February 22, 2008 | posted by Michael Baxter in health |

In Europe we have evolved with alcohol. This point is quite literally true. For hundreds of years fresh water just wasn’t safe to drink, so we mixed it with alcohol.

We didn’t get drunk to drown our sorrows, we got drunk to drown the bugs floating in that filthy water from the well.

As a result, drinking became ingrained within our culture – according to the latest in the series of books from Bernard Cornwall, when Anglo Saxon armies went into battle, the soldiers were always drunk.

In more recent times, the modern day battleground, the football pitch, has seen a similar approach – and apparently, the famous football manager Brian Clough used to encourage his players to have a small glass of whisky before a game – just to calm nerves.

Contrast this with Japan, where the approach to dealing with dirty water was to boil it, and flavour it with herbs, such as tea.

Over the centuries, the forces of natural selection favoured a degree of alcohol tolerance in Europe – which is why it is quite common for people of oriental genetic origin to find it much harder to drink copious volumes of alcohol. For example, around half of all Japanese have impaired acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. This means it takes longer for acetaldehyde levels to peak higher, which manifests itself in terms of more-severe hangovers.

But in recent years, alcohol, it appears, has been becoming less socially acceptable. It is not unusual for employment contracts to prohibit the drinking of alcohol during office hours. Time was when getting drunk was funny, something to boast about. Now, it’s not like that.

In a recent TV programme looking at how dangerous certain drugs are, alcolohol came near the top. A long way below other drugs, such as speed, which are illegal.

The question, then, is why isn’t alcohol illegal – the reason, because the drinking of this substance is so deeply ingrained in our culture, whereas the taking of some drugs is really a recent development or, alternatively, was associated with pagan religion, and has been discouraged since Roman times.

And then we hear about research saying people who drink one glass of red wine a day live longer than those who don’t drink; we love it – it’s a vindication of all our bad ways.

Maybe, though, the fact that getting drunk is not quite as socially acceptable is why teenage drinking is becoming such a problem. Teenagers like to rebel from their parents, after all.

Now the British Medical Association wants us to tackle the problem of alcohol misuse.

In a recent report it said, “Alcohol misuse is associated with crime, violence and anti-social behaviour, and can impact significantly on family and community life. The cost of alcohol misuse in the UK is substantial, both in terms of direct costs (eg costs to hospital services and the criminal justice service) and indirect costs (eg loss of productivity and the impact on family and social networks).

“The control of alcohol at a national and international level is therefore essential. This requires the implementation of strategies that are effective at reducing overall alcohol consumption levels in a population, as well as targeted interventions aimed at specific populations such as young people or individuals who are dependent on alcohol. Tackling alcohol misuse also requires greater personal responsibility from individuals who consume alcohol in a manner that is harmful to themselves and those around them.”

Maybe the answer is to put more tax on alcohol.

Tesco, wants to see the price of alcoholic drinks go up – but says it can’t do this because if it were to unilaterally up prices it would have no effect unless other retailers do the same. And it moans, competition authorities won’t let the retailers act in unison.

Others point to the fact that beer can be cheaper than a glass of coke – not that drinking pint after pint of coke is good for you either.

What is the answer?

Well, the imbibing of alcohol is just as ingrained in Scandinavian countries – but even so, it has been taxed so high, that drunkenness has become less common – although it can still be a major problem in countries like Sweden.

What we would say is that alcoholic misuse is not new – but, just because it is a habit that is old, very old, it doesn’t mean it is good, and shouldn’t be dis-couraged.

But, overturning centuries, maybe even millenniums, of tradition will never be easy.

There is another issue, of course. The BMA talks about the cost of alcohol. These days the rage is to talk about extending the longevity of our lives. If we all cut back on the demon drink, we would all live longer. Whether the economic benefits, though, of greater productivity caused by a more-healthy workforce, will outweigh the disadvantage of the resulting aging of the UK population, with an even higher proportion of adults retired – is far from clear.