Updating our ideas about alcohol can result in longer and happier lives. I suggest we take that chance.

After years exploring the complexities of Balkan politics I began to find myself being drawn to subjects with clearer potential payoffs. And what better payoff could there be than improving our health and well-being?

It doesn't take long to learn that the biggest advances in this area do not come from new technologies, but from changing lifestyles. Changing attitudes to smoking, for instance, have delivered longer, more enjoyable lives – though there is clearly still a long way to go with this.

That got me thinking about alcohol. Personal experience and tales of misfortune were enough to know that alcohol has the potential to make an enormous impact on individuals’ lives, as well as those of their families.

I knew very little beyond this crude picture formed of often-conflicting “facts” and ideas, typically sourced from hearsay.

I knew little of alcohol’s acute and long-term effects, its social function, alcohol dependence, or the road to recovery.

My book, Alcohol Companion, was the result of my effort to replace this unreliable hotchpotch with a coherent science-based understanding. In many ways it was primarily for me, but I also wanted to share it with other people; knowing the facts has clear benefits when making choices, particularly about a beguiling psychoactive like alcohol.

Science can make us healthier and happier, not just through drugs and technology, but by providing us with better understanding.

