I don't abstain from alcohol. But I am a person who comes from a family with a history of addiction issues and I have enough experience to know how many drinks is enough for me. I'm also the only adult in my household. For all these reasons, I'm comfortable keeping only a six-pack of my favorite beer or a couple of bottles of wine in my home. Sometimes, after a dinner party or the holidays, I have more booze hanging around. Other times, there isn't a drop. For me, that's fine.
Maybe it is because I've consciously limited how much alcohol is in my home that I was stunned to read how much of it is being consumed around the world.
Today's New York Times reports that Russia's president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, has declared that it is time for his country's relationship with vodka to change. Recognized as both a cultural tradition and as a means of escaping social, economic, and political hardships, drinking vodka has helped the country earn the top spot in the world for alcohol consumption.
Undoing that isn't easy. Medvedev, who banned casino gambling this summer, plans to crack down on the sale of alcohol to minors, ban beer sales at kiosks, ban large beer containers, and possibly assume more retail control over the sale of vodka.
While that may seem conservative, and possibly extreme to some people, it is because the situation is dire.
Russians consume, on average, 4.75 gallons of alcohol per person a year, more than double the amount the World Health Organization categorizes as a health threat.
Before you scoff, consider that Americans consume 2.3 gallons of alcohol annually. Although people in the U.S. drink half the alcohol Russians do, this statistic is still startling. And it still places our own country close to health threat status.
Of course, these are averages, and taking into consideration both teetotalers and people who drink far more than those two or four gallons a year. Still...GALLONS.
Even if you are a person who is conscious about how much you drink or perhaps does not imbibe at all, it is important to know that there are many people out there who are suffering and struggling with alcohol issues. If we see this as a wider problem -- which it is, with the WHO calculating that there are 76.3 million people with alcohol-use disorders worldwide -- then maybe it is time for recovery on national and global levels as well as individual.
The ramifications of all this alcohol consumption have been harsh for Russia. The life expectancy of Russian men is sadly only 60 years, partly blamed on alcoholism. Life expectancy rates did go up during the last major crackdown on alcohol in Russia, when Mikhail S. Gorbachev cleared shelves of vodka. Although that campaign had a positive impact on nationals, there was a backlash and the efforts were rescinded. It is predicted that Russia will face a 20% drop in population in the next 40 years if it does not address the severity of alcohol consumption in the country.
As easy as it would be to read this news and point our fingers to another country, the challenge and the opportunity is to take what we know and apply it to the ways our own nation is operating, the way we conduct ourselves, and the choices we make in our own homes. Despite my own decision to only keep a limited amount of alcohol in my own, this still makes me wonder how much the drinks I have at bars and parties really do add up. Where do I fall in this health threat? Where do you ?
What's happening in Russia is sad and frightening. How will we each be accountable for alcohol consumption so we, as individuals or as a country, don't get to that place?
It begins right here, I think, with answering honestly how much alcohol think we may be drinking a year? Could it be measured in gallons? Is it time that those of us who do drink paced ourselves even more?
