GUEST BLOGGER: The Downsides of Giving Up

Nick writes: I had a very unusual response to yesterday's blog post about trying to find out if I had liver damage as a result of my drinking. A number of people contacted me privately with their stories. 

Last night I asked one of my correspondents if she would write something for publication on this blog. When I woke up, this was waiting in my inbox (my correspondent wishes to remain anonymous, which is her prerogative):

"Nick's blog grabbed my attention. Without seeing or therefore having the chance to understand a set of blood test readings - Nick decided to quit drinking! A lot of people decide to take a day, a week, or a month off alcohol. Right now Stoptober is giving inspiration to many.

But of those who decide to quit (with or without a bit of worry about a blood test) and those that make it for a day, a week or a month, never mind a year - the period Nick set himself - is anyone's guess. We don't hear about those who sigh and open the next bottle or order another drink at the bar and give up giving up immediately. Not until they need a lot of help.

Like quitting cigs or any behaviour we can't control, we're suddenly in the realm of addiction and all the self-delusion that follows.

The first time I tried seriously to stop smoking I remember wanting to throw a chair out of the window of my second-floor flat ('I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass' was in the charts). My frustration as I realised that I could not stop even when I really wanted to was a terrible loss of confidence in myself. 

That was a long time ago. I did quit smoking cigarettes. It was the proudest achievement of my life when I managed it.

I remember saying so in a group for alcohol addiction. Other women there had babies they said they lived for and would do anything for. Their children were the proudest achievements of their lives, mine was that I had stopped smoking cigarettes. For twenty-five years. During that time I was made redundant and both my parents died.

My alcohol addiction group was a day programme. I attended faithfully for 12 weeks. I spoke in groups, I cooked soup, stirred porridge, meditated and only baulked at drumming.

And I started smoking again.

I remained abstinent from alcohol but the pull - probably about sixty per cent of those at the centre (including the staff) smoked - meant I felt pressured to join in.  I ended three months there clear of alcohol but re-addicted to smoking.

So, thanks alcohol rehab. 

I know I started smoking, no-one forced me."

Thank you, Anonymous Correspondent, for getting in touch and writing this. You might think you are weak, but you kicked drinking and there's no way I'm going to do that permanently. And if you kicked smoking once, you can do it again. Read Allen Carr's book. That really put me off.

If anyone else would like to write something about alcohol on this blog, preferably identifying yourself (but anonymously is fine), please get in touch with me on twitter or facebook.

Thanks.

Nick is not ill

As I mentioned in March, I went to the doctor. I wanted to see if 25 years of drinking had had any effect on my health.

Now, admittedly, I haven't drunk every day of those 25 years. But I have drunk more than the recommended weekly limit many times.

There's a Wonder Stuff song called The Size of a Cow which repeats the refrain "You know that I've been drunk a thousand times...."

I remember working out, with my bass-playing friend Aidan, what age we would have to be before we had been drunk a thousand times. I reckon I probably made it by the age of 25, certainly by 30.

In recent years, the Friday and Saturday night binge drinking has eased off, replaced by more regular, habitual drinking. Two pints here, three bottles of beer there, most of a bottle of wine on a Saturday night at home etc. That's not to say that if a drinking buddy came over I couldn't put away a lot more, but those nights are few and far too painful to do very often.

Knowing that any alcohol is unhealthy, you would have thought that over the years I might have done myself some damage, which is why I went to the doctor in March.

Blood test No 1

They took some blood. It came back with a slightly high bilirubin score. I wasn't told what that score was. The document in the link above says 17 is normal. A high bilirubin score can suggest liver damage. I didn't get to discuss the result with a doctor, I was just told over the phone I had a high bilirubin score and had to go for another test three months later.

Blood test No 2

I went for another test and the following week I got an email back telling me I had a low white blood cell count, which was probably due to a virus, but could I go back for another blood test the following  month. No mention of the bilirubin.

Blood test No 3

So back I went. This time my white blood cell count was higher, but still below normal. So could I go back for another blood test, this time in two months?

Blood test No 4

Eight days ago I did my most recent blood test, on 3 October 2014.

Time to go see the doctor and discuss the results.

As the set up at our medical centre means you rarely get to see the same GP twice in a row, I explained my initial request for a blood test and subsequent return visits to a slightly bemused Eastern European lady who I had never met before.

She looked at my results. Yes, my bilirubin score was initially 28. She thought 20 or 21 was about normal. By the second blood test it was 23. The other three tests of liver function:

GGT - Gamma Glutamyl Transferase

ALT - Alanine Aminotransferase

MCT - Mean Cell Volume

were all fine on both occasions. The doctor said if I had any alcohol-inflicted liver damage she would expect to see high levels in all three of the above measures before any increase in bilirubin levels. All three were normal. She was unconcerned. She said she wouldn't get even slightly worried unless a bilirubin score was consistently above 30 to 40, and that my varying levels hovering above normal could just be a genetic trait.

We had a chat about alcohol and safe limits and it was clear she wasn't going to endorse my drinking habits. I wasn't expecting her to.

We both agreed alcohol is not good for you. She told me she sees people younger than me coming to her with cirrhosis and that alcohol abuse is a real problem. I don't doubt it.

But... I would estimate I have drunk more than the recommended daily limit of 3 to 4 units of alcohol on at least a fifth of the 10,000 days that have passed since I first started drinking. On some of those 2,000 days my unit consumption was significantly higher than the recommended daily limit. Days when (and I feel curiously ashamed to admit this) I was drunk, your honour.

The long term effect this has had on my liver? Nil. Nothing. It is as perfectly healthy as if I were teetotal and had been all my life. Think about that for a moment.

Now, I haven't had any of my other organs tested. My adult drinking might have already set in motion a series of problems quietly gestating in my body.

Pancreatic cancer is linked to heavy drinking, as is throat cancer and brain damage. I am currently putting together a list of the conditions linked to excessive alcohol consumption, and believe me it ain't pretty.

But when I read the literature, and compare it to my own behaviour, I am starting to think maybe I just don't drink anywhere near enough. The liver is the one that tends to start throwing up red flags if your alcohol consumption is becoming problematic, and mine is just chipper, thanks.

What to make of this? Well here's an idea - the reason public health messages about alcohol are failing to hit home is because they are not relevant to the majority of the population.

Watch men in pubs on a Friday night. Many are drinking three to four units an hour. Telling them the limit is 3 to 4 units a day is like telling a journalist it's not a good idea to go round asking too many questions.

That's not to say the addictive nature of alcohol can't wear down your defences, take a hold of you and, over time, push you into a high level of consumption that causes problems. It's a powerful, seductive, liberally-available, socially-sanctioned drug.

But come on... tell me my real safe limit and I'll stick to it. Tell me I'm in danger after a couple of pints and I just will not believe you.

Oh and in case you were wondering, my white blood cell count is back to normal, too. So that's nice.

Stoptober

It's the first of October. There are three charity things happening this month which have all appropriated an otherwise innocent chunk of autumn.

The first is Stoptober, an NHS attempt to make us give up smoking.
The second is Go Sober for October, a MacMillan Cancer Nurses initiative which speaks for itself.
The third is Octobeardfest, which comes from the Prostate Project, and is "inspired" by Movember.

All are worthy causes. All can be achieved (for men, anyway) with minimal effort.

As I don't smoke, haven't had a drink since December, and will be filming a TV series throughout this month, I can't take part in any of the above October-related fun.

But that doesn't mean you can't. So join me in feeling better about yourself and raising money for good causes by doing nothing in October.

It's easy.

Right now I am not really thinking about not drinking at all, which is a deliberate ploy. Partly because there's no point and partly because the urge to have a drink simply does not exist any longer, almost to the extent that I am feeling a little daunted about starting again. This will change in December as I start hassling people for sponsorship and planning some exploratory visits to pubs with friends in January.

So making it three-quarters of the way through the year has been unremarkable save for one unexpected exception. The dawning realisation that I am going to watch an entire season of Strictly Come Dancing sober.

After Saturday night, that might be more of a struggle than I anticipated.

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Is this hypocrisy?

I pose it as a question, because there are many subtle cultural forces at play, but on the front page of the Daily Telegraph today, there was this:

At the top: "Free pint of ale".

At the bottom: "Why Stephen Fry is wrong to boast about cocaine"

In the first instance the Telegraph is encouraging us to take psychoactive drugs.

In the second instance the Telegraph castigates someone for taking psychoactive drugs.

Libby Purves' distaste at Stephen Fry's drug use is twofold.

1) it's a criminal offence 

2) he enjoyed it.

Cocaine is more addictive than alcohol. It's a dangerous drug. 

Alcohol is addictive, and in terms of health risks, probably (depending on frequency/size of dose and susceptibility) as damaging as cocaine. 

So the distinction is what? Legal?

Well, yes, we absolutely shouldn't do things which are illegal. But laws should exist for good reason.

The laws which make certain psychoactive drugs illegal should either be applied to alcohol on the same grounds, or we should be looking at ways of making popular psychoactive drugs "safely" and legally consumable. 

Trying to have it both ways patently isn't working, from the health and social costs of making alcohol liberally available, to the health and social costs of criminalising alternative poisons.

So why give away a powerful, dangerous, psychoactive drug purely for the pleasure it brings, and then (pausing only to notify us of George Clooney and Amal Alamuddin's travel arrangements) condemn someone for taking a different powerful, dangerous, psychoactive drug purely for the pleasure it brings? 

It doesn't make sense. 

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I have not had an alcoholic drink for 8 months

“All the calories, none of the fun!”

I’m kinda over it now. If my attempt to stay dry were a mid-Atlantic row, this is the bit where I would be struggling with various existential crises. 

I’ve done the hard part. I’ve got past half way. I’m already thinking about what’s going to happen when I get to the end, but first I’ve just got to get through… this.

And what is this, exactly? What am I trying to prove? What am I not trying to prove? Do I care? Does it matter?

All these questions I will answer in another blog post, because right now I want to talk about the joys of alcohol-free beer. 

Photo: A. Wallis

I do not wish to denigrate the service alcohol-free beer provides. When I was on holiday in France, it was nice to be able to return to our villa after a hot day, open the fridge and pop the lid on an ice-cold alcohol-free beer. 

If it were real beer the first would be followed by the second in pretty short order, then perhaps a third or a fourth. But it wasn't and so it didn't. That is what is missing from alcohol-free beer. It's not very moreish.

In fact, I bought twelve "Bavaria" alcohol-free wit (wheat) beers (pictured above) on the second day of our one week holiday. By the end of the week I had three left. I gave them to my brother-in-law who was driving his lot to England whilst we flew. I saw him the other day and he returned two of the three bottles to me unopened. He didn't really like Bavaria Wit 0.0%, and as he is not Not Drinking for a year, didn't see the point.

I don't think I'll be buying any more alcohol-free beer, just as I won't be having a go at any more alcohol-free wines. Back to the water, and the diet coke, and the endless rowing, rowing, rowing...

Completely random kindness

Recently, an article about the dangers of alcohol appeared The Independent and was syndicated to the Times of India.

It was written by Dr Nick Knight, a man I have never met.

An gentleman called Jasmit Chadha in Dubai read this article in the Times of India, and was so taken by its content, he felt moved to find out more about its author.

Jasmit Chadha. What a nice man.

I'm guessing he chose to Google “Nick” and “alcohol", because he ended up on this blog. Putting two and two together and getting at least seven, Jasmit not only decided to send me a complimentary tweet, but also made a donation to the charities I am supporting, saying 

“I read ur article on Times of India and it was brilliant! then i stumbled upon the interview. P.S: My dad was a chronic alcoholic. This is for Him :)”

Whilst thanking Jasmit for his donation, I politely pointed out that I was not the author of the piece that inspired him to make the donation.

I am pleased to report he was happy to make the donation anyway. 

If you are a random stranger who has landed on this blog by accident and feel moved to part with your money, particularly if you think I am someone completely different - please click here. I promise you your money will go to four very fine causes.

A note of thanks

Just a quick note of thanks to the charities who are receiving your kind donations.

Despite my raising a relatively small amount of money compared to some people I have met, all four of the charities I am supporting have been in touch over the course of the last seven months. 

Some have been kind enough to read this blog and correspond via twitter and email. It has served as a reminder that there are some wonderful, engaged and enthusiastic people doing great things in the charitable sector, and I am delighted to have been put in touch with them, simply by being a conduit for your cash.

That is the one part of this project where there is only upside.

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