Do you find yourself drinking more on business trips? And what can you do to stick within safe alcohol limits?

How many is too many? If you feel that drinking is affecting your productivity, Sally Brown suggests strategies for cutting down

At times, travelling can feel like entering a parallel universe, especially when it comes to drinking – it’s perfectly acceptable to have a glass of champagne in an airport lounge at 10.30am, for instance. Even if you’re usually teetotal during the week, you can find yourself saying yes to mojitos on a Monday night simply because you’re in a hotel bar in another country. And keeping the wine flowing over a dinner meeting is less an indulgence and more a tool for overcoming language and culture barriers.

Of course, you don’t have to leave the country to have a drink. A recent survey by Interface Asia found that 53 per cent of Japanese males over 45 drink at home every day, while statistics from the UK show that over40s drink more than teenagers. Duncan Selbie, head of government body Public Health England, has said the people he is most concerned about are workers who pour themselves a large glass of wine every evening, unaware that it’s the equivalent of three shots of vodka.

According to Dr Sarah Jarvis, spokesperson for charity Drinkaware (drinkaware.co.uk), being a frequent traveller puts you in a risk category all of your own. “If you are abroad for work, you are less likely to be driving and more likely to be eating dinner in a restaurant with colleagues, which may mean you’re more likely to drink,” she says. “Even if you’re not eating out and are on your own in a hotel room, you have the option of the minibar.”

For many business people, a couple of drinks is the most convenient, prescription-free way to deal with jet lag and the stress of travel. Then there’s the “entitlement factor” – for some, a glass of wine or two over lunch or dinner goes some way to compensate for the many inconveniences of being away from home.

According to liver specialist Sir Ian Gilmore, there is a growing group of people who treat heavy drinking as a “lifestyle choice, like a pair of Armani jeans”. The

Australia’s Health 2014 report revealed that 20 per cent

of Australians consumed alcohol at levels that placed them at risk of lifetime harm, while research by the World Health Organisation found that binge drinking levels in China has reached “epidemic proportions” .

Many experts believe a lack of awareness of the health risks involved is part of the problem. Alcohol is the second-biggest risk factor for cancer after smoking, and the second highest cause of preventable drugrelated death in Australia.

While it’s well-known that alcohol abuse causes cirrhosis of the liver, what’s less publicised is that liver damage is symptomless until the late stages, and a build-up of fat cells in the liver, the first stage of permanent damage, can start after a few weeks of heavy drinking. A quarter of patients with liver disease drink three bottles of wine or less a week according to Dr Nick Sheron, liver specialist and co-founder of Alcohol Health Alliance UK.

It’s a myth that wine is good for the heart, says spokesperson for Alcohol Concern, Emily Robinson. “The research on the health benefits of red wine is very contentious,” she says. “Alcohol is more likely to raise blood pressure, increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.”

It can also reduce your body’s sensitivity to insulin, which puts you at greater risk of developing type-two diabetes, makes you more prone to

depression and anxiety, and increases your vulnerability to dementia.

In 20 years’ time, we’ll view daily drinking in the same way that we now view smoking ten cigarettes a day, Sheron believes.“It’s virtually impossible to drink every night and still stick to the safe lower limits, unless you are one of those rare people who really does have a half-glass of wine,” he says.“We have survey results from 20,000 people and what it showed was that people who drink on a daily basis and stay within the safe limits simply do not exist.”

If you stick to the recommended limits, you shouldn’t encounter any health problems, Jarvis says, but knowing how many units there are in your usual drinks is crucial.“Most people underestimate how much they drink and how many units are in them. One glass of wine is not one unit, it’s more like three or four,” she says.

Current guidelines in the UK and Hong Kong advise women not to regularly drink more than two to three units a day (the equivalent of a 175ml glass of wine), and men more than three to four units a day (a pint and a half of 4 per cent beer), while the UK’s chief medical officer is reviewing guidelines to incorporate regular alcohol-free days.

Still, you shouldn’t treat the limits as an allowance, Robinson says.“The original advice was to drink a maximum of 21 units a week, but people took that as a licence to drink all the units in one session. So the advice was changed to three to four units a day, but some took that as permission to drink daily,” she says.

If you find it hard to stop at one, there is a drug that could help you. Taken an hour or two before drinking, nalmefene (brand name Selincro) blocks the opiatereceptors in the brain, reducing both the desire to drink and the “buzz” that alcohol gives, making it easier to limit your intake. In clinical trials, it was found to reduce alcohol consumption by about 60 per cent after six months of treatment.

“It’s not a quick fix and should never be prescribed without counselling to help change your mindset, such as CBT [cognitive behavioural therapy],” Jarvis says.“But if you’re motivated to cut down, it could help.”

Going dry for short periods on a regular basis could also help to reduce long-term damage and lower tolerance levels – in a study carried out at University College London Medical School in 2013, ten participants who abstained for a month showed a significant reduction in liver fat, blood glucose and cholesterol levels.

Sometimes, changing your drinking means changing your lifestyle, if your social life revolves around certain

‘People who drink daily and stay within the limits simply do not exist’

patterns of drinking,” Jarvis says.“But some people find cutting down relatively easy, especially if they notice the benefits, such as better sleep, more energy or weight loss.”

In a survey by Victorian Health Promotion Foundation, over two-thirds of Australian drinkers said they would consider giving up alcohol for a month, while three out of four said they would find it easy to do this.

For some, the solution is to drink on weekends only. The Foundation for Alcohol Research and Education’s figures show that in 2014, 77 per cent of Australian drinkers limited themselves to consuming alcohol on two days of the week, compared to just 69 per cent in 2010.

“We need to think of alcohol in the same way as we think of a box of chocolates,” Sheron says.“You wouldn’t have a box every night, and we shouldn’t be drinking every night.”That’s a rule worth sticking to, both home and away.

‘Going dry for short periods could help to reduce long-term damage’