Sir, – As the national charity working to prevent and reduce alcohol misuse in Ireland, Drinkaware welcomes the recently announced review of the low-risk weekly alcohol guidelines, and has offered its support of same in its submissions to the Oireachtas Health Committee and various public consultations on related topics in recent months.
Much of Drinkaware’s work centres around providing the public with information that supports positive attitude and behaviour change with regard to alcohol. This includes the low-risk weekly guidelines, and specifically how they relate to supporting people’s understanding of their consumption, alcohol harms and risky drinking behaviours.
To change behaviour, people need knowledge, motivation and capacity. The low-risk weekly alcohol guidelines are an obvious starting point.
The importance and value of the guidelines is threefold
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They offer clarity on a subject that uses an array of terms – risky, light, moderate, heavy, hazardous, harmful – that while technically and medically descriptive, are not easily understood or resonate with the public. The number of adults who drink on a weekly basis has risen in the last two years (44 per cent in 2019, 52 per cent in 2020, 55 per cent in 2021). There is a substantial number of adult drinkers who say they would follow the guidelines (42 per cent) if they knew them. The stark lack of public awareness of the guidelines (less than 3 per cent of the public can identify them) is the crux of the challenge. The public has a right to know, and needs to understand what low-risk versus risky drinking looks like. Simply changing the guidelines in no way guarantees that the public will garner greater awareness and understanding of their alcohol consumption.
The review of the guidelines is arguably overdue given that this last happened in 2009. But it’s also seen by many as timely because of the increase in at-home drinking owing to Covid-related restrictions. However, to assume this is a Covid-induced behaviour shift is dangerously misleading. The drinking at home trend actually predates the pandemic – the 2019 Drinkaware Index found 62 per cent of drinking occasions were happening in the home, and the Understanding Binge Drinking at Home report (2020) elucidates the why as well as the repercussions of this now well-established practice.
Drinkaware has no specific recommendation on the content of the guidelines. But we do have a clear sight of the context in which they sit and would encourage those reviewing them to maximise this opportunity to utilise all available insight, experience and data, to engender greater understanding and uptake by the public.
To be effective, guidelines of any sort, need to be uncomplicated, relevant and well communicated. Consistently and across all settings. They cannot live passively on a website, but rather must be pushed, promoted and explained to the public, in an inclusive and accessible way because sustainable behaviour change is a journey as much as a destination. – Yours, etc,
SHEENA HORGAN,
Chief Executive,
Drinkaware,
Dublin 2.