Here's the next in my series of 31 reasons why I'm doing Dry July. Check yourself!
Back to work today.
Day | Monday 3rd July |
|---|---|
Days without alcohol | 18 |
Funds raised | $1,503.50 |
Badges earned | Top of the world |
I'm feeling | On track |
We drink more than we think we do
You might have thought from my last post that I’m advocating for abstinence from all fun.
Not at all, I have no intention of never drinking again, but my reason number 3 for doing Dry July is this: Most of us think we don’t drink too much, but we’re probably fooling ourselves.
I am blessed with a very healthy metabolism by an accident of ancestry - my paternal line is relatively weak in that respect but on my mother’s side the genetic material is incredibly strong and somehow the blend of our parents has bred all the Delanys to be exceptionally healthy.
But after I had spent the first couple of my adult decades abusing this inheritance with unhealthy behaviour, I started to experience the consequences as I approached middle age with a general feeling of malaise.
On one visit to my GP's clinic wherein we discussed my overall health status, she enquired as to how much I drank. At that time, I was accustomed to a glass or two of wine at the end of the day (every day), but I didn’t think of that as being outside the “acceptable level” of two standard drinks per day.
My doctor gently suggested that I might be fooling myself and that I should keep a record for a while. Being a data geek, I was happy to do so.
I discovered two things as a result.
Way more that I thought
Firstly, I had way underestimated the number of glasses of wine I was drinking, it was between 1.5 and 2 times greater than I had thought.
The second thing that became clear is that each glass was very much more than a standard drink, which is 100ml for wine. Almost any wine glass I own holds a good deal more than that even if only half full and so my glass of wine routinely exceeded two standard drinks.
It was quite a revelation to me. Even if there was a safe level of alcohol consumption (there isn’t) I was exceeding it by a factor of 3 at least.
My confidence that my drinking behaviour was not an element in my health status was shattered.
From observing people around me at the time, I don’t think I would be unusual in this regard, so I’m confident that most of us drink more than we think we do.
So that’s the third reason for Dry July.
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