After the possible excesses of Christmas and New Year, “dry January” brings more moderation. For several years now, this Anglo-Saxon initiative, which consists of spending the month of January without drinking a drop of alcohol, has been consolidated in France. It allows you to question your consumption and see the effects of abstinence for several weeks.
Where are you? BFMTV.com invites you to take a step back from your relationship with alcohol with the test below, developed by the World Health Organization and used internationally. This is the Audit (Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test), which places individuals on “a risk scale in relation to their alcohol consumption”, according to addict Philippe Batel, who participated in its development.
Answer the 10 questions and validate to know your result. Obviously, for the result to be reliable it is necessary to have answered the questions honestly. “You have to be honest, then it is one of the limits (of this test, Editor’s note) because in addictology there is a lot of denial,” says Alexandre Baguet, an addict at Rouen University Hospital, for BFMTV.com
“From the 7th onwards, you have to ask yourself”
How to interpret the results? Women and men have a different biological system, particularly in the liver, the test classifies its results differently for the threshold of “misuse”, that is, risky use. Women “eliminate alcohol a little less easily,” explains Alexandre Baguet. Therefore, they have a “greater sensitivity (to their) damage,” adds Philippe Batel.
- Below 6 if you are a woman or 7 if you are a manYou are probably “low risk” with alcohol.
- “From the 7th onwards, you have to ask yourself” and “the higher the score, the more problematic it is”, develops Alexandre Baguet.
- From 12: Simplification required, the test establishes at this level in men and women a possible dependence on alcohol.
“In France we focus on dependency,” says Philippe Batel. “But there is no separation between alcoholic and non-alcoholic, addicts are more graduated than that.” And “it is not necessary to be dependent to have problems with alcohol”, emphasizes Alexandre Baguet.
Alcohol, a dangerous substance
In fact, alcohol consumption promotes the appearance of cancer, cardiovascular and digestive diseases, diseases of the nervous system and psychological disorders, reminds Public Health France, a public body dependent on the Ministry of Health.
It is the second cause of premature mortality in France, behind tobacco, according to Inserm, a public medical research institute.
Whatever the result obtained, “the advice we can always give is that drinking less is better,” says Alexandre Baguet.
According Public health Francemore than one in five French adults (22%) exceeded the recommended alcohol consumption limits in 2021 (maximum ten drinks per week and two drinks per day, and days of the week without consumption).
How to act according to its result?
“For people who are not physically dependent, we can implement personal strategies to reduce alcohol consumption,” suggests Alexandre Baguet. The addict makes three recommendations to reduce:
- Avoid high consumption circumstances.
- Make sure you drink a glass of water between each glass of alcohol.
- Choose less strong alcohols but do not drink more to compensate
Philippe Batel also suggests starting with a “logbook” of your alcohol consumption on your phone: “at the end of the week, we check if we exceed the standard ten drinks.”
Half a beer, a glass of wine, a pastis, a glass of whiskey, a glass of sparkling wine or an aperitif as usually served in bars contain approximately the same amount of pure alcohol. Details of the measures are available on the Alcool-Info-Service website.
“Dry January”, a “very good test”
The alcoholologist also considers that “dry January” is a “very good test to see to what extent you are linked to alcohol.” “People say all the time, ‘I’ll stop whenever I want.’ Damn!” He recommends “setting times, places or moments that we sanctify.” “For example: ‘I’m going to pick up my children – even if it’s on foot – from school, I haven’t drunk for two hours before.'”
“It is worth it, because when you reach a state of dependency, it is difficult to get out of it. You have to act as soon as you enter the danger zone,” says the psychiatrist at the Camille Claudel hospital center in La Couronne, in Charente.
For people whose score indicates a possible dependence, specialists advise going to health professionals, either their family doctor or an Addiction Care, Support and Prevention Center (Csapa).
The latter “allow you to take stock of the difficulties encountered with a professional and offer support” to dependent people, according to the Drug-Info-Service site, which allows you to locate them near you.
You can join Alcohol Service Information at 0.980.980.930, from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., 7 days a week, the call is anonymous and not premium rate. The service also answers questions through an online chat open from 2:00 p.m. to midnight Monday to Friday and from 2:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.
Source: BFM TV
