Niki Bezzant: Why is booze so hard to quit?

We'd all do well to approach drinking with a less is more philosophy. Photo / Doug Sherring

What's one thing most of us could do to immediately lower our risk of disease and early death?

You might be thinking turn vegetarian, lose weight, stop smoking or start exercising. All of those are excellent things to do, and any one of them (especially stopping smoking) will certainly improve our health.

But the other big and easy thing we could do - and one we often prefer to ignore - is to cut back on or stop drinking alcohol.

We have a huge blind spot about alcohol consumption in this country. When I speak to corporate groups about health and inevitably get on to this topic, I can always see the uncomfortable shifting in the chairs in the audience; often there's an audible collective groan.

We like drinking. We know it's bad but we don't want to be reminded how bad.

Kiwis drink more than Americans, Canadians and South Africans (although less than the British, Irish and Aussies). We rank 29th of 190 countries.

Alcohol Healthwatch says we consume over nine litres of pure alcohol each, each year. That's the equivalent, they say, of everyone over 18 consuming two standard drinks every day.

The reality, though, is that around half of the alcohol sold here is consumed in "heavy drinking occasions". And that's where we get into risky territory.

Heavy drinking may not be as boozy as we think. Heavy drinking is defined as more than six standard drinks (men) or four drinks (women) at least once a week.

A standard drink is about 100ml of wine - far less than most people will pour into their wine glass, or just under a bottle of beer. So a couple of drinks followed by dinner with wine could easily get you there.

The more often we do this, the more we gamble with our health.

Alcohol is classed as a Group 1 carcinogen. That puts it in the same category as asbestos, arsenic, tobacco and ionizing radiation.

Alcohol causes at least seven types of cancer and is linked with several others. Alcohol Healthwatch says every year 802 New Zealanders die younger than expected due to their current drinking behaviour.

So what's a wine (or beer, or whisky) lover to do? If we're not prepared to abstain, are we doomed?

Not necessarily, but we'd do well to approach drinking with a less is more philosophy. I've heard the "123 rule" - one drink a day, no more than two drinks at a time, no more than three times a week.

This strikes me as sensible. It would keep us within the guidelines for safe drinking, and eliminate the possibility of bingeing, which is probably worse for us than drinking a little every day. The rule also allows for being able to enjoy the odd drink in a mindful manner.

And of course we need to think of the big picture. Laying off the booze is great, but if we're still eating poorly it's no guarantee of good health.

*Niki Bezzant is editor-at-large for Healthy Food Guide www.healthyfood.co.nz