Well, I'm certainly dead

And so are all my friends and family.  We now learn that Health Canada, based on a new study, says that to be safe, you should only drink two drinks per week.  PER WEEK!  

Try telling that to the French or the Italians, whose entire lifestyles revolve around alcohol.  And how about the Germans?  That culture incorporates beer into everything-everywhere-all-the-time.  And as for the Brits, they're either working, or hoisting a few at the local.  It almost seems as if working is the excuse for drinking afterwards -- at least that's what every 'BritBox' show I watch tells me.  Everyone is salivating, anticipating the pub after a long day of catching killers.  I mean, they're almost checking their watches to see if it's time to bugger off and get a beverage.

So, there'll be a lot of disoriented folks if they heed the latest booze guidelines.  I won't be one of them.

My late Mother, Father, aunts and uncles come to mind.  All long-livers into their nineties, five o'clock to them meant it was time for an adult beverage.  But I never saw any of them tipsy, let alone drunk.  Never ever.  Watched an Alfred Hitchcock film?  Every one one features a living room bar in the background and the characters all enjoying a civilized cocktail at an appropriate hour.

Now, however, it'll be tea.  But wait, doesn't tea have negative health affects?  All that caffeine can't be good for the heart.  But wait, what about those ancient "tea grannies" who lived on nothing else into their nineties like my Grandmother, but had the odd regular tipple?  You bettcha. 

 

The problem with this study is that it factored in alcohol-induced violent behaviours, during which drunks killed people.  Well, of course those numbers would inflate the problem.  If you're drunk and you kill someone, drinking-induced fatal incidents shoot up.  Eliminate those and you have people like my family members who drank in a responsible, ritualized and civilized manner, thus rendering this study stupid.    

It's all so ludicrous.  Can't wait for the next study to tell us what we can't eat or drink.  But I'll have to excuse myself now.  I'm off to pour a civilized scotch before dinner.  Maybe I'll even recklessly throw caution to the winds and imbibe in a glass of wine with it!