Ship of Fools: Church, drinking cultures, and the exclusion of teetotalers

Thread: Church, drinking cultures, and the exclusion of teetotalers Board: Purgatory / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

Not sure of the best title for this! In my own church background - Anglo-Catholicism (though my current parish church is not Anglo-Catholic) - drinking plays a huge role in socialising. It's a key part of celebrations in the church hall after church, theology discussion groups in the pub, the bar at Walsingham and A-C training colleges. I know similar levels of drinking happens in other churches too, for instance Roman Catholicism in many areas and the more conservative and Albaphilic Presbyterian/Reformed churches in the US.

I also am a non-drinker for medical reasons. I can manage a sip of communion wine, or a small glass of champagne after a special service, but the latter should be quite rare. While I don't want to talk about issues of alcohol in the Eucharist, I do think the general drinking culture of these churches can be immensely unhelpful and exclusionary. Given the large LGBT community within Anglo-Catholic churches particularly, and the higher rates of alcohol addiction within the community, this seems particularly concerning to me. Having fun and community so strongly connected to alcohol to the exclusion of other kinds of fun and community makes it really hard to challenge this without being seen as a joyless puritan - I'm not a joyless puritan, I just have a dodgy liver! I have a transgender friend who found church culture incompatible with his AA meetings to the extent he had to leave his church.

I also can't help but wonder at how this must affect our outreach to Muslims and other groups where alcohol is never or more rarely consumed (I believe that while alcohol is not forbidden for Hindus, it isn't recommended and stricter Hindus will abstain, for instance). Many of these groups won't socialise in pubs and other places alcohol is served either.

So, fellow drinky church members - what are we to do about it?

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Pomona wrote:

quote:
I also can't help but wonder at how this must affect our outreach to Muslims and other groups where alcohol is never or more rarely consumed (I believe that while alcohol is not forbidden for Hindus, it isn't recommended and stricter Hindus will abstain, for instance).

Well, you could just as easily turn that around and ask how the Muslim taboo against alcohol affects THEIR outreach to groups that like to socialize with booze, or even just have it as part of their sacrament?

And of course, it can go on forever like that. How does Sunday sabbath affect outreach to Seventh Day Adventists? Church-sponsored clinics and Christian Scientists? Etc etc.

Ecumenism is great and all, but at a certain point, you have to face the fact that certain groups have ways of doing things that they like, and that are of little harm to anyone, and if some other groups can't abide them, well, then maybe we can't all be best friends forever.

[ 18. July 2017, 16:40: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

If alcohol is essential to your church socialising, perhaps it isn't Jesus you are interested in.

I am not teetotal, but I think the emphasis on drink in social gatherings is a sign of cultural shortcomings. If a social gathering cannot happen without drink, there is a problem.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

Stetson - I'm not sure the kind of drinking culture I describe could be seen to be 'of little harm to anyone'. It harms rather a lot of people. I have no idea how Muslims and others do outreach to non-teetotal groups, but I don't see why that should mean non-teetotal groups can't be a bit more sensitive to outreach to teetotal groups.

I echo lilBuddha's comment - if you need to drink, it's not really about socialising, it's about drink.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Pomona wrote:

quote:
Stetson - I'm not sure the kind of drinking culture I describe could be seen to be 'of little harm to anyone'.

Well, fair enough, but the objection about outreach doesn't depend on the drinking being harmful to the people involved. It would apply even in situations where few people in the church were being harmed, since tee-totalers still wouldn't like it.

quote:
I have no idea how Muslims and others do outreach to non-teetotal groups, but I don't see why that should mean non-teetotal groups can't be a bit more sensitive to outreach to teetotal groups.

I guess I'm just kind of wondering why the obligation seems to be for people who enjoy something to consider the feelings of abstainers, rather than for the abstainers to say "Okay, well, not everyone's like us, and if we're gonna get along with other groups, we have to face the fact that we're gonna encounter some things that are different from the way we do things."

That said, if you're church is having a specific night dedicated to outreach with Muslims(or Mormons, or other abstainers), prob'ly that's not the best time to get rip-roaring sloshed on the dance floor. But if it's just a case of abstainers showing up to one of your regularly scheduled social events, and that would normally include alcohol, I don't see any reason to make a change.

For the record, I AM a complete abstainer, entirely for reasons of personal taste: I simply can't stand hangovers. And I do get kind of annoyed at people who insist to me that I can't have a good time unless I'm drinking. That doesn't stop me from socializing with drinkers, though.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

We do a lot of drinking but there is ALWAYS juice too.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Pomona wrote:

quote:
I echo lilBuddha's comment - if you need to drink, it's not really about socialising, it's about drink.

Too bad Jesus didn't think of that line at Cana. Coulda saved himself the trouble of a miracle!

[ 18. July 2017, 17:15: Message edited by: Stetson ]

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
Originally posted by leo:
We do a lot of drinking but there is ALWAYS juice too.

Of course. I've never known an event that had a wet bar not to allow you a dry option.

Posted by Schroedinger's cat (# 64) on :

I think there is a culture of drinking in our society, and htis is reflected in much of the church (probably quite rightly).

I know that when I have been out with others drinking, it is always possible to have non-alcoholic drinks, without censure. Which means it is possible to join in without actually drinking. FOr those who choose not to drink.

At the same time, someone who is a recovering alcoholic, or finds drinking environments problematic, there is an issue. There is the sherry after carols, and meeting socially for a drink in an evening, not to mention that things like beer festivals are often considered perfect times to meet socially and evangelise. And so many events at peoples homes involve drinks - my home group always used to have a bottle of wine for us.

Drink is such a fundamental part of our society, I don;t know how the church - or anyone else - should draw the line between engaging with the society and supporting or helping those for whom it is a challenge.

So Pomona - a good question, that I cannot find a good answer for.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

My point was more about how an excessive drinking culture harms outreach to teetotal groups (although in the UK Mormons aren't going to be one of those - you try getting Brits to join a religion where tea is prohibited) and that's just one area where it's harmful. Given that the groups being reached out to are likely to be marginalised in other ways (at least over here where religions which are teetotal are overwhelmingly non-white), I do think the non-teetotal group has a bit more responsibility here. After all, not drinking never harmed anyone. Sure all groups doing outreach should be sensitive, but I think insensitivity is more likely and more risky for the non-teetotal groups.

Also things may be different in the US where the same kind of pub culture doesn't really exist, but it's not uncommon for all or almost all socialising amongst the congregation in most UK churches to be in the pub. Now pubs do serve soft drinks, but there are many reasons why some teetotalers couldn't be in a pub (particularly those seeking help for alcoholism). The non-pub socialising tends to be for parents with babies and toddlers, and for old people. If you're a non-elderly adult socialising with other adults, being in the pub is the expectation. I think that expectation can be and often is harmful.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Pomona wrote:

quote:
I echo lilBuddha's comment - if you need to drink, it's not really about socialising, it's about drink.
Too bad Jesus didn't think of that line at Cana. Coulda saved himself the trouble of a miracle!

That is your basis? So why aren't you lot high as balls during a service if alcohol is the point of that story?
And, are you saying that teetotal Christian sects are heretics?
Not to mention there is theological debate as to whether that was intended to be literal or allegorical.
Also, as only John mentions it, perhaps he had a drink problem to justify?

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Stetson:
Pomona wrote:

quote:
I echo lilBuddha's comment - if you need to drink, it's not really about socialising, it's about drink.
Too bad Jesus didn't think of that line at Cana. Coulda saved himself the trouble of a miracle!

But how is that relevant when the wine at Cana wasn't exactly equivalent to a modern wine? And it is just what was hygienic to drink then (along with drinks similar to kefir). That is not the case in the modern Western world.

Yes, as Leo says, there are usually soft drinks on offer as well as alcohol. But it's the pressured atmosphere of churches where drinking = fun and people who don't drink = not fun that does harm.

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

quote:
That is your basis? So why aren't you lot high as balls during a service if alcohol is the point of that story?
And, are you saying that teetotal Christian sects are heretics?

No, not that drinking is the point of the story, just that celebrants being disappointed that there is no more booze at the wedding would be open to the same charge of "If you have to drink, it's not really about socializing" that is being leveled at imbibing Christians here.

That said, if the wine at Cana was not intended to have any intoxicating purpose at all, but rather was simply fermented for hygienic purposes, I guess my point doesn't apply. I shall leave that historical point to others to discuss.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

The 'have to' is the important bit there. It's not aimed at people having a drink or two because they want to, but at the idea that socialising and fun is impossible without alcohol.

Wine was necessary at Cana because it was one of the few drinks that was safe to drink. That is not the case in the modern West.

Edited to add that the wine would have been diluted - obviously any kind of wine or beer can be intoxicating, but it was a side effect of fermentation for hygienic reasons rather than the aim.

[ 18. July 2017, 17:49: Message edited by: Pomona ]

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

I'm a Methodist. I find a good and healthy attitude to alcohol at our Church. No alcohol is allowed on the premises but no one frowns on drinking and the minister is both allowed to drink in pubs etc and to have it in her house.

Plenty of my friends are tea Total and we have no trouble at all socialising together.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
But how is that relevant when the wine at Cana wasn't exactly equivalent to a modern wine? And it is just what was hygienic to drink then (along with drinks similar to kefir).

But evidently strong enough that getting drunk was fairly common practice as evinced by the stewards response

"Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk"

[As an aside, I think this is 'weakness of alcohol' argument doesn't hold much water. Having grown up in a very tee-total environment it's one of those things of particular irritation - drink the strength of beer is trivially easy to make. Strong drink was well known in the biblical world along with various ways of making it. And when I lived in the tropics we made our water hygienic by boiling it].

[So let's deal with things culturally - which may be a slight tangent]

So as I said, I grew up in a very tee-total environment, where the mere sniff of a drink was a sign of moral degeneration. Someone from that environment coming to the UK would have very quickly noticed the downsides of drink - but on the other hand their exposure to it would have been seeing people piling out of the pub at 11. They would have missed seeing the pub as a social nexus of sorts (as well the hinge on which English could perpetuate the species).

So yes, I could see why if you were trying to outreach to people from a culture that is tee-total you would perhaps have alcohol free events. Though unless all Christians everywhere stopped drinking ever, at some point they'd have to come to an accommodation with the idea, and unless they are first generation immigrants the chances are they already have, so in this context this rather feels like an attempt to invoke the mythical 'weaker brother'.

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

I'm not teetotal, I drink moderately, but I don't generally enjoy being around people who have been drinking to drunkenness very much. A wedding or other special celebration is one thing, but if every get-together involves enough alcohol to get participants pie-eyed, I think there's a problem.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Weaker alcohol drink wasn't because they couldn't make stronger or that they didn't make stronger. But that water wasn't safe and a weaker drink meant one could hydrate and remain functional.

And it isn't that Christians should all become teetotal.

If drink is necessary then there is a problem, not if drink is sometimes present.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
If you're a non-elderly adult socialising with other adults, being in the pub is the expectation. I think that expectation can be and often is harmful.

I can't speak for the pubs that you frequent, but when I lived in the UK, my normal social group included a couple of non-drinkers. We'd often go to the pub after some activity, and hang out and play pool. Some of us would drink.

Alcohol aside, pubs are warm, welcoming places with things to do (pool, darts, ...) What is the alternative? Where are the warm, welcoming, comfortable teetotal hang-out spaces for adults?

Church halls aren't comfortable. People's homes are too personal (and how many people have space anyway?) Cafes and coffee shops don't have anything to do. What kind of space are you proposing.

I like good beer. I also like good wine, although it fits a different kind of environment. I also enjoy a decent cup of tea, and happily hang out with people in some comfortable environment with a decent cup of tea. I'm not really interested in being offered juice, squash, or fizzy drinks.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
But how is that relevant when the wine at Cana wasn't exactly equivalent to a modern wine? And it is just what was hygienic to drink then (along with drinks similar to kefir).
But evidently strong enough that getting drunk was fairly common practice as evinced by the stewards response

"Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk"

[As an aside, I think this is 'weakness of alcohol' argument doesn't hold much water. Having grown up in a very tee-total environment it's one of those things of particular irritation - drink the strength of beer is trivially easy to make. Strong drink was well known in the biblical world along with various ways of making it. And when I lived in the tropics we made our water hygienic by boiling it].

[So let's deal with things culturally - which may be a slight tangent]

So as I said, I grew up in a very tee-total environment, where the mere sniff of a drink was a sign of moral degeneration. Someone from that environment coming to the UK would have very quickly noticed the downsides of drink - but on the other hand their exposure to it would have been seeing people piling out of the pub at 11. They would have missed seeing the pub as a social nexus of sorts (as well the hinge on which English could perpetuate the species).

So yes, I could see why if you were trying to outreach to people from a culture that is tee-total you would perhaps have alcohol free events. Though unless all Christians everywhere stopped drinking ever, at some point they'd have to come to an accommodation with the idea, and unless they are first generation immigrants the chances are they already have, so in this context this rather feels like an attempt to invoke the mythical 'weaker brother'.

I feel like this is all quite a distance from my original point, which was about people within the congregation struggling with a heavy drinking culture (for whatever reason). Outreach towards teetotal cultures is obviously affected in such a church, but more immediately there is the issue of excluding people who are already in the church.

My point is that pub as the default social nexus does a lot of harm in itself. The kind of church culture I'm drinking about isn't one of the odd pint, but one of a LOT of drink (and more along the gin/Dubonnet/sherry/champagne lines anyway) and alcohol being the default way to celebrate.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

It seems lilBuddha has it about right.

This looks like a matter about which one should consider Romans 14. When it comes to drinks, I want either a strong hot cup of coffee or an ice cold beer. However, if a drink with alcohol is causing a problem with other people I'm around, for any of the reasons folks here have already listed and probably any other, it seems best if I just let it go. That's assuming a person is more important than beer. Likewise, if I am ordering a pizza for myself, it will have anchovies, jalapenos and garlic. If I'm picking it up for a group, some will have just cheese, and the others will have pepperoni. It seems only right for us all to be considerate of others and what is going on in their lives and how they view things. At congregation events, there will never be alcohol. If someone is the congregation is hosting an event and some folks from the congregation come, there might be alcohol. My wife and I had our 35th anniversary celebration at our Elks Lodge on the 9th. Some of the folks there were from church. That there was an open bar didn't seem to bother anyone and folks were free to do what they want. With the large group that was there and the bar tab being under $100, that tells me not everyone had drinks and those that did didn't over do it.

[ 18. July 2017, 19:37: Message edited by: Mere Nick ]

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
If you're a non-elderly adult socialising with other adults, being in the pub is the expectation. I think that expectation can be and often is harmful.
I can't speak for the pubs that you frequent, but when I lived in the UK, my normal social group included a couple of non-drinkers. We'd often go to the pub after some activity, and hang out and play pool. Some of us would drink.

Alcohol aside, pubs are warm, welcoming places with things to do (pool, darts, ...) What is the alternative? Where are the warm, welcoming, comfortable teetotal hang-out spaces for adults?

Church halls aren't comfortable. People's homes are too personal (and how many people have space anyway?) Cafes and coffee shops don't have anything to do. What kind of space are you proposing.

I like good beer. I also like good wine, although it fits a different kind of environment. I also enjoy a decent cup of tea, and happily hang out with people in some comfortable environment with a decent cup of tea. I'm not really interested in being offered juice, squash, or fizzy drinks.

The solution then is to make a warm, welcoming, comfortable teetotal hang-out spaces for adults. Sure, pubs serve soft drinks and are nice places to go - but presumably you are aware that many people with alcohol problems cannot be in a place that serves alcohol at all? They manage to socialise, but it also means those who don't need to totally avoid the serving of alcohol need to make the effort to go without in order to include them.

I don't know what cafes you frequent but I go to plenty with lots on (live music, board games, comedy nights etc). Entire cultures have socialising built around non-alcoholic drinks, usually forms of tea or coffee although not always. To boil cold soft drinks down to squash, juice or fizzy drinks is incredibly English [Biased]

There are lots of fun soft drinks from other places - a gorgeous homemade Lebanese pomegranate lemonade, iced Moroccan mint tea, a delicious Pakistani falooda. Creativity is needed - I think a lot of 'we'll just go to the pub' comes from a lack of creativity.

Posted by Mere Nick (# 11827) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
a gorgeous homemade Lebanese pomegranate lemonade

That sounds like a really tasty drink.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

From years on the Ship I suspect this is more of a UK problem than it is in the US. We rarely drink and never have alcohol at church events, and nobody seems to think twice about it. Of course, that could just be the people I run with, but I doubt it. I know we do have a subculture that is all about alcohol, but that's just what it is--a subculture--and AFAIK most churches aren't signed up to it.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
From years on the Ship I suspect this is more of a UK problem than it is in the US. We rarely drink and never have alcohol at church events, and nobody seems to think twice about it. Of course, that could just be the people I run with, but I doubt it. I know we do have a subculture that is all about alcohol, but that's just what it is--a subculture--and AFAIK most churches aren't signed up to it.

There's an old joke about a couple of church ladies going to lunch and being asked by waitstaff if they'd like to order a drink. Answer: "oh, none of us drinks in front of the others" pretty much covers US church culture in my experience.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I used to assist at weddings at our church. We are a historical property and in constant demand. The most notable one I assisted at, the bride and her five bridesmaids were to dress at the church before the ceremony. To my horror, the process was lubricated by five different flasks of liquor, all the most horrid cordials you can imagine -- creme de menthe, Bailey's Irish Cream, and so on. The bridal party passed the bottles around and around.
By the time they marched down the aisle they were reeling, and I could easily foresee a truly drunken reception after. We shoved them through the rite before anyone vomited on the carpet, and what happened thereafter I am happy not to know about. After that, a church campus policy was mandated: no alcohol.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Mere Nick:

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
a gorgeous homemade Lebanese pomegranate lemonade
That sounds like a really tasty drink.

It is! There is a Lebanese chain in the UK which is expanding into more and more towns which does it. I am lucky enough to have a family-run Lebanese bakery and grill in my nearest major town that also does a lovely version - lots of interesting and tasty soft drinks come from majority-Muslim countries. I've also had a really nice orange blossom and grapefruit drink (grapefruit-ade?) and lots of mint lemonade.

Even outside Muslim-owned businesses this can be done - in a city at the other end of my county, there's a cafe that has a bar of fancy teas, several interesting soft drinks (green tea lemonade, orange and ginger fizz, strawberry mint limeade etc - all homemade), commercial craft sodas, a range of food including lighter snacks. All the kind of thing you might get in a cool gastropub or bar (well minus the tea) but just with interesting soft drinks rather than alcohol. It is extremely successful.

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I used to assist at weddings at our church. We are a historical property and in constant demand. The most notable one I assisted at, the bride and her five bridesmaids were to dress at the church before the ceremony. To my horror, the process was lubricated by five different flasks of liquor, all the most horrid cordials you can imagine -- creme de menthe, Bailey's Irish Cream, and so on. The bridal party passed the bottles around and around.
By the time they marched down the aisle they were reeling, and I could easily foresee a truly drunken reception after. We shoved them through the rite before anyone vomited on the carpet, and what happened thereafter I am happy not to know about. After that, a church campus policy was mandated: no alcohol.

Was the bride Hercule Poirot? It reminds of Mad Men on the Kennedy/Nixon election night, where they fill the office water coolers with creme de Menthe.

Interestingly we'd call those liqueurs - a cordial here is a soft drink (usually made from fruit, cf Ribena) that is diluted with water before drinking.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:

I feel like this is all quite a distance from my original point,

Yeah, but you were the one who brought up outreach towards teetotal cultures [and I suspect they may be uncomfortable about cultural differences beyond merely the amount drunk]

quote:

which was about people within the congregation struggling with a heavy drinking culture (for whatever reason).

Which doesn't sound like a good thing, and some ways away from your original post.

quote:
My point is that pub as the default social nexus does a lot of harm in itself. The kind of church culture I'm drinking about isn't one of the odd pint, but one of a LOT of drink (and more along the gin/Dubonnet/sherry/champagne lines anyway) and alcohol being the default way to celebrate.

That sounds less like a problem with pub culture, and just an issue with socially tolerated alcohol abuse.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
The solution then is to make a warm, welcoming, comfortable teetotal hang-out spaces for adults.

Sure - but I don't think they exist. Pubs exist.

quote:
I don't know what cafes you frequent but I go to plenty with lots on (live music, board games, comedy nights etc).

None of those things really seem like aids to socialization to me. They are things to do - but going to a comedy night at a cafe seems more akin to spending an evening at the theatre than to hanging out socializing. YMMV.

Board games - sure, that could be a socialization aid, although most take quite a long time, so that the game is an evening's activity rather than a thing you can drop in and out of.

Something like backgammon would do fine an a socialization aid - of course, you can guess what kind of place I used to play backgammon in, can't you [Biased]

quote:
Entire cultures have socialising built around non-alcoholic drinks, usually forms of tea or coffee although not always.

Sure - but also useless. Because we're talking about the things that people in the UK can actually do. Places that actually exist in ordinary UK towns where adults can go and socialize without alcohol.

I agree that such places are theoretically possible, and I agree that they are likely to be common in other places. None of that helps the choir from St. Martin-by-the-Railway when they want to wind down for an hour after a practice.

quote:
To boil cold soft drinks down to squash, juice or fizzy drinks is incredibly English There are lots of fun soft drinks from other places - a gorgeous homemade Lebanese pomegranate lemonade, iced Moroccan mint tea, a delicious Pakistani falooda. Creativity is needed - I think a lot of 'we'll just go to the pub' comes from a lack of creativity.

Yes, I'm sure I'm terribly English, but England is also rather English. What fraction of the population of England would you say lived or worshipped within walking distance of an establishment selling gorgeous homemade Lebanese pomegranate lemonade?

Posted by Pomona (# 17175) on :

Chris Stiles - apologies, I thought my opening paragraph was talking about churches with a culture of heavy drinking rather than normal drinking.

Leorning - I live in a very ordinary part of the country. All of those kinds of places and drinks are easily accessible, in normal towns with normal people. I am literally half an hour by car (50 mins by public transport so very accessible) from a pomegranate lemonade in a very normal town in the Home Counties, not even a big city or a city at all.

All my local board game and comedy cafes are absolutely jam-packed, so clearly that kind of thing does appeal to many.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
From years on the Ship I suspect this is more of a UK problem than it is in the US. We rarely drink and never have alcohol at church events, and nobody seems to think twice about it. Of course, that could just be the people I run with, but I doubt it. I know we do have a subculture that is all about alcohol, but that's just what it is--a subculture--and AFAIK most churches aren't signed up to it.

The church out here is a dry oasis in an alcoholic cultural desert (if I may invert my metaphors). We have a fair few recovering and not-yet-recovering alcoholics so alcohol is strictly off the menu, even in the communion "wine".

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
The solution then is to make a warm, welcoming, comfortable teetotal hang-out spaces for adults.
Sure - but I don't think they exist. Pubs exist.

quote:
Entire cultures have socialising built around non-alcoholic drinks, usually forms of tea or coffee although not always.
Sure - but also useless. Because we're talking about the things that people in the UK can actually do. Places that actually exist in ordinary UK towns where adults can go and socialize without alcohol.

There are no Starbucks in the UK???

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

Of course, but we've got a very pubby culture.

Some church cultures are more bibulous than others, notably the Higher End with its gin and lace.

I wouldn't have thought it was that excessive in most instances, though - although it's all relative. We've probably got a more boozy culture than the US and most of mainland Europe, for all the wine drinking that goes on in France and Italy etc.

You'll find a fair bit of wine and socialising over a few pints even in evangelical circles here.

Again, it's all relative.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
From years on the Ship I suspect this is more of a UK problem than it is in the US. We rarely drink and never have alcohol at church events, and nobody seems to think twice about it. Of course, that could just be the people I run with, but I doubt it. I know we do have a subculture that is all about alcohol, but that's just what it is--a subculture--and AFAIK most churches aren't signed up to it.
There's an old joke about a couple of church ladies going to lunch and being asked by waitstaff if they'd like to order a drink. Answer: "oh, none of us drinks in front of the others" pretty much covers US church culture in my experience.

Maybe US evangelical or Baptist culture--Lutherans happily drink in front of the rest of us, and I'm sure that goes for my Catholic and Episcopalian friends. We just hear more about the non-drinkers. But still, my experience of the drinking churches (!) is that we still don't make alcohol the centerpiece of our socializing. It's often absent and when it's present, it's lowkey. Does anybody have a different experience in the U.S.?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

At my church we have Evensong a few times a year with a reception afterwards. At the reception people are offered their choice of fruit punch or (several varieties of) wine.

I don't notice what anyone else drinks.

Moo

Posted by moonlitdoor (# 11707) on :

I am interested to know how widespread churches such as Pomona describes are. I have only been to 4 churches medium or long term as an adult, but none was remotely like that. My current church is motr towards light Catholic C of E. Admittedly I am not especially sociable but I go to a fortnightly home group. I doubt if any of the other members know whether I drink or not. I can't remember the topic ever coming up in conversation, and that's not because we only ever talk about the bible or spiritual things.

Posted by rolyn (# 16840) on :

My experience of alcohol and CofE is mulled wine at Advent and wine on occasions in an after-worship get together. Pleasant enough for those who enjoy a drink and not in the least bit pressurised to those who don't.

Wine and Wisdom evenings in aid of Church funds is the nearest thing you'll see to a boozy do.
I agree that if you have to go down the road of using booze to attract new members then the plot has been lost anyway.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Here in DC there's a priest (I think he's a Jesuit, a prof at Georgetown U) who's been doing meetups in pubs and bars. They are very popular, and certainly you get a segment of inquirers that you don't get at Alpha.

Posted by Rowen (# 1194) on :

In Australia, in most Protestant churches, you would be most unlikely to socialise, with church folk, in a pub. Cafe, yes. Home yes...
Drinking is either frowned upon or accepted but not discussed.
In the Uniting Church, no alcohol is allowed in some states, in churches at all, apart for communion. My home state of Queensland was like that. Here, in Victoria, occasional bottles of wine are found at church celebrations.
Many members don't drink, and no one cares. Some folk do, and no one seems to care, although drunkeness has been condemned in Synod meetings across the nation. My parishioners have always known I drink alcohol. I grew up before the Uniting Church, in a Presbyterian home... I might order it at a church dinner in a restaurant, I might drink it at home, and they must see the bottles. I drink very little. But we just don't talk about it.
At church events, if there is no alcohol, who cares. Ditto, if there is. So, visitors or interfaith folk would probably feel right at home... At least I have never seen any kerfuffle as parish minister.
Socialising in my country town now? The good local and unlicensed cafe. Private homes, often mine. The pub restaurant. We worry more about good food and being warm.... It IS mid-winter after all.

[ 18. July 2017, 22:24: Message edited by: Rowen ]

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

I grew up Methodist, and Presbyterian, a few years ago switched to Lutheran which has just, very recently combined services with an Episcopalian church.

My son went with me last week and came home rather upset, because he had, had a sip of the communion wine and realized it actually was wine and not the grape juice he had always expected in church.

This matters to him. He gave up alcohol twenty years ago after it caused him a lot of trouble and the taste of it sort of triggered him and made him feel like he had broken a serious promise to himself. I felt bad for not thinking of it and warning him.

It's a small thing to the majority, but to some people it's a big enough deal to keep them from church altogether, so that's kind of a sad thing.

Posted by Kaplan Corday (# 16119) on :

I am aware of the really serious issues surrounding alcohol (my father was an alcoholic), so I don't want to trivialise this discussion.

At the same time, I find the various points being brought up (eg the significance of the wedding at Cana) are a real nostalgia trip, taking me back decades to when the questions of alcohol consumption and teetotalism were earnestly canvassed within my evangelical milieu, particularly by "the young people".

Like Rowen, I live in Victoria, and the topic these days, in my experience, has become a dead horse among the evangelical and other Christians whom I know here, with everyone pretty much everyone accepting one another's different positions without needing to impose their own.

I grew up in the fifties and sixties in the strictly teetotal Methodists (now absorbed by the Uniting Church) and then joined the also teetotal Brethren (who, oddly enough, then used alcohol for the Lord's Supper, but have since switched to grape juice) and now enjoy a regular glass of red (I can't drink beer because I am coeliac).

[ 18. July 2017, 23:46: Message edited by: Kaplan Corday ]

Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I know similar levels of drinking happens in other churches too, for instance Roman Catholicism in many areas and the more conservative and Albaphilic Presbyterian/Reformed churches in the US.

That last part would surprise me a great deal. I've never heard of an American Presbyterian church that allowed alcohol to be served on church property.

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But still, my experience of the drinking churches (!) is that we still don't make alcohol the centerpiece of our socializing. It's often absent and when it's present, it's lowkey. Does anybody have a different experience in the U.S.?

I don't. That's definitely my experience.

Now coffee, on the other hand . . . .

Posted by anoesis (# 14189) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
My point was more about how an excessive drinking culture harms outreach to teetotal groups

In my view, this is a bit of a value judgement. Would you care to specify what level of drinking would not be excessive? I mean, to certain teetotal groups, any drinking is excessive - indeed, alcohol is a sort of symbol of excess. It seems, though, from what you've said, that your own teetotalling has a different source. The problem is that these things are all relative. Myself and my husband drink at a level which is probably (quietly) considered excessive by members of his extended family - but they're baptists, and his parents are the first generation to drink anything at all. Whereas amongst friends and colleagues our drinking wouldn't be considered at all unreasonable - probably down the lower end. Who gets to say what's what? Also, it sounds from what you've said like you have plenty of places and opportunities for non-alcoholic socialising within easy reach. Why do the folk from your church hang out at the pub instead? Seems to me there's two possible reasons. One is, that's what they like - in which case, you probably have to shrug and move on. The other could be that the pub is, as others have suggested, kind of the default. In which case, why not try to organise some activities to take place elsewhere and see if you can't broaden their horizons?

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nick Tamen:

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I know similar levels of drinking happens in other churches too, for instance Roman Catholicism in many areas and the more conservative and Albaphilic Presbyterian/Reformed churches in the US.
That last part would surprise me a great deal. I've never heard of an American Presbyterian church that allowed alcohol to be served on church property.

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
But still, my experience of the drinking churches (!) is that we still don't make alcohol the centerpiece of our socializing. It's often absent and when it's present, it's lowkey. Does anybody have a different experience in the U.S.?
I don't. That's definitely my experience.

Now coffee, on the other hand . . . .

Coffee is the third sacrament in Reformed churches...

In my church I'm not allowed to put alcohol on the church credit card so if we were to serve alcohol for some church-wide event I'd have to foot the bill personally. Which has happened for smaller gatherings.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I am literally half an hour by car (50 mins by public transport so very accessible) from a pomegranate lemonade in a very normal town in the Home Counties, not even a big city or a city at all.

How many people do you know who spend half an hour in the car (or 50 mins by public transport) to get to the pub? I'll certainly do that if that's where my friends are, but if my friends and I are all here, we're not spending best part of an hour on the bus to get to the pub, because there will be plenty of reasonable pubs much closer.

And I'd need a lot of persuasion to consider it worth my while to spend an hour on the bus for a glass of pomegranate lemonade (which sounds suspiciously like a fizzy drink to me [Biased]

) It just doesn't seem like a destination activity.

quote:
All my local board game and comedy cafes are absolutely jam-packed, so clearly that kind of thing does appeal to many.

I'm not saying that they don't appeal - I'm saying that they're not aids to socialization.

I think we're talking about different things. You're talking about evening destinations - sure, people travel an hour to go to the theatre, or the comedy club, or whatever. I'm talking about everybody going down the pub after the choir rehearsal, or the day spent weeding the churchyard, or whatever.

(Cliffdweller: yes, of course there are cafes and coffee shops in the UK, some of which are Starbucks. But they don't have any socialization aids. They have tables, and coffee, and pastries.

Pubs have dart boards, pool tables, juke boxes, and other things to do to alleviate the social pressure.)

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

Darts are "socialization sids" but board games are not??? Sez who?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Darts are "socialization sids" but board games are not??? Sez who?

Most cafes do not have board games.

Most board games take quite some time to play.

Certainly they aid socialization, but they're mostly not something you can just dip in to. Spend an hour or two playing a board game with some people? Sure, sounds like fun, if it's a decent game. If it takes you an hour to play a game of pool or darts, you're really quite astonishingly bad.

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

In my childhood and youth (I'm 85) I was taught that Presbyterians Did Not Drink (or gamble – this included raffle tickets, but we'd give a donation instead, which floored the sellers). Drink was basically beer, wine hadn't reached the masses. We knew that Catholics drank; they also played tennis on Sunday or even went to Mass on Saturday evening so that they could enjoy worldly pursuits while we were at church.
At Uni I was in the SCM, and have memories of a ball at which all our lot were teetotal; at the end of the evening we were charging along the cloisters singing the Marseillaise at the tops of our voices and passing drunken colleagues who'd collapsed in sad little heaps. Was that the evening when we were taken aback to find a friend dancing who'd been known to denounce it as Sinfu? He'd concluded that it was okay because David danced before the Ark (but didn't David thus make an ass of himself?)
I was thirtyish before I tried wine at a fellow Presbyterian's dinner and okayed it.
In my present congregation, where I've belonged for half a century, we still have grape juice for communion, but I can think of only one couple, older than me, who would be upset if we substituted a good port. I don't know what they do when we visit the Anglicans; maybe they stay in their seats. Gradually over the years wine and juice have both become equally available at church functions.
If the church hall is hired as a venue, eg wedding reception, wine may be served but not beer or spirits.
I still don't buy raffle tickets.

GG

Posted by Al Eluia (# 864) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
Yes, as Leo says, there are usually soft drinks on offer as well as alcohol. But it's the pressured atmosphere of churches where drinking = fun and people who don't drink = not fun that does harm.

That's why our TEC diocese has a guideline for congregations that, when they serve alcohol at functions, non-alcoholic alternatives should be offered with equal dignity (I forget the exact wording).

Since a couple posts mentioned the Mormons, I recalled that Mitt Romney did his mission work in France. I cannot imagine many French people ever being persuaded to join a religion that forbids drinking wine.

[ 19. July 2017, 05:06: Message edited by: Al Eluia ]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

There is a big binge drinking culture in the UK amongst younger people - pre-drinks before going elsewhere are usual.

The pub culture is less popular - in February 2016 CAMRA calculated 27 pubs closing a week in 2015, down from 29 a week in 2014. Of the seven pubs in town when I moved here, there are now four. Of the three that have closed, two are now housing, one is a restaurant. I used to meet friends in the pub all the time when I was younger, but I think I've had two Guide planning meetings in the pub in four and a half years and one social at another pub. Mostly we meet in homes, or the coffee shop, big social meetings in a restaurant. I'm more likely to find a pub for a lunchtime drink and meal out walking than use any of the town pubs. (And if I'm with my daughter, I don't drink alcohol - I drank tea and water at Folk by the Oak with my daughter on Sunday.)

The church choir here goes to a pub after practice and evensong, the bell-ringers go on to another tower. But families with children do not go down the pub. The big parties were in church or in the rectory garden (that rector has retired).

Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :

Al Eluia wrote:

quote:
I cannot imagine many French people ever being persuaded to join a religion that forbids drinking wine.

I read a quote from Romney where he said he didn't get many converts.

I also once read a quote from another LDS missionary who was based in Bourdeaux, who said that it was kind of fun trying to convince people in a wine-making area to join a religion that forbids drinking.

The overall impression I get from those and other sources is that Mormons are generally indifferent to how many converts they get from their missions.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

Thinking of socialising and creating a space for talking etc. : what do folk think about a recently-opened pub run by a Baptist minister which has official backing from the denomination?

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Curiosity Killed, the impression I get is that binge drinking is on the decline and young adults are far less likely to be heavy drinkers than the middle-aged and elderly. We may be among the nations of heavy drinkers, but the culture is changing.

This report may also be of interest. I'd take the Telegraph with a large pinch of salt... it's got a right-wing paternalistic agenda just like the Daily Mail, only sugar-coated for a different audience. Did you notice the picture they used to illustrate the article was of three young women holding drinks? Because binge-drinking in young men is just a rite of passage, and boys will be boys, nothing to see here, move along.

[ 19. July 2017, 07:58: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
There are no Starbucks in the UK???

I think we're now down to 2 Starbucks in Sydney (1 of which is at the airport to cater for tourists) and probably very few more throughout the rest of the country. Opened with a bang, loud proclamations that now Oz could have the benefit of a Starbucks on every corner. Of course, they failed, because there were non-chain coffee shops on every corner, selling (mostly) good coffee and half-decent pastries, cakes and savoury food. The fairest comment is that Starbucks coffee does not appeal here, a country where the coffee revolution started in post-WW II days with Italian arrivals.

The Methodists here were wowsers of the first order, but there are very few Methodists left. The Presbyterians were never against alcohol in anywhere near the terms of the Methodists. Almost all of both joined the Uniting Church and while the consumption of alcoholic drinks on church premises is very limited, normal amounts are drunk on other social occasions.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Curiosity Killed, the impression I get is that binge drinking is on the decline and young adults are far less likely to be heavy drinkers than the middle-aged and elderly.

I agree, whether that's because of falling disposable incomes, health warnings getting through, or simply because it's no longer seen as "cool" to be spewing up on the pavement. The real worry seems to be solo drinking at home ("I'll just have a glass or two of wine to wind down after a busy day ... Seems a shame not to finish the bottle").

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
There is a big binge drinking culture in the UK amongst younger people - pre-drinks before going elsewhere are usual.

Contrary to the impression given by that article, figures elsewhere show a steady decline in drinking among the young - including binge drinking:

http://uk.businessinsider.com/ons-statistics-young-adults-in-the-uk-are-drinking-less-alcohol-2015-6

[Which could be for all sorts of reasons as B62 says above]

Posted by wild haggis (# 15555) on :

I have been in a great any churches in the UK and never seen the problems that are talked about in the original post.
In many yes, at receptions, there is alcohol on offer but I have never been anywhere where there is not a soft alternative.

What's wrong with just saying "no thanks."
If it really is a major problem change your church.

Maybe your church likes everyone roaring drunk? If so you have a problem. And that is not a church but a pub.

I don't understand this argument. We live in a culture nowadays where it is OK to go soft.

As to outreach to Moslems - really? Anyway it's simple - have a good selection of non alcoholic drinks available. If you are reaching out to Moslems it's unlikely they will come to a church event like that. Have a tea party if you are seriously going to engage with Moslems.

Today, because of the dink- drive rules most places have people who don't drink and order soft alternatives. What's the problem?

We are all different. Accept it and drink soft.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
If you are reaching out to Moslems it's unlikely they will come to a church event like that. Have a tea party if you are seriously going to engage with Moslems.

My former church did that, and it worked well.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:

Have a tea party if you are seriously going to engage with Moslems.

Yes, this plus follow-up individual to individual, family to family works quite well if you want to engage with Muslim neighbours/friends.

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:

Have a tea party if you are seriously going to engage with Moslems.
Yes, this plus follow-up individual to individual, family to family works quite well if you want to engage with Muslim neighbours/friends.

We get on really well with our Muslim neighbours, we chat a lot over the fence. But they don't come to our coffee mornings due to us having two big, friendly dogs and plenty of dogs who come coffee mornings with visitors (I run them as fund raisers for Guide Dogs). I find this much more of a cultural barrier than alcohol has ever been. I go out for meals with my Muslim friends, but leave the puppy at home.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

A bit of history.

50-60 years ago, attitudes to alcohol as described by Australians and New Zealanders were quite widespread in England. It's lovely to hear the word 'wowser' again. I haven't heard it for years.

The Methodists were particularly strict on alcohol, but some other denominations were fairly anti. Some shacks gave the impression that they thought a pub was as bad as a brothel if not worse. Temperance had been a movement that in some churches had replaced faith.

So in the sixties and seventies, there was a sort of feeling in churches that we needed to let the world know that we weren't against everything, and that a chap (particularly men) who became a Christian did not have to become prim and disapproving.

That in itself is an important message. There is nothing holy about being a wowser.

Broadly, that one could ask as a simple question 'do you drink or don't you?' and for that to be an issue, marks out as unhealthy an attitude to one area of human activity, as insisting that shops don't sell meat for fear of upsetting vegetarians, tobacco for fear of upsetting people trying to give up smoking or pork for fear of upsetting Moslems and Jews.

If you don't like alcohol, don't drink it. Drivers can't even if they want to. If you don't like tea, don't drink it. Ask for something else. But more importantly, if you feel pressured to do something you don't enjoy by the need to show that you conform, that's actually a problem that's internal to you, not the culture. It took me until well into my thirties even to begin to realise that.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Baptist Trainfan:

quote:
The real worry seems to be solo drinking at home ("I'll just have a glass or two of wine to wind down after a busy day ... Seems a shame not to finish the bottle").

And I suspect that's more of a problem among older people too. All the people under 40 that I know are into exotic varieties of tea. Or coffee.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Baptist Trainfan:
quote:
The real worry seems to be solo drinking at home ("I'll just have a glass or two of wine to wind down after a busy day ... Seems a shame not to finish the bottle").
And I suspect that's more of a problem among older people too.

Yes, I agree - and, anecdotally, among women in particular.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Is it *really* more of a problem among women, or do people just have different attitudes towards women who drink a lot? The academics who did the research I mentioned earlier seemed to think it was the latter.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Darts are "socialization sids" but board games are not??? Sez who?
Most cafes do not have board games.

Most board games take quite some time to play.

Certainly they aid socialization, but they're mostly not something you can just dip in to. Spend an hour or two playing a board game with some people? Sure, sounds like fun, if it's a decent game. If it takes you an hour to play a game of pool or darts, you're really quite astonishingly bad.

Maybe it's a cross-pond thing or maybe it's just me, but I cannot for the life of me fathom how a game of darts could be this central one way or another to the success or failure of a social outing. It seems harmless enough, but not really very exciting either. Ymmv

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

It's a cross pond thing. We don't get baseball or carrying sidearms.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Is it *really* more of a problem among women, or do people just have different attitudes towards women who drink a lot? The academics who did the research I mentioned earlier seemed to think it was the latter.

You could well be right! - which is why I said, "Anecdotally".

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

My eldest daughter was quite into the teenage binge-drinking thing until she went to work in Italy as an au pair and that cured her of it. She liked the Italian approach and adopted it.

She drinks a lot less than I do.

My youngest still binges a bit but it's not regular and I get the impression that the same goes for a lot of her pals.

On the pub thing, well yes, sadly there are pubs closing and that's a shame, I'm a big fan of the traditional British pub and a CAMRA member (Campaign for More Real Ale). I try not to be a beer bore, though.

However, there are more drinking establishments in our town than there were when I moved here - some of them very fly-by-night ...

On the whole though, I do think that it's the drinking at home thing that is stealthily catching up with people - particularly older people and the middle-aged ...

I've been monitoring what I drink and am consciously scaling back - not that I was drinking excessively but I noticed it was creeping up to and over the recommended top level weekly limit that the Gummint sets as a bench-mark (up to 14 units, reduced from the previous 21 top recommended limit for men).

Some weeks I'm around the 11-14 mark and sometimes I topple over to around 18 units. I'm going to ease back to up to 7 units maximum if I can - and that shouldn't be difficult.

Many of the arty events I'm involved in happen in and around pubs but I tend to have no more than 2 or 3 pints ... although I do need to watch it.

On the churchy thing, whilst I've seen wine at churchy socials I've never seen it offered without non-alcoholic alternatives and whilst a lot of clergy I know enjoy a pint, a whisky, gin or a glass or two of wine I don't think I know any who are particularly prone to drinking gallons of the stuff at church socials.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
Maybe it's a cross-pond thing or maybe it's just me, but I cannot for the life of me fathom how a game of darts could be this central one way or another to the success or failure of a social outing. It seems harmless enough, but not really very exciting either. Ymmv

It takes the social pressure off. It's not darts in particular, but something short-term and fairly low-key that you can do in order to avoid being a group of people sitting round a table looking expectantly at each other. Darts, pool, and so on provide a social focus that is not a person, so reduce the pressure to socialize.

Doing "an activity" together works the same way, but "an activity" tends to be a more major undertaking that takes a substantial fraction of the evening, and as such is a thing that you arrange to do as the focus of your evening's entertainment.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

I've been to a pub which provided board games for its customers, though as it also served food it may have been a ploy to distract us from how long it took our meals to arrive.

All board games are not all created equal. Yes, a lot of them do take a while to play (one of ours only ever comes out on New Year's Eve, because that's the only occasion we have enough time to play it). But some of them don't. A quick game of Snakes and Ladders or a few rounds of Fluxx (ok, ok, that one's a card game) would take less than half an hour.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I'm sure a lot of it comes down to the historical place of alcohol within a culture. A rough divide can be made across Europe East-West centred on the Alps: south of that line people tended to drink wine and north of it the drink was beer. While wine goes with most things beer doesn't necessarily go with food, and the drinking culture of the Voking/Norse lands was largely males, drinking in a group until they passed out. South of the line wine was drunk with meals - sure they had feasts but not the male-only drink-till-you-drop thing of the northern peoples.

Like it or not, that is the culture the UK has inherited and thus we have always had a big problem with binge drinking - if you doubt my theory cast your eyes over Hogarth's Gin Lane or look at the reasons for bringing in limited licensing hours during the First World War.

As for drinking at church functions, surely it comes down to good manners: at any "do" good provision should always be made for those who prefer not to drink, especially since there are drink-driving laws. In the same way, no one should feel pressured by social gatherings taking place in pubs because they have always sold non-alcoholic drinks and nowadays most can even rustle up an acceptable cup of coffee.

The outreach thing is, I think, a red herring: and taking a po-faced attitude towards being in a place where alcohol is served doesn't wash either, otherwise there would be empty restaurants across the land.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by wild haggis:
I have been in a great any churches in the UK and never seen the problems that are talked about in the original post.

I don't think it's at all typical of British churches in general, but there is a certain kind of ultra-high Anglican establishment that revels in bibulous festivities. On the other hand, they do have good parties and a strong sense of community cohesion.

quote:
Originally posted by l'Organist:
if you doubt my theory cast your eyes over Hogarth's Gin Lane or look at the reasons for bringing in limited licensing hours during the First World War

Although many who are aware of Gin Lane are unaware of its utopian companion-piece Beer Street ...

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
A quick game of Snakes and Ladders

I'm confused why anyone old enough to reliably count would enjoy a game of Snakes and Ladders, but each to his own. (The number of choices you make in a game of Snakes and Ladders is precisely zero.)

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

This article gives a good peek into the drinking practices of the Episcopalian church in America. These new rules were established in 2015 but I don't think my pastor has seen them. They still have "Beer and the Bible," at a local bar, Friday night "Cards and Cheer," at different houses and the pastor herself is often criticized (behind her back of course) for getting loud and boisterous after having a few.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Leorning Cniht:

quote:
I'm confused why anyone old enough to reliably count would enjoy a game of Snakes and Ladders, but each to his own.

Where did I say I enjoyed Snakes and Ladders? I merely offer it as an example of a game that takes less than half an hour to play.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Where did I say I enjoyed Snakes and Ladders? I merely offer it as an example of a game that takes less than half an hour to play.

Sure - but we're talking about adults socializing here (people who Pomona would like to go to places other than the pub). So I suppose a hidden assumption in the darts/pool/boardgames/whatever social aid category was that it was an activity that adults would actually choose to do. If there are adults who voluntarily play Snakes and Ladders with other adults, then I suspect that they are rather rare (and probably also high).

Posted by Galloping Granny (# 13814) on :

Our most conspicuous drinking problem is young people (late teens early 20s) who drink lots (mostly canned ready-mixed) before they go on the town. I report what I've read about and seen on TV.
There is also the problem in poorer areas of too many off-licence shops.

GG

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

If that's a problem at all, isn't that more a problem of some people buying too much alcohol and then drinking it, rather than there being shops to sell it to them? And what assumptions are any of us making if we say there are 'too many off-licences in poorer areas' about other people's ability to take responsibility for living their own lives?

Of course we can look after our lives and organise ourselves. But those poor people are benighted? They can't? They need us to organise their lives for them?

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I'd take the Telegraph with a large pinch of salt... it's got a right-wing paternalistic agenda just like the Daily Mail, only sugar-coated for a different audience.

to be quite honest, I find it helps to assume that every UK news outlet is a special interest agenda peddler setting out to lie to you for its own ends and take it from there.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Oh yes. But everyone likes to think their favourite news outlet is unbiased. I suppose the BBC comes closest - if both sides think you're biased against them then at least you're not (always) telling only one side of the story.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
Oh yes. But everyone likes to think their favourite news outlet is unbiased. I suppose the BBC comes closest - if both sides think you're biased against them then at least you're not (always) telling only one side of the story.

I do agree about the BBC - if you're getting it in the neck from all sides then you're probably ok. Ditto Private Eye actually, which is an equal opportunities attacker when selecting targets.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Reading the foreign media is useful for gaining perspective too, although this only works if you can read French or German...

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by betjemaniac:

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
I'd take the Telegraph with a large pinch of salt... it's got a right-wing paternalistic agenda just like the Daily Mail, only sugar-coated for a different audience.
to be quite honest, I find it helps to assume that every UK news outlet is a special interest agenda peddler setting out to lie to you for its own ends and take it from there.

Well, in this case the Telegraph is peddling false facts - or more charitably peddling an opinion that doesn't have facts to back it (see ONS link - drinking among younger people is down).

Anyway, to your further point that complaining from both sides mean that a media organ has achieved that mythical 'balance', that's only true if each side has an accurate view of where balance lies. As it happens, numerous studies have proved that conservative voices are far more likely to be represented on the BBC, and the news/politics organisations are a veritable revolving door of people moving between the BBC and various right wing media outlets or the Tory party. Similarly the choice of 'think tanks' represented.

But we are getting quite far away from the OP.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

Actually, from the ONS report:
"7.8 million people “binged” on alcohol on their heaviest drinking day"
and

quote:
young drinkers are more likely than any other age group to “binge” on their heaviest drinking day. Among drinkers aged 16 to 24 years, 37.3% reported binge drinking on their heaviest drinking day in 2016 compared with just 10.3% of drinkers aged above the age of 65 years.

There is a rider that:

quote:
Finding generally higher levels of binge drinking among those aged 16 to 24 years could be due to the data capturing those who tend to drink a lot on a Friday or Saturday night and then not much else during the rest of the week.

The most harmful drinking is amongst older drinkers, but those statistics do back up my assertion that there is a binge drinking culture amongst young people.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

"7.8 million people “binged” on alcohol on their heaviest drinking day"

A binge here is defined as more than four pints of normal strength beer for men, and more than about half a bottle of wine for women.

That's not really what I'd call a "binge". That's what I'd call "a bit tipsy". I'd call a "binge" something approaching the quantity of alcohol that finds people staggering a puking all over the pages of the tabloids, which is rather more than five pints of weak beer over the course of an evening.

It would be interesting to see what fraction of that 7.8 million were at the bottom end of the "binge" category, and what fraction were well into it.

Posted by anteater (# 11435) on :

quote:
I also can't help but wonder at how this must affect our outreach to Muslims and other groups where alcohol is never or more rarely consumed

Well my wife's Church believes outreach to include bacon butties for breakfast, and bacon-butty evangelism is on the increase, even extending to my own church.

I don't know of many churches that put on beer fests to get people through the doors.

I also would point out that alcohol is a great social lubricant at least for men. When I worked it was mainly in a male geek type environment and when we were off site, most male social conversation was alcohol enabled.

The problem was that there was quite a lot of really health threatening boozing along with it, so I do sympathise with the argument often put forward by abstainers that where booze is in the culture a certain number will suffer from it.

Interestingly (for me) the JW's tolerated boozing. We used to pub crawl in Cheshire every Sunday evening, and it was not that uncommon for the driver to have to be assisted into the car.

Posted by SvitlanaV2 (# 16967) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pomona:
I have a transgender friend who found church culture incompatible with his AA meetings to the extent he had to leave his church.

I also can't help but wonder at how this must affect our outreach to Muslims and other groups where alcohol is never or more rarely consumed (I believe that while alcohol is not forbidden for Hindus, it isn't recommended and stricter Hindus will abstain, for instance). Many of these groups won't socialise in pubs and other places alcohol is served either.

For churches that seriously aim to evangelise among Muslims or to people struggling with alcoholism a zero alcohol approach is likely to be their policy. But most mainstream churches don't really have such a mission, so they?

I do know of one city centre CofE church that offers a choice of alcoholic or non-alcoholic communion wine. I've noticed that some of their attenders are quite obviously Muslims so the policy makes a lot of sense.

Myself, I approve of the Methodist policy of disallowing alcohol on church premises, but even this might not be enough if a church is really committing itself to an outreach among certain social groups. Methodists no longer have to be teetotal, and many of them drink when not in church, which might be a problem in some missionary contexts. (To be fair, I don't think the Wesleyan Methodists were ever entirely teetotal.)

I used to go to the pub with a group of young Methodists after the Sunday evening service. The good thing was that I never felt obliged to drink alcohol during these outings - and I didn't. But for someone who has theological or addiction problems with alcohol, even sitting in a pub might make them uneasy. Then there are those who might be okay with a bit of alcohol but not with a pub setting.

[ 22. July 2017, 20:42: Message edited by: SvitlanaV2 ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
A binge here is defined as more than four pints of normal strength beer for men, and more than about half a bottle of wine for women.

That's not really what I'd call a "binge". That's what I'd call "a bit tipsy".

It's all about defining terms I guess, but I find your definition quite scary. Your "low end" of the definition is far above my high end.
[Ultra confused]

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

Five pints, over the course of several hours, was my maximum as an irresponsible student. While I wouldn't recommend it, it doesn't prevent you from staggering home or functioning as a human being the following day.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

What you could do at age 22 is, alas, often impossible at age 52. I strictly limit myself now to one drink or beer a day. Also, coffee -- you steadily lose tolerance for caffeine as the years march on. And we will not even talk about physical activities...

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

I'm in a rural parish. A culture of drinking alcohol would exclude drivers, let alone anyone else.

We have a choice of alcoholic or non alcoholic mulled wine after the annual Carols by Candlelight, and we have an annual Fair Trade evening with includes Fair Trade wine, but that's about it.

The culture Pomona speaks of can surely only happen in a city where everyone is either within walking distance, has access to public transport, or can afford a taxi.

FWIW, we tend not to drink much when we are socialising at home with friends, because there will always be somebody who is driving, and likewise I am usually tee-total when having dinner with friends elsewhere.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

I find it hard to consume enough liquid to drink much more than five pints in an evening. All the really stupid incidents in my irresponsible youth were drinking rather more potent brews. Usually not in pubs, either - it's easier to drink more when you don't have to pay for it.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:

"7.8 million people “binged” on alcohol on their heaviest drinking day"

The most harmful drinking is amongst older drinkers, but those statistics do back up my assertion that there is a binge drinking culture amongst young people.

To the extent that there is one, its much less the case than it ever was. If you look at the breakdown by sex/age cohorts (at the bottom) there only a fairly small difference between very young males and older males until you hit the above 60s (the difference is more pronounced for younger females). Additionally this age cohort is numerically smaller, so there are still - numerically - more older people 'binge' drinking by that definition.

Personally, I don't like beer that much, but 4 pints over an evening (a pint an hour) doesn't seem liable to lead to the kinds of antisocial behaviour that are being used as a marker of binge drinking, and half a bottle of wine is just two glasses.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

First lets deal with some statistics about alcohol culture. The latest social survey info for England. It says drinking is dropping but the young are most likely to binge.

For those who want to think drinking alcohol is safe please go the Drink Aware website and take the Self Assessment. Drinkaware is funded by the UK sellers of Alcohol; it is not an anti-alcohol group.

Jengie

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie jon:
First lets deal with some statistics about alcohol culture. The latest social survey info for England.

Yes, see above.

And yes to the health point - but that's sort of orthogonal to the discussion.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

Yeah

and it does not agree with all, for instance, they are quite clear that young people are most likely to binge drink when they do drink.

This long term has less of a health risk than regular heavy drinking. So older people are more likely to have drinking related health problems but younger still to adopt the binge pattern of drinking.

Jengie

Posted by Grec Man (# 18813) on :

Monks have always been associated with brewing [excellent] beer, and I can't see why drinking in moderation is bad. However, there should be care for people for whom alcohol is a problem - making sure they are given something else at a celebration.

At the Bruderhof we enjoy a drink now and then as part of the social life of the community. It is funny how people assume that we don't drink, and are always reassured that we are actually normal people when we correct them on that point!

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Grec Man:
Monks have always been associated with brewing [excellent] beer, and I can't see why drinking in moderation is bad.

Mind you, the
products of a certain monastery in Devon seemed to have (sadly) gained a poor reputation in recent years ...

Posted by Bishops Finger (# 5430) on :

No wonder, if it tastes like Ribena mixed with Benylin*!

[Projectile]

(*for non-Uklanders - an over-the-counter cough mixture. Tastes mildly yucky, and doesn't really work. IMHO. YMMV)

IJ

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

Alcohol is part of life for most people. It's all around us but that doesn't mean we have to accept society's norms.

It's still a big deal for lots of people as regards those of us who don't drink. We're somehow just a little bit strange - ok great to have along because we can drive but a little strange like the men who don't like "the footy".

Sadly I don't see the same level of concern for those who struggle with drinking. I suspect that the level of drinking amongst those who go to church is pretty similar to that of those who don't - in which case where is the church leading the way?

The other thing is the cost alongside the expectation to join in. How many people end up struggling financially simply because they want to keep in the crowd in the bar?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:

Sadly I don't see the same level of concern for those who struggle with drinking. I suspect that the level of drinking amongst those who go to church is pretty similar to that of those who don't - in which case where is the church leading the way?

There's a large assumption in there. You assume that generally lower alcohol consumption is the way in which the church should lead.

I don't agree.

Excessive alcohol consumption (to the point that you're getting drunk and behaving in a foolish manner) is a moral issue. If you find yourself regretting something you did last night whilst under the influence, you're drinking too much. That is a moral issue.

Alcohol dependency is a moral issue.

Alcohol consumption below that level is not a moral issue. If you're drinking a few pints every night, what you have is a health issue and not a moral issue. You might equally bemoan the fact that churchgoers don't eat noticeably fewer pies than non-churchgoers.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Alcohol consumption below that level is not a moral issue. If you're drinking a few pints every night, what you have is a health issue and not a moral issue.

I don't quite agree - and I don't think EM, from his post above, would either.

For surely feeling pressurised to spend cash one can ill-afford in order to be accepted socially is a moral issue? And also the demand on finite healthcare resources made by people whose health has in some way been compromised by alcohol?

(BTW I'm not a teetotaller, just to be clear).

Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :

There are also plenty of functional alcoholics. They drink every day but are perfectly able to function in life. But this is not harmless, they are a worry to their families and will become a burden to the Heath service.

Many people think they are drinking responsibly when they are not. They make excuses to themselves and others to have another drink and they think about alcohol far more than is healthy, they are addicted.

Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:

Sadly I don't see the same level of concern for those who struggle with drinking. I suspect that the level of drinking amongst those who go to church is pretty similar to that of those who don't - in which case where is the church leading the way?
There's a large assumption in there. You assume that generally lower alcohol consumption is the way in which the church should lead.

I don't agree.

Excessive alcohol consumption (to the point that you're getting drunk and behaving in a foolish manner) is a moral issue. If you find yourself regretting something you did last night whilst under the influence, you're drinking too much. That is a moral issue.

Alcohol dependency is a moral issue.

Alcohol consumption below that level is not a moral issue. If you're drinking a few pints every night, what you have is a health issue and not a moral issue. You might equally bemoan the fact that churchgoers don't eat noticeably fewer pies than non-churchgoers.

What's the function of alcohol?

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

From my point of view, purely to add taste and body. I like good wine and cider; if non-alcoholic variants tasted the same as their alcoholic counterparts I would happily drink them, in fact it would be a boon as I could drink more than a single glass when I go out for a meal!

But - to my palate at least - they are far inferior.

[ 27. July 2017, 09:32: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
What's the function of alcohol?

To be enjoyed, presumably.

Of course, when the function of alcohol becomes, for an individual, the whole point of their existence, or the consumption of such that without it they can't get through the day, that is obviously unhealthy. As with anything we consume or do which is pleasurable and which becomes disproportionately important and detrimental to us. Like acquiring wealth, property, relationships etc, or hobbies, or food, or sports.

I guess one of the specific difficulties with alcohol, however, is the fact that it chemically changes the body, and some people's chemistry can't cope with it in various degrees.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

According to Psalm 104:15, wine is a gift from God which can "gladden the human heart".

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
From my point of view, purely to add taste and body. I like good wine and cider; if non-alcoholic variants tasted the same as their alcoholic counterparts I would happily drink them, in fact it would be a boon as I could drink more than a single glass when I go out for a meal!

But - to my palate at least - they are far inferior.

I'd agree with that - my consumption of non-alcoholic alcoholic drinks has gone through the roof the last couple of summers. Why? Because normally I drink bitter or mild (or wine), I only like lager on hot summer days. They've *finally* cracked non-alcoholic lager (Becks Blue is ok, but the San Miguel one is great).

If I was a year round lager drinker I'd drink non-alcoholic lager year round. Unfortunately I'm not.

But then like you I'm drinking for the taste, not to get smashed.

Posted by TurquoiseTastic (# 8978) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
According to Psalm 104:15, wine is a gift from God which can "gladden the human heart".

Interestingly Proverbs 31 suggests that one should give strong drink to poor people so that they will drink and forget their troubles, but that it is inappropriate for kings and those in authority as it makes them neglect their responsibilities.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

Maybe I'll make my millions inventing a decent non-alcoholic bitter...

Don't get me wrong, I do like the "buzz" from alcohol and wouldn't want to give up drinking completely and in all situations. But it's not the alcohol I want most of the time, it's the drink. Sometimes I fancy a pint or two in exactly the same way that sometimes I fancy a cup of tea, a glass of water, or anything else. Hence the ease with which I've swapped over to non-alcoholic lager for the lager drinking occasions (especially helpful when you live in the middle of nowhere).

Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on :

I've practically given up alcoholic drink (on medical advice) since about March last year. I have found non-alcoholic ginger beer, or ginger cordial with sparkling water, to be the best alternative. A bit of lime juice helps.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

I never was much of a drinker, but gave it up completely about five years ago when I discovered that my blood oxygen levels are rather low and alcohol makes it worse. Other than a cup of coffee in the morning, I drink nothing but water.

The whole family has clear, chilled (Britta) water with meals and we now wonder how we could have taken up stomach space and interfered with the blend of the meal with calorie and flavor filled liquids. Now, even when I have guests, we have water with the meal. I didn't cook all day just so someone can down a 200 calorie glass of something right off the bat, taking the edge off their appetite.

This is a fascinating thread to me, because I see a real pond difference. Both of my grandmothers were temperance leaders before, during and after prohibition. Their Methodist and Presbyterian churches took the view that "whatever causes my brother to stumble" they would avoid.

Now, that's all ancient history to most Americans and I don't believe Episcopalians and Catholics were ever part of all that. Even so I think church activities without alcohol are still more common than not in the U.S. and hearing churches compared to businesses that have a "right," to serve alcohol seems strange to me.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

Most of you know I'm a recovering alcoholic, so my post comes from a perspective.

I understand a couple of drinks in a social occasion, my church has wine at the Harvest Festival and after the APCM (which before I came they needed to recover from the trauma, now less so as the damn thing only lasts 15 minutes).

I say I understand but I mean I understand in my head, my heart will never see what anyone would ever only have 2 drinks, I mean WTF??? you guys can drink and get away with it, I don't understand why you are not all pissed all the time ...........

My question is: in what situation does drinking make you a better Christian?

Pyx_e

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
My question is: in what situation does drinking make you a better Christian?

My question is: in what situation does drinking make you a better Person?
Again, I'm not teetotal, so the question doesn't come from there.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:

I understand a couple of drinks in a social occasion, my church has wine at the Harvest Festival and after the APCM (which before I came they needed to recover from the trauma, now less so as the damn thing only lasts 15 minutes).

I'm sure that for Anglicans or Brits this is a familiar anagram, but for google and I all we can come up with is:

Adhesive Prepregs for Composite Manufacturers

or

Asia Pacific Chapter Meeting of International Society for Peritoneal Dialysis

I'm guessing neither of these is what you're referencing.

Posted by Jengie jon (# 273) on :

APCM

Annual Parish Congregational/Church Meeting would be my guess.

AGM/ACM to you or me. The time when you have the reports of various committees and vote in the officers for the coming year.

One of the few occasions where I accept alcohol may be useful to remove the tedium.

Jengie

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

[QUOTafter the APCM (which before I came they needed to recover from the trauma, now less so as the damn thing only lasts 15 minutes). [/QB][/QUOTE]
You could earn more as an advisor to the rest of us on how to keep those boring meetings that short. (Come to think of it, we shall be looking for a new vicar soon.)

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

Annual Parochial Church Meeting. = AGM by any other name.

Leo, its a church business meeting. Which has only little to do with the business of the Church. They lucky to get 15 minutes.

edit to add, they will take my freehold form my cold dead fingers, this bunch of charlatans and bean counters. They would not know the Holy Spirit if he shat in their lap.

Pyx_e

[ 31. July 2017, 15:40: Message edited by: Pyx_e ]

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

I'm not sure about this.

I find getting pissed on the small amounts it takes me, from time to time, a great relief from mental pressure which otherwise (having filled in my Doctor's helpful brought-to-you-by-Pfizer-manufacturers-of-anti-depressants-multi-choice-would-you-like-SSRIs-yet form) would have me on meds which I think (for me) are far less predictable than alcohol. I administer this alone when required.

Occasionally I drink socially with some men on the fringes of society, one of whom is a dry alcoholic and one who shakes so hard he needs a straw some days. The first decided to stop, the second seems to have decided there's no point in stopping. Knowing him and his life, I can't disagree.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

I threw my knee out (surgery is in the offing) and am thrilled to report that far and away the most effective painkiller for it is a beer.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:

My question is: in what situation does drinking make you a better Christian?

In what situation does doing anything pleasurable that can also constitute a vice make you a better anything?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

For surely feeling pressurised to spend cash one can ill-afford in order to be accepted socially is a moral issue?

Sure - but that's not a property of alcohol. If your social group eats in restaurants on a regular basis, there's the same social pressure. If your social group goes out and drinks hand-pressed pomegranate lemonade, there's the social pressure.

These are two different issues.

If you're a non-drinker who joins a group of friends in the pub, the price you will pay for your soft drink is on the same scale as the price the drinkers pay for their pints.

And to EM, the function of alcohol is to be a pleasurable drink. I like a decent pint. I enjoy the taste. You may as well ask what the function of a cup of tea is.

I also find that a drink is helpful in situations where I have to socialize with people I vaguely know. I find that challenging, but one drink makes it easier. (Much more than one drink doesn't.)

Does it make me a better Christian? No, but the spicy bean salad I ate with last night's dinner doesn't make me a better Christian either. It tasted nice, though.

[ 31. July 2017, 18:42: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

Ah but spicy bean salad never ruined anyone's life.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

Sex, food and work all have done. Shall we ban all those?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
Sex, food and work all have done. Shall we ban all those?

Nope, just banning food will be sufficient.
Adding sex to those church meetings might reduce the need for alcohol, though.
Seriously, this is a kind of ridiculous argument to make.
We're are not talking ban and you don't need alcohol.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Seriously, this is a kind of ridiculous argument to make.
We're are not talking ban and you don't need alcohol.

It was a rhetorical question driven by the direction of travel of Pye's original comment. After all that's an obvious reduction ab absurdum of "in what situation does drinking make you a better Christian?".

I think there is a benefit to articulating the healthy appreciation of pleasures, even when they are dangerous ones.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Ah but spicy bean salad never ruined anyone's life.

Are you sure of that? An important business meeting, too much spicy bean salad, and where are you?

Posted by MaryLouise (# 18697) on :

At church picnics, it is easier to refuse a glass of wine than a bowl of three-bean salad lovingly made by the chairwoman of the Catholic Women's League, using a hefty combination of butter beans, red kidney beans and haricot beans in tomato sauce. If you're unlucky, there will be minced chillies or chopped green bell peppers added and three days of indigestion to follow.

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
I threw my knee out (surgery is in the offing) and am thrilled to report that far and away the most effective painkiller for it is a beer.

Applied topically or subcutaneously?

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

IV drip?

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by MaryLouise:
At church picnics, it is easier to refuse a glass of wine than a bowl of three-bean salad lovingly made by the chairwoman of the Catholic Women's League, using a hefty combination of butter beans, red kidney beans and haricot beans in tomato sauce. If you're unlucky, there will be minced chillies or chopped green bell peppers added and three days of indigestion to follow.

Indigestion is much milder than the consequence I was contemplating.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:
I think there is a benefit to articulating the healthy appreciation of pleasures, even when they are dangerous ones.

I enjoy alcohol quite a lot, and sometimes I drink too much. By too much I mean that I have a slight headache the next morning, not that I got into a fight or was majorly hung-over. I'm not an alcoholic, and I don't think there's any danger of me becoming one.

Most of the time I simply enjoy a drink or two, and while I could do without a drink I'm pretty sure I'd be a much worse person if you took all the things I enjoy but could live without away from me.

In terms of long-term health, it's worth noting that in many groups studied a moderate alcohol intake is better for death rates than no alcohol intake.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Amen to your last comments. My GP, a learned man, recommended a couple of glasses of wine a night for me and another for Madame. Preferably red. We follow what our doctor tells us, and so most nights it's a half bottle between the 2 of us at dinner. A bit more if we go out and if any driving's needed we sort out who'll be the the designated driver before we go out.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Now that I have joined the Fellowship of People With Knee Issues I learn that beer (applied internally, by the glassful) is a common home treatment. Since I'm having an MRI on Friday and a date with an orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday I'm off to the store to lay in a couple of six-packs.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Pyx_e, in what world does a motorbike make you a better Christian?

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Now that I have joined the Fellowship of People With Knee Issues I learn that beer (applied internally, by the glassful) is a common home treatment.

Someone wrote to the "Times" years ago telling how his neighbour swore that a pint of Mackeson's stout each day did wonders for his roses.

It was only later that he discovered that the stout was applied to said rose bushes only after it had been imbibed earlier, in the pub.

Posted by betjemaniac (# 17618) on :

In my keener days as a cross country runner (13 years back now) we were advised by the sick bay of my naval establishment to drink a pint of beer at the end of our races as it was better for you than a pint of water. I assume this is replacing lost sugars, etc while at the same time (English bitter) being still mostly water.

It's advice I still follow on my more recreational running now, and after a hard morning in the garden!

Posted by Baptist Trainfan (# 15128) on :

On a stiff walk along the south Devon cliffs on a hot morning some years ago, a cool refreshing half of local cider at the Pig's Nose was very refreshing. I didn't even dare to ask the alcohol content!

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

Most of the time I simply enjoy a drink or two, and while I could do without a drink I'm pretty sure I'd be a much worse person if you took all the things I enjoy but could live without away from me.

This illustrates part of the problem in this discussion. No one is speaking of eliminating anything and certainly not everything.

And if we are accepting anecdotes as evidence, I drink for the same reason I eat cheese; the gastronomic pleasure. The effects of the alcohol itself are neutral or mildly negative as far as my enjoyment.

So, now we have positive, neutral and negative as experiences. Yay?

quote:

In terms of long-term health, it's worth noting that in many groups studied a moderate alcohol intake is better for death rates than no alcohol intake.

IIRC, conclusions from this study have the causation/correlation issues.

Alcohol is part of our culture for the foreseeable future.
My questions are to the necessity of use in particular situation. And to the honest self-appraisal of reasons of use.

Side note: I am fairly certain a fair number of the alcohol is wonderful folk cringe at the same arguments for marijuana. A drug that is, with an age caveat, far less harmful.

[ 01. August 2017, 16:26: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Side note: I am fairly certain a fair number of the alcohol is wonderful folk cringe at the same arguments for marijuana. A drug that is, with an age caveat, far less harmful.

My arguments against marijuana are:

1. I don't like smoking, and don't want to be around people who are smoking. It smells unpleasant and leaves smells ingrained in your clothing. And lung cancer. (Yes, there are other ways to use marijuana, but smoking is popular.)

1b. I don't want to get high because you are smoking. If you're smoking marijuana, you're also introducing it into my air.

1c. I wouldn't go to the ridiculous bar that has a room filled with misted alcohol either, for the same reason.

2. I don't have confidence that I could control my dose. I don't drink alcopops and the like for this reason - it's too easy to drink more than you expect, because they are designed for people that don't like to taste alcoholic drinks. (Plus they're nasty sickly concoctions.)

3. I find stoned people more annoying that drunk people (unless we're talking about angry drunks, but if you drink and get angry, I don't associate with you.)

1 applies specifically to the means of consumption. If you like pot brownies, it doesn't apply to you.

2 I think is a problem: I think it's rather easy to consume more than you were expecting particularly if you are eating someone else's brownies or chocolates.

3 is entirely personal preference

I don't think I'd try marijuana ('cause I find stoned people annoying, and so I'd probably find me stoned annoying.) Also because it seems to be "just the drug" - when I drink beer or wine, it's because I like the taste more than because I want the chemical effects. I don't drink alcohol that I don't enjoy the taste of.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
This illustrates part of the problem in this discussion. No one is speaking of eliminating anything and certainly not everything.

I was responding to Pyx_e. On face value his question implies that we should question whether we really need alcohol. I was answering it. Is that really a problem?

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
So, now we have positive, neutral and negative as experiences. Yay?

So I can't give my experiences in a discussion thread now? I'm answering a question about whether I really need to drink or not. I need to draw on my experiences to do that.

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
IIRC, conclusions from this study have the causation/correlation issues.

To some degree, but that's the way with most dietary data, where randomized trials aren't really practical. The same is true for smoking and for breast feeding, but we take clear public health stands based on those observational data. But the effect of alcohol on improving mortality is much weaker than the effect of breast feeding or of the damaging effect of smoking.

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Side note: I am fairly certain a fair number of the alcohol is wonderful folk cringe at the same arguments for marijuana. A drug that is, with an age caveat, far less harmful.

Personally I would legalize marijuana. But there are quite a lot of studies suggesting alcohol in moderation prolongs life, and none for marijuana. (On the other hand the data linking alcohol to cancer are much better than any linking marijuana, but on the other hand there's reasonable data to suggest mental health illness in a proportion of marijuana users.)

Compared to smoking marijuana comes across pretty favourably.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Alcohol is part of our culture for the foreseeable future.
My questions are to the necessity of use in particular situation.

I don't think anyone here was claiming that it was 'necessary' in church (at least in social settings - people may differ on whether its required as part of the Eucharist or not) or that the scenario described by the OP was particularly healthy at any level.

Posted by Anselmina (# 3032) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Now that I have joined the Fellowship of People With Knee Issues I learn that beer (applied internally, by the glassful) is a common home treatment.
Someone wrote to the "Times" years ago telling how his neighbour swore that a pint of Mackeson's stout each day did wonders for his roses.

It was only later that he discovered that the stout was applied to said rose bushes only after it had been imbibed earlier, in the pub.

Wasn't that long ago since doctors used to recommend pregnant women and nursing mothers to have a regular pint of Guinness.

Don't times change!

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Baptist Trainfan:
[qb]

If you're a non-drinker who joins a group of friends in the pub, the price you will pay for your soft drink is on the same scale as the price the drinkers pay for their pints.

*tangent* In the US, soft drinks or iced tea are much, much cheaper than alcohol (+free refills) even in nice restaurants, so one way I cut costs when dining out. When I visited Europe on a budget a few years back it took several unhappy meal checks before I figured out this wasn't the case cross-pond. Once I figured that out though I happily got with the program and ordered beer.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Anselmina:
Wasn't that long ago since doctors used to recommend pregnant women and nursing mothers to have a regular pint of Guinness.

Don't times change!

I don't remember pregnant women being encouraged to drink Guinness, though there was far less of a flap about this 40 years ago. I thought Guinness is supposed to be good for milk production and that it replenishes things that feeding a baby depletes. Is that no longer the case?

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

When I was breast-feeding my babies more than forty years ago, a nurse advised me that if I felt frazzled when it was almost time to feed the baby, I should drink six ounces of beer.

A very common problem among breast-feeding women is a failure to let the milk down. The milk is made behind the nipples, and something has to relax before it flows to them. If a woman is uptight, she cannot let down the milk. Six ounces of beer is enough to relax her so that the milk flows.

I was also told that the percentage of alcohol in mother's milk is the same as the percentage of alcohol in her blood.

Moo

[ 01. August 2017, 21:27: Message edited by: Moo ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
When I was breast-feeding my babies more than forty years ago, a nurse advised me that if I felt frazzled when it was almost time to feed the baby, I should drink six ounces of beer.

Mrs. C's doctor told her she should have a small glass of wine in similar circumstances. She's still breastfeeding our youngest, so this is somewhat more recent advice [Biased]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
When I was breast-feeding my babies more than forty years ago, a nurse advised me that if I felt frazzled when it was almost time to feed the baby, I should drink six ounces of beer.

A very common problem among breast-feeding women is a failure to let the milk down. The milk is made behind the nipples, and something has to relax before it flows to them. If a woman is uptight, she cannot let down the milk. Six ounces of beer is enough to relax her so that the milk flows.

Not so much.

quote:

I was also told that the percentage of alcohol in mother's milk is the same as the percentage of alcohol in her blood.

Moo

This bit is true.

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Alcohol is part of our culture for the foreseeable future.
My questions are to the necessity of use in particular situation.
I don't think anyone here was claiming that it was 'necessary' in church (at least in social settings -

Dunno,some of the reactions seem to imply this.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
My arguments against marijuana are:

I don't smoke and I don't want a contact high, so I have some of the same objections to public marijuana use as do you.

Personally, I rarely find people better company drunk, stoned or however else they choose to get high.

quote:

I don't think I'd try marijuana ('cause I find stoned people annoying, and so I'd probably find me stoned annoying.) Also because it seems to be "just the drug" - when I drink beer or wine, it's because I like the taste more than because I want the chemical effects. I don't drink alcohol that I don't enjoy the taste of.

Aright, I do not smoke, now. I did a bit as a child and have smoked a few cigars as an adult. There are taste differences and I can understand liking them. I assume this might be the case with different strains of marijuana. Also, much alcohol is nasty tasting until one gets used to it and/or covers it up.
So, it seems pretty much a draw there as well.

[ 01. August 2017, 21:52: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

Personally I would legalize marijuana. But there are quite a lot of studies suggesting alcohol in moderation prolongs life, and none for marijuana. (On the other hand the data linking alcohol to cancer are much better than any linking marijuana, but on the other hand there's reasonable data to suggest mental health illness in a proportion of marijuana users.)

Compared to smoking marijuana comes across pretty favourably.

IIRC, there are studies showing a strong correlation between early use (ages 12 and 13) of marijuana, and the onset of schizophrenia in the late 20s. Are those the data you're referring to?
In addition there is the evidence given in case after case in the criminal courts of drug use starting with marijuana at that sort of age and then to the use of much stronger and more harmful drugs in the mid to late teens.

[ 01. August 2017, 21:54: Message edited by: Gee D ]

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

So, it seems pretty much a draw there as well.

Perhaps. Do people smoke marijuana for the taste? Maybe they do...

I perhaps should have emphasized that those are my personal objections to marijuana, for me. I'd be happy for it to be legalized. It looks to me as though the US is going about this in exactly the right way - some states are experimenting with legalization; we'll see if there are any problems, and other states can make decisions accordingly.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

So I can't give my experiences in a discussion thread now? I'm answering a question about whether I really need to drink or not. I need to draw on my experiences to do that.

Of course you can give your experiences. My point was that they are not quite data.

The secondary effects of marijuana on the user are not as studied as alcohol. But harmful effects of drunk people v stoned are fairly clear.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

It's much harder to study an illegal drug. Here is the abstract of a review of primary data suggesting a link between cannabis and schizophrenia, but pointing out the potential problems in saying whether that link is causal.

It is easier to say that cannabis use exacerbates mental health problems if they are already there, although that in itself would be cause to be cautious about cannabis use as an individual.

Here and here are two studies on the impact of alcohol on overall mortality, suggesting the "U" shaped effect (although more of a "J" really) where heavy use and no use are both at higher mortality than moderate use.

The effect sizes are small though. Personally I think there is no real value in arguing it through in detail, since the effect size is too small to justify a public health policy encouraging people to drink moderately. On the other hand it does make me think that public health is not well served by going after moderate drinkers.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
IIRC, there are studies showing a strong correlation between early use (ages 12 and 13) of marijuana, and the onset of schizophrenia in the late 20s. Are those the data you're referring to?
In addition there is the evidence given in case after case in the criminal courts of drug use starting with marijuana at that sort of age and then to the use of much stronger and more harmful drugs in the mid to late teens.

There's currently a BBC3 documentary on i-player Is it time to legalise weed?, which looks at the issues. One of the statistics quoted was that 10% of people using cannabis will suffer from psychosis.

The conclusions many are coming to is that legalisation will prevent much of the damage, because there will be regulation over strength and quality: people will know what they are buying. That it will remove the illegal drug trade and the drug dealers from the equation and the opportunity to be led into stronger drugs. It doesn't stop the mental health problems or the addictive nature of cannabis.

Another thing I was reminded of was that Durham police / Northumbria police are not prosecuting people who grow for their own use as they are choosing to police based on judgement of harm and they cannot see that personal use of cannabis is causing harm.

Posted by Gee D (# 13815) on :

Yes, that's why I used the word correlation, as AFAIK, there's no evidence yet of causation. We do not know whether any of these people would have become schizophrenic in any event, or that there may have already been some showing within them that prompted them to use marijuana.

The same applies to the subsequent use of/addiction to much harder and more harmful drugs. How many of those users would have done so without early commencement of their marijuana use? Again, there's no evidence so far.

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

The situation is further complicated as many alcoholics and drug addicts are self-medicating.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Also, much alcohol is nasty tasting until one gets used to it and/or covers it up.

As an aside; in general appreciation of any sour tasting liquid is an acquired taste (tea, coffee, alcohol etc. tend to be tastes acquired slightly later in life). I assume there are evolutionary/survival reasons why humans naturally steer away from such tastes.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
Pyx_e, in what world does a motorbike make you a better Christian?

mdijon. I take your point. I hope I am not seen as arguing for abstinence. My question is that any amount of alcohol above a moderate amount seems to me to have a profound effect on the soul. At once anesthetising and degrading.

It is clear Jesus liked a glass of wine, an it is part of tradition to use it as a social lubricant. My situation means that I too often only deal with the effects of that which lies beyond social/moderate drinking. too much of my own sin and the sin I deal with every day is a direct result of lack of self control. He however saw the peace and comfort a glass or two of wine can give as part of God's gift to us and I get that. My problem is not the gift it is my misuse of the gift.

Which leads me onto your question. My motorcycle makes me a better Christian because it is beautiful, to ride my bike is to take part in a poem. When I go for a bike ride my soul is lifted up, I am freed. Also it is greener to use than a car.

Of course (as with ALL things) is can lead me to sin. there is no place the devil's seed does not lie in wait. But in truth if the questions is: which is better for the Kingdom everyone riding a motorbike or everyone drinking? That is a no-brainer.

Ride safe,

Pyx_e

Posted by MaryLouise (# 18697) on :

Just thinking here about what Pyx_e said.

For most of us, church communities are filled with what I'd call 'open secrets', the kinds of awareness and intuitions unlikely to make it onto church prayer mentions.

So for some of us, having an open bottle of wine on the table while enjoying a church supper or Shrove Tuesday pancake celebration is something we scarcely notice. This isn't a pub where the focus is alcohol, it's church and a glass or two of wine is mildly enjoyable. Nobody is likely to openly disapprove: if they don't want wine, they just say no.

But if I'm sitting next to someone who is trying to give up alcohol and fresh out of a rehab centre, the presence of wine and offers to fill up a glass becomes charged and frightening. Some people can't just say no, it isn't that simple. Even if they say no, they are craving that glass quite desperately.

If the person seated across from me is slurring his words, red-faced and has probably had too much to drink before arriving, I find myself wishing the alcohol wasn't there as a further temptation. If I know the woman at the end of the table is wondering whether the church is a safe place to talk about her daughter's alcoholism as a family problem, I wish the bottle of wine and the drinking wasn't there. At moments like these some of us remember what it was like growing up in families with alcoholic parents. What abnormal drinking to excess is like, what it means when somebody gets cheerful enough at a church supper to come home and continue partying. What happens later that night, and the next morning's bad temper, guilt, promises.

No answers really. This is the world we all live in, no different really from our workplaces, sports clubs, neighborhood gatherings, family reunions, going out to restaurants.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
When I was breast-feeding my babies more than forty years ago, a nurse advised me that if I felt frazzled when it was almost time to feed the baby, I should drink six ounces of beer.

A very common problem among breast-feeding women is a failure to let the milk down. The milk is made behind the nipples, and something has to relax before it flows to them. If a woman is uptight, she cannot let down the milk. Six ounces of beer is enough to relax her so that the milk flows.
Not so much.
.

Opinion on this is not unanimous. See the variety at this site.

I have the impression that the doctors who recommend total abstinence have had first-hand experience dealing with babies who have been affected by their mothers' alcohol consumption. A friend of mine who takes in foster children once had a newborn with fetal alcohol syndrome. It was pitiful. It is not surprising that seeing this would make people do everything possible to prevent it.

It is important to bear in mind that some women stop breast-feeding because they have trouble letting down their milk. Unless someone has a better suggestion, a small quantity of beer is the best solution. I note that all the studies referenced spoke of normal-size servings of alcohol, rather than six ounces of beer once a day.

Moo

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

If you are nursing a newborn, then you deserve and should be given every possible thing that makes your life easier. And if this includes Guinness then that's fine. I know those who have given birth will agree with me.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If you are nursing a newborn, then you deserve and should be given every possible thing that makes your life easier. And if this includes Guinness then that's fine. I know those who have given birth will agree with me.

well, maybe not all of us.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
When I was breast-feeding my babies more than forty years ago, a nurse advised me that if I felt frazzled when it was almost time to feed the baby, I should drink six ounces of beer.

A very common problem among breast-feeding women is a failure to let the milk down. The milk is made behind the nipples, and something has to relax before it flows to them. If a woman is uptight, she cannot let down the milk. Six ounces of beer is enough to relax her so that the milk flows.
Not so much.
.
Opinion on this is not unanimous. See the variety at this site.

Most doctors recommend against and a few mother's think it is OK. Hmmm.

This link says it is the barley not the alcohol.
Two more things.
One, Saying "Yes, but carefully" translates to "Go for it" in many ears. They only hear the yes.
Two, why risk a child's health because one cannot live without a pint or a shot for a few months?

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
If you are nursing a newborn, then you deserve and should be given every possible thing that makes your life easier. And if this includes Guinness then that's fine. I know those who have given birth will agree with me.

Really? The child's welfare isn't the most important thing?

[ 02. August 2017, 16:37: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

A beer or two is not going to affect the child (unless there's other major health issues going on).

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
Which leads me onto your question. My motorcycle makes me a better Christian because it is beautiful, to ride my bike is to take part in a poem. When I go for a bike ride my soul is lifted up, I am freed.

Of your experience I have no doubt. Likewise, I think I'm a better friend when I share a drink with my friends. Not because I need the disinhibition, but because it is an enjoyable activity that we share, and gives us a focus around which to chat. A bike would do nothing for me (except shorten my life).

quote:
Originally posted by Pyx_e:
which is better for the Kingdom everyone riding a motorbike or everyone drinking? That is a no-brainer.

Well I think I'd be a no-brainer after missing a right turn on the motorway, but seriously it would do nothing for me, and I don't think that is the question. And it would destroy the environment.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Two, why risk a child's health because one cannot live without a pint or a shot for a few months?

I don't think there's any data supporting alcohol as a general remedy to support breastfeeding, but the problem with the very precautionary idea that you don't do anything which might have a theoretical risk is that before you know where you are pregnant/breastfeeding women are being told to avoid peanuts, soft cheese, shellfish, steak, chicken, chocolate mousse, tea, coffee, gluten...

There's good reason to think that more than light drinking is bad for babies, but going for abstinence as a public health message seems too restrictive. And the "if you tell them a little is OK they'll go too far" feels too paternalistic to me.

Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :

(Pyx_e provides an edifying mediation on sin, and motivation to go out in the rain and finish putting my bike back together. What a place, is this ship).

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

We needn't be utterly paranoid, or assume the child's health is always in opposition to the mother's. Better for a stressed out mother to have the occasional small drink than for the baby to have to cope with a problematic feeding situation or a freaked out mother. (I doubt there are many people on Ship whose mothers did NOT ever, ever have a single drink during either pregnancy or nursing, and very few of us seem to have FAS.)

Posted by Spike (# 36) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
Ah but spicy bean salad never ruined anyone's life.

You've obviously never suffered from an inflammatory bowel disease

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
... why risk a child's health because one cannot live without a pint or a shot for a few months?

I very specifically said that I was not talking about a pint or a shot; I was talking about six ounces of beer in twenty-four hours.

Moo

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
Two, why risk a child's health because one cannot live without a pint or a shot for a few months?
I don't think there's any data supporting alcohol as a general remedy to support breastfeeding, but the problem with the very precautionary idea that you don't do anything which might have a theoretical risk is that before you know where you are pregnant/breastfeeding women are being told to avoid peanuts, soft cheese, shellfish, steak, chicken, chocolate mousse, tea, coffee, gluten...

There's good reason to think that more than light drinking is bad for babies, but going for abstinence as a public health message seems too restrictive. And the "if you tell them a little is OK they'll go too far" feels too paternalistic to me.

I really don't see anything too restrictive in warning pregnant and nursing mothers about any of the things listed. At least if warned they have the informed option. My mother never drank and I didn't drink at all while pregnant and nursing, I don't remember feeling deprived.

With such small families these days most women will only be restricting their choices for a year or two out of an eighty year life span. Not such a big hardship.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

I'm with Twilight on this, but will acknowledge the research is sketchy both ways, simply because there are ethical problems with doing a double-blind study of pregnant or nursing moms. We simply don't know how much alcohol is safe, and at what point in a pregnancy.

In addition to which it's really out of most of our fields of expertise. I'm happy to stick with the tried-and-true "this is something you might discuss with your OB/pediatrician..." But I would stick with my response to the original post that triggered the tangent: not all women who have given birth would agree that a bit of Guinness is a good thing. So again, discuss it with your health-care provider.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
At least if warned they have the informed option.

But it isn't an informed option, and there probably isn't the bandwidth to actually inform people about these issues. Take soft cheese. The information should really be;

quote:
Listeria is a very rare infection. About 100 to 200 cases are identified every year among the 65 million people living in the UK. Just under half of those are in pregnant women or their newborn children.

When listeria occurs in pregnancy, it can lead to a mild fever, or to meningitis or severe infection in the newborn baby.

Listeria is found in salads, soft cheese, meat and various other foods. There is no actual proof that people getting listeria have acquired it from any particular food, and the DNA tests of listeria found in food versus listeria causing disease in pregnancy does not clearly link these two populations.

To avoid listeria we could suggest you avoid salad, although actually it is probably very low in listeria counts, processed meat, although it is probably OK if well cooked, and soft cheese.

That's a lot of information to discuss over one very small risk. I'm not sure how proportionate it is to do that, and presumably then say "By the way don't smoke. That's a public health disaster in the UK leading to thousands of premature or small birth-weight children every year."

Putting soft-cheese and salad in a list of foods to avoid really isn't being given an informed option, it's an uninformed instruction.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We simply don't know how much alcohol is safe, and at what point in a pregnancy.

This is true. But we can say with some confidence that if there is an effect of the kind of low-level alcohol consumption that Moo and I have mentioned, then the effect is small. I agree with you that we cannot say with any confidence that the effect is zero. We can't even say anything about the sign of such an effect, although it's hard to come up with a mechanism for a small amount of alcohol to be beneficial for a developing foetus, unless you're going with the less stressed mother thing.

Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :

I'm sure it does vary from mother to mother.

My wife abstained from alcohol when pregnant but would drink a glass of Mann's, a rather weak stout similar to Guinness to aid lactation when breastfeeding.

It wasn't done to relieve stress or get a buzz but because she heard it helps lactating women to 'let down.'

Mann's is an 'old ladies' drink and not the sort of thing one would quaff. I only ever use it in beef stews.

I'm sure other women drink stout during lactation and don't find it helpful. My wife did. I'm sure not all women would.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We simply don't know how much alcohol is safe, and at what point in a pregnancy.

Likewise we don't know how much sugar is safe. Or fruit juice. Or how much caffeine is safe. The list goes on of substances that one could advise avoidance of.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

Which is why we should leave it to the mother. She, guided by her physician, her own state of health, cultural indications (the variety of practices around the world is amazingly huge and babies by and large seem to do fine) and her love for her baby, gets to decide.
We, the bystanders, get to mutter and tut, and admire how fat the baby is, the dumpling! and is that a first tooth coming? The magazines and websites get to chase after whatever is the Parenting Scare of the Week (plastics! wasps! fish! laundry detergents!) until the end of time, because it is endless. The state gets to butt out.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
Which is why we should leave it to the mother.

So, when the mother shoots heroin, beats her child, starves her child, leaves it unattended. etc.: the state get to "butt out"?

quote:

She, guided by her physician, her own state of health, cultural indications (the variety of practices around the world is amazingly huge and babies by and large seem to do fine)

Mothers and doctors are not magical creatures with instinctive knowledge. This is why we have general standards.
Also, there is a large range that people exist in between perfectly healthy and dead. I might be the strange one here, but I think we should aim more towards the healthy.

quote:

and her love for her baby,

We do a lot of fucked up things to our children, and it isn't always out of hate. FGM isn't typically done out of animosity.

Alcohol is a poison. In moderate amounts it does not seem to be excessively detrimental to adults. This does not automatically translate to children.

Why risk it?

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We simply don't know how much alcohol is safe, and at what point in a pregnancy.
Likewise we don't know how much sugar is safe. Or fruit juice. Or how much caffeine is safe. The list goes on of substances that one could advise avoidance of.

That expectant mother's should be eating healthy, but mightn't, isn't a defence for doing something that is more likely to be harmful.

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The beating, starving etc. are already against the law. It is illegal for your cat, never mind your baby.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Brenda Clough:
The beating, starving etc. are already against the law. It is illegal for your cat, never mind your baby.

That is my point. The state already "butts in" because we want it to do so. We already do not trust mum to do best.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:

Why risk it?

It's interesting, isn't it, that "why take the risk?" seems to be the typical approach that the state takes when issuing diktats to other people, but when it would involve the state committing some of its own resources, it becomes "nobody has proved that tighter standards would have measurable benefit".

It's also worth noting the huge cultural aspect to many of these diktats: when Mrs. C was pregnant with our eldest, she was advised by her doctor to keep a large jar of peanut butter by the bed, and eat a spoonful before getting up in the morning, in order to help with morning sickness. Her schoolfriend, who was pregnant in the UK at the same time, was advised by her doctor to strictly avoid all peanut products.

Obviously the difference here is culture - peanut butter is a staple foodstuff in America - the PBJ is possibly the archetypal child's sandwich - whereas although peanut butter exists in the UK, it's not nearly so ubiquitous. If I were making sandwiches for UK children, peanut butter wouldn't make my top five possible fillings. It might not even make the top ten.

[ 03. August 2017, 17:05: Message edited by: Leorning Cniht ]

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
It's interesting, isn't it, that "why take the risk?" seems to be the typical approach that the state takes when issuing diktats to other people, but when it would involve the state committing some of its own resources, it becomes "nobody has proved that tighter standards would have measurable benefit".

The convoluted dance between service, cost and private interest.

quote:

It's also worth noting the huge cultural aspect to many of these diktats: when Mrs. C was pregnant with our eldest, she was advised by her doctor to keep a large jar of peanut butter by the bed, and eat a spoonful before getting up in the morning, in order to help with morning sickness. Her schoolfriend, who was pregnant in the UK at the same time, was advised by her doctor to strictly avoid all peanut products.

Peanuts are an interesting question. They are often used in treating malnutrition because they are a very effective source of nutrients and calories. However, they are also a potent allergen.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

The other interesting thing about peanuts is that there is now some evidence that the precautionary approach of cutting them out was wrong.

Peanuts during pregnancy seems to reduce the risk of allergy in the infant.

It isn't really home and dry, but there is very good data that introducing peanuts in early childhood does reduce the risk of peanut allergy in later life.

Alcohol is a poison in excess, but so are salt and sugar. I don't think the state has any business giving precautionary advice that isn't backed by data, and it looks really odd when it picks on women and alcohol as the time to get especially precautionary.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
The state already "butts in" because we want it to do so. We already do not trust mum to do best.

We do trust mum to do best, and we don't interfere until we have strong evidence to the contrary. There has to be a line so that the state isn't dictating to or advising mums (or fathers for that matter) based on whim, but on evidence and fact and levels of harm.

The state has a role in forcible rescuing an abused child and in nagging mothers and fathers not to expose their children to second hand cigarette smoke. But not in advising whatever unevidenced prohibition comes to mind.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

I don't think the state has any business giving precautionary advice that isn't backed by data, and it looks really odd when it picks on women and alcohol as the time to get especially precautionary.

Doesn't seem odd to me at all. What you see as "picking on women," I see as a special interest in the health and protection of children. That's a prime value in almost all species. Most mothers, in particular, would rather be "picked on," than see their child ill.

How many English mothers, after being prescribed thalidomide by their doctors, would have liked to have been informed of the early negative data about it that was coming from Australia at the time.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I don't see the logic that says because the state failed to insist on proper scrutiny of a drug company introducing a new drug for use in pregnancy, that therefore the state should now precautionarily advise against another substance.

Failing to act on data in the past shouldn't lead to acting on no data now.

[ 03. August 2017, 19:31: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
We simply don't know how much alcohol is safe, and at what point in a pregnancy.
This is true. But we can say with some confidence that if there is an effect of the kind of low-level alcohol consumption that Moo and I have mentioned, then the effect is small.

I think that is probably an overstatement. I don't think we can say that with any degree of confidence. We can say that large amounts of alcohol during pregnancy can be quite detrimental-- but parsing out the implications is very, very tough to do.

And again, it's beyond my area of expertise and that of most (tho probably not all) on a board such as this. The best advice IMHO is to address dietary concerns during pregnancy with your OB and while nursing with your pediatrician.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
I don't see the logic that says because the state failed to insist on proper scrutiny of a drug company introducing a new drug for use in pregnancy, that therefore the state should now precautionarily advise against another substance.

Failing to act on data in the past shouldn't lead to acting on no data now.

But again, it's not "no data" there IS data, it's simply preliminary or incomplete data. There is real, verifiable data that excessive alcohol use during pregnancy causes real, measurable harm. It is reasonable to suppose that risk exists on a continuum from "no alcohol = no harm" to "excessive alcohol = considerable harm." What we don't know is the individual points along that continuum.

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:

Alcohol is a poison in excess, but so are salt and sugar. I don't think the state has any business giving precautionary advice that isn't backed by data, and it looks really odd when it picks on women and alcohol as the time to get especially precautionary.

Agree with the general principle, but I think the science is much more nuanced and not nearly as conclusive as you seem confident in suggesting. At this point the govt (at least in US) issues warnings but no prohibitions about alcohol use during pregnancy and nursing. That seems appropriate given the level of data available to us at this point in time.

[ 03. August 2017, 20:25: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

I have worked with a number of teenagers who, although they have not been diagnosed as having foetal alcohol syndrome (I have worked with young people with that diagnosis too), were the children of drug and/or alcohol using mothers. These teenagers had a pattern of behaviour, including lack of ability to focus and ADHD that becomes recognisable when you've seen it enough. These youngsters also had an arrested emotional development.

Having seen this is enough to make me think twice about drinking should I be pregnant.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
These teenagers had a pattern of behaviour, including lack of ability to focus and ADHD that becomes recognisable when you've seen it enough. These youngsters also had an arrested emotional development.

Having seen this is enough to make me think twice about drinking should I be pregnant.

Well, if they have also been brought up by drug addicted parents; diet and upbringing while infants is also going to play very heavily into this.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Alcohol is a poison. In moderate amounts it does not seem to be excessively detrimental to adults. This does not automatically translate to children.

Why risk it?

Because without very small amounts of alcohol, some women can not manage to breastfeed.

Moo

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by chris stiles:

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
These teenagers had a pattern of behaviour, including lack of ability to focus and ADHD that becomes recognisable when you've seen it enough. These youngsters also had an arrested emotional development.

Having seen this is enough to make me think twice about drinking should I be pregnant.
Well, if they have also been brought up by drug addicted parents; diet and upbringing while infants is also going to play very heavily into this.

Well, but the studies that have been done find these same symptoms among children removed from the home and adopted by non drug-addicted parents. I don't think you can dismiss the substantial evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome as a Real Thing. The problem again is we haven't mapped out what the impact of each point along the continuum from complete abstinence to heavy drinking might be. Which argues for a fairly light touch (again, warning vs prohibiting) but it also argues against the sort of confident overstatements that have been made here.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

Fetal alcohol syndrome is a recognizable physical condition. As I mentioned upthread, I have seen a baby with FAS. Before I saw her, I had read a description of the physical symptoms of FAS; she had them.

Her face was unusually short and wide; her eyes were unusually far apart; and she lacked a philtrum She was born this way; her post-birth environment had nothing to do with it.

Moo

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But again, it's not "no data" there IS data, it's simply preliminary or incomplete data. There is real, verifiable data that excessive alcohol use during pregnancy causes real, measurable harm.

Just like sugar then. But we don't advise pregnant women to avoid all sugar, just to avoid excessive sugar.

I don't think data on excessive alcohol use can be described as preliminary data on moderate alcohol use. In fact there are plenty of data examining moderate alcohol use and outcome, more of them in pregnancy rather than breastfeeding per se, and it is inconclusive. There are some studies that appear to show harm, and some that appear to show no effect. If anything it would be more correct to say that the incomplete data on alcohol is conflicting, rather than real measurable harm.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
but I think the science is much more nuanced and not nearly as conclusive as you seem confident in suggesting.

I'm not suggesting the science is conclusive, rather the opposite. It seems to me the burden of evidence and confidence is more on the side of the one wanting to act.

Having said that, we started talking about breastfeeding. The slight evidence of harm of moderate alcohol consumption among mothers seems mostly limited to the first 3 months of pregnancy to me. I personally would want to be more cautious during that period, see less reason for caution later on, and absolutely no evidence that moderate alcohol use during breastfeeding is harmful at all.

As Moo says the foetal alcohol syndrome is very real and very well described. It occurs with heavy alcohol consumption in the first three months of pregnancy. Linking that to advice to breastfeeding mothers is too broad a brush.

[ 03. August 2017, 21:44: Message edited by: mdijon ]

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I thought peanuts were very dangerous for small children. Is that no longer the case?

And I'm fairly sure that although alcohol is not recommended for pregnant women, FAS is caused by having a seriously alcoholic mother, and that a baby is unlikely to get it just because his or her mother had a few drinks before she realised she was expecting.

[ 03. August 2017, 21:59: Message edited by: Enoch ]

Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on :

These teenagers were being brought up by their fathers in the absence of their mothers, or by grandmothers, or in care. Some had stepmothers.

I am suggesting that foetal alcohol damage is not as simple as high levels of alcohol use leading to foetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and moderate levels are fine, but that there is more of a continuum. That effects are observable from alcohol abuse while pregnant at lower than causing FAS. But that continuum is not quantified.

Posted by Nicolemr (# 28) on :

Peanuts are very dangerous for small children because of the danger of choking on them. That is still a hazard. Peanut butter is a different issue.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
That effects are observable from alcohol abuse while pregnant at lower than causing FAS. But that continuum is not quantified.

Well there's quite a lot of data for and against that idea, a fair amount of it against. Even with large cohorts it doesn't seem easy to define.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Nicolemr:
Peanuts are very dangerous for small children because of the danger of choking on them. That is still a hazard. Peanut butter is a different issue.

Thanks, yes the allergy trial I mentioned was done with peanut-crisps, with smooth peanut butter for the children who didn't get on with the crisps.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
absolutely no evidence that moderate alcohol use during breastfeeding is harmful at all.

Fwiw (not much), my wife was advised that although alcohol does indeed pass into the milk, the dilution is at the level of a shot of vodka poured into a swimming pool.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Downing vodka shots in the swimming pool sounds like the right way to facilitate breastfeeding to me.

Posted by chris stiles (# 12641) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:

Well, but the studies that have been done find these same symptoms among children removed from the home and adopted by non drug-addicted parents. I don't think you can dismiss the substantial evidence of fetal alcohol syndrome as a Real Thing.

I'm not dismissing it as a Real Thing, I'm pretty sure it is. I was just contesting the idea that it was necessarily the only thing to blame in the particular scenario described given the particular set of circumstances that were laid out.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha
Alcohol is a poison. In moderate amounts it does not seem to be excessively detrimental to adults. This does not automatically translate to children.

Why risk it?
Because without very small amounts of alcohol, some women can not manage to breastfeed.

Moo

If you read the link I supplied above, it is the barley not the alcohol. Indeed, according to one of the links I posted, the alcohol has an opposite effect.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you read the link I supplied above, it is the barley not the alcohol. Indeed, according to one of the links I posted, the alcohol has an opposite effect.

Leorning Cniht reports that his wife got the same effect from a small glass of wine.

Moo

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Moo:

quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
If you read the link I supplied above, it is the barley not the alcohol. Indeed, according to one of the links I posted, the alcohol has an opposite effect.
Leorning Cniht reports that his wife got the same effect from a small glass of wine.

Moo

That statement, in itself, means nothing. Some people report beneficial effects from all sorts of things that are a placebo at best.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

To be even-handed I don't think that link quotes much scientific data either.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

I'll have to go back through the pages I found, but right now this is too wearying.
This reminds me of the crazy rationales that popped up during a Ship exchange on smoking. Anything to justify.
Sugar is not healthy in large amounts, but it is not a poison. Neither is salt. Neither is fat. Anything can be dangerous in too large an amount, even water.
They are not the equivalent of alcohol.
Perhaps I'll revisit the searching I've done. At this moment, I grow too tired.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

Here is stuff on alcohol and mortality in adults showing the "J-shaped" effect with moderate alcohol intake appearing to be beneficial; study one and two.

I would say at that point it makes no sense to describe alcohol as a poison.

Here is a paper on alcohol use in pregnancy suggesting that the overall evidence is not supportive of a risk of low-moderate drinking on pregnancy outcomes, but acknowledging weaknesses in the evidence.

And here is a review on evidence on alcohol in breastfeeding concluding things like;

"Alcohol intake inhibits the milk ejection reflex, causing a temporary decrease in milk yield.... even in a theoretical case of binge drinking, the children would not be subjected to clinically relevant amounts of alcohol.... "

and

"Minute behavioural changes in infants exposed to alcohol-containing milk have been reported, but the literature is contradictory. Any long-term consequences for the children of alcohol-abusing mothers are yet unknown, but occasional drinking while breastfeeding has not been convincingly shown to adversely affect nursing infants. In conclusion, special recommendations aimed at lactating women are not warranted. Instead, lactating women should simply follow standard recommendations on alcohol consumption."

I could repeat the exercise for smoking, but I promise you we wouldn't get the same output. The fact that people might use similar arguments for smoking doesn't mean that the arguments are faulty. Simply that they are misplaced for smoking and better placed for alcohol.

Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on :

The other reason for being cautious about giving advice on drinking while nursing is that parents already get far too much advice already.

Much of it is contradictory and falls on a spectrum of:
1.) Stuff that is supported by actual evidence, e.g. babies should sleep on their backs
2.) "Some studies have suggested"
3.) Plausible "it stands to reason" ideas developed by someone with a supply of envelopes to write on the back of.
4.) "My family has always done it this way"
5.) Utterly made-up bullshit

My guess is that a lot of parents aren't good at putting advice into categories, but are capable of recognising contradictory advice, and therefore conclude that experts don't know what they're talking about.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
...and therefore conclude that experts don't know what they're talking about.

That's my worry as well. There's only so much bandwidth for absorbing health advice, and I don't want smoking to end up in the same list as alcohol, prawns, peanuts and soft cheese.

Posted by Twilight (# 2832) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
The other reason for being cautious about giving advice on drinking while nursing is that parents already get far too much advice already.

Much of it is contradictory and falls on a spectrum of:
1.) Stuff that is supported by actual evidence, e.g. babies should sleep on their backs
2.) "Some studies have suggested"
3.) Plausible "it stands to reason" ideas developed by someone with a supply of envelopes to write on the back of.
4.) "My family has always done it this way"
5.) Utterly made-up bullshit

My guess is that a lot of parents aren't good at putting advice into categories, but are capable of recognising contradictory advice, and therefore conclude that experts don't know what they're talking about.

6.) things your mother-in-law tells your husband, such as my MIL telling him, "The baby cries too much because her milk is bad."

My baby and I barely slept for the first six months. It would go like this; baby wakes up screaming, I change him, feed him until he goes to sleep in my arms, carefully lay him on his back in his crib, still asleep, then turn him over on his stomach because in 1968 all the doctors and official Baby Books said that if he slept on his back and spit up, he would strangle to death. So I would turn him on his stomach and he would wake-up and scream. Repeat process.

I've had a lot of experience listening to experts who didn't know what they were talking about.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

That sleeping on the front advice is exactly the sort of reason why recommendations should be made only based on evidence. It is very damaging to public confidence (and here to Twilight-confidence) to be advised to do something that turns out to be harmful.

Likewise imagine how all the parents feel who assiduously prevented their toddlers getting their hands on peanut butter for fear of allergies, only to hear later that they were increasing the risk of a peanut allergy.

The recommendations to sleep babies on their front or avoid peanuts were made on a precautionary basis. The experts would have said "Just in case". "There are reasons to believe even though the evidence isn't clear." "Babies are precious, we shouldn't take any risks".

So now we don't believe in experts anymore. The irony is that many of us are still using the same language to justify advising avoidance of all alcohol. "Just in case."

It seems like this precautionary fallacy is a human failing, not just an expert one.

Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mdijon:
That sleeping on the front advice is exactly the sort of reason why recommendations should be made only based on evidence. It is very damaging to public confidence (and here to Twilight-confidence) to be advised to do something that turns out to be harmful.

I too, was caught in the middle of the front- to- back sleeping switcheroo. But I think you are failing to appreciate (both here and re alcohol) the way research is done/reported. And the illustration from front/back sleeping to alcohol use is entirely relevant.

At the time experts were recommending front sleeping there was good reason to do so. We were concerned about SIDs and looking for explanations. Since babies are known to be prone to spitting up, it was a reasonable thesis that choking on their own vomit was causing SIDs. It wasn't just made up, there was sound scientific reasoning behind it and even a small bit of data to support it (babies who did, in fact, die from choking on their own vomit). And, when lives are involved, it would be irresponsible not to avail parents of the best thinking/advice/research available at the time.

But the experts didn't rest there either. They continued to study the problem of SIDs and the effect of "front sleeping" recommendations. They discovered they were wrong. They instituted a comprehensive, science-based "back to sleep" program.

That's the way science works-- both times. It was good science when they were advocating front sleeping and good science when they were advocating back sleeping. It was responsible science to give parents the best advice possible based on the available data at that particular point in time, even though research is always going forward and that may change things. Because babies won't wait until all the research is in and we've got the final word on every issue. If that undermines public confidence in expert opinion that's because we're doing a crap job of teaching people about the scientific method and how it works.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
But I think you are failing to appreciate (both here and re alcohol) the way research is done/reported.

I have to say that I do quite a lot of medical research for a living, so whatever the issue with my explanation is that isn't it.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
At the time experts were recommending front sleeping there was good reason to do so. We were concerned about SIDs and looking for explanations. Since babies are known to be prone to spitting up, it was a reasonable thesis that choking on their own vomit was causing SIDs. It wasn't just made up, there was sound scientific reasoning behind it and even a small bit of data to support it (babies who did, in fact, die from choking on their own vomit).

That's very tangential data. It would have been just as possible to come to the opposite conclusion from similarly weak data - for instance that babies would be more likely to have their nose pushed into the bedding and stop breathing. And one could find blocked secretions in the noses that might be related to cot death.

But biology is that it isn't like process engineering on a machine. The complex systems of human beings respond counter-intuitively. Tightly controlling the high blood sugar levels that are associated with diabetes doesn't always improve outcome. An antibody response to a virus sometimes makes the disease worse instead of clearing it.

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
They continued to study the problem of SIDs and the effect of "front sleeping" recommendations. They discovered they were wrong. They instituted a comprehensive, science-based "back to sleep" program.

Ironically if everyone had followed advice it wouldn't have been possible to do the study. The benefits of back to sleep were only possible to determine by making empiric observations on what actually happened when parents did either thing. That could have been done at any time, it didn't need the prior recommendation to come out first.

So my message is that recommendations should generally be made based on actual observations, not based on theoretical considerations. And certainly these days policy makers are much more likely to insist on randomised trials or, where that isn't possible, observations of outcomes in the real world rather than biological reasoning.

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
And, when lives are involved, it would be irresponsible not to avail parents of the best thinking/advice/research available at the time.

But there's a considerable difference between "I don't have much good data, but based on what I do know, this would be my advice" and "the evidence is clear - don't do this."

And "expert" advice almost never distinguishes between the two. Which is an issue, because those cultural issues tend to weigh in to the first category in a big way.

There's a third category, too. The new UK limits on weekly alcohol consumption are set at the level that will cause less than a 1% increased risk of cancer in an average person. This is a small number. If we were to take it seriously, we would be going through every activity that people do, and telling them how much of it increases their cancer risk by 1%. (We do, in some cases. That's why the advice for eating processed meats is "don't". In terms of cancer risk, moderate bacon consumption is worse than moderate beer consumption.)

Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :

The 'what is best practice at the time' is the killer. The best thing to do for your baby alters often. I remember putting my children to sleep on their tummies; the trend now is on the back. And the whole peanut allergy issue is fearful.

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

But it isn't just a trend. That's the danger of giving "what is best practice at the time" advice. If we don't really know we shouldn't say anything until we do. There will still sometimes be flips, but the point is that if we wait until we are 95% certain before saying something we will change the advice less often than if we say stuff when the evidence is 50:50.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

When I had my daughter they'd just decided that babies shouldn't be weaned until they were six months old, if it was possible to keep them on milk-only until then. So the imperfectly updated leaflet I got gave the impression that you should start weaning your baby on fruit and vegetable purees, then progress to meat, eggs etc. at six months - but because you weren't supposed to start feeding them solids until they were six months old it sounded like you had a window of a single day to introduce your baby to a range of different foods, one at a time...

I don't know how typical I was, but I ignored the (then-current) advice and started giving her pureed fruit and vegetables (and baby rice) as soon as Madam decided that milk was Not Good Enough - around the age of four and a half months, IIRC. And they seem to have gone back to the 'fruit and veg after four months, meat/fish/eggs etc after 6' advice.

Posted by Pyx_e (# 57) on :

I find it hard to express my disappointment at the direction this thread has taken. While it is important to keep abreast of current medical thinking is it not time to get this thread back on track before I call for the Nurse.

Pyx_e

Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :

I think I know what you want. I think nurse does too.

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