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This week BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time told the story of the Temperance movement in Britain which is said to have really got going in 1832 in Preston. It provides fascinating insight into where we find ourselves now, where we have moved forward and where the debate has become frozen in time. You can listen yourself here.

What struck me was that we are not so much reliving this history, but that the knotty issues raised by retailing addictive psychoactives were never resolved. While we might scoff at our ancestors, we have not come much further. What we see now on the internet are, perhaps, are echoes of the arguments made in temperance halls and colourful lantern slides.

One notable quote from the programme came from Bishop of Peterborough in 1872. Looking it up verbatim in Hansard it was, “…it would be better that England should be free than that England should be compulsorily sober.” He went on, however, “I would distinctly prefer freedom to sobriety, because with freedom we might in the end attain sobriety.”

The bill he was opposing with this speech to the House of Lords was one to allow local parishes to stop the issue of alcohol licences. This might well have been a blunt and ineffective instrument. I don’t know. But what is clear is that the bishop’s argument brushed aside positive freedoms we typically value on a par with the freedom to do business.

This is a fateful oversimplification of the conception of freedom, which has the dire consequence of polarising the discussion from there on. I outline this more fully in the opening chapter of Alcohol for Nerds, drawing on the work of intellectual historian Professor Quentin Skinner who created a detailed genealogy of freedoms, plural.

But, in essence, 150-years on it is still not accurate to portray those who seek to regulate alcohol sales more as being “against freedom” and those in favour of fewer regulations as being “for freedom”. It ignores the fact that restrictions help curb the freedom-reducing effects of things like inebriation, violence, dependence, illness and disability.

As the BBC programme makes clear the Temperance movement was largely led by and for the benefit of working people looking to improve their lives, by avoiding the many perils of Victorian life. It was also part of a wider struggle to find a political voice. This is a struggle for freedom, not against it, although it can impinge on some commercial freedoms.

The UK has not found a satisfactory democratic solution to this day. Elected representatives have long abdicated responsibility for regulating alcohol marketing and advertising, handing it to the alcohol industry itself, despite the direct conflict of interest. The results are predictably poor, with government ministers unable to introduce something simple as guideline labelling.

We have changed enormously since the days of the Temperance movement, as has the knowledge-base from which we work. But the balancing of different conceptions of freedom goes on. This is society struggling to decide what freedom is and how to deliver it. Long may it continue. ■

Scientists have explained how exposure to luxuries like designer watches, expensive cars and horse riding is associated with dramatically better health.

The long-established phenomenon has seen many attempting to gain the scientifically proven health boost of playing classical instruments and unflattened their vowels.

“Why this disparate range of products, services and choices should deliver big health benefits was a complete mystery,” says researcher Tom Phillips, who thought of an explanation.

“Endorphin release is a known mechanism in stress management, which in turn is associated with health benefits. Nice things could be a mechanism for it,” the study concludes.

Phillips’s study is the first to propose a single biological mechanism for the long running luxuries effect. One paper suggested jodhpur-compression reduces haemorrhage risk.

“Luxury goods are often seen as frivolous extras, but this work shows that they should rightly be seen as essentials to good health,” said the Jodhpur Manufacturers’ Association.

Other researchers say the explanation is that being better off is the key factor. We did not find time to talk to them because it would ruin a popular story. ■

The heaviest drinking households bought 17 times more alcohol than the lightest drinking ones at the start of the covid pandemic, a study says, helping to explain record high levels of alcohol-induced death.

The polarisation of alcohol consumption found between the top and bottom fifth of households in the UK is likely one reason why there was a 19% rise in alcohol-specific deaths in 2020, reaching the highest level for 20 years.

The US saw an even bigger alcohol-induced death surge in 2020 Alcohol Review revealed last month (see chart). The CDC has since confirmed the 26% rise that year and now also estimates a similarly high level for last year.

The increase in US deaths has so far attracted scant public attention or research. But it is likely the lifestyle changes and stress of the covid crisis saw heavier drinkers in both sides of the Atlantic increase their intake to deadly levels, just as this research suggests they did in the opening phase of the covid crisis in the UK.

Late last year around 30% more people in England said they drank more than the official low risk guidelines of 14 units (140ml) a week compared to before the covid crisis, said a Office for Health Improvement and Disparities survey.

“It is also likely that reduced access to care and treatment during covid contributed to an increase in alcohol-related deaths,” said lead author Professor Peter Anderson of Newcastle University when asked if other factors played a part in the UK. 

Households in the more socially disadvantaged locations of northern England bought more alcohol. The pattern in Scotland and Wales was “less pronounced”, possibly because they have minimum alcohol pricing policies, the study says. 

 “This suggests that a focus on policies to reduce high levels of drinking are even more important in extraordinary times, such as those we’ve seen since March 2020,” said Professor Anderson from Newcastle University.

“By failing to implement minimum unit pricing as part of its plans for public health, England is now falling further behind the rest of the UK in the race to tackle alcohol harm,” said Professor Sir Ian Gilmore of the Alcohol Health Alliance.

The research is a joint project between Newcastle University and the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration (ARC) North East and North Cumbria. 

The study used retail data from Kantar WorldPanel for 30,000 UK homes for six years to 2020. ■

Taking an alcohol break, as many are doing now, can be seen as a step towards a purposeful pursuit of pure pleasure, or hedonism, instead of a spartan act of self-denial.

Maximising pleasure is more than giving ourselves a series of nice feelings. Otherwise we might simply lie around all the time gorging ourselves on delicious snacks and, er, tickling ourselves.

Some pleasures we discover are transient and not connected to anything else. So, over time, we learn not to invest excessive amounts of time in pleasures which do not pay off, or which bring downsides.

Thankfully, however, as uniquely sophisticated, conscious mammals capable of reasoning, our range of pleasures are uniquely wide, varied and adaptable. It is no coincidence they take in activities which help us thrive.

We typically get great pleasure from learning, practising and succeeding, getting a buzz from passing exams and triple-twenties in darts. And we enjoy work, music, movement, socialising, sights, sounds and sensations.

And we can even conjure joy from outwardly tedious activities which pay off. Some of us can, for instance, with the right mind-games, elicit unlikely gratification from catching up with paperwork or sweeping behind the tumble dryer.

Epicurus, a Greek hedonist from 2,300 year ago (pictured), plumped for chilling in a communal garden talking with mates about philosophy. He rejected the idea that drinking a lot of alcohol as the best route to pleasure.

Alcohol, a psychoactive, gives us an out-sized impression of its reward. This can mean we invest more time and energy in alcohol than it deserves. Our human relish for persistence in the face of hardship does us no favours here.

We can persist in drinking alcohol even though it  brings scant pleasure and is causing us grief. We can want alcohol without liking it, with its pleasures and rewards long outweighed by hangovers, crappy sleep and low mood. 

Not drinking for a month or longer is a good way for us to weigh up the pleasures and downsides of alcohol. What things positive and negative do we correctly attribute to it? And what downsides does it have we did not notice?

It can take us from three months to a year to be free of side-effects that heavier alcohol drinking can bring, like anxiety and low or changeable mood. If we make one month it can be worth banking the investment and carrying on.

Taking time without alcohol is a route to finding more pleasure in life. And it can also be the beginning of a life devoted to pursuing of long lasting pleasures without serious downsides. This is a pure form of hedonism. 

Stopping alcohol for any length of time we choose is not a hair-shirt exercise. It is time we can use to rid ourselves of any illusions conjured up by alcohol and to focus on greater pleasures. ■

This piece draws on the ideas explored in more detail in the books Alcohol Companion and Alcohol for Nerds.