Binge drinking
It was almost impossible to miss the headlines over the weekend regarding the new safer drinking guidelines about to be released by the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). According to the reports, drinkers who quench their thirst with four or more middies of beer will be defined as binge drinkers. That is, men who drink at this level will be regarded as drinking at risky levels.
Not surprisingly the community has not responded particularly well to these guidelines. Previously, drinking six or more standard drinks was classified as risky drinking, but the NHMRC has modified this and dropped the number for both males and females (more than two standard drinks is now classified as risky for women).
No-one is doubting the research behind these guidelines. In fact, the evidence is quite clear that when alcohol is misused there is a range of serious problems that can occur including domestic violence, sexual assault, road accidents, etc. The reason this limit has been set there is due to the evidence that from four drinks upwards the risks of accident and injury -¦ escalate quite dramatically.
That said, to be useful, guidelines need to be credible and the ones that are being suggested are not. The previous guidelines were a difficult sell and to be quite honest I would never use them in an educational setting. People didn’t believe them as they did not match their own experience. They are certainly not going to accept ones that are suggesting even smaller amounts of alcohol.
We have to be extremely careful when it comes to giving messages to the Australian community about alcohol. This is the drug of choice for many of them and if you get too tough too quickly you will get a very angry group of people who will reject everything we tell them and start claiming moral panic. Finally we have a government which is prepared to address the biggest drug problem we have in this country. However, we are in danger of losing community support for cultural change if we don’t tread carefully. Guidelines that aren’t going to be supported by the majority of the community are not going to help.
Remember: if you do not want any negative consequences, do not use the drug and, no matter how many times you have used a substance, never be blase.
