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Average sozzled Brit sinks 5,800 pints during life
Spends £58,201 on booze before kicking bucket
By Lester Haines Posted in Bootnotes, 19th August 2011 08:58 GMT
A "shock" survey has revealed that the average Brit will sink 5,800 pints during a lifetime of hardened drinking, washed down with 8,700 glasses of wine, 2,900 bottles of cider, 5,800 shots of spirits, 1,450 cocktails, 1,450 glasses of liquor and a similar number of glasses of bubbly.
The cost of this boozing is £962 a year, meaning that by the time your liver heads off to the great off licence in the sky, you'll have spunked an impressive £58,201.
That's according to Benenden Healthcare Society, which notes that most of us take our first livener at just 14, and then proceed to "have an alcoholic drink on at least three nights a week and consume nine drinks in total".
By Vulture Central standards this is a very modest estimate, but Benenden does correctly note that "four in ten Brits admitted they can’t go longer than a week without having a drink, but one in ten said they would struggle to make it through two days without cracking open a bottle".
A shocked Lawrence Christensen, Benenden Healthcare's Communications & Strategy head honcho, said: "Day by day, we may not notice our drinking habits and may not think about what it’s costing us. But add it all up and the amounts become quite staggering.
"Recommended guidelines for alcohol consumption are 3-4 units per day in men, equating to around a pint and a half of 4% strength beer, and 2-3 units in women - a single 175 ml glass of 13% strength wine for women.
"This means that by getting through 456 drinks a year on average, many Brits are sailing perilously close to the wind and, in many cases, most likely exceeding guidelines.
"The yearly financial cost of this level of consumption also gives pause for thought, with £962 a year being no small sum for many families in the UK."
That's all well and good, but as Vivian Stanshall's Sir Henry Rawlinson once put it: "If I had all the money I'd spent on drink, I'd spend it on drink".
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By Chris Williams Posted in Bootnotes, 22nd April 2010 10:10 GMT
It's once again an election issue, but Britain's reputation for binge drinking may be undeserved compared to some of its European neighbours, according to a shock official report.
Ireland, Romania, Germany and Austria all have a higher rate of binge drinking than the UK, a European Commission survey has found.
Some 34 per cent of Brits reported having five or more drinks in one sitting - the report's definition of a binge - at least once a week. Spain and Greece reported the same rate of binging.
The Irish topped the table by some distance, with 44 per cent regularly binge drinking. Romanians swayed into second with 39 per cent. Germany and Austria both registered 36 per cent.
The survey found that the recession has accompanied a small increase in binge drinking, with a rise in the EU average rate of once a week binging from 15 per cent in 2006 to 17 per cent in 2009. However the numbers claiming they never binge also rose.
On average a much higher proportion of European men (36 per cent) are frequent binge drinkers than women (19 per cent).
The full report on EU Citizens' attitudes to alcohol is here
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