly recommend it to you. I have absolutely no wish to drink ever again - I have no craving at all.

I used to work in the pharmaceutical industry trying to discover new medicines. Before any new drug can be released to the market it has to undergo extremely rigorous safety testing which is reviewed by government agencies. The most well known is the FDA in the US. Unless they are 100% sure of the safety of your new medicine you will not get a license to market it.

If I had just discovered ethanol as a treatment it would fail at the first hurdle and would NEVER get marketing approval from any regulatory body. Alcohol (ethanol) is toxic, a proven carcinogen and a depressant as well as being addictive.

The book I mentioned talks about the marketing that you mention. It is marketed well. It has to be - you need to convince people to drink poison.

tnman1967

Yeah, I have questioned this from day one. I for one don't think drinking is normal. Alcoholic or not. It's pure poison and I know many people don't agree with me when I say that most people are hooked on the stuff. I'm sick and tired also of being at concerts and what not, paying big money to enjoy the event and all these drunks around me disturbing everything and everyone. I know prohibition is not the solution but I sure wish people could go out and do things without alcohol being the primary reason to go. End of rant.

hpdw

I worked for 10 years in contract research testing for pharmaceutical companies working with drugs for 4-5 years ensuring the drug was stable before being presented to FDA or MHRA the UK version , I worked extensively with ethanol in the prep of various solutions , Your right ethanol would fail immediately yet the poison called alcohol is acceptable .

decchemist

An interesting coincidence, Thomas.

JamesfrmEngland

Neither alcohol or tobacco are good for you.

rainyengland

Just back from cinema - Dunkirk,great film by the way

Out of 6 adverts 4 were for alcohol..all glamourising it

I guess for the majority it's no big deal these big money adverts but there always be a percentage taken in ..and even if small % I would not want anyone to end up like I did

They need heavy regulating at minimum

LunaBlue

I wish alcohol was illegal! I hate it!

kenton

I agree with everything you wrote Thomas. I find it extraordinary that when you go into a supermarket, all the cigarettes are hidden away but it's party time in the alcohol aisles with deals of the day and endless promotions designed to get consumers to buy more and more booze.

Incidentally, I don't smoke - I just find it strange how 2 poisons are treated so differently. One is actively encouraged whilst the other is locked away from view.

I also really liked what you said about some so called "normal" drinkers. I've been thinking for months now that a lot of normal drinkers I know drink far more than "normal". And I know I have a skewed idea of "normal" but hell, some of them drink more than I used to. Friday evening I was out with friends who were all drinking and I had to leave before 9pm because by that stage I could no longer communicate with any of them. After I left, one of them fell over and broke her wrist, 2 lost their bags and one fell asleep on the train and had to spend a fortune getting a cab home. Not judging anyone, been there, done that. I just read the WhatsApp messages the next day about what an amazing night they all had and I thought, "really?? Can you remember the night? What about the broken wrist and the lost bags and the falling asleep on a train where anything could have happened? Was it really such a top night?"

I think there's widespread brainwashing going on and I'm just so grateful that I'm finally free. Other thing that gives me hope is the recent studies showing that young people in the UK are turning their backs on alcohol. I just wonder what they'll turn to instead.....

tnman1967

Couldn't have said it better myself. I feel exactly like you do.

Forward12

My only guess is the fact that it makes the massive corporations, states, cities, and businesses a ton of money, plus the fact it's been ingrained in many countries around the world for thousands of years.
You would think there would be stricter regulation and warning about the toxic effects of alcohol in the way there is with smoking, but that isn't the case which isn't a good thing.

hpdw

Decchemist thanks for the book suggestion Ill se if its on kindle .

My x brother in-law a year older than me drank home brew every single night for most of his adult life and if it ran out he,d make sure he had cans on reserve . He never saw himself and no one else saw him as an alcoholic . He never lost a shift in 40 years ( he was the longest serving employee at a meat factory I also worked at for 28 years . The place closed down 5 years ago and he was made redundant , He now suffers alcoholic dementia (Korsakoff's syndrome ). He never saw himself as having an alcohol problem .
Imagine if we all sued governments for not telling us how dangerous alcohol is .
But then the same happened with benzodiazepine , doctors created 10s of thousands of addicts in the 70s,80,s it was hailed as a wonder drug .

I have 4 grandsons and I do spend some time explaining to them( 2 older ones 9 and 12 ) that alcohol "isn't cool " ,I say it in a firm but gentle way and explain how it can for some people become addictive and waste their lives . I don't try to scare them but explain it like it could happen to some rather than it does happen to everyone .

azwakeupcall

The FDA for the most part does not regulate alcohol, which falls under the privy of other organizations. There are a few reasons why alcohol and tobacco use are not treated the same. First and foremost, there is no safe level of smoking and absolutely no health benefit to using tobacco. The same cannot be said of alcohol, which study after study shows health benefits for light to moderate drinkers. Of course alcohol wouldn't pass the FDA guidelines for a therapeutic drug; it is not and does not purport to be.

As a libertarian, I do not believe in outlawing substances and further believe it is each individual's choice to put into their bodies whatever they choose. Prohibition failed miserably, and the war on drugs has had no more success. Locking the booze away or outlawing it entirely will only create another black market and another criminal industry--and those that cannot live without their booze will still obtain it.

There is and always will be a difference between an addict and and casual consumer--not just in their levels of consumption but also in how it is processed and what it triggers in the brain. We cannot ban every single food, drink, or substance that a small segment of the population struggles with.

hpdw

I agree in part what you say especially about prohibition and the war on drugs .
My argument is the fact that alcohol is so heavily advertised in a way that it supposedly improves our quality of life make situations more worthwhile in the same vein as a chocolate bar or luxury ice cream .
Depends where you are in the world what you call a small segment .You should spend a week in the East End of Glasgow .

azwakeupcall

I used to work in Las Vegas, and let me tell you it can warp a perception of people in general if you are constantly around drunks/parties in places where people specifically go to drink and party. Certain days, I believed everyone was a fall down drunk, but that's because I was in a place where a) alcoholics congregate and b) normal drinkers visit for a rare drunken shenanigan. Yeah, everyone's drunk, but not everyone is a problem drinker. On any given night, a few people are having their "night out", for many it's once in a lifetime, for others it's once a year, but for alcoholics it's every night. When everyone's loaded, it's hard to tell which is which, but you know what I mean. Glasgow has a reputation much like Vegas does, from what I've read. Having lived in places outside of Vegas, I can say with confidence, it's not like this everywhere.

CelticZebra

i had a big problem with this in my first 2 years and read Jason Vales book about the brainwashing of such government advertising and how we are brought up to accept alcohol use as 'normal'
it bothers me less now
Not sure chocolate and ice cream aren't a problem for a lot of people who would rather not have the reminder that we can have such 'fantasies' as displayed in big cities and across the television.
Education doesn't bring in as much revenue as advertising ��

OpenTuning

It is literally mass brainwashing. By the alcohol industry but also by society as a whole. In the UK I think it's something like 80% of the population drinks at least occasionally. It's the cultural norm. It's fantastic that more and more young people are starting to question that, but it's still very much a minority. Peer pressure is very powerful.

Just one point on those "health benefits" studies. I did a lot of reading on that last year as I hear it so often, and the results for me are not as conclusive as they first appeared. A number of studies are of the "on the one hand this, on the other hand that" where there might be a potential benefit in one area (which gets the headlines), but possible damage in another. Part of the problem as well is when 80% of the population drinks, finding a representative sample of non-drinkers to compare them to becomes more difficult. Some studies just asked "do you drink" and used the ones who said no. No follow up on "why don't you drink?". So that would include ex-alcoholics, people who have had to stop after medical advice, people who might be following restrictive diets etc. All things that could impact on a person's health. To have a truly meaningful study you need to compare two groups who lead an almost identical lifestyle, but one group drinks and the other never has. Good luck finding that here. The latest UK health advice, that weighed up all the evidence, states there is no completely safe level of drinking. The suggested maximum 14 units a week is just based on what they consider an acceptable level of risk.

BlownOne

Alcohol is an inanimate substance and as such is neither good or evil. It's human choice that creates problem. Alcohol is no different than sugar, caffeine or anything else. They all have potential for abuse and addiction. If there's a problem, it's that society often times promotes and glamorizes things that can potentially cause problems, but to call any one thing poison in and of itself doesn't ring true, IMHO.

hpdw

I hear you BlowOne good viewpoint .

thanks

saoutchik

I agree, alcohol is far too heavily promoted, glamourised and advertised. It needs to put in a similar position as tobacco, ie available but no adverts, sponsorship, marketing or promotion. It is working in as much as cigarette consumption is falling in the developed world, I think it will happen at some point but I hope that point is not several decades away.