Health and Whisky

@MaltActivist Cheers to your new health regime - may it be paying back the life dividends you want from it

@MaltActivist

I totally support the concept of looking after yourself and your family above all else.

A whisky bottle, no matter how awesome the contents, will not miss you when you're gone.

Most excellent choice. Be proud, as nothing beats the high of a good fitness regime. Maybe you have provided some incentive for some of us old warhorses to get back in shape! Thanx Jonesz

No one likes to talk much on these forums about excessive drinking and its consequences. Like most of you I love the smell and the taste of fine whisky, but any more than a couple of drams and I've got a splitting headache to look forward to. I have to constantly keep myself in check and a couple of times a year I have to take a month off all alcohol, partly just to prove to myself that I can do it. Thank you @MaltActivist for baring your soul and bringing up a somewhat sensitive subject for whisky lovers. I seem to recall @Nozinan starting a thread on this topic a year or so ago to a fairly cool reception.

Great Job!!! It can be a hard thing to do balancing whisky and food and the exercise. Like you I restrict my whisky drinking to weekends but Dec was a difficult month as I hurt my lower back and spent much of it on a couch (not drinking). It is amazing how much weight you can put on with a sedentary lifestyle, myself 8 pounds in 3 weeks of course Christmas sweets did not help.

Thankfully back at work for the last 2 weeks lots of walking/stairs is helping with the right food choices. Like you said pick quality over quantity and exercise of any type.

Wishing Everyone a Healthy, Happy and Prosperous Year!

@MaltActivist - great post.

Certainly everyone on this forum can "have it all" - good health & good whisk(e)y.

The hidden benefit of being a whisk(e)y connoisseur? You are not drinking a shot in a tall glass of cola !

Thank you MaltActivist for this post. I have recently had to focus on my health as a result of discovering high blood pressure at the tender age of 39. It is comforting to note that one can still enjoy whisky without damaging one's health.

Having said that, when one is new to the art of tasting and appreciating does not practise make perfect? Is it possible to learn to pick out and indentify all those elusive smells and tastes with very little practise? I do hope so!

@Phil73805

You can "taste" 10 whiskies while consuming less than one 30 cc dram in total. If you want to try a lot, sip a little. If you're relaxing at home to focus on one expression, you don't need a lot (ie: 15 cc in a glancairn).

And don't feel you have to finish it. Some people pour off what they have left into a small bottle and then have a (personal) vatting to go to sometime.

It is a tricky balance - not so much because I want to drink large amounts, but because I find that the full taste & finish of a particular Whisky only really fully 'appear' after about one or two drams... this means that I get through about 3cl (about 1 ounce) of on average 50%abv Scotch before I really start to enjoy it to the full.

I have a rule of MINIMUM 2 (and preferably 3) alcohol free days a week, and of course I try to limit consumption of any other form of alcohol. I'll have a few glasses of wine on the weekends, but generally I try to 'reserve' my unit intake for my Whisky collection at home, or a tasting.

@Victor As always you're spot on. I also need more than 10ml to really judge a whisky. It takes time and repeated nosing (not too often though) and tasting to be able to name particular flavours and smells. If you need a coule of drams to really get to the bottom of a whisky I am certainly going to need more than 10ml.

True @Phil73805 and you can carry on tasting the same whisky at different days instead of doing it in one night. It's like meeting the same person again and again on different occasions and your judgement becomes better.

This is a difficult topic for most whisk(e)y lover's to address. When your hobby is basically ingesting a poison a sensible balance has to be reached. I wouldn't call myself fit but I'm not overweight and I exercise my dog every day. I have always limited myself to 100 mls twice weekly but lately consumption has creeped up to 150 mls three or four times a week and I'm starting to get a bit concerned. Does anybody else think this amount is excessive or should I carry on as I am?

@maltmate302, if you're worried that you're drinking too much, then it wouldn't hurt to cut back to a point where you're comfortable with your consumption and not worried about it and just enjoy whatever it is that you do have. Otherwise, if your consumption goes up and you're worried, you can also take extra steps to improve your general health: do more consistent and regular cardio exercises (and frequent walks), maintain a healthy diet, drink lots of water, lots of fiber and vegetables, and take care with your stomach.

@maltmate302

As I've mentioned, my medical license and malpractice insurance do not extend to the internet, and I've been told, "free medical advice is worth what you pay for it".

Drinkaware (link to this is found on Connosr) has a couple of tools to allow you to self-assess your drinking and it gives you a sense of where you are from a health standpoint:

drinkaware.co.uk/understand-your-drinking/

Depending on what it is you are drinking, 150 cc could mean different things. For instance, I like cask strength drams. 150 cc at 60% ABV would clock in at the equivalent of 225 cc at 40%.

In medical school we are (well, were, back in the last century) taught the primary care CAGE questionnaire:

C - Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking? A - do you get angry when people say you drink too much G - do you ever feel guilty about your drinking E - do you ever need an "eye-opener"

2 or more Yes answers are a red flag.

So I won't comment directly on what you've written, but here are some tools you can use to decide for yourself.

@Nozinan @numen thank you for your replies. In fact I'm in a bit better physical condition than my post made out. None of my friends think I'm drinking too much in fact they mostly drink a lot more than me .I think my main problem is that thinking about my increased consumption is spoiling my enjoyment of what I'm drinking. I think a gradual reduction is in order.

@Nozinan The prob with that 'self' questionnaire is that very lax people with low conscientiousness will almost always answer 'no' to C,G & E no matter how much they drink, and very health conscious, conscientious people will prob answer yes to those even if they drink just three drams a week...

C - Have you ever felt you should cut down on your drinking? A - do you get angry when people say you drink too much G - do you ever feel guilty about your drinking E - do you ever need an "eye-opener"

@Jules

Well, it's not a "self-questionnaire", it's a screening tool that a doctor (usually a family doc) would use during a routine assessment.

@maltmate302

Ultimately what you decide is up to you, or perhaps between you and your health care practitioner. But I would caution against soliciting the opinion of a peer, especially one who drinks more than you. From their perspective, if you are drinking too much, then they definitely are, so there will be an unconscious (or conscious) bias to minimize the severity.

@Jules with me I find C is leading to G which is affecting my enjoyment .I've realized that my consumption by approaching a bottle a week at 40% abv which is too much for anybody and I'll have to find a level I'm happy with before things get to much. Still it is better to be aware that things are starting to get out of control then you can do something about it instead of being in denial like most weekend binge drinkers.

@maltmate302 Although we all have to create our own boundaries I would agree that a bottle a week of Whisky is most definitely too much. On a 'good' week I'll have 15 drams which for me adds up to about 35cl (half a bottle) and I already consider that to be too much really...

But be mindful of the fact that your diet AS A WHOLE affects health more than 'just' limiting alcohol - for instance: a high fresh fruit & veg intake has been shown to drastically reduce the carcinogenic impact of a diet high in red & processed meat on the gut (& body overall) - so I think it's fair to assume that eating well can also curb some of the negative effects of a MODERATE alcohol intake.

This is just MY way of looking at it, it's my balance. We all have to find our own imo.

@maltmate302 I disagree with @Jules about a bottle a week being too much. It equates (from a 750ml bottle anyway) to being roughly 3.5 oz, or the rough equivalent of two beers per day, which as far as i'm aware has zero physical health implications. Ultimately, i think as others have said, if you feel like you're overdoing it, cut back. I'm very wary of the extremely anecdotal nature of information available about alcohol in general given the noticeably unique reactions different people have to it. I have many peers who have the virtue of impulsiveness and "free" or adventurous attitudes. These cats often help me out of my box and loosen up because i'm a bit of an ascetic, disciplined personality. That said, I have noticed that those specific peers generally have trouble with their consumption, often overdoing it. On the other hand, I have to make a concerted effort to overdo it or be casual about drinking. Once or twice a year, i might make a deliberate choice to "have a good time" drinking, ie: get a little tipsy, otherwise Its all about appreciation for me. IMO i think it really boils down to an individual's body chemistry, discipline level, personality, age and maturity level. I think one of the biggest red flags I see often is the idea commonly thrown around by older drinkers of having a drink to "relax". While having a drink might be relaxing, the relaxation should ultimately be a product of the observation and experience itself. To drive this point home... Imagine someone who says they like to eat icecream to relax versus someone who has eaten some ice cream and finds it relaxing. Which do you find alarming? The implications are drastically different the way i see it given a simple difference in motivation.

@Jules @TpR I thank you both for your well reasoned and frankly differing points of view.It shows just how contentious this issue is among the whisky community. For me the amount I drink is not that much when you average it out over a week but I've never really been a drinker and the amount I consume is starting to bother me. Therefore I'm going to cut down to about 400 mls weekly and see how I get on with that. Again I thank you for your comments.

@ maltmate302 & TpR Hate to be too pedantic, but it is a relatively serious issue as far as I'm concerned - a whole bottle of 40%abv a week works out at 30 units of alcohol/week, with a bottle of 48%abv nearing a good 36 units/week. Whereas 2 beers/day would be more like 22 units a week (give or take, depending on the alc% of course)

And I am assuming that most Connosr's here don't drink watered down 40%abv Whiskies...

@Jules ... Be pedantic all you want, but please clarify. What is the standard of "unit" you are referring to? I refer to ounces in which there are 25 in a 750ml(usa) bottle. In the united states a 12 oz of 5% beer is seen as a single serving and 1.5 oz of 40% liquor is its standard drink equivalent. Thats 2.38 servings per day if consumed equally throughout the week. Care to clarify sources of your assertion that this is harmful or serious behavior?

@TpR

I have, myself, used the term "relaxing with a dram". I have to be very clear that what that means to me is that I am relaxing, or am in a relaxed mood IN ORDER TO properly enjoy a dram

If I need something to relax me, or if I'm particularly upset about something (like the weeks leading up to and following my father's death), I make a point of AVOIDING alcohol.

I do understand that this provides me with fewer opportunities to taste whisky than I would probably like to have, but the alternative is a real risk of developing a dependence on alcohol. And once you are dependent, it can affect your life in more ways than I can describe. And if you are able to quit, usually that means you can't ever enjoy it again. That would be sad.

Furthermore, daily use of alcohol, even 2 drinks every day, does increase the risk of addiction, and subsequent withdrawal if you can't drink for some reason.

Different people have different comfort levels in terms of how much, how often, they use alcohol. Also, some people's bodies can handle more than others'. So I would hesitate to pronounce how much people on this site should be drinking (and if I did my comment would get buried quickly).

I probably drink less than I could safely do, so I think I would give a conservative recommendation, which would not necessarily be evidence-based.

That said, if someone asked me if a Bottle of (even 40%) scotch a week is ok, I would be very comfortable saying it was too much.

@Nozinan We seem to follow the same principal about consumption during stressful or negative areas of life. I tend toward exercise or mindfulness in dark times or other creative outlets.

I'm not trying suggest any standard of consumption for anybody. I and am ultimately just asking for any concrete evidence that the previously discussed volume of consumption is dangerous or physically harmful. The mental and addictive properties, in my opinion, particularly for moderate consumption, have deeper implications spanning a vast territory of subjects that are highly variable in individuals and cannot be ascertained in a non-anecdotal manner. I personally see psychological addiction as a cultural phenomena. I quit chain smoking after 10 years cold turkey without any real noticeable mental or physical effects. I feel inclined, having said that, to disclose that I practice of depersonalization and self induced "ego-death". Though I have no interest in becoming completely detached(at least until death nears). Pretty vast sea of potential in any given human if you're willing to sacrifice. All too often is it easy to lose sight of our potential when dealing with our attachment to our ideals of what really "is".

There are some empirical guidelines for consumption that are not quite the sorcery this thread is making them out to be. Low risk drinking guidelines recommend up to 14 "standard" drinks per week for males and 9 for females. "Standard" means:

341 ml (12 oz.) bottle of 5% alcohol beer, cider or cooler 142 ml (5 oz.) glass of 12% alcohol (wine) 43 ml (1.5 oz.) serving of 40% distilled

One bottle of 750 ml 40% ABV whisky a week is 17.4 "standard" drinks, slightly more than recommended.

Some of the studies upon which these recommendations are based appeared to have statistical controls in place, so things like age, diet, exercise, etc. can be ruled out as factors that mitigate the effects of consuming too much alcohol. The evidence is compiled hodgepodge, though, without a sufficient meta-analysis of all diverse outcomes of consumption.

Of course, this info addresses the alcohol-related physical and social health concerns only. It does not address what others like Nozinan have posted about addiction (another important component to consider).

Citation below if interested.

Bondy S, J. Rehm, M. Ashley, G. Walsh, E. Single, and R. Room. 1999. Low-risk drinking guidelines: the scientific evidence. Can Journal of Public Health, 90:4:264-70.

@TpR I was simply stating that to regard a bottle a week of whisky (of 40% or more) as equal to two beers a day is something of a misjudgement, it sounds great but it's too optimistic... The 'unit' I talk about is the one used in the U.K to quantify alcohol intake - one 'unit' = a 2.5cl dram of standard 40%abv. A bottle of Scotch (70cl here in Europe) works out at about 30 units/week, whereas two beers a day would be roughly only 2/3 of that alcohol intake. It all depends on the size of those beers, sure.

All I'm saying is that most of the whisky people on this forum drink (usually 40%+ abv) is not going to be the same as just having two beers a day - but more like a third to twice that amount. I'm generalizing, but it's pretty much the case.

that should of course be:

"All I'm saying is that most of the whisky people on this forum drink (usually 40%+ abv) is not going to be the same as just having two beers a day if they have a bottle of said whisky/week - but more like a third to twice that amount. I'm generalizing, but it's pretty much the case."

@MaltActivist I'm glad I found this thread, I do an annual detox as well. It usually consists of no alcohol for 30 days. It's my own personal decision to regularly check myself, I don't won't ruin a good thing.

This years detox is a no grain, dairy, sugar, alcohol, coffee. I'm eating mostly meat, yogurt and vegetables. My wife is so supportive she has joined me this year, her support is a huge help. It would be difficult without her.

I'm on day 5, lost 3 lbs and I feel better already. I had a headache for the first 3 days.

To be perfectly honest, I would average 3 cups of coffee in the morning and 12 drams or beers combined a Week. No one on this site judges each other, but shares information on whiskey and drinking whiskey. I know I've said it before "don't ruin a good thing". I try to stay healthy, eat well and exercise 4 days a week. I have enjoyed whiskey for year and hope to for many more years to come.

Stay Healthy My Friends, Benancio

@Benancio

I didn't realize that you'd only been enjoying whiskey for a year.

I've only been heavily interested in whisky since 2011. I do worry about overdoing it, in principle, but my life doesn't allow me to drink too much. If I manage the equivalent of 2 - 30 cc drams a week (that's the equivalent of 3 drams at 40%) that is heavy week. Most days I'm too tired, on call, or just have other things to do.

Of course, I would do well to exercise as often (I've started biking to patients' homes when possible - today was the first day - loved it!), and eat less.

Even though I'm a light drinker by Connosr standards, I think it's healthy to be wary of slipping down a slope. Alcohol is a drug and a toxin, safe in small doses but always to be respected.