Do Quebecers raise their elbows too much? The answer is yes, observes journalist Hugo Meunier, even if it is only a few drinks a week. In the documentary blow the ballthe one who presents himself as a notorious partier wonders about the consequences of alcohol consumption on our health and the role played by the Société des alcools du Québec (SAQ) in the equation.
“Am I drinking too much? Am I unknowingly ruining myself from the inside? At the dawn of his 45th birthday, journalist and writer Hugo Meunier began to question his alcohol consumption when he noticed that he was having more and more difficulty recovering from his aftermath. This big party animal, who always drank like a teenager — “not a drink during the week, but several on the weekends” — now faces body aches, headaches and hangovers every time he goes out.
However, he respects the drinking limit recommended by Éduc’alcool, which is 15 drinks per week for men (10 for women). “I pass them on occasion, but I guess if I follow them most of the time, I’m supposed to be healthy, right? he says at the start of the documentary.
Me, if I keep going, the impact will be measurable on my brain in the long term.
To find answers to his questions, he goes to meet health specialists and scientific researchers who quickly come to “blow his ball”, harshly questioning these recommendations made in 2011 by the Canadian Center on Addictions and substance use (CCDUS).
Interviewed in the documentary, Catherine Paradis, acting associate director of the CCSA, herself recognizes that they are too high and that it is time to revise them, since studies are multiplying and the real impacts of alcohol on health are better known today. At least by researchers.
Because barely a quarter of Canadians are aware that alcohol can cause seven different cancers: that of the mouth, esophagus, larynx, breast, liver, colon and rectum. This is without mentioning the repercussions on mental health – depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation – which were not taken into account in 2011.
“Safe consumption is zero”, slice the Dr Christian Bocti, neurologist and professor at the University of Sherbrooke interviewed by Hugo Meunier. A meeting that the journalist describes as “traumatic”. The doctor studies the impact of alcohol on our brain and explains how our consumption atrophies the hippocampus, this important area for our memory.
“Me, if I continue on my way, the impact will be measurable on my brain in the long term. It means memory loss, maybe even dementia praecox. It made my blood run cold, confide in the To have to Hugo Miller. I drank naively before making this documentary. »
Make money
But if alcohol has so many harmful effects on our health, why don’t we find warnings on SAQ bottles like we find on cigarette packets?
“The SAQ is a bit like Walt Disney: it’s beautiful, it’s clean, there are tastings at the entrance, discounts, promotions. This is absurd in a monopoly context. It is sure that it encourages to drink and to buy in volumes”, notes Hugo Meunier.
The problem, he insists, is the structure of the state corporation. It reports to the Department of Finance, so its mandate is commercial. Its mission is to make money first and foremost. The prevention and health promotion component is the responsibility of Éduc’alcool, an independent organization partly funded by the SAQ.
Here again, the journalist wonders: why aren’t the organization’s prevention campaigns more focused on health risks?
“It’s when we see who sits on the board that we better understand why we are encouraged neither to drink nor not to drink in the end. Many are members of the alcohol industry,” says Hugo Meunier.
Do better
Of course, Quebec could do better, noted Hugo Meunier. We could create an organization that would really be a watchdog to counterbalance the alcohol lobby, as is the case in most OECD countries.
The government could also review the structure of the SAQ and draw more inspiration from the Swedish model—discussed in the documentary—where the sale of alcohol is supervised by a state-owned company linked to the Ministry of Health and which opposes any strategy that may encourage the consumption of alcohol.
But in the meantime, the journalist hopes to encourage Quebecers to start introspecting their consumption between now and the holiday season. “I didn’t want to make a militant documentary or have a moralizing tone,” he says. The important thing is that people understand how the alcohol industry works in Quebec and the impact of alcohol on their health. Information that I wish I had known long before entering my quarantine. »