Alcohol harm costs England £27.4bn a year | LocalGov

12 comments

1. Good job they just invented [this gel](https://www.bionity.com/en/news/1183450/new-gel-breaks-down-alcohol-in-the-body.html)

2. Does this cost factor in the money generated from tax on alcohol, and the money saved on pensions from drinkers dying early?

   It’s pretty much the tabaco argument from Yes Prime Minister.

3. Naltrexone is cheap, it basically cured my alcohol use disorder.

   I used it via The Sinclair Method and it was a game changer.

   Don’t let medics fob you off with the 12 steps. AA is helpful but there are other options. Medically assisted recovery is a well established, go private if you have to…wroth every penny.

4. What about marijuana harm, how much does that cost?

5. I’m not sure what people get out of absolutely kicking the arse out of it on a Friday night. I understand drinking as a form of social lubrication to lower inhibitions and get people going, but continuing to drink after that point doesn’t exactly make things any better, if anything it makes them worse.

   **Nobody** wants to spend 24-hours in A&E because they thought they could ride a wheelie bin down a hill during a night out and cracked their head on the pavement.

6. Can’t wait for the ban it brigade to save us from some societal ills once again. Plenty of them clutching their purses on Reddit.

7. Oh look the pick me squad are coming back out to tell us how to live again reminds me of those business men who complain no one wants to work while ignoring all cv applicants 🤣 this fucking country

8. They need to increase the tax, the cost needs to be covered by drinkers

9. You will work, pay taxes, pay off your landlord’s mortgage, and derive no pleasure from life. You won’t drink, smoke, drive a car, go on holiday, eat junk food. Those are all bad things. You will drink water and eat lentils until you die at 95 after taking up space in a care home for 20 years.

10. [The harms have been known for well over a century](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temperance_movement_in_the_United_Kingdom).

    To whom are they really a cost? The exchequer? Damn the exchequer. The NHS? The NHS was made to meet our healthcare needs, not demand us live in ways to suit its budget.

    Most problem drinkers are either congenitally predisposed to a ruinous gluttony for alcohol, and will spend their last penny on it however much it is taxed, or sad souls seeking stupor’s solace; these we can only sensibly help by making society preferable to la-la land.

    We hear about the harm to man and society; we hear about the benefits to the exchequer of taxation – but what of the harm to man and society when society turns from liberating national association to a restrictive, stultifying web of busybodies?

    It is not merely that, our society being greatly improved, far fewer would drink themselves to ruin – even the French and Germans do somewhat better in that regard – it is that it would be disastrous for society to become corralling rather than liberatory, to make its members objects rather than subjects.

11. So? They earn so much off tax who gives AF. I’d prefer not to hear stuff like this

12. Nobody seems to want to hear that the UK has a serious problem with alcoholism. I don’t think raising taxes is the solution, nor any sort of outright prohibition, but I think there needs to be an honest conversation about people’s relationship with drinking and especially less normalisation of heavy drinking.

    I don’t even think outright binges are the only thing we need to be concerned about – there’s a lot of people who seem to think they can’t possibly go a day or a week without beer or wine.

    I’m especially concerned for youths growing up who are all but expected to buy into drinking culture. It’s fine for young people to drink, but it shouldn’t be expected, let alone pressured. I know of some people whose teenagers have determined they never want to drink, and every time they express it their parents say “Oh but you will when you’re older”. Maybe they won’t? Maybe that’s their choice?

    A lot of these comments give a bad taste in my mouth. We shouldn’t be looking to snatch the bottle from people’s hands, but I think it’s worth looking inward and educating ourselves and determining if we’re really making the best decisions.