Who has a drinking problem (?)
A bombshell from the head of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
About eight months ago, I developed an addiction.
It started shortly after I became interested in just who, exactly, was partnering with the World Health Organization (WHO) on alcohol policy.
Wanting to know more, I started watching relevant presentations via YouTube whenever I was stuck in airports and had time to kill.
Pretty soon, I discovered that there are two types of public health discussions going on about alcohol. The first is about trying to quantify alcohol harms and develop solutions. The second is ideological. The academics and lobbyists driving this second type of discussion are dedicated to uprooting alcohol from society.
This second group fascinates me.
Before I knew it, I was watching alcohol control conferences and webinars whenever I had spare time, and not just in airports. It’s a classic dependency pattern — you think you control it, and then it controls you.
Photo by Giovanna Gomes on Unsplash
My habit got even worse after I developed a fondness for specific characters.
Like the academic who speaks with urgency about the need to take down transnational companies for the sake of our health, yet who just keeps showing the same old PowerPoint slides she’s been using for years. She’s adept at raising millions for her work, so you think she might present some actual research now and again at one of her many international speaking engagements, but no.
Another is the European lobbyist who calls the alcohol industry “the baddies” and tells the audience they must not let “the enemy” win. Yet who knows zero about alcohol is made, which is why she implores legislators to rip up vineyards and use the land for food production — not realising that vineyards tend to be planted on marginal land, particularly in Europe.
Yes, this is a weird hobby
And yes, I should get a life.
But guess what? It turns out I’m not the only one. I’ve discovered other people who are as fascinated by this stuff as I am. Sometimes, they email me things.
Like a video of George F. Koob PhD, speaking at a meeting in February 2024.
Koob is the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), and he addressed a group of high-level researchers to bring them up to speed on what the NIAAA had been up to in 2023.
George F. Koob PhD
One thing the organisation had been involved in was events around alcohol use and recovery in the workplace.
One such event was for a firefighting organisation, “where we reviewed risk factors for alcohol misuse and fire service and resources for treatment and recovery.”
Exactly like the event they’d done for the WHO the year before.
“I had participated in a similar webinar with the World Health Organization's employees where they identified a problem with alcohol with their workforce,” he said.
After dropping this tidbit, Koob moved on to talking about other things and didn’t return to the issue for another 25 minutes, when he started talking about the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT-C), which is used to identify at-risk or problem drinkers.
“There are three questions,” said Koob. “ You can do 'em yourself if you want.”
The questions are multiple choice and answers are given a numerical score. The higher your score, the worse your alcohol problem.
“I might add this was the same scale that was used by the WHO organisation when I did the webinar with them,” said Koob.
“They used the AUDIT-C as a survey for all their workers and they had a much higher likelihood of hazardous drinking than anybody expected, and that's why they called us up.”
And then Koob changed the subject.
Emphasis mine. Video is here.
Christ what utter BS (I obv scored over 5!)