Episode #147 Don’t Change The Label; Change The Culture

I've just read a report from the University of South Wales where researchers discovered, after subjecting 25 people to an alcohol shopping experiment, that the participants didn't read the health warning labels before buying alcohol. Why would they? Taking Wales, as an example, people drink alcohol because it’s culturally encouraged and appropriate to do so. We are programmed from birth to believe that alcohol is both normal and pleasurable. At the same time, we are aware that alcohol is not good for you. The same culture that programs us to drink also serves us with a warning not to drink too much. Of course, we're never going to read a health warning label. We drink because that’s what people like us do. Even if we did manage to convince people to read health warning labels, and make them more confronting to the purchaser; consider a study where smokers were shown health warnings on cigarette packets during a fMRI scan. The researchers found that looking at the warning lit up the same part of the brain that leads the person to crave a cigarette. Don’t change the labels. Change the culture. How do you do that? You create a mass movement of people. And that’s what we’re doing at Strive. The Truth About Alcohol We Are Not Alcoholic, And we Refuse to be Anonymous How We Quit Alcohol We serve and share in the heart of the Strive movement. We listen to The Alcohol & Addiction Podcast. We grow through the TTAA Life-Changing Experience. We learn and interact through The Alcohol Monologues. We are vulnerable at Radical Honesty. Join us at: www.thetruthaboutalcohol.co.uk