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Promoting safe, sensible and social drinking

Surrey's Big Drink Debate is a major public engagement campaign launched by Surrey Primary Care Trust right across the county - in partnership with Surrey County Council, Surrey Police and all 11 boroughs. The campaign is looking to find out more about people's drinking habits and how they feel about excessive drinking, principally via a web-based questionnaire and a series of community consultation events in each area.

Find out more by logging onto www.surreybigdrinkdebate.nhs.uk Opens in a new window where you will find the online survey and lots of useful and helpful information about alcohol.

The results of the survey will be used to inform a Surrey-wide alcohol strategy, which will be looking at how to promote safe, sensible and social drinking, as well as considering better treatment services, how to enforce local licensing laws, safety issues and so on.

Alcohol is an issue across the country, and Surrey Heath is no exception. In fact, Surrey Heath was among the top 10 boroughs in the country for hazardous drinking*. This may not lead to violent crime, but the long-term health implications for this are enormous. Alcohol-related harm costs the NHS up to £1.7 billion a year, and between 780,000 and 1.3m children are affected by parental alcohol problems.

Chris Butler, Chief Executive of Surrey PCT, commented: "Excessive drinking is a very serious subject which can impact any age group in a number of ways. By working in partnership with other organisations, we can define a strategy which works for all the people of Surrey and will result in a variety of services and education tailored to the needs of our population. However, it's very important to point out that this is not an anti-alcohol campaign - on the contrary, what we want to promote is safe, sensible and social drinking.

"The public's input through the Big Drink Debate survey will ensure we are taking everyone's views into account, on a very public issue."

Alcohol - facts and fiction

Myth: White wine is a good choice for a person who wants a light drink with less alcohol.
Fact: A glass of red or white win, a bottle of beer or a shot of whiskey all contain equivalent amounts of alcohol and are the same to a breathalyser.

Myth: A 'beer belly' is caused by drinking beer.
Fact: A 'beer belly' is caused by eating too much food. No beer or other alcoholic beverage is necessary.

Did you know?: The word 'toast', meaning a wish of good health, started in ancient Rome where a piece of toasted bread was dropped into wine.

Myth: Drinking coffee will help a drunk person sober up.
Fact: Only time can sober up a person. Alcohol leaves the body of virtually everyone at a constant rate of about 0.015 per cent of blood alcohol content (BAC) per hour. Therefore, a person with a blood alcohol content of 0.015 would be completely sober in an hour, while a person with a BAC of 10 times that (0.15) would need 10 hours to become completely sober. This is true regardless of sex, age, weight etc.

Myth: When you go to the toilet, most of the alcohol you drink passes out of the body.
Fact: Less than two per cent of the alcohol is lost through going to the toilet. Breathing, perspiration and urine account for up to 10 per cent of the metabolising of alcohol. The remainder is dealt with mainly by the liver.

Myth: Alcohol reduces stress.
Fact: Alcohol is a depressant drug. It may relax you in the short term, but can produce more stress and worries in the long-term.

* Hazardous drinking is defined as drinking above recognised sensible levels - two to three units per day for women and three to four units per day for men - but not yet experiencing harm.