Answer: The ethanol in an alcoholic drink – about an hour a unit. But the lasting effects of alcohol on the body? Let’s see …
The wiser question might be how long do the health effects of even just one glass of alcohol on a regular basis take to show up? Because, if the last time you checked NHS wording around alcohol was the early 2000s (just what the heck have we been doing with our time instead?! Raising kids, building careers, spinning plates …), you may have missed the whispered word change from ‘safe’ to ‘low risk’. Subtle, we know! And, the truth is, the risk is never zero.
Lots of us have been brought up to think alcohol puts us at our relaxed, sociable and funny best and that ‘just the one’ is harm free. Have we been sold a lie? Just the one! Famous last words, right? There we were, still thinking ‘just the one’ alcoholic drink would ‘just’:
- Relax us, help us wind down and ‘just’ generally make us sleep better
- Be negligible to our health – it’s ‘just’ a drop of alcohol
- Be good for our heart (‘just’ how, exactly, you aren’t sure, but still …)
Just hang on a moment … have we been led down the garden path? Yes – those supposed ‘benefits’ of alcohol don’t stand up to any research. The heart health claim was disproven a long time ago – have a piece of dark chocolate instead. Let’s get with the times.