One or two beers a night, sometimes a whisky after. Not many days off to be honest, but on the flipside, i go to the gym three times a week and run a lot of miles. Dont tend to go out to the pub much these days as the mrs has pretty much quit drinking, as shes trying to lose a couple of stone before we get married.
Enjoyed the program, I think there is a lot of us who are like Adrian and need to ‘cut down’ our intake and stop kidding ourselves we are not damaging our bodies. My liver function is fine, as are all my blood levels and pressures, but I know that my drinking over 45 years hasn’t helped with my weight and most likely had a go at some of my organs.
As my father said the other week “If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have looked after myself better”.
<*))))))><
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I average 3 to 4 new beers every day. That is a mix of third pint, half pint, 33cl, 50cl or 75cl bottles.
On top of that there will be a couple of bottles of wine per week.
And the odd whisky or bourbon. As I like whisky and bourbon, just not in my beer!
Do I drink too much? Yes.
I have regular check ups at GP surgery to make sure all is well due to a history of high blood pressure/cholesterol and I seem to be ok.
Would I like to drink less? Yes, my body is starting to tell me to slow down.
Eventually I’d like to have a better alcohol/life balance.
I saw it last night too & found it interesting. I think there is a lot more awareness when it comes to alcohol nowadays, and whereas Adrian and others his age feel the pub is the default meeting place i think a lot in their 20s / 30s are happy to meet in coffeehouses / cafes. I know i prefer it in the daytime.
Craft beer has both increased & decreased my beer intake. Beforehand id be happy drinking 4 pints of the same thing in an evening, usually Strongbow. Now ill only drink a 1/3 or 1/2 of something new. If, like yesterday, im in a pub with nothing interesting ill drink nothing at all, just a coke.
this
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I heard Adrian Chiles talking about the programme last week on the radio and he seemed to be saying that he drank a lot of units that were not worthwhile, i.e. he didn’t enjoy them, he was drinking as it was part of his social life.
Beer for me is about enjoyment. Having something new. It’s unusual for me just to waste units.
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I’m 33 and drink five or six days of the week. The most I’ll drink in 24 hours is five beers. I hate getting drunk but I love beer.
I’ve been blessed with a good metabolism and am reasonably slim despite eating and drinking pretty much what I want. But in the last couple of years I’m starting to put on weight. I put this down, in part, to my drinking habits.
It was reassuring for me to hear Adrian Chiles’ statement about how he drinks over 100 units per week - he is someone ‘regular’ who drinks way above the recommended limits.
I’ve been encouraged by my wife to have more beer-free days/weeks but beer brings me so much enjoyment that I’d rather keep doing what I’m doing and enjoy in (what I feel is) moderation.
I think this is an important discussion to have and I’m glad that ratebeer and the ratebeer community facilitates such an open and frank conversation about the dangers of alcohol.
Like many others about I have 2 or 3 days off a week. I also think that sharing helps, particularly with the higher abv stuff. Having a tasting group or just a group of mates really helps with allowing you to try many beers, whilst limiting the number of units.
I do not measure the overall number of units a week, put do try to keep on top of other metrics like weight and amount of exercise. This year although i haven’t really increased my beer consumption, I have let my exercise slip, which has lead to me putting on about 3kg.
In terms of life expectancy, although it’s not something a regularly think about, I’m sure i could prolong my life a few years by becoming a t-totaler and carefully monitoring everything that i put into my mouth, but where is the fun in that? A life well lived is more important to me.
Everything in moderation.
I’ve just watched the Adrian Chiles programme on BBC player, I’m certainly not a fan of the bloke but I can relate to a few things. I attend football matches regularly but rarely drink alcohol before/after mainly due to the fact that my wife comes along and will nag me about drinking! I do drink beer to socialise but the people that I socialise with are not into craft beer so I end up drinking my high alcohol ‘rocket fuel’ as one of my friends call it either at home or in bars on my own. When I was in my teens/twenties I drank mainly to socialise and to an extent to get pretty well oiled. Nowadays I never drink to get drunk, I just drink because I love beer. I would like to get a liver check like Chiles did just to see the outcome but I suspect it will be a similar outcome to him. As a result of the Chiles programme, I intend to have 3 beer free days a week from now on. I think that his programme was a bit of a wake up call for people like me so it was a good thing.
If we are being honest, I definitely drink way too much and way more than anyone here looking at the responses. Nice to hear that most limit their intake to way lesser amounts than expected.
And I misunderstood unit - so I’m doing more than posted
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I buy every sixpack aside from personally blacklisted breweries. I split them up among 2-3 other people. I have a lot of beer. I drink a lot of beer. In Madison, WI, USA, I am pretty average with my alcohol consumption. We also drink like champions here.
if you read about this sort of thing, people rarely self-report correctly either. You guys give yourselves a pat on the back when you exercise and drink less beer, so that is how you will self report.
Have drunk almost every day through the Summer holidays (6 weeks) but balanced it out with riding my bike everywhere. Will try to move back to my no drinking Sun-Wed routine now. Will also try and pace myself more on Thurs and Fri as once I start on a night out `i seem to lose control. I’m not sure why as it reaches a point where it’s not enjoyable. Problem is I always want to try new things whether beer, bourbon or whisky.
Haven’t got a clue how many units I drink, but I think that I am generally pretty careful. I don’t drink Mon, Tues, Wed (unless on holiday or on day off, off to a gig etc). Don’t ever get drunk, don’t go mad on the beer, am lucky enough that I am able to share most stuff with Loz. Go to the Gym twice a week (spinning) go for a walk every morning before starting work, and sometimes across the fields in the evening at home. When I do drink and have to go to work the next day (so usually just Thurs/Sun) I always stop drinking by 8:30pm.
I think this is worth talking about especially as it is not easy to measure your intake if you are tasting craft ales. Obviously, the crude measure one pint equals 2 units is way off, and if you look at some of the apps they have a default setting of cl which makes one-third of a pint 18.9 by my calculation. The better ones allow you to input weight and indicate time between drinks. But once you add in “sharing” for taste, it is doubly impossible to tell. For me the scariest moment of the Adrian Chiles documentary was when the doctor explained that the blood test can show sound liver function even when the liver is damaged and heading towards cirrhosis. But who can casually get a liver scan? It won’t happen but if craft producers put unit measures rather than abv on their product it would give you more guidance especially on bottles and cans.
I was about to reply saying I disagree with that first part as I thought that most craft brewers already do this. I know some hide it in tiny text rather than the proper symbol. Anyway I just checked a whole bunch of different breweries cans/bottles in my fridge/cupboards and saw that it’s about a 50/50 split.
Showing units: Siren, Northern Monk, Magic Rock, North, Mad Hatter, Beavertown, Electric Bear, Fierce, Wylam, Mobberley, Arbor, Mad Squirrel, Hawkshead, Whiplash (Irish but shows UK units).
Not showing units: Cloudwater, Verdant, Track, Left Handed Giant, Buxton, BBNo, Torrside, BrewDog (I think their core/supermarket beers do show it though?).
So over 60% of my small sample size showing units.
Of the ones choosing not to display the units, Cloudwater and Verdant came as a surprise to me as both are otherwise extremely good about displaying logos and informational stuff on their cans (both commonly show the hops fade fast and vegan friendly logos for example, both always list the full hop/malt bill).
I wonder if their tendency to lean towards higher ABV IPAs puts them off doing this? Though the fact I actually had to bother to check individual cans in my stash to know who and who isn’t displaying the units shows you how little attention I give to it. Can’t imagine many do unless they’re specifically watching their alcohol intake.
I do think all (UK brewed) alcoholic beverages should show units on them though as it’s a pain to work it out manually.
I finally got round to watching this the other day and that part surprised me too. But I hadn’t thought about whether getting a liver scan was something you can just ask for.
I just read the NHS page for ARLD, it sounds like your blood tests would need to show signs of problems before you’d be referred for further testing (i.e. an actual scan). It’s a bit worrying that one of us could go and get a blood test and it all come back looking fine, yet in reality we might have some serious problems.
