Drinking in the first week of 2024

Well, the first week of the New Year has been an interesting one. Unusually for us, these days at least, we stayed up to see in 2024. It was an evening with Jools Holland and friends on the TV, a log fire and plenty of sparkling bubbles to drink the night away. Indeed, that was the last alcohol we’ve had to drink since midnight on the 31st December. We are on day seven of our dry January. It is estimated that 8.5 million others will be doing likewise. Probably a good thing (more of which later), as back in 2022, the cost of alcohol-related problems to the NHS in England was £3.9 billion a year. The cost to society was £21 billion. Staggering sums of money which, if available for other uses, could do much in terms of positively addressing health inequalities. 

As I write this blog, I note that apparently after seven days, with our livers and kidneys working overdrive, any toxins should have mainly left our bodies. As a result, we should be sleeping better, the brain fog should be clearing and our skin should be looking so much younger and healthier. Sadly, after another restless night’s sleep, the face that stares back at me in the mirror tells no lies. I’m thinking my improvement journey might take a little longer.

It is not the only improvement journey I thought might take some time last week. The first of January saw me start in my new Chair’s role at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Trust (GMMH). It was strange walking into an office that was mine, yet it didn’t feel mine. All my personal effects were still in boxes and bags, pictures were still to be hung on the walls and the previous occupant’s papers were still sitting on the desk. I didn’t have time last week to sort out my new office, but I will make a start next week. Last week was all about meeting folk with whom I will be working. These were all very positive conversations, and each one filled me with the reassurance that I had made the right move in joining the Trust.

However, there was a consensus that our improvement journey was likely to be more of a marathon than a sprint. All those I met were emphatically committed to being on this journey. There was a shared and well-articulated commitment to ensuring the decisions we took along the way were always service-user centred, clinically-led, managerially-supported, and academically-informed. These seemed to me to be the rubrics upon which to anchor our actions and behaviours.

Fundamentally, GMMH is a people organisation. It is an organisation that is made up of people who, through many different contributions, are there for others when they need help and support. In the clinical setting, the focus must be on the person, and valuing the uniqueness of each individual. We need to approach this in an authentic and genuine way. It is never about being judgemental, and always about trying to better understand how others are experiencing the world. Whatever we think we know, it doesn’t equip us to truly know how others are experiencing a loss, an illness, or some other challenge in their lives.

This approach was a fundamental tenet underpinning my teaching when I worked at the University of Salford. On day one of their student journey, I would tell all the new students in my welcome address that we would help them acquire ‘knowledge’ through our teaching and then help them apply that knowledge through exposure to practice, what I called ‘knowing’. However, it was the space between ‘knowledge’ and ‘knowing’, which I called ‘not knowing’ that was really important in helping others and building and sustaining therapeutic relationships.

We can teach someone the signs and symptoms of depression or anxiety (knowledge). In practice, we can teach people what might be the most effective treatments and therapeutic approaches (knowing). What we can’t teach is how that person might be experiencing their depression or anxiety (not knowing). And that is the space we need to explore, keep in mind, when working with others, and to do so with compassion, and empathy. I also believe that we adopt these approaches with the colleagues we work alongside. We should do so in our interpersonal relationships, but we should also promote the development of an inclusive and supportive organisational culture. Such an organisational culture does take time to develop, but it is achievable. As is successfully completing dry January!

Whilst there are undoubted health benefits to not drinking any alcohol for a month, the biggest benefit comes from breaking the habit of drinking alcohol: as a reward (for a hard day), for comfort (I’m feeling fed up), or for social reasons (being out with my mates). I’m not sure we have made this shift. We have simply exchanged alcoholic gin with 0% alcohol gin; the same with wine and beer. I’m certain we will remain alcohol free until the end of January and perhaps beyond. 

In any case, I’m also sure we will be wanting to change our future relationship with alcohol altogether. We have read the research on the harms alcohol consumption brings (knowledge), and have experienced the impact of alcohol consumption on our health and wellbeing (knowing) - now it’s time to explore a life that is alcohol free, or near alcohol-free (not knowing).