alcohol

Creating change around alcohol and elsewhere requires us to describe dynamic situations accurately, an area where English could be improved.

Our language often ties us to a static picture of situations more usefully seen as being in dynamic change, so blinding us to possibilities.

We are not, for instance, smokers in the same way we are right-handed, brown-eyed, male or female.

Being a smoker is a status we acquire as a result of what we consume and something we can change by making different choices.

English we say, “I am a smoker,” in the same way as, “I am from Manchester,” or “I am human.” But they are not the same.

In this way, as my brilliant friend and first giveaway book recipient pointed out,  we English-speakers have made a hash of it.

“There is no escape save by stepping out of it into another [language],” as Enlightenment polymath Alexander von Humboldt put it.

Not “to be”
If we are serious about change we should distinguish between inherent states and transient ones.

Making the distinction clear would  help us all see better where fruitful change is possible.

Portuguese and Spanish—and other Iberian languages—have a way to do this built in, using the word “estar” for potentially passing states.

Mixing it into English unforgivably, “I estar alcohol dependent,” would mean we are currently alcohol dependent, but not always and forever.

Using estar like this would convey a sense of changeability to a state of illness, boredom, sadness, or being a smoker too.

I am told estar is not often used to emphasise that substance use problems are shifting and dynamic, but doing so would be easy.

In English it is more difficult. A new word, an English estar, has only a very remote chance of catching on.

Emphasising change
Given introducing a new English verb is impossible we could still make better use of the language we already have.

“Now” is, perhaps, useful: I am now a smoker; I now have a cold; I am now alcohol dependent; I am now not alcohol dependent.

Yes, it is clunky, but perhaps we should accept some clunk if it means we avoid binding ourselves to things which we can change.

It offers the potential to soften and shift our outlook and allows, if we wish, our self-image to adapt to new circumstances.

Routinely acknowledging change is possible, in alcohol consumption, smoking and much else, can surely help us realise our choices. ■

The effort to control the covid-19 outbreak shows the public welcomes government action to protect life. Politicians might take note when formulating policies on alcohol, responsible for one in twenty deaths.

Billions of us have overnight willingly complied with often stringent laws curtailing our business and social lives, thanks to our clear understanding that doing so is saving millions of lives.

It seems reasonable to suggest that we would also gladly accept modest extra tax, advertising restrictions, and labelling and availability measures to cut millions of deaths, injury and suffering from alcohol consumption.

Far harsher restrictions are in place. Alcohol sales have been banned under lockdown laws in South Africa, Botswana, and parts of Thailand, Greenland and among a native group in Canada. The impact is uncertain.

Alcohol dependents will likely suffer the physical and mental health effects of withdrawal.Some have reportedly died as a result of “toddy” becoming hard to come by in India, largely by their own hand.

Providing support will be more challenging in coming months. Can Zoom support ever really replace a face-to-face meeting? Or might online even attract new people and offer more privacy?

Or will online help miss those who need it most? One former alcohol dependent said in a philcain.com discussion that being in covid-19 isolation with a stash of alcohol would have been her “happy place”.

Like it or not, we will find out some answers in the very near future. But our exceptional circumstances will also create exceptional statistics, full of “confounders”, making them incomparable with those before.

Road accidents in places where alcohol is suddenly off-limits, for example, are likely to drop sharply. But, then again, there is going to be hardly anyone on the road. So what will the numbers mean?

The first phase of the covid-19 outbreak has shown the public welcomes decisive government action to protect health and we will gladly accommodate them. 

As a species we are adaptable survivors. And we have now shown we welcome advice that helps us survive. We might also use this time to reflect and rethink our priorities and habits.

There is room for a glimmer of optimism we might make the best of this unusually bleak situation. ■

Services for people with alcohol and other drug problems in England and Wales saw budgets cut 15% in the three years to last year, when associated deaths hit record numbers.

A record 7,423 people in England and Wales died from alcohol-specific causes and 4,561 people died from causes related to drug poisoning, another record.

“It is unacceptable public health services that tackle alcohol and drug addiction are left so weakened because of deep cuts when we know that they can cause huge harm and death,” said Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Health Secretary.

Council spending on services to prevent them, meanwhile, fell to £690m from £762m in 2017, 15% after inflation, says analysis by the House of Commons Library for the Labour Party.

Four councils saw real-terms cuts in alcohol and drug services of over 40%, namely Medway, namely South Tyneside, Staffordshire and Wiltshire. Only ten saw a spending rise on these services.

“Treatment is essential to help those with alcohol dependence towards recovery but has long been underfunded and inaccessible to many,” said Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, Chair of the Alcohol Health Alliance UK. ■

The leaders of a UK organisation representing traditional pub and ale enthusiasts have decided to hold an investigation into the effects of minimum alcohol pricing.

The move comes in response to a motion passed at the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) annual conference in Dundee last month calling for the organisation to back the “urgent introduction” of minimum pricing in England, after it was introduced in Scotland last year.

“The national executive are carrying out further investigation into the issue to determine the best way to deliver the decision taken by conference,” a CAMRA spokesperson said. “We are unlikely to have any different updates imminently.”

Alcohol has retailed for more than 50p ($0.66) per 10ml UK unit in Scotland since May last year. Supporters hope it will curtail the drinking of very heavy drinkers who gravitate towards cheap sources of alcohol. In England the price per unit starts at 16p.

The price of beer sold in pubs is unaffected by minimum pricing, typically being more than three times the 50p minimum price. Supporters within CAMRA argue minimum pricing may help counter the decline of British pubs by narrowing the price gap with supermarkets.

Others do not see it this way, saying on social media the pro-minimum price motion panders to “anti-alcohol” forces, threatening to cancel their CAMRA memberships. Some, however, wonder if an appreciation of untainted liberal economics is a necessary part of appreciating traditional beer.

Help may be at hand. An initial evaluation of the short-term economic impact of minimum pricing in Scotland is due later this year. And some insight into its effectiveness in achieving its goal of reducing harmful drinking is expected next year.

The conference also saw the arrival of a new CAMRA chairman, Nik Antona. ■