Simon Stephens, Director of Case Work at AddictionsUK.com, speaks to Radio Tees about how alcohol can damage the brain.
Transcript
Presenter
“Let’s talk to Simon Stevens, Director of Case Work for AddictionsUK, based in the Northeast, mind you Simon,”
Simon
“good morning.”
Presenter
“So people, they’re not ashamed that they’re bragging about it.”
Simon
“I think really that uh, our education systems need to go a lot further and actually explained to people what such quantities of alcohol does to their brain and to their body. Also as a culture, we need to explore new ways of what do we do with our free time, that it’s not all about drinking, that drink, uh, and other substances are not necessary to have a good time. I, our entire relationship with alcohol has to be looked at.”
Presenter
“And why are we so bad in this country compared with other European countries? I’ve also come back from a few weeks in the States as well. They have a completely different attitude to booze over there.”
Simon
“Um, other countries do have a completely different attitude to booze. It’s hard to understand exactly why that is. Some people point to, previously would point the licensing hours and so that you encourage people to drink as much as they could. Um, sort of in between certain hours. But now that’s been relaxed. So that argument’s kind of been deflated. It’s certainly a Northern European, it’s not solely a British thing if you go into Northern Europe, uh, and include ourselves in that Northern European sort of grouping, that heavy drinking does seem to be something that goes a long way back. Uh, culturally it go, you know, spans back hundreds of years. However, what is so different now is that alcohol, um, costs as a proportion of our available spendable income, far less so, uh, that, that there is no longer a financial constraint on what we drink.”
Presenter
“And there’s this pre-loading of course, so people are getting drunk on cheap booze before they even leave the house.”
Simon
“Absolutely. Yeah. And this, this is the reflection of, you know, alcohol is so cheap. It may not be so cheap in pubs and clubs and things, but certainly as you call it, pre-loading, where you go into a supermarket and you buy a bottle of something which is well, round a ‘tenna’ sort of price 10, 15 quid or whatever, given only two or three units is what you know, is kind of the recommended levels every other day. You can seriously overload.”
Presenter
“And do you think if people really understood what units are, do you think that would make any difference?”
Simon
“I think if people understood what it’s actually doing inside your brain…”
Presenter
“…and what, what is it doing inside my brain?”
Simon
“It is seriously disrupting neurotransmitter pathways. It is seriously damaging your brain. You could, in a sense, and I’ve got no scientific evidence to back this up, but it’s a bit like putting your mouth around the car exhaust and sticking all those fumes. You know what, this is not doing me any harm.”
Presenter
“It’s not really that bad.”
Simon
“I think it probably it in terms of the damage you can do if you seriously over-drink and when people are talking about having a bottle of vodka or on a night and more, that is seriously over drinking.”
Presenter
“So, it’s killing, it’s killing brain cells. And if I stopped drinking, can I repair the damage?”
Simon
“It’s not necessarily killing brain cells. There’s some argument about that. But what it certainly is doing is making abnormal connections within the brain.”
Presenter
“And can I reverse the damage if I stop drinking?”
Simon
“Um, certainly it was going to help an awful lot.”
Presenter
“All right, Simon, thank you very much. Good to talk to you.”
