Do you recall those arbitrary “safe” alcohol limits? You know, the ones that were plucked from the arseholes of so-called experts who needed to come up with a figure? Well, since Dawn Primarolo turned her sights on the middle class soaks whom, she asserts, are draining the NHS of its resources, Matt Rudd engaged on a little experiment. Now, while a couple of months off the sauce, followed by a month deliberately indulging in well over the government guidelines is hardly conclusive, it did lead to some interesting results:
Four weeks of what I think is civilised drinking did have an effect on my liver function. But none of the laboratory results was even close to being a problem. One month, of course, is not long enough to ruin your liver, your kidneys, your heart or your lungs with alcohol; but it is long enough to spot subtle changes that might, if I was to continue in the same boozy vein, cause health problems.
I can’t say that I am surprised by this.
I thought back to the results of the first set of tests – before my month of drinking dangerously. Having diligently measured my alcohol consumption over a month, I can now confirm that I must have been drinking not far off 40 units a week for the past 15 years. Yet, after only a few weeks off the sauce, my internal organs were fighting fit.
Okay, so it is only one man over a short period, but it is rather more scientific than the government’s figures and it indicates that those figures are utter bollocks. But, then, everything from New Labour is consistently bollocks and involves lecturing us about how to live our lives, telling us off if we are naughty children and believing that they, in all their purse-lipped puritanism are right and we, their employers, are wrong.
God! but I hate them with a vengeance.