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Originally Posted by Gungnir
To address some salient points
Yes, we all do, I'm not proposing everyone charters privately, I'm stating that unless you charter privately you accept that there are certain risks and discomforts that can be expected. I've actually had a 5 year old puke on me on a flight, I've never had a drunk puke on me.
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How about the drinker expecting certain discomforts like no alcohol (or high alcohol levels) on planes?
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Originally Posted by Gungnir
All of the time, or regularly/occasionally/infrequently/rarely?
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Government guidelines already state a time frame so no further clarification is needed. Getting back to topic for a moment the latest research indicates there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. This has been widely accepted for pregnant women in the US for years but only more recently in the UK. One has to wonder why.
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Originally Posted by Gungnir
I use the standard definition for mental illness, a mental illness solely requires that the sufferer have impaired functionality because of the illness for them to be considered ill. Are you saying that addiction or substance abuse is not a mental illness?
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Let's not get into mental illness here. It's a highly complex subject and I cannot make any informed comments about it. However, you stated
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Originally Posted by Gungnir
Personally I consider people drinking too much are people who are dysfunctional because of alcohol, they cannot maintain relationships,are not happy in themselves and lives, and cannot manage their careers specifically because of alcohol.
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Obviously the government's idea of drinking too much is at odds with your own definition. The term dysfunctional is not an absolute anyway as it occurs in varying degrees, but as you refer to it in terms of not being able to manage relationships & careers you obviously mean in a more extreme way. You are making a common assumption that drinking too much is the preserve of a few (as you state 'there are not many people like that' - really???) who have a predisposition to addiction or have problems in their lives that lead to drinking too much. I would suggest that in more cases than we would like to admit that the drinking causes the troubles in their lives. If you really believe 'there aren't many people like that' I suggest you tell it to the Police, Hospitals, Fire Services, Ambulance Drivers, Law Courts and any number of agencies who have to grapple with this enormous problem.
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Originally Posted by Gungnir
If what you are saying is indeed true, then ultimately anyone who consumes alcohol will become an alcoholic, if as you say the alcohol is the driver, then all alcohol consumers will progress to dependence (because alcohol is the driver). We have around 10,000 years of history that contradicts that claim, alcoholism has never been predominant in human societies. Certain persons are more at risk of dependence and abuse, those persons already have varying degrees of mental illnesses and conditions that put them at higher risk of dependence and abuse of alcohol or any other intoxicant (including sex, prescribed and illicit drugs, gambling, etc.).
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I didn't say that 'anyone who consumes alcohol will become an alcoholic'. That's ridiculous, but the more you drink the more tolerant and dependent you become. Take a person for example who drinks 8 pints of beer with no obvious sign of intoxication. This is possible because a high tolerance level has been achieved through repeated periods of drinking, and physical dependence is associated with tolerance in most cases. This isn't to disregard the fact that tolerance levels vary from person to person but I think it's safe to say that if a non drinker - whatever his tolerance level - were to drink 8 pints straight off it would either comatose or kill him.
Again you are suggesting that drinking too much is a minority problem - the preserve of the mentally impaired or those of reduced resistance.
It is generally accepted that the amount of alcohol consumed is vastly under reported. I think only half of the quantity sold can be accounted for in consumption figures. Not difficult to believe when you consider for example the number of people (often women) who quietly consume several bottles of wine each week (1 each night is probably common). I can think of several straight off the bat and that's just me. Much of this doesn't show in the consumption figures and is exactly the sort of thing that does lead to dependence. Routinely denied but the truth is they need that bottle of wine. That's just one scenario of many.
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Originally Posted by Gungnir
Around 20% of the population suffer chronic clinical depression. According to the NHS 7.5% of the UK are or will become clinically dependent on alcohol. So where are the 12.5% of the clinically depressives coming from if it's down to alcohol consumption, if it were predominantly alcohol consumption then the number of clinical depressives would be a narrow margin more than clinical alcoholics (because they're not yet alcoholics, but will become so), it's not narrow 62.5% of people with depression are not alcoholics, that's assuming that the remaining 37.5% of alcoholics are also clinically depressed (which is not really a valid assumption, because alcoholics are not always clinically depressed).
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Who knows? There are too many variable here. For all I know the 12.5% may be teetotallers who have always been clinically depressed. I didn't say that depression is always caused by alcohol.
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