Christmas time, mistletoe and wine. The party season is upon us. Behind the scenes the health service is under pressure to cope with a surge in liver disease.
One specialist unit admitted 14,000 people to hospital for treatment for alcohol dependency in a single year. St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin, reported a 335 per cent increase in admissions with alcoholic liver disease between 1995 and 2010.
It makes me think that Des Bishop was correct in his Under the Influence assertion. In Ireland our culture enables us to feel like we are being normal when we drink too much.
Average alcohol consumption per adult declined by 12.5 per cent between 2007 and 2012, according to the Drinks Industry Group of Ireland.
Figures suggest that the average intake was 11.7 litres of pure alcohol in 2012. That is comparable to 411 pints of beer, stout or cider; or 42 full-sized bottles of vodka; or 124 bottles of wine. Consumption may have decreased, but we still like our drink.
Maximum limit
If we drank to the maximum low-risk weekly limit every week, our average consumption for the year would be only 9.2 litres, according to Alcohol Action Ireland, implying that many of us could be described as problem drinkers.
Its website, alcoholireland.ie, makes for stark but necessary reading. Worryingly, it seems that Irish teenage girls have been drinking as much and sometimes more than teenage boys since 1995.
Up to 95 per cent of alcohol is metabolised by a group of six enzymes, known collectively as alcohol dehydrogenase. These enzymes are found in small amounts in our stomachs and in larger amounts in our livers.
Source: Paula Mee, Irish Times, 03/12/13
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