Two thirds of Australian alcohol consumption "unsafe"

More than two-thirds of the alcohol drunk in Australia is 'high risk', and the cost is estimated at 3300 deaths a year.

According to research by Professor Tim Stockwell and his colleagues, Australia's "heroic binge-drinking culture" regularly pushes consumption beyond safe levels, with 18-24 and 14 to 17-year-olds the biggest offenders. The researchers analysed data provided by the1998 National Drug Strategy Household (NDSH) survey, calculating the volumes of alcohol consumed at the different risk levels proposed by the National Health and Medical Research Council in its guidance on "sensible drinking" levels designed to help reduce alcohol-caused deaths in Australia, estimated to have been 3290 in 1997.

In the guidance, male drinkers are advised to drink no more than an average of 40 g alcohol per day and females no more than an average of 20 g of alcohol per day to prevent chronic health problems (for example, alcoholic liver cirrhosis).

It is also recommended that, provided there are no other situational or individual risk factors (such as driving or being pregnant), men drink no more than 60 g on any day and women no more than 40 g to prevent acute conditions associated with bouts of intoxication (for example, alcohol-related injuries).

Unfortunately, Professor Stockwell's calculations suggest that this guidance is not followed by a rather large number of Australians. He found that 39 per cent of total consumption was being drunk by people who exceeded the low-risk limits for chronic harm (36 per cent for men, 45 per cent for women). He also found that 51 per cent of total consumption occurred on days when the drinker exceeded low-risk limits for acute harm (53 per cent for men and 47 per cent for women). Drinking that was risky for either acute or chronic harm was found to comprise 67 per cent of total consumption. For young men aged 18 -24 years this figure was a remarkable 93 per cent of all alcohol consumed.

Commenting on the findings, Professor Stockwell said the figures disproved the popular perception that alcoholics were the only ones affected.

"For every alcohol-related death, there's an average of 25 years of life knocked off because a lot of it involves young people, through road crashes or violent offences or suicide," he said. "We, like many other nations, draw a veil over what alcohol is. It's putting a lot more lives at risk than people realise."

Professor Stockwell said the study was particularly timely as for the first time for years alcohol consumption was on the rise in Australia. While full-strength beer sales had fallen, those for pre-mixed drinks – most popular in the under-30s market – had soared.

"These statistics show that, the way we're using alcohol, it's not a benign product," Professor Stockwell said. "We need to regulate it very carefully."

He suggested that the recent increase in alcohol sales could be linked to deregulation of the market.

"Everywhere there's longer trading hours, more outlets. It's more available, it's regarded as a commodity like breakfast cereal or milk," he said. "But most of the drinking that's going on is not doing people's health any good – and much of it is quite unsafe."

Professor Stockwell said the problem of alcohol abuse could be even worse than the study suggested because total sales indicated people were under-reporting their drinking by as much as half.

"It doesn't all get tipped down the sink or sold to tourists," he said. "It's just not being reported. People forget, they under-estimate, they fib."

With most alcohol consumed after people had exceeded their safe quota of standard drinks for one day, the years of life lost to excessive drinking outweighed those possibly saved by supposed protective effects of light drinking in relation to heart disease.

"If (drinkers) could all try and drink within the limits, many thousands of lives would be saved in Australia," Professor Stockwell said.

Letters: How much alcohol is drunk in Australia in excess of the new Australian alcohol guidelines?

Tim R Stockwell, Penny Heale, Tanya N Chikritzhs, Paul Dietze and Paul Catalano

The Medical Journal of Australia 21 January 2002 176 2: 91-92

The Courier-Mail, Australia. 21 January 2002