It was only this week, as I was trying to find a birthday card for a tee-total girlfriend, that I realised just how booze-obsessed the greeting card industry is. Practically every other card was about drinking alcohol – ‘Sip, sip hooray!’, ‘Have a gincredible birthday!’, ‘Happy birthday let’s get drunk!’, and that’s not even mentioning the ones that talked about getting ‘shitfaced’, ‘hammered’ and in one case, getting so drunk that you ‘shit yourself on your birthday. Again.’
OK I’ll admit, the last one made me laugh (I’m a counsellor, not a saint after all), but the sheer volume of alcohol-related greetings cards, most of them targeted specifically at young women, got me thinking.
As well as saying ‘Happy Birthday’ – what message do these cards send? Are they merely a ‘bit of fun’, simply reflecting Britain’s love of a pub night out, or are they an unhelpful reinforcement of the message – to have fun, to be fun, you’ve got to get drunk?
Alcohol-related deaths are soaring
Figures released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) in 2021 revealed the number of people dying from alcohol related diseases in the UK are rising significantly. While currently, more men than women are dying due to alcohol, we’re catching up at an alarming rate.
Between 2016 and 2021 the number of women dying from alcohol related diseases in the UK rose by 37 per cent from 2,399 deaths to 3,293 – the highest level since records began. That’s compared to an increase of 29 per cent for men.
So what is going on?
James Tucker, a statistician at the ONS, stated the rise in alcohol-specific deaths across the board was ‘likely to be the result of increased alcohol consumption during the pandemic.’
The question of why the rate of women dying of alcohol-related diseases is soaring is more complex.
One explanation is that a woman’s physiology makes us more likely to be impacted by alcohol. In an article in the Independent newspaper, Debbie Shawcross, a professor at King’s College London’s Institute of Liver Studies explained women tend to get more severe liver disease, even when drinking less than men for a shorter period of time, because of differences in body size and muscle mass.
Along with biology, comes cultural factors. Dr Richard Piper of charity Alcohol Change told the Independent the main factor causing the rise is the ‘deliberate’ and ‘incessant’ marketing of drinks by alcohol brands towards women.
The ‘ladette’ legacy
Back in the 1990s, the rise of so-called ‘ladette’ culture saw female binge drinking not only normalised, but celebrated. While the ‘ladette’ tag may have disappeared, female binge drinking hasn’t. Recent research by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found British women topped the list of the biggest female binge drinkers in the world, alongside German women.
Defined as drinking more than six units of alcohol in one sitting for women, or more than eight units for men, binge drinking can have serious consequences for our mental as well as our physical health.
Alcohol is a depressant, which can lead to feeling of anxiety and depression. This in turn could lead to you wanting to drink more in order to relieve these feelings, potentially starting a cycle of alcohol dependence. Feelings of hopeless, guilt and shame may follow, which again can reinforce the urge to self-medicate via alcohol to relieve the discomfort.
Taking back control
If you are worried about your relationship with alcohol, there are a number of options available to you. You might wish to speak to your GP, contact Alcoholics Anonymous or find a therapist who specialises in alcohol and addiction.
If your own drinking isn’t an issue, but you are concerned about a friend or loved one’s drinking, or you grew up in a family where alcohol was problematic, then I can support you.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to socialise with friends and have a bit of fun. But alcohol abuse isn’t fun, it’s a serious problem. So perhaps it’s time the ‘boozy’ birthday cards and glamorising of binge drinking be consigned to history.