Seriously tho', doctors will always tell you to drink less - and of course physiologically speaking, they're right. Other things being equal, less alcohol is better for you than more, and more than a certain amount is positively Very Bad. Two 'buts'...
First, I remember seeing a 'Notes & Queries' in the Guardian from someone asking whether the government's recommended limits had any medical grounding, and a response from someone who had been on the panel that set them. He said that for one thing, the advice up to that point had been that it was probably unwise for an adult male to drink more than the equivalent of a bottle of wine a day, and for a woman, rather less, and that for another, in coming up with the new figures they pretty much literally plucked some figures out of the air, erring on the low side because a) the whole exercise was driven by the moral panic of the day (and the government wanted low numbers) and
people tend to underestimate what they drink.
And second, Winston Churchill drank a bottle of brandy a day and lived to 90. Not that I'd recommend this to everyone, but it does illustrate just how much people's tolerances can vary. (Keith Richards is another who should be dead many times over...but he looks pretty sprightly, all things considered.)
Hence my question as to whether there was anything
specific underlying your doc's recommendation. If there was - a liver test, say, then obviously it demands serious consideration. But if it was just a 'You're 55 now and blah de blah', I personally would be inclined to consider a few 'yeah buts'...(such as how important it is to your
quality of life.)
Finally, my Dad was told by a doc that if he didn't give up his bottle a day of red wine, he'd be dead within 2 years. He said that to him, life without red wine wasn't worth living, and he'd take his chances. He outlived that prediction by over a decade - and enjoyed his Rioja every step of the way.
, and the negatives cost me a fortune...
