Whether it is champagne or whisky, a bottle of alcohol is often the go-to Christmas gift for people buying for their grandparents.
But this year health campaigners are calling on people to re-think their gift ideas for the over-50s.
Relatives are being encouraged to give their older family members ‘their company’ rather than alcohol as statistics reveal drinking among pensioners is on the increase.
Research shows that for the first time in recent history drinkers aged between 55 to 64 in England and Scotland now consume more alcohol than any other age group.
They are also the most likely to exceed the weekly recommended guidelines for alcohol consumption, according to Calling Time a report by the Drink Wise, Age Well programme.
Baroness Hayter, vice chairwoman of the all-party parliamentary group on the dangers of alcohol, said that the public still associated harmful drinking with ‘late nights, hangovers, football fans, stag parties, missed work or binge drinkers’.
Research shows that for the first time in recent history drinkers aged between 55 to 64 in England and Scotland now consume more alcohol than any other age group (stock picture)
When in reality drinking out of sight at home has increased among 65 to 74-year-olds while young people opted for a healthier lifestyle and ‘now favour the gym or sports field over the pub’.
Insisting that she was not ‘trying to be a killjoy’, Hayter told the Sunday Times: ‘At a personal level this may mean replacing the bottle of booze as a Christmas present to our older relatives.
‘If loneliness or lack of company is the most important thing, then give them your company, don’t give them booze.’
The authors of Calling Time, including Bedfordshire University, charity Addaction and the International Longevity Centre, claim that ageism in alcohol treatment is preventing the over-50s getting help.
An anonymous survey of 152 medical practitioners found that older people were being disregarded as too old to change, or there was a perception that it was wrong to deprive them of their ‘only pleasure’.
More than half of residential rehabilitation services exclude people aged 66 and older, while three quarters have an upper age limit of between 50 and 90.
Those who did go to rehab often felt intimidated and bullied by having to share bedrooms and social spaces with much younger people, according to the report.
While those over the age of 65 are excluded from almost half of clinical trials for alcohol treatment.
Give them your company, don’t give them booze
Julie Breslin, head of the Drink Wise, Age Well programme, said it asked for the UK’s chief medical officers to include specific advice for older people in the low-risk drinking guidelines issued last year.
‘That didn’t happen, but there are recommendations in this report that — if adopted — will make great strides towards helping older people to lead healthier lives.
‘Our end goal is to ensure that policy is more responsive to the ageing population who are drinking at more harmful levels and that services by design do not ever exclude people based on age,’ she said.
The full report will be published today.